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Hollywood, Reviving Dead Genres, screenwriting, screenwriting tips, storytelling, thematic, World War Z, Zombie genre, Zombieland -

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Zombie Movie

Dead Genres and How To Revive Them: The Zombie Movie

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...

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inspiration, life experience, pilot, screenwriting tips, storytelling, thematic -

Inspiration from Life, Not Movies

Inspiration from Life, Not Movies

Here in TV staffing season, if you read interviews or listen to podcasts with showrunners, a familiar refrain comes up repeatedly. People who have led interesting lives tend to be more compelling writers, because they are drawing inspiration from real life, not from other movies/TV shows they have seen. Writing primarily from movies/TV as a frame of reference is a bit like making a copy of a copy. The quality of the second copy is likely to decrease. The work is also likely to be derivative. Does this mean we should all drop everything and become firefighters, cops, or tiger...

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Black Panther, Depth, Depth in screenwriting, thematic, Thematic Depth, Universal Thematic Depth -

Case Study: Universal Thematic Depth in Screenwriting - BLACK PANTHER

Case Study: Universal Thematic Depth in Screenwriting - BLACK PANTHER
For screenwriters looking to imbue their scripts with universal thematic depth, there’s a great example to look to. As the clock winds down on 2018, the number one movie of the year at the domestic box office in the USA is BLACK PANTHER.

BLACK PANTHER grossed 700 million dollars domestically. It grossed another 646 million in foreign markets. The film made well north of a literal billion dollars. It’s a smash hit by any possible definition. And it was a smash everywhere. The film made 100 million dollars in China. It made 28 million in Mexico. It made 42 million in South Korea.

What’s so impressive about BLACK PANTHER is that its themes are both universal and specific. For African-American audience members, certain elements of the story may hold greater weight, like the backstory of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, or the visitation of T’Challa at the end of the film to open an outreach center. But anyone can appreciate the themes of this film.

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storytelling, surface plot, thematic, theme -

Theme: What’s Your Story Actually About?

Theme: What’s Your Story Actually About?

Let’s take a standard plot, absent any true theme. A cop must stop a serial killer. You can dress up the serial killer with any sort of elaborate methodology or ritual, and give the cop all sorts of gritty edge. None of that means anything other than window dressing unless it’s in the service of a substantive thematic thrust.


Plot doesn’t stand the test of time in the same way theme does. 

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