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2012 Sundance Film Festival: Day 2

Day 2 links! IndieWire: Magnolia buys The Queen of Versailles IndieWire: Why Malik Bendjelloul’s ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ Was the First Buy of Sundance 2012 IndieWire: Sony Classics acquires Sugar Man IndieWire: ‘Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie’ Inherits the ‘Dumb and Dumber’ Throne NY Magazine [Vulture]: How

Saturday Hot Links

Back for yet another installment of Saturday Hot Links! Today: The “From The Files of ‘Police Squad’ Edition”. “Police Squad”: Name Confusion Golden Globe highlights [video]. Now it’s time to move onto the Sundance Film Festival where people are predicting a wild time in terms of acquisitions. THR with

Written Interview: Lem Dobbs (“Haywire”)

Interview with Haywire screenwriter Lem Dobbs: Did directing ever interest you? I think I found out over the years that I’m quite terribly lazy. Maybe I don’t have the personality for it, and I don’t have the will to do it. Particularly, in my view, as Hollywood

Written Interview: Steven Soderbergh

IndieWire interview with Steven Soderbergh about his newest movie Haywire: Some early reviews of the film, while positive, label “Haywire” as a B-film, which I think is unfair. What do you make of that kind of response? The realism you talked about earlier doesn’t really tie into that

Daily Dialogue — January 21, 2012

“We got you, you son of a bitch.” — Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), The Dark Knight (2008), screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer, based on characters by Bob Kane http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?config=http://config.movieclips.com/player/

GITS Script Reading & Analysis: “The Sixth Sense” — Supernatural Thriller

Last year we initiated a new series: GITS Script Reading & Analysis to help inspire people to read and analyze more screenplays. We went through 14 different scripts ranging from Blade Runner to Toy Story 3. You can access those discussions here. In 2012, the plan is to do this

Spec Script Sale: “Bermuda”

WWE Studios acquire horror spec script “Bermuda” from writers Bobby Lee Darby and Nathan Brookes. Per Deadline: Set in the Bermuda Triangle, the story focuses on a documentary film crew that goes missing. The only trace is the discovery of their film footage chronicling their final desperate days. Yep, another

2012 Sundance Film Festival: Day 1

Day 1 links! 24 Frames: Sundance shorts stream on Yahoo for online Audience Award voting 24 Frames: “Hello, I Must Be Going” Mike Fleming [Deadline] FirstShowing IndieWire: A Buyer’s Guide: A Primer IndieWire: Opening Night report THR: Content Film and Preferred Content Cut Six-Film Production Deal THR Review:

“The Bark Side”

Teaser for Volkswagen’s new “Star Wars” themed commercial: Question: How stoned were the ad execs when they came up with this idea? Dogs barking “Star Wars”. Brilliant! For more, go here. Comment Archive

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman notes found re “North By Northwest”

From a New York Daily News article by Vince Cosgrove who writes about movies: At the behest of my wife, I’m slowly wending my way through our ridiculously over-crowded garage, exploring box after box of six decades of never throwing anything out. I discovered 20 pages of photo-

The Katzenberg Memo, Part 10

In January 1991, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the head of Disney’s motion picture divisions, wrote a memo that ended up being circulated throughout Hollywood. Even though it is 21 years old, it is remarkably relevant to the current movie business. For example, the United States was in a recession as

Great Characters: Rorschach (“Watchmen”)

To me Rorschach is the most interesting character in Watchmen. For those who don’t know the background of this character, here is a brief bio per Wikipedia: Rorschach, born Walter Joseph Kovacs, is the son of Sylvia Kovacs, a prostitute, and “Charlie” (surname unknown). His mother was frequently abusive

Daily Dialogue — January 20, 2012

Crowd: Maximus! Maximus! Commodus: Rise. Rise. [Maximus stands up, clenching an arrow head in his right hand] Commodus: Your fame is well deserved, Spaniard. I don’t think there’s ever been a gladiator to match you. As for this young man, he insists you are Hector reborn. Or was

Reader Question: How to track down who owns the rights to an obscure story?

From Matt S: Hi Scott- Long time listener, first time caller here. I love your blog. It’s the one of the most helpful, fun, inspiring screenwriting sites around. I read and fell in love with a sci-fi short story by [name omitted to protect Matt] from [the 1940s]

Is Apple about to take Amazon to school?

In theory Apple is making an announcement today and Mike Elgin at CultOfMac thinks he knows what’s up: I think we can expect to see the beginnings of a system that connects textbook authors to students. Between those two Apple-using connection points lies writing, editing and other types

Perfect movies?

I was talking with one of my students yesterday and she mentioned how she had cajoled a few of her friends to watch The Apartment for the first time (the student has seen it on numerous occasions). She said her friends told her, “Why didn’t you tell us about

The Katzenberg Memo, Part 9

In January 1991, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the head of Disney’s motion picture divisions, wrote a memo that ended up being circulated throughout Hollywood. Even though it is 21 years old, it is remarkably relevant to the current movie business. For example, the United States was in a recession as

The Business of Screenwriting: “I don’t have to smell it to sell it”

We are sitting in a Beverly Hills restaurant. It’s a lunch meeting with our new agent. We haven’t officially signed with the agency — one of the Big Four — still in our mutual testing out ‘hip pocket’ phase. We have just finished what we think is a killer action-

Daily Dialogue — January 19, 2012

“Great shot, kid, that was one in a million!” — Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, written by George Lucas The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is celebrating victory, suggested by Franklin Leonard. Today’s suggestion by Sean Z P Harris. Trivia: The film revived

Reader Question: What’s the best way to approach pitching?

There’s not one way to pitch, but this way works. From Anonymous: In the next month I will be pitching for the chance to write the script for an upcoming film. A producer, having seen some shorts and a webseries I made along with reading some spec scripts, has

“Perfectly Happy” [cont’d]: “The Descendants”

Remember this post from the other day about Hollywood movie producer Lindsay Doran: After reading the book “Flourish,” by Martin E. P. Seligman, a catalyst of the positive-psychology movement, she began rewatching films through the lens of what Dr. Seligman identifies as the five essential elements of well-being:

Spec Script Sale: “One Night Stand”

New Regency acquires spec drama-comedy “One Night Stand” from actor-writer Joel Edgerton. Per THR: A drama with comedic elements, the script is described as an honest look at a man and a woman in the aftermath of a one night stand. The deal, which also sees Edgerton exec

Spec Script Sale: “The Counselor”

Producers Nick Wechsler, and Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz with a preemptive acquisition of the drama spec script “The Counselor” from writer Cormac McCarthy. Per Deadline: The terrain of the script is reminiscent of the rough and tumble world depicted in No Country For Old Men. The protagonist in The

The Katzenberg Memo, Part 8

In January 1991, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the head of Disney’s motion picture divisions, wrote a memo that ended up being circulated throughout Hollywood. Even though it is 21 years old, it is remarkably relevant to the current movie business. For example, the United States was in a recession as

Script To Screen: “M*A*S*H”

From the 1970 movie M*A*S*H, screenplay by Ring Lardner, Jr., based on a novel by Richard Hooker. Before the long-running television series of the same name, there was the movie. Featuring members of a MASH unit during the Korean War, the movie was a controversial one