Go Into The Story

On writing

“I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand.”  — Chinese proverb

Monster comparison chart

Amazing what you can find online. Here is a chart that compares the size of 1o movie monsters, the smallest being Chucky (the killer doll) to Clover (the star of Cloverfield). You can even buy a T-shirt with the design on the front from this UK site. Name of

Harry Potter smashes records

Big box office for HP: Harry Potter has returned with some princely returns at the box office. The new big-screen adventure “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” took in $79.5 million domestically over opening weekend and $159.7 million since debuting last Wednesday. Interesting that the movie

Video interview — Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone is one of the most influential writer-directors of his generation. His writing credits include Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Evita, and Any Given Sunday. This interview with Stone from March

Daily dialogue — July 19, 2009

“You let them close down the universities, you let them wipe out the best minds in the countries, you let them kill whoever they want, you let them wipe out the Catholic Church, you let them do it all because they aren’t Commies! And that, Colonel, is bull shit!

Scoggins spec script market report (year-to-date)

Jason Scoggins is back with another spec script market report. Some highlights: As much as I love the summer weather we’re enjoying in Los Angeles, I’m very much looking forward to September. After all, the combination of strong year-over-year box office results and the end of

Interview — Steve Kloves

I assume you’ve been to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a dozen times already. And if you are such a fan of the HP movies, you’re surely familiar with the name Steve Kloves. Kloves has written nearly every one of the HP screenplays as well

Spec script sale: “One Night Stan”

A GITS first: Spec script sale notification via Twitter: Lionsgate has picked up Josh Friedlander’s script “One Night Stan,” with Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg attached to direct. Breaking! Comment Archive

“The Real McKee: Lessons of a Screenwriting Guru”

One of my students from an online class I’m currently teaching is attending the Robert McKee seminar this weekend. She mentioned having read a New Yorker article a few years back about McKee and I remembered reading it as well. So I dug through the Internet and found it:

16th Annual Austin Film Festival line-up announced

Kevin Wild gets a big ol’ H/T for passing along this article: Director Ron Howard has been chosen for special honors at this year’s Austin Film Festival. The “Apollo 13” director will receive the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at the fest’s 16th annual event, set for

Friday movie reviews

(500) Days of Summer (Fox Searchlight) Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy) Los Angeles Times (Michael Ordona) New York Times (A.O. Scott) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Warner Bros.) Daily Variety (Todd McCarthy) Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt) Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)

Great Scene — “The Shawshank Redemption”

Great Scene: “The Shawshank Redemption” Red’s parole board scenes — three of them — are their own mini-story. Since I’ve ventured back (once again!) this week into one of my favorite movies The Shawshank Redemption — analysis here and here — I figured why not select something from it for this

Pitch sale: “Avon Man”

20th Century Fox answers the doorbell on comedy pitch “Avon Man” from writer Kevin Bisch: Story follows men laid off from an auto dealership. One is reluctantly recruited into becoming an Avon salesman, and while the experience is initially emasculating, he uses his charm and good looks to become a

Q: “How do you know when to move on?”

From the Open Forum, these questions from Frank Buckley: Okay, here’s a sort of far-reaching question. How do you know when to move on? What I mean is this: not everybody has the talent to be a working writer, be it screen, novel or journalist. What is a

The Shawshank Redemption: More analysis (Red as Protagonist)

The Shawshank Redemption: Red as Protagonist My take is The Shawshank Redemption is an example of a Dual Protagonist story. Here is an analysis of the movie with Red as a Protagonist figure. I choose to look at Andy and Red as Dual Protagonists. That is you can look at

Pitch sale: “Untitled P.T. Barnum Project”

Columbia Pictures picks up P.T. Barnum pitch from writer Steve Chervin: Pic will cover the early years of Barnum, who rose from a shopkeeper to the charismatic showman who built the circus he called “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Chervin is repped by ICM.

The Shawshank Redemption: More analysis (Andy as Protagonist)

The Shawshank Redemption: Andy as Protagonist My take is The Shawshank Redemption is an example of a Dual Protagonist story. Here is an analysis of the movie with Andy as a Protagonist figure. I choose to look at Andy and Red as Dual Protagonists. That is you can look at

Screenwriting 101 — Joe Eszterhas

1: Don’t see too many new movies. Most movies in theaters today are awful. 2: Don’t mince words. If the idea a studio executive gives you is a shitty one, don’t say “Well, that’s interesting, but…” Say “That’s a really shitty idea.” 3: Don’t

First review: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”

Kenneth Turan leads the charge with this review: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is being described as an excursion into the dark side for this venerable series, but don’t let the chatter fool you. Now in its sixth episode shot over an eight-year span, with two

The value of a great logline

From Daily Variety last week: Fox has tapped Nimrod Antal (“Vacancy”) to direct “Predators” for Robert Rodriguez, who will produce through his Troublemaker Studios. The project’s scheduled for a July 7, 2010 release. It represents the fifth iteration of the franchise after the original “Predator,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, in

William Goldman on “Rocky”

H/T Paul Sanford who emailed me this about last Friday’s Great Scene from Rocky, following up nicely on the excerpt from William Goldman’s book “Adventures in the Screen Trade” yesterday: Fantastic post the other day on a film I also unequivocally love — Rocky. Here’s an excerpt

Hollywood Tales

“Even [George] Lucas’s friends were dismayed, watching the first Star Wars rough cut. Granted, there were no opticals, no music, and most of the special effects were missing — Lucas had spliced in black-and-white World War II gun-camera footage to stand for the X-fighter action. The

“Adventures in the Screen Trade”: Speed

Recently I got it in my head to re-read some of the screenwriting books I first plowed through years ago. What wisdom might they have that I’ve forgotten or overlooked? And so I started with the first book I ever read about screenwriting: “Adventures in the Screen Trade,

Blog spotlight: The Bitter Script Reader

I’ve talked about the importance of script readers many times, how they are Hwood’s “threshold guardians” in the studios’ acquisition and development process. So as a screenwriter, it pays to understand how their minds operate. Fortunately, we’ve managed to feature some of them — D.C. Mar in

“‘Hangover’ helmer still on a high”

I started pimping The Hangover on GITS way back in August, 2008, figuring the story concept alone would translate into success at the box office. So it’s not entirely surprising to see this: Todd Phillips will next direct the road trip comedy “Due Date” and follow one year later