Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 293rd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Box Office: ‘Wonder Woman’ Opens to Historic $100.5M.

How ‘Wonder Woman’ Shattered Box Office Records.

‘Wonder Woman’: What Does One Great Female Superhero Mean For the Future of the Genre?

What Patty Jenkins’ ‘Wonder Woman’ Success Means for Women in Hollywood.

The Complex Gender Politics of the ‘Wonder Woman’ Movie.

The Last Amazon: Wonder Woman returns.

The Overwhelming Beauty of ‘Wonder Woman’.

Why ‘Wonder Woman’ Will Get Oscar Nominations.

Commentary: Why I cried through the fight scenes in ‘Wonder Woman’.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall — Which Man Wrote the Worst Wonder Woman Review of All?

‘Wonder Woman’: The Film’s Ending Vs. the Comics.

‘Wonder Woman’s’ Lesson to Hollywood: Don’t Underestimate Female Directors.

Toward a Truly Feminist Blockbuster Cinema.

Universal’s Dark Universe Adds Two More Monster Movies.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Definitive Preview.

‘The Dark Knight’ Broke Superhero Movie Villains.

The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far.

How ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ Secretly Influenced the Next Five Years of Film.

Terry Gilliam Has Wrapped Filming On ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’.

How Martin Scorsese Will Save Filmmaking From Extinction.

Neill Blomkamp Is Onto Something With His Big Budget Short Films.

What Is the ‘Worst Script’ Reese Witherspoon Has Ever Read? An Investigation.

Pixar’s ‘Cars 3’ Is the Female-Driven Animated Movie We’ve Been Waiting For.

Women in Animation announces Academic Partnership.

Pixar Announces the All-Latino Voice Cast of ‘Coco’.

Hollywood Has Never Been Original.

How Today’s ‘Nonsensical’ Blockbuster Filmmaking Can Learn a Lesson From American Movies of the ’70s.

Secrecy Surrounding 1960’s ‘Psycho’ Went Off Without a Hitch.

It’s like ‘Cheers’ for movie lovers: An inside look at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema.

Alamo Drafthouse to Open Downtown L.A. Theater.

World’s most prolific Star Wars collector appeals to fans after ‘devastating’ theft.

Vast New Wanda Studios in China Targets Big Hollywood, Domestic Productions.

Los Angeles Lowers Permit Costs for Digital Filmmakers.

Paramount Pictures Launches New Production Division.

Lucrative TV Residuals Frozen Again in New Union Agreements.

TV’s Age of Entitlement: Why Episodes Are Now So Damn Long.

It’s Time to Face the Truth — Peak TV Is Over.

‘Northern Exposure’ Team Talks Possible Revival: “We Would Love to See It”.

‘Breaking Bad’ Virtual Reality Experience Being Created By Vince Gilligan.

15 Years Later, 2017 Needs Its Own ‘The Wire’.

HBO Unveils 2017 Writing Fellowship Winners.

How Did HGTV ‘Stars’ Become Celebrities?

Netflix Chief Ted Sarandos Uncensored: Why Blockbusters Are Doomed.

Netflix Is Finally Canceling Shows, and Network Executives Admit Why They’re Thrilled By This News.

What Shows Will Netflix Cancel Next?

Netflix Is Burning Cash in Its Shift to Originals.

How Streaming Overtook Traditional TV in China — and Now Targets the Movie Business.

Apple TV Will Add Amazon Prime Programming This Year.

Apple Drops First Original Series at Developers Conference.

For the First Time Ever, a Video Game Qualifies for Oscar Consideration.

Spotify Launches ‘Secret Genius’ Program to Celebrate Songwriters.

Haruki Murakami’s Advice to Young Writers.

The Black List Interview: Mike White.

Listen: Bob Dylan finally delivers his Nobel Prize lecture.

Listen: 3rd & Fairfax (Episode 62).

Watch: Is Film School Necessary?

Watch: 55-Minute BBC Arena documentary on Louise Brooks (1986).

‘The Leftovers’ Review: Carrie Coon and Justin Theroux Deliver The Ending We Need, and One of the Best Finales Ever.

The Leftovers Series Finale Recap: There and Back Again.

‘The Leftovers’ Series Finale Review: They Had to Go Back.

The Leftovers comes to a cathartic, compassionate close.

Damon Lindelof Explains ‘The Leftovers’ Finale. And Doesn’t.

Damon Lindelof on Balancing Mystery and Closure in ‘The Leftovers’ Finale.

‘The Leftovers’: Damon Lindelof Lets the Mystery Be in Emotional Series Finale.

‘The Leftovers’: Damon Lindelof on the ‘Tremendous’ Debate Over the Finale’s Biggest Twist — ‘Everybody Was Depressed’.

‘The Leftovers’ Finale: Showrunner Damon Lindelof Talks Nora’s Journey, Laurie’s Fate, and Evolving over Three Seasons.

Damon Lindelof Talks ‘The Leftovers’ Finale & The Truth Behind Nora’s Story.

The Power of Monologue on ‘The Leftovers” Finale.

Does ‘The Leftovers’ Finale Let The Mystery Be?

‘The Leftovers’ Finale Is a Love Story — and That Makes Total Sense.

Let’s Discuss the Revelation In ‘The Leftovers’ Finale.

‘The Leftovers’: An exclusive look at the making of the last episode.

How The Leftovers’ Series Finale Compares to ‘Lost’.

‘The Leftovers’: 7 Unambiguous, Post-Finale Facts from Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, and the Creators.

The Leftovers Ends With No Answers — But Here’s One Possible Theory.

Goodbye, ‘The Leftovers’: How HBO’s Show Went From Good to Canon-Worthy Great.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

Knock out that first draft!

Go from FADE IN to FADE OUT in my upcoming online writing workshop.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one rule about a first draft and it’s this: “Get the damn thing done!”

Easy to say. Hard to do.

That’s why I created the Pages I: Writing the First Draft workshop, a structured online environment — 10 weeks, 10 lectures, 10 writing assignments — to empower a writer to get from FADE IN to FADE OUT.

The Writing the First Draft workshop consists of:

• Weekly due dates to compel you to knock out script pages
• Lectures to help steer you through the writing process
• Feedback and support from a community of fellow writers
• Weekly analysis of pages from a pro screenwriter and educator (me!)
• Teleconferences to drill down in your story and the craft of screenwriting

I have found the approach we use in the workshop, breaking down each weekly assignment to 10 pages or so makes the writing much more manageable. That in combination with several other factors make the success rate in my writing workshops — writers actually completing their scripts — quite high.

Some testimonials from writers who have participated in the workshop:

“Having read almost every screenwriting book out there, none can hold a penny to Scott’s approach of story driven by character, which can not only have you confident in your writing abilities, but can also solve the worst case of writers block (as it did for me).” — Aarthi Jayaraman

“A great experience. I didn’t just get a 99 page first draft out of it, I got all the notes, comments and ideas to start my second draft.” — Michael Waters

“I would highly recommend the Pages I course. I was hesitant to spend the money, but Scott Myers is a fantastic instructor: knowledgeable, encouraging, genuine, funny, and generous. The class set up and size is optimal. And although, personally, I was unsure how much I would get from the peer feedback — I found that incredibly rewarding as well.” — Stacey Fernengel

Consider enrolling in the upcoming Pages I workshop. Instructor: Yours truly. It begins next Monday, June 19.

Go here to learn more.

Let me end with some writer quotes about first drafts:

“First drafts are for learning what your story is about.”
 — Bernard Malamud

“The first draft is nothing more than a starting point, so be wrong as fast as you can.”
 — Andrew Stanton

“Then comes the great leap which is the first draft, I call it ‘the muscle draft,’ where you just muscle it out. You don’t worry about what you’re missing, you just get through it, get to the end.”
 — Darren Aronofsky

“Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. That first draft is just spaghetti on the wall.”
 — Dennis Lehane

“The first draft, the first structure is really important… Do it fast, don’t get stuck.”
 — Oliver Stone

“No matter what you write, good or bad, it’s an improvement to a blank page.”
 — Chris Sparling

“Sometimes you’re swinging your way through a first draft like a blind miner with a pick-axe. That’s OK. Get it done, nothing else matters.”
–Justin Marks

If you can write 1 1/2 pages per day, you can end up with draft of your original feature length screenplay and make this summer a productive one!

What if you’ve started a draft, but never completed it? Or have a draft, but feel like you should start from scratch? This workshop is constructed to help those writers as well.

This is the only time I will be offering the Pages I: Writing the First Draft workshop in 2017, so I encourage you to enroll now.

This summer, I have space for a few private script workshops, one-on-one writing courses with me as your mentor. If you are interested, email me.

Don’t forget Prep: From Concept to Outline, the popular online story prep workshop I created in 2010 and have led over 30 sessions with outstanding results for the writers who have participated in it. Two sessions this summer: One starting today, the second July 17. For information, go here.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with and support you in knocking out that first draft!