So, just to get this straight, you're NOT interested in an occult script, but you want a script that's like Rosemary's Baby or The Others? Mm-kay.

I know these aren't made up, but they should be. I'd like to think there are people out there who aren't this stupid. Supernatural thriller based on reality with a paranormal feel but not horror, but am interested in scripts more like horror films like Rosemary's Baby or The Others.

It took me 10 years to understand the how (as in HOW a bad movie gets made) and another 10 to come to terms with it - but I still don't understand the why. Seriously, I used to watch film and television and think "fack, I can write better stuff than this." But it turns out that's hardly the point - there's a lot of very bright people out there and ALL of them write better stuff than we're seeing on the screen. The problem, IMO, is that nobody in the film industry likes to read.

There's this thing called "coverage" - and what it means is that when you send a script to a producer or agent, he'll pass it along to a flunky who's paid to read scripts. The flunky (generally a wannabe screenwriter himself) will then write up a criticism and synopsis of the material, and that's the coverage. The coverage is what the producer reads - not the script. Studios have tracking systems to follow coverage. So, say you write a script and send it to ONE producer, who turns it down based on his flunky's coverage. It doesn't matter where you send the script after that - every other producer/studio will read the exact same coverage instead of your script. And, not long ago, you could get around that by changing your title and name on the cover page, but these days they can track coverage based on recurring sentences and plot structure.

So nobody really reads anything. A great deal of films are greenlit on the basis of a pitch and a deal. A pitch like "it's a movie about aliens attacking earth - and it'll star Tom Cruise and will be directed by Spielberg" doesn't require a script. The script is just the bothersome part of the process that has to be begrudgingly attended to before the money starts rolling in.

And, of course, the director is handcuffed by the material. You give Spielberg a good script and he'll make a good movie; you give him a bad script and he'll make a bad movie that looks good. Unfortunately, the good movie and the bad movie generally make the same money at the box office, so there's no real incentive to labor over the minutiae of the script.

Ego, power, greed, and stupidity also play a big role - but that's for some other post.

Thanks for the explanation.

Sad, angry, but I'm not gonna blame the messenger. Sounds like truth.

Awright, count the contradictions:



1. interested in comedy feature scripts <----> interested in scripts such as Something About Mary, Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects

2. interested in scripts without an excessively convoluted plot <----> interested in scripts such as Something About Mary, Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects

3. not interested in stories similar to recent hit movies <----> interested in scripts such as Something About Mary, Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects

4. not interested in scripts that take more than one sentence to describe the plot <---> interested in scripts such as Something About Mary, Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects

I really hope you send this shit back at them with these comments. Producers need to be shown their stupidity.

Good call(s).

Don't they have robots you can just feed these constraints into, and it shits out a script already?

I'm interested in a script about a struggling radio journalist who's dating a zoo keeper. It should be funny but serious. The monkeys, played by children in suits, could talk to the camera when no humans are present in the scene, ostensibly to explain the plot to the viewers. I'm thinking maybe the guy that played Max in Hart To Hart could do the monkey voices. The lead female would have to look good in wellington boots.

No, they keep crashing (for some reason). Sort of like looking for a scrabble-legal word that has the following letter sequence in the English language: FDT.

It just seems like at this point, there'd be a big hat, with script chunks in it, and you'd just pull out Beginnings, Middles, and Ends.

And Deus Ex Machinas.

not really insight into why movies suck, but boy did I see a suckfest last night... I had never seen the movie "Closer" at the theater, but it was on HBO the other night, and I like Clive Owen, so I tivo'd it. My God, what a wretched movie. I couldn't have cared less about any of the psychotic characters, and the viewer would have to suspend all belief to swallow the premise that TWO men would be fighting over Julia Roberts. Natalie Portman as a stripper? She looked like she would topple over on her lucite heels at any moment... she looked like a kid playing dress-up. BO-RING! What a horrible waste of time and money.

So someone whose credits include Psychotic and Gangstaz wants to "awaken consciousness in the world"?

And this someone is a non-writer without a specific idea who wants a co-writing credit for this (ahem) "collaboration"?

Eat me.

closer was fucking awful.

btw, Radcliffe, I think you should write a show about a writer who gets these stupid descriptions for movie script generation. I could seriously see this being a hit on HBO.

Yup. I watched the first half hour a couple months ago and gave up. Blech. They were all fucking annoying.

Clive Owen was enough for me to watch Closer all the way through. I didn't need to like the characters to enjoy their lives falling apart.

but we can all agree that natalie portman is a terrible actress in everything post-Professional, right?

V for Vendetta is based on a bad-ass comic book so i'm assuming that the movie version will:

a) it will vindicate natalie in my eyes
b) re-establish myself as King of the Nerds when i show up to see it opening night with my wife.

it will definitely be beyond unwatchable, yet i will watch it. i will complain loudly and have my impressions posted on the interweb within minutes. perhaps from my phone, in fact.

you win.

Now start drinking

aye aye captain. i've done all the laundry and yet failed to clean any bit of the house. she will be nonplussed.

She's going to be surprised?

I am stuck at an office calling HUNDREDS of people who are not here.

I will be going to the grocery store POST HASTE after this fucking interminable day ends. Need food for the week, plus, the massive beers.