Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 296th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Star Wars Han Solo Directors Lord and Miller Were Reportedly Fired for Improvisational Style.

‘Star Wars’ Firing Reveals a Disturbance in the Franchise.

Fired Han Solo Director Tweets Cryptic ‘New Hope’ Message.

Exploring the Japanese Roots of ‘Star Wars’.

Now They’re Turning Commercials Into Movies: Pepsi’s Uncle Drew Heads to the Big Screen.

Kevin Feige on ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ Miles Morales, and Spidey’s Future in the MCU.

Why ‘Wonder Woman’ Is Catching on More Slowly Overseas.

TriStar Chief Hannah Minghella on ‘Wonder Woman’ Envy, ‘Baby Driver’ Buzz and Her Late Father’s Legacy.

MRC’s Modi Wiczyk Explains Risks Of Summer Originals ‘Baby Driver’ And ‘The Dark Tower’.

Guillermo Del Toro Gushes Over Edgar Wright’s ‘Baby Driver’ in Series of Tweets.

‘Baby Driver’: 7 Reasons We All Should Hope Edgar Wright’s Movie Is a Hit.

‘Baby Driver’: How Edgar Wright Is Saving the Action Film.

‘Baby Driver’ and the Ongoing Evolution of Cinematic Action.

Baby Driver: Can a bad title sink a film?

‘The Big Sick’: 6 Ways to Create a Summer Indie Hit and an Oscar Contender.

Summer Movie Surprise: How This Year’s Big Releases Are Stealing TV’s Thunder.

A24’s Rise to the Top of the Film World Has Been Fast and Furious.

Why Hollywood Needs Chinese Movie-goers More Than Ever This Summer.

Hollywood Conducting First Independent Audit of China’s Box Office.

George Lucas’ Museum of Narrative Art Gets Greenlight From Los Angeles City Council.

Hollywood’s most exclusive club is about to get bigger and more diverse again: Five things to watch for.

Academy Breaks Own Record, Invites 774 New Members.

Pixar Writer Debunks ‘Toy Story’ Theory Regarding Andy’s Father.

Thomas Schlamme Elected Directors Guild President.

Beau Willimon Set to Be Next WGA East President.

Kenneth Lonergan to Receive Austin Film Festival Honor.

Attention, Filmmakers: Mark and Jay Duplass Want to Produce Your Movie (And Give You Money).

If Hollywood Royalty Exists, It Begins With The Coppola Family.

How a Rising Hollywood Producer Found Sweet Success Baking Cakes.

TV, films turning to young girls for their new action stars.

‘Star Wars’ R2-D2 Droid Sells for $2.76M at Auction.

Surprise! Hollywood Is Becoming Entertainment’s New “It” Neighborhood.

Seeing Double: An Appreciation for Dual-Screen Roles.

The Origins of Hollywood’s Obsession With Disaster.

The Return of Weird TV.

Broadcasters Look to Extend Lives of Veteran Shows With Cast Changes.

‘The X-Files’ Season 11 Fills Its Writers’ Room With All-Male Staff.

‘Silicon Valley’s’ Mike Judge Talks Season 4 Finale, the End of Erlich and Six-Season Plan.

Amazon Orders First Original Japanese Sci-fi Series.

Would You Pay More Money to Watch AMC Shows Live Without Commercials?

MTV Restructuring News Department, Shifting to Emphasis on Video.

Vimeo Scraps Plans for Subscription Video Service.

The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2017.

Forget Brooding Superheroes — the Big Money Is in Kids’ Comics.

Oscar-Nominated Writer Brings A New Team Dynamic to VALIANT With SECRET WEAPONS.

Sony Returns To Making Vinyl Records After 28-Year Break.

Watch: Here Are The 555 Times Michael Bay Has Used Product Placement.

Watch: ‘Game of Thrones’ 150,966 Deaths in 21 minutes Compilation.

Watch: Why The New Han Solo Movie Needs Ron Howard… and Jar Jar Binks.

Watch: Who’s Who in the Movie Credits.

Watch: Détour — A film by Michel Gondry.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

The next session of my Prep: From Concept to Outline workshop begins Monday, July 17. I love teaching it because it’s exciting to dig into a new batch of stories and the process we use has a transformational effect on writers, a wonderful thing to behold. For example, here is an email sent to me from Dawn LeFever who worked with me in the Prep workshop in October-November 2014:

Hey Scott –

Hope you and your family are well. I know you are about to begin another prep course and I thought I’d give you a little insight you might want to share with your new students.

Since taking the course last year at this time, I not only wrote the script I prepped in class, but have written three more since then, having just completed the first draft of the third one yesterday. I LOVE this process and it feels really organic to me.

Every time I begin a new project, I pull out my notebook with the reading assignments and work through the process just as we did in class. I sort of begin the brainstorming list from day one and just add to it whenever anything comes to me while working through the process. I also use note cards before going to outline because it helps me with pacing.

Then, when I’m writing, I have both my script and my outline on my screen and just write away, checking back at the outline to stay on track. More than a few times, as I’m writing, I think about a line of dialog or an action and then look back at my outline and realize what I have in the outline is much better than what was occurring to me in the moment.

At other times, while writing, I will find ways to weave moments in the script that foreshadow what happens later, because I know what’s coming thanks to the thorough prep process.

In other words, as you say, I do truly break the story in prep, which makes the writing so much easier and (hopefully) deeper and richer. I easily knock out 10 pages a day with this process.

I know there are as many different ways to approach writing as there are writers, but, for me, your process makes everything click and, even more, allows me to get really excited to finally sit down and write.

In the past year, I have had some encouraging responses — I was in the top 15% of the Nicholl Fellowship screenplays and was in the top 50 for the ISA Fast Track Fellowship. I made the quarter finals for the Screencrafting Comedy Competition with two scripts (One of them a rewritten version of Smoker’s Choice).

So… forging ahead and having a blast!

Thanks again for everything and tell the folks IT WORKS!!!

All the best,
Dawn

When Tom Benedek and I launched Screenwriting Master Class 7 years ago, the very first course I created was Prep: From Concept to Outline. Why? Because no one else was teaching story prep for screenwriting. That struck me as crazy because most professional screenwriters I know and all TV writers break their story in prep.

Since 2010, I have led over 30 online sessions of Prep and worked privately with dozens of writers. The response has been almost universally like the sentiments expressed by Dawn above.

In fact, Christian Contreras whose script “LAbyrinth” made the 2015 Black List is a Screenwriting Master Class alumnus, having taken this same Prep class with me back in 2014. Verity Colquhoun, an Australian writer who did a private one-on-one version of my Prep class in 2011, let me know the script she wrote (“Wonderful Unknown”) landed a director and is slated to go into production. And David Broyles, who participated in the very first Prep workshop I led back in 2010, was named as one of 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2016 by the Austin Film Festival. When I emailed David to congratulate him, he sent back a note with this comment about Prep: From Concept to Outline: “I loved that workshop!”

I literally tell writers at the beginning of every Prep workshop: “If you do the work… it works.”

It’s not magic. It’s just a proven, professional approach to develop your story, stage by stage, from concept all the way to outline, beat sheet, or treatment, whichever you prefer.

Consider joining my next session of Prep. But whether you take a class with me or not, it’s imperative you learn some sort of approach to story prep.

Can you imagine routinely writing 10 pages per day? Can you imagine being able to write 3 full-length screenplays in a year? Can you imagine actually enjoying the page-writing process?

As Dawn suggests, all of that can happen if you wrangle your story before you type FADE IN.

I AM ONLY TEACHING THIS PREP WORKSHOP ONE MORE TIME IN 2017!

The final session begins July 17.

To check out the Prep: From Concept to Outline workshop, go here.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!