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Writing in the hopes of your script getting produced can be, counterintuitively, limiting. Setting limits on your imagination before the script has gone into production may seem pragmatic and business-minded, but it can also weaken the final product. This is the ironic lesson to draw from GAME OF THRONES. In an interview with the New York Times before the show came out, George RR Martin explained the genesis of his epic fantasy series – he was a frustrated TV writer. “To some extent, the project was also a reaction to my own Hollywood career. I was out there for 10...

There’s a truism in Hollywood that certain genres are dead. In this 4-part series of blog posts, we’re going to look at these genres Hollywood wisdom says are dead, why their death is the prevalent theory, and what it may take for any writer to revive them with their own script. Fourth up is the serial killer thriller, which was a mainstay in years past but has now migrated to television (perhaps most notably in the first season of TRUE DETECTIVE). As a sign of how far this once-mighty genre has fallen, per BoxOfficeMojo, there were ZERO serial killer thriller...

There’s a truism in Hollywood that certain genres are dead. In this 4-part series of blog posts, we’re going to look at these genres Hollywood wisdom says are dead, why their death is the prevalent theory, and what it may take for any writer to revive them with their own script. Third up is the zombie genre, which hit a saturation point in 2013, and has cooled since. In 2013, six zombie films were theatrically released. WORLD WAR Z was a smash hit at 540 million dollars worldwide gross against a 190 million dollar budget. WARM BODIES was a smash...

There’s a truism in Hollywood that certain genres are dead. In this 4-part series of blog posts, we’re going to look at these genres Hollywood wisdom says are dead, why their death is the prevalent theory, and what it may take for any writer to revive them with their own script. Second up is the mid-budget thriller, the type of film that many filmmakers complain Hollywood has largely abandoned. STX Entertainment was founded in part on the idea of pursuing these types of films, which had fallen into a gap in the market between giant comic book movies like the...