If George Lucas can't get an unmarketable movie made, what chance do YOU have?

From an excellent New York Times article about George Lucas:

This was a new feeling for George Lucas. He made a movie about a plucky band of freedom fighters who battle an evil empire — a movie loaded with special effects like no one had seen before. Then he showed it to executives from all the Hollywood studios. And every one of them said, “Nope.”


One studio’s executives didn’t even show up for the screening. “Isn’t this their job?” Lucas says, astonished. “Isn’t their job at least to see movies? It’s not like some Sundance kid coming in there and saying, ‘I’ve got this little movie — would you see it?’ If Steven (Spielberg) or I or Jim Cameron or Bob Zemeckis comes in there, and they say, ‘We don’t even want to bother to see it. . . .’ ”


Lucas sighs. It’s true that the movie, “Red Tails,” is a biopic about the Tuskegee Airmen rather than a space opera starring the Skywalker clan. But the snub implied that Lucas’s pop-culture collateral — six “Star Wars” movies, four “Indiana Jones” movies, the effects shop Industrial Light and Magic and toy licenses that were selling (at least) four different light sabers this Christmas — was basically worthless. When “Red Tails” opens in theaters on Jan. 20, it will be because Lucas paid for everything, including the prints. 

Let that sink in - George Lucas is responsible for six of the most successful films ever made (ten if you include the four Indiana Jones films) and studio executives still had no interest in making or distributing his passion project.  It this wasn't some character drama set in 1400s Europe - this was a film set in World War II with plenty of action!  Now perhaps the box office failure of 2006's Flyboys was fresh in everyone's mind ($60 million budget/$13 million domestic gross).  Or it could have been, as Lucas stated during a recent visit to The Daily Show, that the all-black cast would be a hard sell abroad.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Either way, for up-and-coming screenwriters, this paints a chilling picture.  Every studio in town not only had no interest in making the first non-Star Wars or Indiana Jones film that George Lucas produced in over two decades, they couldn't even figure out how to market it!  If every studio in town is too scared to take a chance on George Lucas, what chance do any of us have of wandering outside the box?

This reminds me of the story about how a studio executive suggested that, instead of making Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg and the studio make a large donation to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The exec's logic was that "no one" was going to see a black-and-white movie about the Holocaust.

When you're writing for yourself, you can tell any story you want.  When you need someone else's money to tell that story, you're going to have to convince them they'll not only get their money back, but also turn a profit on it.  This is why marketability is one of the things that readers like me have to weigh.  I'm sure we've all pushed forward commercially dubious material when it's well-written, but marketable screenplays will already rule the day.  That's the way the system has always worked and it's never going to change.  You can bitch about how unfair that is, or you can attempt to work within it.

Put yourself in the studio's shoes - and ask if they have reason to expect a return on their investment.  As much as it pains me to say - think like a studio executive.  Those guys might be to skittish to take a risk on the creator of Star Wars - but they're not afraid to insult him by snubbing the screening of his film.

If that doesn't chill your bones, I don't know what will.

The Tracking Numbers are soft?! Oh shit, we'd better just give away the whole film for free so they'll pay us to see it again!

Last week, one of the big stories in the entertainment business was the "tracking numbers" on Super 8. Honestly, tracking numbers are one of those insider things that really shouldn't concern movie-goers who don't work in the industry but we live in a world where the internet has made this information so accessible that it seems like even causal movie fans are chiming in on this.

I couldn't possibly explain tracking numbers better than Geekweek's Jeff Katz, formerly an exec at Fox and New Line:

If you are unfamiliar with movie tracking, these numbers are the metrics studios use to monitor their marketing strengths and weaknesses and predict their eventual box office performance. While tracking is not always perfect it has long tended to be an accurate indicator of success or failure at the box office.

Our Tracking Report monitors four key categories - Unaided Awareness. Total Awareness. Definite Interest. First Choice -- across the four key audience quads - Men -25, Men 25+, Women -25, Women 25+. The movies that track well across all quads - aka Four Quad Movies - are the ones with a clear chance at blockbuster box office performance.

This is Jeff's Tracking Report for last Friday's opening.



All last week, we kept hearing that the tracking on Super 8 was "soft." Despite the involvement of two of the hottest directors (of both the moment and all-time): Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, audiences seemingly weren't yet sold on the film. Quickly, the blame was placed on the un-revealing ad campaign. This article on Deadline pretty much establishes the narrative that soon was being repeated on Twitter and on every film-related blog:

When JJ Abrams conceived Super 8, his intention was to replicate those Steven Spielberg films of the 70s and 80s, where he discovered the magic in a movie theater and not by watching every reveal in a commercial. When Spielberg directed or produced films like Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Poltergeist and Gremlins, finally seeing the creature was half the fun, and they were always kept secret until opening day.

[...]Paramount and Abrams have focused on character and given up little in the creature department in commercials that followed. Days from its Friday opening, rivals say that tracking numbers are soft and would be considerably stronger among young moviegoers had Abrams and the studio given up a glimpse of the creature and playing up that plot line.

Rivals say that there is nervousness at Paramount because the studio has gone so far in embracing Abrams’ now famous desire for utmost secrecy. This is a bold gamble Paramount is taking, at a time when the mission of studio marketers is to deliver the highest possible opening weekend, no matter how many plot highlights and spoilers are sacrificed in TV spots. Several marketing experts I checked were buzzing with the assertion that Par’s decision to protect the purity of the movie-going experience could put the film in an opening weekend hole it will be hard pressed to recover from.

As it turns out, Paramount blinked and on Thursday, it leaked footage that offered a glimpse at the creature.

I don't know who I'm disappointed in: Paramount, for having no trust in the audience; or modern audiences, who have fostered an environment where they demand the trailer reveals every. Last. Surprise. Take a look at this "unrevealing" trailer:



Okay, so from that trailer we glean:

1) It's clearly set in late 70s/early 80s.

2) It focuses on a group of kids who are making a super-8 movie.

3) there's clearly an attraction between one of the kids and the girl

4) during filming, the kids end up witnessing a train crash and catching it on film.

5) what's more, there's a strong indication that the crash had freed something very big and very strong that was being held in the train.

6) The military begins an ominous operation in response to the crash and is being evasive towards local authorities about what was on the train (with a clear implication that something sinister got free.)

7) someone gets attacked by an unseen monster, and there are disappearances and other incidents that local police are at a loss to explain and suspect the military has answers.

8) The montage of action shots suggests - among other things - that the townspeople are headed for a confrontation with whatever was on the train.

Unrevealing, my ass.

I'd say the trailer does a pretty good job of laying out the basic premise as well as a few plot points. The only thing we don't see is the creature itself. The story itself is pretty heavily sold in that trailer. Oh, and it's from the creative minds of Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, whom you may have heard, have a pretty good track record.

To any of you who might have been in the camp of "Paramount needs to show me more to get my $14," what would seeing the creature do for you that simply knowing the plot isn't already doing? You've already got the genre, the hook and the basic plot - how much more do you need spoon-fed? Also, I'd like to personally thank you for ruining the filmgoing experience for the rest of us. It's no longer possible to sit through a movie trailer without having every money shot, every last point point, every last surprise completely ruined.

Years ago, director Robert Zemeckis defended this practice, saying, "We know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It's just one of those things. To me, being a movie lover and film student and a film scholar and a director, I don't. What I relate it to is McDonald's. The reason McDonald's is a tremendous success is that you don't have any surprises. You know exactly what it is going to taste like. Everybody knows the menu."

I tried not to believe that. I like being surprised when I see movies as much as I like being surprised when I read scripts. As someone who tries to write unexpected plot turns and twists into my own scripts, I shudder at the thought that my carefully crafted surprises will be at the mercy of a pinheaded marketing department that will leave no shock unrevealed. This makes no sense - if the most desirable element of the film is given away for free, why would anyone pay to see the rest?

An analogy about a cow and free milk comes to mind. That's the problem - marketing departments are like cheerleaders with low self-esteem. They cling to the belief that they if they put out, everyone will love them.

Then there's the other half of the problem: the entitlement in our culture. People decide they need to know everything before they lay down their money for a film. And god forbid a few seconds of film reveal something that doesn't meet with their standards, such as a superhero costume or starship that isn't designed the way they would have done it.

And the result is boring, predictable films that seem to have been designed by committee, for after creating a situation where no real risks are allowed to be taken Mr. Fickle Viewer then complains about how weak the story is in the latest Transformers sequel, or how all the big summer movies are all flash, no substance, no surprises.

It's not Hollywood's that's ruined movies - it's viewers who insist on having everything ruined for them as a precondition before plunking down their admission fares. If the only thing that would have sold you on Super 8 was seeing what the monster looked like, you deserve the entertainment you get.

Reader question - Writing a big-budget writing sample

Claire asked:

What are your thoughts on ambitious projects to really show off your voice vs realistically-might-be-bought-from-a-first-time-writer?

If the initial goal is really to be noticed, surely a big budget period epic will serve your writing better if that's what you really want to write, rather than coming up with a low budget containable thriller or something for the sake of it. Or would the big budget period epic risk making the new writer look as though they don't understand budgets/the market and therefore unprofessional?

When I see a big-budget period epic spec from a first-timer, usually only one thought passes into my head: "Ugh. This will be a waste of time that can only result in a PASS." It's pretty much as you describe in your latter sentence.

The market for period pieces? Dead. D-E-A-D. Unless you're hired on assignment I wouldn't write one because it will probably be a waste of your time.

Writers are typecast as much as actors are. If you submit a writing sample that's some 16th Century epic drama, it's probably not going to do much for showing how you might write a thriller, or a romantic comedy, or a horror film. As a writing sample, all it really shows is how well you write that sort of period drama.

On the outside chance that the writing is superb - and I'm talking "can't-put-this-down-I-have-ever-reason-to-PASS-and-move-onto-something-marketable-but-I-can't-stop-reading" superb - yes, you might be invited to submit another spec script

But guess what? All that means is that the other spec you send them is going to have to be more in the vein of what they want. And honestly, if you had something that they were more likely to respond to on its own, why on Earth didn't you submit that first?

Sci-Fi is another genre that's risky to spec, but at least there's more of a market for sci-fi than for period epics. If my two specs were 2012 and Robin Hood, I'd lead with 2012. I know that I personally would probably be more likely to give a recommendation of "Let's see what else they've got" if their submission was a marketable genre (if not for a newbie) than if it wasn't much of a viable project at all.

Ambitious projects are only worth writing if you've really got the goods to pull them off. Most of the time, a writer will need to have been around the block for a while before they've reached that level.

For some other thoughts in this vein, I'll direct you to these two posts:
Everyone starts somewhere, so don't insist on being pretentious right out of the gate.
Everyone starts somewhere - even Undressed has distinguished alumni.

Reader mail - Should my script have its own website?

Ron asks:

What do you think of those personal web sites a writer creates to market their screenplay? Does it scream "amateur"? I know a writer has to do all they can to get their work read, but do you think that it might have a negative connotation in a producer's (or whoever's) mind? That the thinking might be the writing should be good enough to stand on its own, that it shouldn't need a slick web site to get attention?

I'm not aware of any rule about this, or even industry conventional wisdom - but I tend to think it's cheesy and screams "amateur" at the top of its lungs. I've seen, well, a LOT of these sites and not once have I ever been impressed. Not once have I ever felt it ever does anything to cast the writer or his work in a good light.

With short films and webseries, I totally get why they merit websites of their own. That's content. They're brief 1-5 minute bits of entertainment that have a shot at going viral and being discovered by "average Joes." If your short or webseries gets a big enough following, maybe you'll be lucky enough to attract the attention of some development folk or managers and get a meeting. It's happened quite a few times before.

Maybe these screenwriters with websites think that this is their way to land on some producer or agents radar. After all, if it works for web shorts, why not for scripts? I'll tell you why - scripts will never go viral. You're not going to get a massive following of people downloading your script, reading all 120 pages, and then passing it around to all their friends. With viral videos, it's just as much about your following as it is your content. That's how managers and development execs weed out the material that's worth their time. They don't blindly troll the internet and check out just any site - they look for the sites and the videos with the largest audiences.

The other drawback of these sites is that they give WAY too much information about the writer. If a writer has an interesting background - say he spent 100 days as a hostage in the Iraq War - then maybe your bio is relevant. But I don't need to know you grew up in Altuna, that you met your wife in third grade, that you have two lovely kids, one of which is your beloved dog. That tells me nothing about why you are a writer worth paying attention to.

And then there are some guys who list anywhere from a half-dozen to a dozen completed screenplays on their website. That's a huge red flag. There's a reason why when you query you really only should push one project at a time. If you say you have ten scripts, most agents will immediately wonder "If this guy's so good, and all of these scripts are strong, why have NONE of them found representation yet?" Some agents also say that pushing multiple projects can show that you can't distinguish your strongest writing from your weakest writing.

Don't try to sell an agent on all your scripts - sell him on the right script.

The way I see it, a website for your screenplay offers no benefits and only drawbacks. No agent is going to troll the web looking for new clients. Any agent that looks up your website is probably doing so only after looking at your query letter. At that point, your victory is getting him interested via your query. Your website can only give him a reason not to request the script.

I'd love to hear from people with contrary views, if you feel there's something obvious that I haven't considered.

Reader mail - Do you look for profit potential when reading?

"..." asks:

When you're reading, does potential for profit play a factor in your analysis?

(I know, ostensibly, the best ideas/concepts/screenplays should make the most at the box office, but that's not reality.)

Hell, yes. The people I work for aren't exactly the sort looking to throw money away without so much as a care of making that money back.

When I'm reading for a producer, two big questions I have to consider are "is this the sort of film that this producer is interested in making?" and "Can I make a case for this being a good investment both creatively and financially?"

When I'm reading for an agent or manager, my thoughts are: "Is this writing strong enough to cut it in the market place" and "Is this guy writing the sort of material that is capable of justifying its cost?"

I'm sure someone will pop up with the old chesnut about how Star Wars was passed on by everyone in town because it was so different and no one had any kind of track record they could point to and say, "This is a hit." And yeah, it happens every now and then that producers and studios miss out on a long-shot that really connects with audiences.

But if you honestly think you can build a career with a spec that no one can figure out the audience for, you're living in a dream world. I don't care how much you're dying to tell your story about the WWII platoon that pulls together against impossible odds - no one's going to see those period pieces these days. If you're Clint Eastwood or Steven Spielberg then you've got enough clout that the studio won't say no.

But look at the figures for something like Flags of Our Fathers. It cost $90 million to make, made only $33 million domestically and another $32 million abroad. Letters from Iwo Jima only made a little more than that, but at least its much smaller budget of $19 million put that film in the black. Granted, that was over three years ago, but can you think of a WWII era hit since then?

I've already discussed why you shouldn't write about the Iraq War in this post. I'd say that the Western is nearly dead too. If I gave a Consider to any period piece, Iraq War film, Western or drama, I'd better be damn prepared to make a case for why it would be able to find an audience.

I know there are writers who throw fits when guys like me taint their "art" by bringing up the commercialism of "marketability" but the fact is if someone is going to spend tens of millions of dollars on your passion project, you'd better be able to show that someone other than you and your mom are going to go see it.

What makes you see a movie?

A writer trying to sell his screenplay is often asked "Who's the target audience for this?" Now, it's easy to hear that question and fly into a rage over how horribly commercialized Hollywood is, with films not seen as art, but commodities designed to sell stale popcorn and salty pretzels. However, all the statement means is, "Who will see this? Who will want to see this? What viewer will this film reach?"

So with that in mind, I want to start off the week asking my readers two questions:

1) What sort of movies do you like to see?

and

2) What makes you see a movie? Is it the trailer? The stars? The premise? Nudity? Violence? How do you decide what's worth your $12 each weekend?

Bonus question: What helps you determine whether you'll see a movie in the theatre or if you'll wait for Netflix?

I know from my stats that there are a few hundred of you reading this site each day. I'd love to see massive participation and discussion in the comments below. I don't allow anonymous comments, but don't let that be a hindrance.