FRIDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
DEFUSING THE BOMB - MADAME WEB (part 2)
We are going to look at one of the Biggest Blockbuster Box Office Bombs in the past couple of years, where it went wrong, and what we might have been able to do to make it better. That terrible movie had a big budget, was made by a studio, had names in the cast, and was part of the SPIDER-MAN branch of the Marvel Universe.
MADAME WEB (2024)
Budget: “Low $100 million range” (after it bombed they said $80m) and neither include P&A which might be as much as $40 million - $100m.
Worldwide Theatrical Gross: $100,298,817 - it will never reach profit.
You might think this is “Superhero Fatigue”, but the other movie with Marvel in the opening credits, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE ended up making $1,338,073,645.00 Worldwide Box Office. So it’s not the genre, or type of hero, or brand name or anything other that crappy work. Probably by people who worked hard and thought it was great... and never noticed the obvious problems. Things that “civilians” in the audience on the night I saw it were vocal about while the film was playing. Yelling at the screen. So I am guessing that they knew this was a stinker, and hoped that it would make money because of the Marvel brand... and were proven wrong.
I have always advocated for a three tiered system at studios, like in the old days: Big Budget Films, medium budget “programmers”, and low budget genre flicks. You can work your way up from the farm team to the minor leagues to the big league... and be sent down if you can’t cut it. We have Blumhouse, which makes $5m budget horror films, and some of those make a lot of money. Studio films in the $50m range are rare these days, but exist. What we don’t have is sending people down to the minor leagues - if you make a $100m film that flops? You get to keep making $100m movies. There are no demotions in any industry these days, and we need to reinstate those. The closest we have in this business is being “aged out”, so the great Billy Friedkin made a couple of big studio flops in the 1990s and resurfaced in 2006 with the low budget BUG, directed some CSI episodes, the great low budget flick KILLER JOE and proved that he still had it. Maybe if we sent the key creatives from MADAME WEB down to Blumhouse where problems couldn’t be solved with money? They could work their way back up.. and make some great movies along the way?
Yesterday we looked WEB’s problem with Dialogue and Characters. Today we are going to look at the Tone, Plotting, Villain’s Plan, and Conclusions for this bomb.
PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS
TONE: If the purpose of not making the villain into a Latin Lover type was to avoid cliche (they should have focused on the dialogue, too) - then why is the tone of this film often so silly it's like the old BATMAN TV show? I think that the best of the Marvel movies are grounded in reality and have clever characters with a sense of humor. This new round of SPIDER-MAN movies are John Hughes High School movies... but our lead character has a secret. They take place in the real world... and WEB doesn’t take place in any form of reality.
One of the great things about THE MARVELS was that the story might have been out of this world, but Ms Marvel brings along her completely realistic parents and brother who are funny because they are reacting how our parents would react if they were in a superhero movie. They take everything that is weird and react to it as we would react, and that's not just funny, it's realistic. So you need the mix of fantasy and reality in a way that makes the fantasy seem real.
They didn't do that in MADAME WEB...
And I suspect that it was in some version of the script (or maybe just the comics). Cassandra is a paramedic who seems to (in an earlier draft) not give a shit about anyone. Burned out by all of the pain and suffering and death that she has seen in her job. There's a scene where a little kid thanks her for saving the kid's mom... and she is uncomfortable. I think that her character arc required her to not give a shit in this scene, and the traces are there. This might have been changed due to a bad script note, but it removes the reality elements that could ground the story and prevent it from being a cartoon. This needed to be a character who has seen so much death that they have ceased caring about anything... And now they have this power that allows them to change the future and help people. And they are forced to care.
But just as the dialogue is bland and the characters are bland and everything else in this screenplay is bland... it seems that anything that might have been interesting was dulled or removed so that it’s all bland and boring. Nothing is taken seriously. Nothing matters. Nobody seems to care.
SOLUTION: The silly comic book tone just doesn't work in comic books films. The first THOR movie had problems, but the tone was Shakespearean and serious and that made a silly comic book movie into something better than it might have been. WEB needed more gritty realism to counteract the comic book stuff. It needed more of an edge. By making it goofy, they lost all sense of reality and character and *danger*. The more unrealistic a genre is, the more you need to ground it. Make us believe that it could happen. That what we are watching on screen is *real*.
I don’t think there is a less serious comic book movie than DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, but even though it makes fun of itself and everything else, at the core of the story is a heartbroken Deadpool who is about to lose all of his friends, all of the people he loves, because his world is coming to an end. Before the story kicks in, Deadpool is selling cars, broken hearted and trying to win back his ex unsuccessfully, and basically has a lot of realistic problems that we can identify with. Crappy jobs, broken hearts, trying to make rent in a tough economy. Oh, and being a failure. Despite all of the super stuff that will happen later, DEADPOOL 3 is a grounded story.
One of my Visual Storytelling Techniques is the “Twitch” - an object that symbolizes the character’s emotional struggle. In THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY Bronson’s harmonica, in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE it’s the musical pocket watch. This technique is used in a lot of movies, and in DEADPOOL we have a great picture of all of his friends at his birthday party that the character looks at a few times in the film to remind the character (and the audience) of what is at stake in this story. It’s always about saving the people he loves, even when he’s making jokes about Marvel and Disney.
And the version of Wolverine he finds that can help him? One who let his entire world down and everyone died. These are two character who have lost hope, suffered great loss, and now might have one final shot at redemption... except then things get even worse! So the jokes and gags are funny, but the story itself is serious and takes itself seriously. DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE is a freakin’ dark film where everyone that Deadpool loves is going to be killed. WEB needed to take the story seriously, make the characters real instead of silly. Dancing on tables is not a good way to distract people if you are trying not to be discovered. WTF? It’s as if this screenplay was written by 13 year old boys!
PLOTTING: Tied to the silly tone. Things that would make us think "That's not the way it works!" in a better movie has us forgiving absolutely stupid and anti-dramatic stuff like putting the entire story in WEB on hold - with characters in danger and the villain actively searching for them to kill them... For a week while Cassandra flies to Peru for a big stinking pile of exposition. She has to search the jungle for a guy who is going to tell her everything about the villain. This whole scene seems like it was caused by someone dropping the script on the floor and putting a chunk of pages in the wrong order. Civilians in the audience were saying it was stupid! Out loud to the screen. In the suburbs. I can’t imagine what they were yelling at the screen in Oakland.
I often fear that we are losing the ability to plot.
SOLUTION: Everything is a story is Cause & Effect. Newton’s Third Law (For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). But characters also need to be able to logically prioritize what needs to be done first... what is the most pressing problem. If the villain is actively hunting the three people you are supposed to be protecting, taking a one week vacation to Peru, even if that will result in you learning some backstory stuff about the villain, isn’t the most pressing problem or need. You lose the audience if your protagonist does something of lesser importance first.
There’s a thing that I call the A-B-C of the story, the logical order of events. One thing leads to the next. If the hero needs to stop the villain from throwing a school bus off a bridge, study for a history test, and save the woman they love? Two of those are going to be more important than the third, so you don’t want to do the third one first... and you can turn the other two into a dilemma. A terrible choice that Spider-Man has to make. You know that he’s going to pick the school bus full of children... and regret that for the rest of his life. Look at every point in your story - what is the logical and natural reaction? Are the events in the logical order? Do the characters make the best decision for the situation... or make the wrong decision and are “punished” for it?
VILLAIN’S PLAN: In my “Secrets Of Action Screenwriting” book I note that the villain is the most important character in your story - they bring the conflict. So you need a great villain with a great plan. We looked at the villain in our last part, so let’s look at his plan now...
PROBLEM: The villain’s plan makes no sense - his plan is to kill these three girls who will grow up to become superheroes (but probably not after the box office of this film) and kill him... And that's it! He doesn’t seem to have a larger plan. Which (tone) makes him evil for the sake of evil. Nothing world changing that his death would prevent. He exists only in this bubble. Which adds to the cartoon issue and adds to the character issue and makes you wonder why he works out of his apartment and has one employee (who is a recent hire off Craig’s List, I think... and doesn’t seem to question why her boss is trying to kill three high school girls - more tone problems).
What is the villain's plan (aside from living, which is everyone's plan)? Casandra’s mother found a species of spider with great healing powers and the Jungle Guide villain stole it. He’s a passive antagonist - except for wanting to kill the three girls who will kill him sometime in the future. The plot doesn't make sense and seems pointless. The villain is wealthy based on the spiders he brought back from the jungles of Peru, but that seems not to really matter in this story. In fact, if the three high school girls kill this Jungle Guide turned Medical Millionaire, that might be a *bad* thing. Maybe the healing properties of the spiders is lost forever? Most likely, someone else just takes over the company - the Craig’s List girl? She seems to be the only other employee in this millionaire dude’s company. Maybe there were scenes that explained all of this, which were cut because someone who should not be in charge of story notes thought that it was unimportant?
SOLUTION: The Villain needs a Plan that must be stopped or there are consequences. So stopping the villain is *important*. Curing cancer with stuff from rare spiders? Not something that we want to stop. Now, maybe there was a line about a plan in there somewhere, but I read three different synopsis and it didn’t pop up in any of them. So what is the Villain’s Plan that Madame Web trying to stop in this story? Killing the girls? Okay, then what Villain’s Plan will the three high school girls stop if they kill the Villain? Hey, maybe there’s something - but it’s not part of *this* story. So it doesn’t matter (and no one who saw it and wrote a synopsis seems to know what it might be). We need a *tangible* serious villain’s plan that must be stopped (in this film). Or else... serious consequences.
In DEADPOOL we have Mr. Paradox from the TVA who believes that with Wolverine dead, this version of time is no longer important and he has built a device to end it... just destroy this entire version of Earth and everyone who lives there (including all of Deadpool’s friends and the woman he loves). The Villain’s Plan is to destroy the world... well, this version. Paradox thinks of this as “pruning” a branch that is probably going to die in order to make the rest of the plant stronger. So it’s a plan that makes sense from the Villain’s point of view, but will kill everyone... Unless Deadpool can find another version of Wolverine in one of the other versions of Earth that will be willing to come back with him. So we have a quest to find a Wolverine (and a zillion funny or interesting versions of the character) who will come back to our timeline and save our world. Or else Mr. Paradox will end our world. We all die!
Okay, that needs to be stopped! Everyone in the cinema will die!
Your Villain’s Plan doesn’t need to be the end of the world, but it needs to be something that needs to be stopped. Something that the Villain is *actively doing* that will cause major problems.
PLUS: I know that MADAME WEB is based on a comic book series and that (in the film) Peter Parker (Spider-Man) is born... But the villain's SPIDER-MAN 3 suit and all of the Spider-Man powers and skills are distracting and confusing. I would have altered those things and made them original and unique to *this story*. Instead we get kind of a parody of evil Spider-Man as the character, and that torpedoes both plot and tone. Think of all of the interesting and unique Villains from the 8 Spider-Man movies we've had so far... why couldn't they have come up wiith something like that? I'm sure there are even interesting character in the Madame Web-verse. Why use the Dark Spider-Man costume?
Even if your script is the third or fourth film in the series, it still needs to be its own story and work on its own. They needed to distance this as much as possible from the Spider-Man movies instead of seeing how much they could ride the coattails. The VENOM movies are part of the Spider-Man universe, and each of them is its own story in its own world, with a little tease of a battle with Spider-Man sometime in the future. Trying to ride the coattails of the Spider-Man films with this Spider-Suit is just lazy writing... which I’m sure they thought was a way to make it part of the SPIDERVERSE.
CONCLUSION: I think that the problem is that nobody is looking at these comic book films and thinking "How can I make this into a Shakespearean epic that stands on its own?" How can I make a superhero movie that gets nominated for Best Picture?" Instead they think of these films as "product" that they are mass producing at $200 million a unit (budget in the $100m range, marketing for this film another $40-$100m). And whether it's "In Association With Marvel" or an actual Marvel movie from Disney, the quality control has been in the crapper.
They aren't trying to make great movies, they are just trying to make money.
And you know how you make money? Make great movies!
It's time for all of these producers to realize comic book movies are a dangerous gamble like any other film, and they need to do the best possible work and try to make the best possible movie...
Instead of just another comic book movie.
No matter what your genre or what your budget, this needs to be the best movie ever made. One that makes us laugh and cry and tell everyone that they need to see it. Always do your very best work. Don’t think that just because it’s got the Marvel logo up front people are going to pay to see it.
Even a low budget Horror script needs to be AMAZING.
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Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!
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STORY IN ACTION SERIES!
THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES
NEW: Updates On Films 7 & 8 Casting!
The First Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!
THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - 347 Pages -
Only $3.99 ! - Kindle Version
*** THE BOURNE MOVIES
All five "Bourne" movies (including "Legacy" and it's potential sequels) - what are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? Reinventing the thriller genre...
or following the "formula"? Five films - each with an interesting experiment! A detailed analysis of each
of the films, the way these thrillers work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical
statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.
Only $3.99 - Kindle version
Over 240 pages!
*** THE TERMINATOR MOVIES ***
He's back! The release of "Terminator: Dark Fate" is set to begin a new trilogy in
the Terminator story... 35 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about
a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few
years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work
(or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How
about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of
the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of
box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just
fans of the series.
ONLY $3.99 - Kindle Version
HITCHCOCK FOR WRITERS!
Strange Structures!
*** HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR! ***
Contained Thrillers like "Buried"? Serial Protagonists like "Place Beyond The Pines"? Multiple Connecting Stories like "Pulp Fiction"? Same Story Multiple Times like "Run, Lola, Run"?
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock's 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock's *silent* films! We'll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
Only $5.99 - Kindle Version
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
*** HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE ***
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the *Master Of Suspense*; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
Only $5.99 - Kindle Version
FICTION
Featuring Shelly Steele !
*** THE SHOTGUN APPROACH ***
A Pop Star is murdered on the VIP floor of a luxury hotel by a shotgun blast to the face... completely ruining an original piece of art
on the wall behind him. Violent SFPD Homicide Inspector Shelly Steele must find the murderer... without killing anyone in the process.
That won't be easy! A locked room, A handful of clues. A chase and shootout on the hotel's fire stairs.
Who is the killer? His ex-Partner? His ex-Wife? His ex-Record Label Owner?
THE SHOTGUN APPROACH 105 pgs!
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Featuring Smart & Final !
*** A FINE UPSTANDING CITIZEN ***
25 years ago Senator Milano killed a man. Now he's one of a dozen suspects in an information leak.
Being interrogated in the executive boardroom on the 30th floor of an office building...
The informant will not be leaving by the elevator. Can he solve the crime before they discover his secret?
Fnd the rat before the trap springs on him?
A FINE UPSTANDING CITIZEN (CRIME TIME THRILLER) 86 pgs!
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Crime Time Thriller !
*** FOLLOWED HOME ***
Bowden knew the best place to find a victim is somewhere they feel safe. Diane Taylor would be his next victim...
It began with a car jacking at an upscale grocery store, but fresh out of prison Bowden decided to take everything -
forcing Diane to drive him her her luxury home. Trapped in her SUV with a violent man, can she find a way to turn the tables on him and survive?
FOLLOWED HOME (CRIME TIME THRILLER)
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Featuring Smart & Final !
*** PRIME RATE ***
Chuck Skinner brought his father's failing butcher shop back into the black with the help of modern day cattle rustlers. Nice story if it ends there...
But now the head of the MaryAnn Mob of cattle rustlers suspects him of cooking his books, and has brought in an "accountant"
nicknamed Smart & Final... to hold him accountable. Can Chuck talk his way out of this?
PRIME RATE (CRIME TIME THRILLER)
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
MITCH ROBERTSON MYSTERIES
Mitch Robertson #1
*** THROUGH THE RINGER ***
Screenwriter Mitch Robertson just wants to sell a script, but ends up solving the mystery of a whiz kid writer whose new script stinks.
From an upscale vodka bar in Beverly Hills to the Writer's Guild Library to an old mansion in the woodsy Brentwood district, Mitch follows
the clues to uncover the secret of the hot new writer who has suddenly turned cold.
THROUGH THE RINGER
ONLY $.99 - Kindle Version
Mitch Robertson #2
*** THE FAMILY'S JEWEL ***
"The Presidential Suite of the Hollywood Hoover Hotel looked like a bloody battlefield: bodies everywhere, furniture broken, red liquid dripping from the walls, dead soldiers littering the elegant Berber rug as clouds of smoke overhead bounced between two air conditioning vents.
Mitch Robertson stepped over the body of an ex-child star turned sex tape star turned pop star and entered the room, spotted a gun on the floor and picked it up... careful not to spill his coffee with three pumps of mocha syrup from Penny’s Coffee Shop. That coffee was gold, the only thing keeping him going in this dazed state of wakefulness. The gun felt light. Holding it, he saw the silhouette of an 80s action star sitting sideways on a tipped over chair. Motionless. Was he dead? Mitch was still hung over from the Awards Party the night before, and wondered whether this was all some sort of crazy nightmare that he would wake up from... but when he tripped over the brown legs of a bottomless Superhero, flaccid junk encased in a condom but still wearing his mask, and hit the edge of the sofa, gun skittering and coffee spilling, he realized that it was all very real. What the hell had happened here?"
Short Novel. Only 99 cents! - Kindle Version
Mitch Robertson #3
***
THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM ***
When Warren Moultie, the "Psychic To The Stars", private files, with dirt on everyone in Hollywood, are stolen, Mitch must find them and the
thief before the blackmail begins! But when studios and movie stars and pop music stars and TV stars begin receiving demands for millions
typed by an ancient typewriter on cheap paper, the entire Entertainment Industry is depending on him. Who stole the files? The Psychic? His wife?
His mistress? One of his famous clients?
Novella. Only 99 cents! - Kindle Version
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