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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...

Risk-taking in screenplays can sometimes feel like a financial roll of the dice. “If I do this crazy thing on the page, will someone still buy my script?” But in many examples, taking the risk is why people respond to material.Shortly after its release, A QUIET PLACE quickly became the comparison title du jour of spec screenplays. It’s a title that comes up a lot when asking representatives or producers what they’re looking for. The danger of chasing that trend is just trying to copy A QUIET PLACE, rather than the spirit with which A QUIET PLACE was written.The film...

Rewriting is writing. Nothing reinforces this more than seeing how many drafts it takes to move a feature from first draft to produced film. For this example, we’re going to use a project written by one of our ScriptArsenal readers. This was a low budget film, which means that in this case, the amount of drafts is likely lower than what you might see in a higher budget film. In this case, the writer was hired and wrote several drafts, adapting a novel, for a production company. After three drafts, the production company took the script and partnered up with...

As a screenwriter there isn’t anything more exciting than going on set of a film you wrote. It’s like a projection screen realizing your consciousness. You walk past the trailers, craft services, and then notice the giant penguin you wrote exists. Some poor prop department member had to go build a giant penguin, just because, drunk in the wee hours of the morning, you typed “giant penguin.” The excitement lasts until you sit and watch the first scene filmed. But this is also where the most valuable lesson from being on set comes into play. The truth is that being...

There’s an old truism that having written is greater than writing, and it’s true. Having a completed script is a great feeling. Having to write that script is a terrible feeling. While writers vary on how much they enjoy the physical process of writing, many writers agree that the actual writing part is the least fun element of the process. Part of the reason writing can be so laborious is because, the longer someone writes screenplays, the more items come across their mental checklist with each scene. In any given scene, you may ask yourself… Am I advancing the story?...