If you’re looking for a little reading over the holidays, you may want to check out some of the screenplays that the studios are flogging for Academy Awards consideration this year. More and more studios are placing their Oscar hopeful scripts online for the voting members of the Academy to peruse and hopefully vote for a nomination for either Best Original or Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s much cheaper than sending out copies to everyone and has the great side effect of making them also available to anyone to read. All the scripts are in .pdf format and will probably only be available through the awards season. (So click and save if you’re interested in having a copy to read later on down the road.)

500 Days Of Summer (FOX Searchlight)
9 (Focus Films)
Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos) (Sony Classics)
The Blind Side (Warner Brothers)
Coraline (Focus Films)
Crazy Heart (Fox Searchlight)
The Damned United (Sony Classics)
An Education (Sony Classics)
The Fantastic Mister Fox (Fox Searchlight)
Funny People (Universal)
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (Warner Brothers)
The Hurt Locker (Summit Entertainment)
The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus (Sony Classics)
The Informant! (Warner Brothers)
Inglorious Basterds (Weinstein Company)
It’s Complicated (Universal Studios)
The Last Station (Sony Classics)
The Men Who Stared At Goats (Overture Films)
Moon (Sony Classics)
Nine (Weinstein Company)
Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire (Lionsgate)
Public Enemies (Universal Studios)
The Road (Weinstein Company)
A Serious Man (Focus Films)
Sin Nombre (Focus Films)
A Single Man (Weinstein Company)
Sugar (Sony Classics)
Sunshine Cleaning (Overture Films)
Where The Wild Things Are (Warner Brothers)
The White Ribbon (Das Weiss Band) (Sony Classics)

While fans of director Terry Gilliam anxiously await the eventual release of his upcoming fantasy The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus, let us take a look at what might be next on the former Monty Python animator’s slate. While it looks good that Gilliam will be able to finally re-mount his previously aborted project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, when cameras begin to roll on that will depend on the ever increasingly busy schedule of Johnny Depp.

If Gilliam does find himself with some free time before getting to Don Quixote, Brendan over at FilmIck seems to know what he might do to keep occupied. According to his sources, Gilliam is currently working on developing a screenplay entitled The Zero Theorem, written by University of Florida Associate Professor of English Pat Rushin.

While there is no word on what the story will be about, FilmIck feels that the film will be a smaller scale Gilliam affair, more along the lines of how The Fisher King.

As with any project, but unfortunately more so it seems when it comes to Gilliam, there are still many hurdles between now and the picture actually arriving in cinemas. Until then, though, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The 2008 Black List has been published, listing some of the most talked about screenplays in Hollywood.

This year, 250 development executives and agents participated in the poll by submitting individual lists of ten screenplays that they felt were “favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2008 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year.” The result is a list that is not so much a “best of” tally but a list of “most liked” screenplays currently circulating through Hollywood.

Given that Things We Lost In The Fire, Juno and Lars And The Real Girl were the first three films listed on the Black List’s inaugural edition, the List can be a good barometer of quality projects to keep an eye out for. Of course, with the List’s rapid rise in popularity, some have started accusing studio execs and agents of pushing their own projects onto the list as a way to get them some wider exposure.

All of the screenplays in the Top 10 have some form of activity surrounding them, though I would be surprised if as many as half of them got in front of the cameras. There are a few in the runners-up that will see life as well. Some have already started production, like Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and Tony Peckham’s Sherlock Holmes. Those that fall by the wayside through not fault of their own, simply being nothing more than the victims of the way things work in Hollywood.

Out of all the titles that made the list, I’ve only read Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. But then again, who hasn’t at this point? Almost all of the scripts have interesting sounding log lines. (A couple of the named screenplays have found their way onto my desk recently, though I haven’t had the chance to dig into them yet. And if anyone wants to pass along any more, you can find the contact button over on the right.)

Some of the premises do sound familiar. F***buddies and The F Word sound like variations on a plot already seen on screens this year in Kevin Smith’s Zack And Miri Make A Porno. A Bittersweet Life is an English adaptation of a fantastic Korean film, while Jar City is an adaptation of Baltasar Kormakur’s film. The 47 Ronin is based on the most popular legend in Japan, one which has been translated to film several times already.

The Top 10 follows after the break. You can download the complete 2008 Black List report here (PDF).

Continue Reading

It is no secret that in recent years, studios have embraced the internet as a way to promote their movies. (We’ll put aside the fact that they also excoriate the internet when information about their films leaks early or digital copies of films are available for download before they’re even in theaters.)

But potential ticket-buying audiences aren’t the sole online target of the studios. They’re also using the web to promote their films as potential Academy Award nominees to those in the business who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and who get to vote on such things.

The last couple of years have seen a sharp rise in studios with specific websites touting their films for Oscar gold. While most of these sites are simply variations of the “For Your Consideration” advertisments that have appeared in print publications for decades, there is a boon for those film fans who like to read screenplays. Rather than go to the expense of printing up hundreds of copies of the scripts they hope to get nominated for the Academy Awards’ two screenplay categories, many studios have taken to posting them on line as downloadable PDF files, available for anyone who wants a copy.

Here is a breakdown of what you can find to read where-

Fornearly a year up until its release this past summer, the screenplay for Christopher Nolan’s epic comic book adaptation The Dark Knight was the unobtainable Holy Grail among script traders. But now, Warner Brothers has posted it on their Oscar promotion site. Warners is also promoting the upcoming Clint Eastwood vehicle Gran Torino for Academy Award consideration, but probably are withholding from posting the screenplay until after the movie is released in December.

Meanwhile, Paramount Vantage has placed the screenplays for two of their three nomination hopefuls The Duchess, Defiance and Revolutionary Road on line. Unfortunately, the studio has decided against posting them as downloadable PDF files, instead opting to make them readable only on the site. Currently only the scripts for The Duchess and Defiance are available to read, with Revolutionary Road‘s screenplay is being held back until after the film’s theatrical release. I guess no one at Paramount Vantage realizes that anyone who has ever traded a script at the IMDb already has a copy of it.

Universal has posted the scripts for a pair of true-story stories- Changeling and Frost/Nixon.

Walt Disney is promoting five contenders for Oscar gold, three of which – Bolt, High School Musical 3 and WALL-E – the studio hopes will make the Best Screenplay shortlists. However, only the WALL-E screenplay is available to read at this time.

Although Paramount Studios is pimping The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, Kung Fu Panda, Tropic Thunder and Madagascar: Back 2 Africa for nominations in several categories, including the screenplay categories, the studio has not posted any of the screenplays they would like Academy voters to consider on their site this year. Other studios that have posted screenplays in the past, but have not done so as of yet include Lionsgate, Miramax, Fox Searchlight and Focus Features.

Jon Favreau should be happy. His worry about reaching a 2010 deadline just a little easier.

Variety is reporting that actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux has signed or is close to signing on as the scribe for Iron Man 2.  Theroux reunites with Robert Downey, Jr., who co-stars in Tropic Thunder, which Theroux also wrote.

Theroux also acted in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and HBO’s Six Feet Under.

Quentin Tarantino is now actively taking his just-finished screenplay for his long-in-development World War II action flick Inglorious Bastards around to the various major studios to see if there is any interest in actually making the film, according to Nikki Finke and Hollywood Deadline.

Finke states that although Harvey Weinstein is attached to the film as a producer, Inglorious Bastards is not going to be produced through The Weinstein Company. 

Hopefully, some smart executive will give Quentin the dump truck full of money he needs to make this film. Grindhouse not withstanding, Tarantino’s films have always done well at the box office. Also, he is one of the few directors working who I feel manages to take the time to create interesting characters that are at the center of his films. we’ve been teased since around 2001 about what this film was going to be, and I for one am hoping it gets committed to celluloid soon.

As I said when I reviewed it earlier this week, the blame for what a sloppy train wreck of a movie that is Hancock is can be laid at the feet of the numerous rewrites the screenplay went through from its initial inception to finally hitting multiplex screens.

Now you can take a look at what writer Vy Vincent Ngo initially envisioned for this film. Jeff Wells over at Hollywood-Elsewhere has posted a copy of Ng’s original, undated draft entitled Tonight, He Comes. How different is it? I haven’t had a chance to peruse the entire screenplay, but a cursory examination does reveal that the original is indeed darker than what eventually shows up on the screen.

With Akiva Goldsman’s name on the film’s credits, it is easy to blame him for where the film falls apart. After all, this is the same writer who worked on Lost In Space, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, I, Robot and Smith’s last film I Am Legend. It’s a litany of titles that cause one to think that maybe his Academy Award for writing A Beautiful Mind may have been a fluke. (Hint- It was.) I would still like to see some other drafts the project went through to see if it was a gradual slide downhill towards a crappy film or just a big catastrophic failure once Goldman stepped up to the typewriter.

You might want to hurry in checking out the script, though. Last month, Frank Darabont’s draft for what became Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull showed up on line, but was quickly yanked under the threat of Paramount’s legal attack dogs. Will Sony do the same?

Writer/director Kevin Smith’s much discussed horror project Red State has hit a snag, with Smith announcing on his blog today that the Weinstein Company, headed by long time Smith supporters Bob and Harvey Weinstein, have decided to pass on the script.

Smith got the word last Friday in a phone call from Weinstein exec Michael Cole, whom Smith is working with on his other currently in development project, the comedy Zack And Miri Make A Porno.

Smith reacted to the email by writing in his blog-

It’s always important for a movie to open with a scene that grips its audience, pulling them into its celluloid world for the rest of its runtime.

Although not meant for general consumption, screenplays need to do the same job to whomever is reading them. A junior executive wading through dozens of scripts, hoping to find the next big blockbuster, doesn’t have time to plow through all 100-plus pages of every script in their slush piles. A screenwriter has maybe ten pages at most to grab the attention of a reader who may hold the script’s fate in their hands.

Perhaps the best example of this that I’ve come across in a while is script for the opening scene of writer/director Robert Rodriguez’s segment of Grindhouse, a zombie thriller called Planet Terror. (Yes, what a surprise. We’re talking about Grindhouse. Again.) In just a few sentences, Rodriguez sketches out his protagonist Cherry, giving us some tantalizing information about her that will be explored through the film. And than he hits us with that last sentence, almost daring us not to continue reading.

1. INT. SKIP’S GO-GO-GO DANCE CLUB – STAGE – NIGHT

Over titles, we are close on a pair of red go-go boots as the woman wearing them strides confidently onto the well worn stage.

This is CHERRY, a go-go dancer. She’s too good at what she does, meaning she should think about doing something else.

Oddly, tears run down her face through her dance.

Side Note: The next time Cherry does this dance, people will die.