Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 241st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
May 2016 Box Office Highlights: ‘Captain America’ & ‘Jungle Book’ Topped the Month.
How Summer 2016 Could Rock Hollywood’s Confidence In Franchises & Sequels.
‘X-Men: Apocalypse’s Villain Problem: When The Stakes Are Too High, The Audience Loses.
Marvel’s Continuity Problem: Will we accept a reboot?
Is Marvel Really Moving Away From The ‘Studio System’?
DC Comics Is Trying to Clobber Marvel With a Shocking New Story.
Russell Crowe Says There Were “A Number Of Superman Movies” Planned After ‘Man Of Steel’.
10 Signs That You Have Superhero-Movie Fatigue.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Is Reportedly in Trouble.
Tony Gilroy, Not Christopher McQuarrie, Is Working On The ‘Rogue One’ Reshoots.
‘Rogue One’ and the Trouble With Standalone Movies.
Captain America, Fanaticism, And What Happens When We Never Have To Put Away Childish Things.
Cinematic universes aren’t working anymore.
The Black Film Canon: The 50 Greatest Movies by Black Directors.
Asian-American Actors Are Fighting for Visibility: They Will Not Be Ignored.
Here are 100 people in Hollywood who could help fix the academy’s diversity problem.
L.A.’s First-Ever Dog Film Festival Is Coming in June.
L.A. Screenings: Foreign Buyers Say What Worked, What Didn’t.
How screenwriter and headbanger Linda Woolverton is remaking Disney heroines for a feminist age.
Shane Black & Joel Silver interview: The Nice Guys, Predator.
Charlie Kaufman: The 21st century’s ‘Mad Genius of Cinema’.
Filmmaker Writes Open Letter to Bruce Springsteen, Asks for Music Rights — And It Works.
Why we love The Silence of the Lambs, 25 years on.
Howard Hawks: 10 essential films + three underrated ones.
’48 Hours’: Walter Hill’s Buddy Action Comedy that Inspired a New Trend in Hollywood.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Blu-ray exclusive: Nicholas Meyer to the rescue.
Sony Pictures Shakeup: Doug Belgrad to Step Down as Film President.
Sony Names Sanford Panitch President of Columbia Pictures.
Here’s What’s Really Going on Inside the Fractious Battle for Viacom.
Horrible Horror Movie Cliches That We Know And Love.
Why Are Critics’ Favorites and Awards Favorites So Rarely The Same Movies?
Why Online Film Criticism and Audiences Are Growing Further Apart.
Why Hollywood needs more female anti-heroes.
Action movies get better when they let women throw punches.
Serious Actors Are the Funniest Stars of 2016.
From Graveyard to Traffic Jam: The Strange Evolution of the Summer Movie.
A cinematic history of farting.
Middle East’s Only Talent Agency Launches in Hollywood.
What Makes L.A. Film Fest Special: Director Stephanie Allain Explains.
11 Films We Cannot Wait to See at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival.
14 Films To See In June.
Warner Bros. Forms Over-the-Top Video Division.
Attention, Filmmakers: 10 Things To Know Before Submitting Your Film To A Festival.
Interview: Eamonn Bowles, head of indie film company Magnolia Films.
Upfront Ad Sales Negotiations Tougher, Slower Than Predicted.
TV Has Become a Big Fan of Playing the Death Card.
TV’s Aftershow Phenomenon: From ‘Talking Dead’ to ‘After the Thrones’.
How a Tough Pilot Season Got NBC’s Studio Boss Ousted.
The New Television: The next few years will see a massive shift of ads and attention from TV to mobile.
How Kenya Barris, Vince Gilligan and other successful showrunners deal with their anxieties.
Why Everyone Wants a Piece of Noah Hawley.
Introducing Live-Plus … 35-Day Ratings(!) as TV’s New Normal Struggles.
Television Academy Topper Bruce Rosenblum Peers Into the Future of Peak TV.
As Viewers Flee Broadcast TV, Will Advertisers Be Far Behind?
‘Preacher’ Scribe Garth Ennis Talks Faith, Blasphemy and Getting Your Story On-Screen.
Move over, zombies, TV’s got a new supernatural obsession: Demons.
MSNBC’s year of standing up straight.
16 Good Movies to Watch on Netflix in June 2016.
17 cancelled TV shows Netflix should bring back.
What’s New on Amazon Prime: June 2016.
11 Good Movies to Watch on Hulu in June 2016.
Amazon Japan Unveils 12 Original Series.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Vow to Combat Online Hate Speech in Europe.
Twitter, Yahoo Merger Mulled at Secret Meeting.
Periscope Will Allow Instant Peer Comment Moderation.
BitTorrent Spins Off Sync App Into Separate Company to Focus on Media.
The Immortal Myths About Online Abuse.
How the Lonely Island Changed the Internet, Comedy, and Especially Internet Comedy.
The Ringer Launches: How Bill Simmons’ New Site Differs From Grantland.
How One Panel of a Captain America Comic Led to Backlash, Death Threats, and Valid Debates About Fandom.
Making of a Superhero: How Shawn Martinbrough Went from the Bronx to Comic Book Legend.
Commentary: The Cult of Video Games.
‘Hamilton’s’ Lin-Manuel Miranda Sets Exit Date as Original Cast Jockeys for Raises.
22 Places to Write When You’re Tired of Working at Home.
6 Ways to Make Time to Write: A Guide for Busy Parents.
5 helpful hints for writing at night.
Loss of dog adopted in Maine inspires nearly $1 million advance for ‘magical’ novel.
WGA Calendar: June 2016.
Chuck Wendig: Crotch-Punching The Creative Yeti: Exploding More Writing Myths.
The 4 Podcasts That Show What Is Possible With The Format.
3rd & Fairfax (WGA:): Episode 24.
Broken Projector: Episode 16 (Vomit Draft).
Screentalk: Episode 100.
Scriptnotes: Episode 252.
Watch: How to Film a Killer Low-Budget Car Chase.
Watch: The Best Sci-Fi Movies of the Century So Far.
Watch: Top 10 Supporting Roles That Stole The Show.
Watch: Stanley Kubrick And The Simpsons.
Watch: Vice Guide to Films: Coen Brothers.
Watch: The Puppet is back (Bitter Script Reader).
Watch: Here’s The Lonely Island Answering Questions About Judd Apatow’s Penis For Five Minutes.
Watch: This Shot-For-Shot Remake Of ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ Is The ‘Boyhood’ Of Fan Films.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week
Let’s face it: Rewriting is a bitch. Or a bastard. Pick your gender specific invective. Doesn’t matter. The process is a pain no matter how you shake your fist and swear at it.
One big issue I’ve found with writers caught up in the maelstrom of rewriting is that there is no one surefire path to success. This stands to reason. Stories are organic and so a certain amount of rewriting them involves wallowing in the wilderness. That’s just the nature of things.
However I have an approach which I honestly believe can move your process forward in a big way. It’s one I use in the Pages II: Rewriting Your Script workshop, a 10-week class that guides you through a rewrite.
In this workshop, you will not only drill down into your story and understand it more clearly, if you do the work, you will get from FADE IN to FADE OUT on your next draft, and move you script toward the point you can bring it to market.
Here is an overview of the approach employed in Pages II: Rewriting Your Script:
* The first four weeks, it’s about assessing your current draft, identifying problems as well as content that works, brainstorming solutions, then working up a revision outline.
* The next four weeks, it’s knocking out your draft in quarters: Week 5 — Act One. Week 6 — The first half of Act Two. Week 7 — The second half of Act Two. Week 8 — Act Three.
* The last two weeks: Polish and Edit.
There are 10 lectures that provide prompts and tips to steer you through the rewrite, weekly due dates to compel you to do the work, and a workshop environment in which you receive constructive critiques from your fellow writers along with detailed feedback from myself, a combination of written feedback and teleconferences.
What’s more, you learn tools you can use to incorporate into your rewrite process from here on out, making your experience less bitchy / bastardy.
Here is a testimonial from Russell Simpson, a writer who has gone through the Pages II experience:
“I asked friends, trawled the internet, read the blogs and still found myself a touch bewildered by all the self-aggrandizement and shady plaudits. Then I read the brilliant Black List Blog. And I looked up the writer. And it’s Scott Myers…
Scott’s course is superb. Scott possesses an enviable combination of honesty, bravery and mercy. As long as you are prepared to work hard, this course WILL improve your craftsmanship. I fed a feature through Scott’s dynamo brain and, out the other end is a piece of which I’m intensely proud. If you’re hesitating, stop. You’ll be thankful.”
I do not subscribe to the belief there is one approach to writing… or rewriting. Every writer is different. Every story is different. But I do know this: The process we use in Pages II has helped many, many writers solve major story issues, discover important story keys, and enable them to take their script to the next level.
If you have a script that is a complete draft, but you know needs work…
Or a partially completed draft where you got stuck and couldn’t find your way out…
Or a story you’ve rewritten multiple times, yet feel it just doesn’t work…
I encourage you to consider joining me in my upcoming Rewriting Your Script workshop which begins Monday, June 13. Note: This is the only time I’ll be offering Pages II in 2016.
For more information, go here.
For a look at my first lecture from Pages II: Rewriting Your Script, go here.
I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!