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Amazon, character development, HBO, Netflix, screenplay contests, STRANGER THINGS, Thematic Depth, TRANSPARENT, TV pilot, WATCHMEN - November 22, 2019

The Myth of the TV Pilot: It’s Not Easier, It’s Harder

The myth of the television pilot in 2019 is that there are so many buyers that it has become easy to sell a pilot. 2019 continues the insane gold rush of scripted television. Ryan Murphy has a 300-million-dollar overall deal with Netflix. Shonda Rhimes has a 150-million-dollar deal. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have a 250-million-dollar deal. The number of scripted series is likely to top 500 this year, per The Hollywood Reporter. What this has done, for writers, is create a myth of the TV pilot being “easier” than the feature to sell. A common piece of advice for...

One Great Scene: GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

In this series of articles, we’re going to do a deep-dive on one knockout scene from a great movie. Today’s movie is GLENGARRY GLENN ROSS. The scene is when Al Pacino delivers a monologue to Jonathan Pryce, the context being that Pacino’s character is trying to close a sale. Here’s a link to the scene as a refresher (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9dttNx1S8). Pacino is trying to sell a real estate deal, yet says nothing about it, nor is what he is saying directly tied to the sale itself in any way. It’s a masterclass in dialogue from David Mamet. The monologue begins with...

Our Favorite Screenwriters: Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn has quietly become one of the top screenwriters working today. Formerly a television critic for Entertainment Weekly, Flynn burst onto the scene when she adapted her own novel GONE GIRL for director David Fincher. All three of her novels have been adapted to film/TV. Flynn wrote GONE GIRL (both the novel and film), WIDOWS and wrote on the series SHARP OBJECTS (also based on her novel). She’s currently filming UTOPIA, a series she created, for Amazon. And it might not have happened had Flynn not been laid off by Entertainment Weekly in 2008. At the same time, that...

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