A writer once asked:
“If I don’t sell a script soon, I’m gonna die! What should I do?”
Chris Lockhart, executive at WME, replied:
“Start making funeral arrangements.”
Chris continued with:
“I’ll try to answer this question even though there is no answer. It all comes down to having the right script. This goes against modern wisdom that preaches write a great script. ‘Great’ scripts do sell, but so do bad scripts. Great is a buzz word. ‘How do I make it in Hollywood?’ ‘Write a great script.’ … I suggest writers write the right script. This shouldn’t prevent scribes from writing a ‘great’ script anyway. But great is subjective. In the end, only the person who buys the script may think it’s great which means it isn’t necessarily great. It’s just the right script for the buyer.”
Chris sums up:
“Maybe this is all just semantics. But many great scripts are written and never sell. And lots of bad scripts are written and do sell. So, my philosophy is to write the RIGHT SCRIPT. I think there are THREE basic ingredients that create the right script which could lead to a sale. They are: 1) CONCEPT 2) EXECUTION 3) MARKETING. CONCEPT is king in the Hollywood spec market … I hear lots of concepts from new scribes and rarely do any resonate with the sound of a Hollywood movie. Part of being successful in this business is having a good head for concepts.”
-- One might wonder why would Hollywood knowing produce a bad movie. The number one reason: MONEY!
Whether the powers that be, who are running the studio, think a script is great, or bad has nothing to do with their decision to proceed.
What counts are the three elements that Chris Lockhart mentioned:
Concept, execution and marketing: Does it sound commercial? Does it have a strong targeted audience? Will its execution resonate with its targeted audience? Does the budget make sense? Etc., etc.
Screenwriters write what they're passionate about. Stories that they themselves would enjoy watching.
The Hollywood businessmen can’t judge material by what they like personally and would want to see.
Take for example: “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
The majority of critics hated it. I took the loss and walked out of the theater playing this movie. Rotten Tomatoes had it at 18%. The consensus of the critics is that it wasn’t funny and the plot was too thin, but it was a commercial success. It’s budget was $13,000,000 and it had a wordwide gross of $73,000,000.
The combination of concept, execution and market worked.
The studio powers would love to also get great reviews from the critics, but if the material works, where it resonates with an audience, getting a good word-of-mouth, then they did their job properly. They get to live another day… sort of speak.
“Dude, Where’s My Car” could be perceived as not a GREAT script, but it was the RIGHT script for the right buyer.
“If I don’t sell a script soon, I’m gonna die! What should I do?”
Chris Lockhart, executive at WME, replied:
“Start making funeral arrangements.”
Chris continued with:
“I’ll try to answer this question even though there is no answer. It all comes down to having the right script. This goes against modern wisdom that preaches write a great script. ‘Great’ scripts do sell, but so do bad scripts. Great is a buzz word. ‘How do I make it in Hollywood?’ ‘Write a great script.’ … I suggest writers write the right script. This shouldn’t prevent scribes from writing a ‘great’ script anyway. But great is subjective. In the end, only the person who buys the script may think it’s great which means it isn’t necessarily great. It’s just the right script for the buyer.”
Chris sums up:
“Maybe this is all just semantics. But many great scripts are written and never sell. And lots of bad scripts are written and do sell. So, my philosophy is to write the RIGHT SCRIPT. I think there are THREE basic ingredients that create the right script which could lead to a sale. They are: 1) CONCEPT 2) EXECUTION 3) MARKETING. CONCEPT is king in the Hollywood spec market … I hear lots of concepts from new scribes and rarely do any resonate with the sound of a Hollywood movie. Part of being successful in this business is having a good head for concepts.”
-- One might wonder why would Hollywood knowing produce a bad movie. The number one reason: MONEY!
Whether the powers that be, who are running the studio, think a script is great, or bad has nothing to do with their decision to proceed.
What counts are the three elements that Chris Lockhart mentioned:
Concept, execution and marketing: Does it sound commercial? Does it have a strong targeted audience? Will its execution resonate with its targeted audience? Does the budget make sense? Etc., etc.
Screenwriters write what they're passionate about. Stories that they themselves would enjoy watching.
The Hollywood businessmen can’t judge material by what they like personally and would want to see.
Take for example: “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
The majority of critics hated it. I took the loss and walked out of the theater playing this movie. Rotten Tomatoes had it at 18%. The consensus of the critics is that it wasn’t funny and the plot was too thin, but it was a commercial success. It’s budget was $13,000,000 and it had a wordwide gross of $73,000,000.
The combination of concept, execution and market worked.
The studio powers would love to also get great reviews from the critics, but if the material works, where it resonates with an audience, getting a good word-of-mouth, then they did their job properly. They get to live another day… sort of speak.
“Dude, Where’s My Car” could be perceived as not a GREAT script, but it was the RIGHT script for the right buyer.
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