Any Screenwriters On The Board??
- Thread starter LeftyLuchini
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KA - F*CKING-BOOM
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You ever watching a movie trailer, then start to get anxiety because it looks like your script idea?
FAM!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote an episode for my new series way back in July of last year only for South Park to come out with a similar concept a few months later. Now when that shit comes out in March I'm afraid some people will think I bit their idea.
FAM!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote an episode for my new series way back in July of last year only for South Park to come out with a similar concept a few months later. Now when that shit comes out in March I'm afraid some people will think I bit their idea.
Damn I want to ask you what specific South Park episode
The new Panderverse episode they did (which was fucking BRILLIANT).
I've been working on this new series since Spring 2023 (an animated spy satire/comedy). It parodies the current battle of the sexes happening in pop culture. In episode 105, Pandermonium, the main spy and his boss infiltrate a faction of men called The Pander Bears led by the charismatic and elusive, Jerrick Daxn.
The good news is it's not a one-for-one with South Park, but it'll probably look like I stole their idea about the pandering happening in pop culture. I'll take the hit if people say it, even though I wrote it way before I saw the SP episode.
Do you think someone snitched or leaked your information? Or do you think it was just bad fucking luck?FAM!!!!!!!!!!
I wrote an episode for my new series way back in July of last year only for South Park to come out with a similar concept a few months later. Now when that shit comes out in March I'm afraid some people will think I bit their idea.
Probably just parallel thinking. It's on brand for what Matt and Trey write so it wasn't completely shocking to see. If it were anyone else I may havea thought differently.
^^^^^
That whole Hollywood "revolution" after #metoo and George Floyd came and went quick huh?
Issa Rae says she's taking steps to be 'independent' after several Black-led TV shows were canceled
Issa Rae says that she's taking steps to be 'independent' after a wave of Black-led TV show cancellations: 'You’re seeing very clearly now that our stories are less of a priority.'
Y’all talkin some valuable shitRight or wrong, Kenya Barris has become the poster boy for post-racial Black film and TV. The jokes have already started about his Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life remakes. I'm sure he would say that he's just drawing from his own experiences, but folks have figured out that if you cast a Black project a certain way and tell the story from a more "relatable" POV, it *might* click with white audiences, so they chase that commercial appeal and take Black audiences for granted.
Case in point: Kendrick Lamar is supposed to star in this live-action comedy produced by the South Park guys:
Kendrick Lamar, Dave Free & ‘South Park’ Duo Matt Stone And Trey Parker To Produce Comedy Penned By Vernon Chatman For Paramount
Kendrick Lamar, Dave Free, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have signed on to produce an untitled live-action comedy for Paramount.deadline.com
The past and present [come] to a head when a young black man who is interning as a slave reenactor at a living history museum discovers that his white girlfriend’s ancestors once owned his.
It's wild how stuff like this and Magical Negroes can get through the Hollywood machine. Meanwhile, Danny Glover spent 30 years trying to make a Haitian Revolution film and found no takers.
Props.
Wish I could find a way to articulate what I feel like I might have to add… but the words just ain’t coming.
I got faith for y’all who write who watch and who just want the possibilities to be more open.
Only thing that comes to mind is a REDMAN hook, chorus/title refrain from a MUDDY WATERS track w/Method — “just DO WHAT YA FEEL and never follow”
That’s all I got at 3:33 in the morning
Man! Y’all niggas made my day. Shit. Love y’all lol
All the fucking time and it happens. This how I know my ideas be on the right track years ahead of a movie release.You ever watching a movie trailer, then start to get anxiety because it looks like your script idea?
'The great contraction' hits Hollywood
Feb 6 (Reuters) - When stars returned to the red carpet in early January after two bruising strikes to celebrate the success of “Oppenheimer” and “Succession,” one existential threat above all was on everyone’s mind: Hollywood is shrinking.The era of “peak TV,” is over, said 17 entertainment business executives, agents and bankers who spoke with Reuters. From fewer original series and movies to greater scrutiny of budgets and a further squeeze on movie theater profits, people who call the shots said the television and film industries are adjusting to sober economic realities.
“The great contraction is upon us,” said one veteran television executive, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I think there will be a significant retrenchment in the quantity of content, and the amount spent on content.”
The contraction story will figure prominently as Walt Disney (DIS.N), opens new tab, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O), opens new tab and Fox (FOXA.O), opens new tab report quarterly results this month. It is also the backdrop for media merger chatter, most recently sale talks between the owner of Paramount Global (PARA.O), opens new tab and Skydance Media CEO David Ellison, the media mogul whose studio co-produced “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Analyst TD Cowen estimated broadcast and cable television advertising will end 2023 down 7% from the prior year, with total advertising declines of 11.7% at Disney, according to LSEG. Warner Bros Discovery reported a 13% decline in advertising for the first nine months of 2023. Along with print and radio, traditional TV has been “hollowed out” by digital advertising.
The outlook for 2024 is not much better. TD Cowen forecast that broadcast and cable TV ad revenue would fall another 7%. Even though the media companies are expanding their digital ad businesses, the sinking traditional TV business still accounts for 80% of their total advertising revenue, according to TD Cowen.
Streaming services, which were supposed to carry the industry into the future, are also struggling to reach profitability after years of profligate spending. As the industry enters what MoffettNathanson describes as the “third act of the streaming wars,” production spending will fall below 2022 levels, when competition stoked "never sustainable" investment.
Most streaming services are charging more while delivering less new content, feeding skepticism over their long-term strategy, according to TD Cowen.
The overall number of scripted series is expected to shrink dramatically from the pinnacle of 633 shows released in 2022. The combination of the Hollywood strikes and constrained spending dented production last year, with just 481 U.S. series released in 2023, according to data from market research firm Ampere Analysis.
Even market-leading Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab slashed the number of scripted series it released by more than one-third from 2022 to 2023, Ampere said. The profitable streaming service, which reported record subscriber gains in its fourth quarter, declined to comment.
Executives who spoke to Reuters said the industry could shed more scripted series and hit the 300-shows range in coming years.
In 2024, the domestic box office will continue to feel the impact of the actors and writers strikes, with just 90 films offered for wide release this year, down from around 100 in 2023, according to MoffettNathanson. With a film slate heavy in untested stories and characters, U.S. box office sales are expected to be $8 billion in 2024, down 10% from 2023 and down 30% from 2019.
‘NEW WORLD ORDER’
The industry is slowing down, executives said. Development executives are taking longer to greenlight shows, even for projects from established showrunners like Ronald D. Moore, whose credits include “For All Mankind” and “Outlander.”Production budgets are contracting -- including at the streaming service Apple TV+, whose cash-flush corporate parent, Apple, boasts a market capitalization of $3 trillion. Both examples are reported here for the first time.
Shows that fail to grab an audience are being canceled quicker, as with the Disney+ series “American Born Chinese,” an adaptation of a groundbreaking graphic novel featuring two Oscar winners, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.
One senior television agent called it “the new world order,” with shorter seasons and fewer episodes per season.
Fox is looking to slash spending on one prestige drama to $4.5 million per episode from $10 million. At Disney, where CEO Bob Iger is fending off activist shareholders, development executives are under deeper scrutiny.
“They’re all a bit scared about what to do next,” said one prominent talent manager.
"SUPERHERO FATIGUE"
The movie business is having its own existential crisis as once reliable formats have fallen flat at the box office. One longtime studio chief said he has been hearing for years about “superhero fatigue.” That was in full display last year, when a procession of big-budget but poorly received films, including “The Marvels,” “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” and “The Flash,” fell short of expectations.In response, industry insiders say studios will focus on fewer but more ambitious endeavors, with the potential to deliver “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie”-sized cultural and box-office impact. Both films helped prop up a 2023 box office where well-established franchises fell flat.
“You've got to have a spectacle,” said one studio executive associated with one of the biggest blockbusters in recent years. “It’s got to be, ‘You have to see it while it’s in the theater.’ We can’t greenlight something large scale, if you could probably watch this at home and it’s just as good.”
Audiences are gravitating to streaming services to watch all but the biggest, loudest, films, noted TD Cowen. Just 19 action/adventure films accounted for 56% of the total box office for the top 100 films of 2022. The outlook for a sustained recovery, beyond this type of high-adrenaline flick, is questionable, TD Cowen noted.
That will further constrain cinemas, said another longtime media executive and investor, who warned there will be too few films released to justify maintaining 39,000 screens in the U.S., a sentiment echoed by TD Cowen. The theater business, this executive said, is “teetering on disaster.”
Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles, edited by Kenneth Li and David Gregorio
I had a General Meeting with Warner Brothers back in October. One thing of interest at the time, and kinda goes with this in a way, was him saying they were shifting money into supporting and partnering with online creators to expand the things they've already created. We had a good conversation about it going back and forth. He said his team was trying to find a way to pitch to large creators like Mr. Beast. I was blunt and asked him why tf would Mr. Beast need to partner with Warner. He already gets brand deals and makes millions upon millions off his youtube page alone. He'd be doing Warner Brothers a favor (imagine thinking that was a possibility 20 years ago). He agreed and said he and his team would be thinking of identifying mutually beneficial partnerships with creators.
Animated Times on Instagram: "'Morbius' writers, Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless have been credited with penning the upcoming 'Madame Web' movie. Along with the duo, director S. J. Clarkson and Claire Parker are also credited to co-write the screenplay.
2,871 likes, 157 comments - animatedtimes on November 29, 2023: "'Morbius' writers, Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless have been credited with penning the upcoming 'Madame Web' movie. Along with the duo, dire..."
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@raze @largebillsonlyplease
Its bullsh*t like this that makes good writers quit before they even get started.
Animated Times on Instagram: "'Morbius' writers, Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless have been credited with penning the upcoming 'Madame Web' movie. Along with the duo, director S. J. Clarkson and Claire Parker are also credited to co-write the screenplay.
2,871 likes, 157 comments - animatedtimes on November 29, 2023: "'Morbius' writers, Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless have been credited with penning the upcoming 'Madame Web' movie. Along with the duo, dire..."
@raze @largebillsonlyplease
Its bullsh*t like this that makes good writers quit before they even get started.
I was halfway through my reply yesterday but got sidetracked. Before I got back to the post, I came across this:
It's a long thread with a lot of good theories on what happened and how the business really works. Saved me a lot of typing.
I'll add this: those guys aren't our competition. No fresh-out-the-plastic screenwriter was ever going to get a crack at that script.
And before somebody chimes in with something like, "That's why movies are so bad these days, most of these writers are terrible. They need fresh voices with original ideas." understand that originality isn't the end-all-be-all we think it is.
Writers are often hired guns. Their job is to help bring someone else's vision to life. Someone with very specific ideas on how it should be done. They might think it would be cool if a scientist inexplicably tries to pet a hissing alien lifeform (true story: Prometheus), or the lead actress and director want a quasi-sex scene with a hostile alien creature (also a true story: Alien), or maybe you're writing 25 pages per day based on constant meetings with executives (another true story: Eternals). Those ideas will often contradict ideas from other folks who also want to bring their version of the vision to life. Folks who might not have an interest in or any background in film. As an added bonus, these ideas can change from week to week, and you're expected to have revisions completed by yesterday.
So, the real skill is taking a lot of noise and converting it into something (mostly) coherent that satisfies the suits (and hopefully moviegoers) while keeping your sanity intact.
And while there are people out there looking for original ideas, they don't have $100M production budgets. If an upcoming writer wants to show originality, write a sci-fi thriller that could be made for $1M or less. Instead of chasing after Michael B. Jordan to star in your action script, write something that would be a good fit for Caleb McLaughlin, who already has a relationship with Netflix. Originality and creativity are important for writers, but not in an obvious way.
Broooooooo
I was gonna post this and talk SPECIFICALLY about how those damn writers got another chance at Sony
This might have to be PM convo including @largebillsonlyplease
A lot of folks have no clue how the sausage gets made but swear they could do better.