Tag: hollywood
How to Write Speed
How to Write Speed
by L.A. Zvirbulis
1 – The Inspiration. Have your Dad spoil the movie Runaway Train by telling you it has a bomb on board (it doesn’t). When you watch that movie, realize your Dad probably confused the plot with the Japanese movie The Bullet Train, which did have a bomb on board. Think the movie with the bomb is the better version and decide to make your own but make it your own by adding a bus. Yeah.
2 – The Genre. Action. Wait, what, this takes place mostly on a bus and we all know buses are boring. We can only get this green lit if we include action sequences that don’t take place on a bus, so add an elevator and a subway and some sexual tension. Cool?
3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? If you take public transportation, you might die. Seriously, though, let’s do all the things people wish they could do with their cars in Los Angeles traffic. Let’s destroy a bunch of nice vehicles, almost run over children, and hijack an airport runway. We do crash a bus and destroy a camera while filming the bus jump scene, and we aren’t sure what to tell the studio, but they don’t seem to mind and make a bunch of profits off of this film so who cares about the lost equipment?
4 – The Fun Stuff. Do you remember Die Hard? We almost got the same director, but he suggested another guy who remembers Die Hard because he was the director of photography. He knows how to make elevators and buses and subways exciting, mostly with explosions.
5 – The Device. There’s a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes over 50 miles per hour, the bomb is activated. When the bus goes under 50 miles per hour, the bomb explodes. Simple. Easy. Fun. But there has to be more than one bomb. It’s the nineties, after all. There’s the bomb in the elevator at the beginning, then the bomb on the first bus, then the bomb on our hero bus, and then the bomb strapped to our leading lady at the end. Explosions are cinematic.
6 – The Hopper. The hero is only as good as the villain is bad. This villain has a big chip on his shoulder because of corporate bullshit with is retirement. He just can’t get no respect, so he blows things up. “Thirty years from now you get a tiny pension and a cheap gold watch.” What do you want in thirty years? To still be a good movie? Congratulations! It’s worth a watch.
7 – The Jokes. Pop quiz, hotshot. How can set up a full romantic relationship in two hours? Have them meet under intense circumstances. Have them use PG rated sexual innuendos as to imply that Keanu Reeves is dating this cute bus driver, resulting in her asking “Do I get off?” when given the option to steer the bus off the freeway. After that intensity calms down, have the bus hit a baby carriage being pushed across the street only to find out it is filled with recyclable cans. “It’s not a baby!” is the same thing a couple would excitedly yell after an adventuresome night. He comes back for her even though it risks his life, thus proving his love for her generated during such an intense circumstance. Keanu and Sandra basically go through all the steps of a relationship in less than two hours. It works.
8 – The Title. Minimum Speed. That sounds boring. Maximum Speed? But we don’t really go that fast in this movie…hmmmm…okay, Speed it is.
9 – The Ending. The bus blows up, but no one else does. Keanu defeats the Hopper and saves the day, even though he destroys an expensive subway line on Hollywood Blvd., reminding everyone that Los Angeles really does have a subway.
10 – The Heart. Speed is a full relationship between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. A relationship built on intense situations can never last, but this movie will be fun to watch forever.
*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Speed. Graham Yost did with dialogue help from Joss Whedon.
How to Write Rocky
How to Write Rocky
by L.A. Zvirbulis
1 – The Inspiration. Beat yourself up for having “not made it” in Hollywood yet. Write a script in three and a half days after you sell your dog. This is not a story about a winner. It is kind of a story about boxer Chuck Wepner lasting almost a full fifteen rounds against Muhammad Ali unexpectedly in 1975. We settle with Wepner out of court for this little inspiration years later, and you do get to buy your dog back. Phew.
2 – The Genre. Oscar bait. I mean, inspirational drama Oscar bait that gets you a bunch of awards and international recognition. I guess this is a story about a winner. Best Picture winner, to be exact. Ten nominations, Adrian!
3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re a loser. A has been. A nobody. You could have been a contender. You gave up on yourself and now beat up dudes to collect money. And all you want to do in life is to get punched repeatedly by the world heavy weight champion in front of millions of television viewers and your new girlfriend Adrian. Also the studio is thinking of casting someone else, an existing star like Robert Redford or Burt Reynolds. Maybe you’ll never make it in Hollywood.
4 – The Fun Stuff. You win the role of Rocky. You would have beaten yourself up if the movie was a success without you in it, but now that you’re in it, you get to beat other people up! The most fun will be getting your butt in gear to a sweet montage. Training like a champion – specifically training like real boxer Joe Frazier – drinking raw eggs, punching dead cow carcasses in a meat locker, jogging up stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum and making them famous with a fist pump. But we can also provide soundtracks to people working out and inspire real life people to run up those stairs while listening to that song and pumping their own fists in the air. Life imitates art, after all.
5 – The Device. World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali, but in the script we call him Apollo Creed. He’s the best, regularly knocking out professional boxers. To gain some more press, Apollo hosts a mock exhibition match against a marketable Southpaw – The Italian Stallion. Apollo gives Rocky the chance to fight him, so while he is the opponent, he is also the savior. I’m not sure Jesus ever asked anyone to fight him for money, but he did provide ways for people to reach their full potentials. So. There’s that.
6 – The Coach. Rocky needs someone who believed in him once but doesn’t believe in him right now but could possibly believe in him again if he got his act together. Burgess Meredith, the guy from one of the most famous episodes of The Twilight Zone – the one where the guy is the last man alive on Earth and just wants to read, but when he finally finds the library he steps on his glasses and can’t read. He doesn’t want to read in this movie, though, he wants to train boxers. It’s just cool that we can afford an actor from The Twilight Zone. And even though we only have a million dollar budget, we can also afford a Coppola.
7 – The Jokes. “Yo, Adrian!” The charm in this movie comes from Rocky’s love for Adrian, played by Francis Ford Coppola’s sister Talia Shire. He really fights for her love by making her laugh with jokes, and then makes love to her after buying animals from her pet store.
8 – The Title. Rocky. Rocky 2. Rocky 3. Rocky 4. Rocky Balboa. Creed. Creed 2. Wow this really is a franchise. Let’s just start with Rocky.
9 – The Ending. You lose the fight, but you last all the rounds. You make it to the end and don’t get taken down by the world heavyweight champion. Sure, you loosely based the story on a real life boxing match, but that script you write in three and half days earns you an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. Congrats, winner. Even though you didn’t win the Oscar for writing, you do win a career.
10 – The Heart. Rocky wins the heart of Adrian and launches Sylvester Stallone into the hearts of viewers around the world. Sly not only stars in all of the sequels but also writes and directs most of them as well. This really is a story about a winner. And this article is to remind you that Sylvester Stallone is an Academy Award nominated Screenwriter. (Fist pump).
*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Rocky. Sylvester Stallone did. Seriously. Rambo wrote Rocky.
How to Write Home Alone
How to Write Home Alone
by L.A. Zvirbulis
1 – The Inspiration. Plan a vacation with your spouse. List off all the things you need to pack, and realize how funny it would be if you forgot to pack one of your children. Hilarious. Write a movie about it because you’ve already written several other successful films and let some guy named Chris Columbus direct it. Not the guy that initiated the destruction of the Native Americans, but the guy that wrote Gremlins, The Goonies, and goes on to direct Mrs. Doubtfire and two Harry Potter films. Very different Chris.
2 – The Genre. Family Holiday movie. Make sure every frame of the movie looks like a Christmas card. Place it in the same suburb that you use in all of your movies because it snows in Chicago and snow is necessary for a Christmas movie in the Northern Hemisphere. Christmas movies need to be cold and white and red and green.
3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Your child is left home alone. By you. And if that doesn’t make you feel like a bad parent, your child befriends the town’s alleged murderer and then is attacked by burglars while they invade your house. Pretty much a parent’s worst nightmare. At least you didn’t leave the garage door open. Oh wait, you did. At least the last time you saw your son – Kevin? Yeah, that’s the one – he only likes cheese pizza – got at least one slice of cheese pizza on the last night you spent alone together, yes? No? Wow, parents. Just wow. Enjoy your flight to Paris.
4 – The Fun Stuff. A kid takes care of himself and and acts as your home security system while you vacation in Paris. Let Kevin really torture these silly burglars better than any silly alarm or security company could do. We can get violent, because of the cartoon-like innocence of actor Macauley Culkin and the over the top acting from the bad guys. We want Kevin to really beat up these terrible middle-aged men, so a blowtorch to the head, an iron on the face, and an ancient feather torture technique will play well with the audience. We giggle at the violence. These bad guys steal stuff on Christmas. That’s bad. But what’s good is that we can get John Williams to compose the score after he is enchanted by a rough cut of the film.
5 – The Old Man. Kevin isn’t completely alone because he meets the weird old man who supposedly murdered his own family! I mean the weird old man did figuratively murder his family by estranging himself from his son, but Kevin helps him with that. The old man also comes in handy when the bad guys get really bad and he comes to save the day with a shovel! It’s good to have old friends.
6 – The Burglars. We need bad guys who have a sense of humor. Well, they can carry the comedy necessary to handle all of the violence we put upon them. Do you think I’m funny? Yes, I do, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Also, Joe, when you have the urge to use the “f” word, can you choose “fridge”? This isn’t Goodfellas, so you need to be a good fellow. And we pay Stern his asking rate because he’s the voice of Kevin on the hit tv show The Wonder Years and has a great agent. He’s also a talented actor who has better chemistry with Joe than that first actor we hired and had to replace with Daniel.
7 – The Jokes. Thank goodness you got your first job as a joke writer for an ad agency, then lampooned jokes for a national magazine before writing several successful feature films. The audience liked your jokes then, and you prove yourself over the next twenty years of your comedy movie writing career, even under the pseudonym “Edmund Dantes” as a not-so-subtle Count of Monte Cristo reference when you write the Jennifer Lopez movie Maid in Manhattan but don’t want to be seen next to it. Busted, John Hughes! Now everyone knows.
8 – The Title. Home Alone. It’s simple and to the point and the audience can drink their eggnog when the burglars realize that the kid is “Home Alone”, thus obeying the first rule of movie drinking games – drink when a character says the name of the movie. Make sure to provide non-alcoholic eggnog for the children in the audience. This is a family drinking movie. Also, let’s make kids feel alone in their own homes, so make sure we never actually see Kevin’s room. Weird, right?
9 – The Ending. Kevin gets his family back on Christmas after defeating the bad guys. This is a family film, after all, so of course the kid survives. We need him for the sequel. We also need the bad guys for the sequel, so thank goodness no one dies in this violent yet family-friendly movie. Mom takes a road trip with a Polka band and John Candy, which is punishment enough, because, you know, polka sucks. At least John Candy is good friends with our mom actor Catherine O’Hara from their Canadian improv days, so we can let John Candy improvise these scenes. We only get him for 23 hours anyway, but it’s kind of a thing to put him in movies you’ve written lately. The rest of the family shows up three minutes later after waiting for that direct flight, kind of rubbing it in mom’s face for taking a rough road trip. The mom really gets punished for leaving her son home alone. The dad, not so much, even though he is the one that throws away Kevin’s airline ticket.
10 – The Heart. Family matters. Kevin learns that he actually loves his family and wants them around, no matter how insulting or annoying they are. Being Home Alone is far worse. But he did it. He survived unharmed and didn’t burn the house down. What a tough kid. You know what, I think we can take another family vacation next year.
*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Home Alone. John Hughes did.
How to Write Die Hard
How to Write Die Hard
by L.A. Zvirbulis
1 – The Inspiration. Read a book called Nothing Lasts Forever that was written after the novelist had a dream after watching the movie Towering Inferno, which itself was based on two different books based on true stories about skyscrapers on fire. Nothing is original.
2 – The Genre. Action Thriller. There are terrorists and Bruce Willis and it’s 1988 so, duh. Wait, Bruce Willis, that funny guy from the tv show Moonlighting? Let’s try some proven action movie stars first, eh? How about Arnold Schwarzenegger? Oh, he wants to do comedy now as Danny DeVito’s twin brother. Fine. With no Arnold, and no chance of this being a loose Commando sequel even though we have the same writer, we can offer this super sexy action role to Richard Gere, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Nick Nolte, and Mel Gibson. They all say no? Legally, we do have to offer this to Frank Sinatra because Die Hard is technically a sequel to a film he made twenty years ago but he’s old now and says no. Fine. Go with that guy from Moonlighting. What’s his name? Bruce Willis.
3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? Terrorists take your wife hostage the night you try to win her back. The terrorists don’t like you very much, because turns out, you happen to be their biggest complication. Also Bruce Willis chose his cop life over his wife’s fancy corporate career and didn’t follow her across the country because he needs to show her how good of a cop he is but now she goes by her maiden name 3,000 miles away, so, it’s complicated.
4 – The Fun Stuff. Let’s put Bruce Willis through Hell. First of all, don’t give him shoes – make him barefoot for most of the movie. And let’s only give him an undershirt that starts as a white tank top and is so covered in sweat, blood, and fallout from all of the gunblasts and explosions that it is black by the end. Also remember that Dying Hard doesn’t just mean physical life, it can also mean not letting a relationship die. One could argue that the wife needs to see how hard Bruce Willis loves her – like making him walk over glass barefoot, falling out of buildings and then jumping back into them, and watching her get hit on by a creep. Oh and make sure to film the most dangerous stunt first, because if Bruce Willis gets hurt, it is cheaper to replace him as an actor at the beginning of filming than it is to re-film the entire movie if he gets hurt at the end and we don’t have all the footage we need. Good thing he didn’t get hurt that first day! Right, Bruce? We only have your best interest at heart.
5 – The Device. Terrorists! It’s the 1980s, after all, so terrorists are an easy villain, both for Hollywood screenwriters and the Reagan administration. The biggest terrorist is Hans Gruber, played by Alan Rickman in his first film role. We don’t want to get political on this movie, so give the terrorists some selfish financial reasons for the attack instead of political ones, making them just plain thieves instead of terrorists. Also not to get political, but one of the offices used for filming the movie becomes a real life office for post-Presidency Ronald Reagan.
6 – The Cops. Bruce Willis needs some friends on the ground, and his connection to the cop is what saves the day. Family Matters. That’s where we know that actor from, the hit show Family Matters, or really any of the other movies and tv shows that Reginald VelJohnson plays a cop – there are dozens. But the other cops on the scene aren’t the biggest fans of Bruce Willis, maybe from his singing career, so they don’t want him negotiating with the terrorists and would rather sacrifice their own officers.
7 – The Jokes. Yippie kai-yay, joke writers, because Bruce Willis is now a sex symbol! Have fun with the lines because we need scenes that will be good memes twenty some years later when we need to promote the blu-ray when blu-rays are still a thing and we decide to reboot this franchise with Justin Long from those computer commercials.
8 – The Title. Die Hard. While the book title “Nothing Lasts Forever” sounds like a James Bond movie, we need something simple that gets dudes pumped. Die. Sure, but how? Die HARD. Yeah. What about the female demographic, you ask? It’s the 1980s. The only women who go to movie theaters are on dates with men who pay to see action stars topless and sweaty.
9 – The Ending. Bruce Willis doesn’t die, so the title is kind of misleading. It’s like sure, I expected it to be difficult, but it does say Die Hard, not Almost Die Hard. Oh, you’re saying the other people die hard? But actually all of the people that die in this movie die pretty easily. It’s the people that stay alive that death hasn’t gotten yet that Die Hard. An alternate title of this movie could be “If you stick with me, you’ll stay alive”, which is what Bruce Willis says directly to his then unknown villain about sixty percent through the plotline. No one says Die Hard in this movie, which goes against the first and easiest rule of all cinematic drinking games – drink when someone in the movie says the name of the movie. Doesn’t happen in Die Hard. Drink when someone dies easily and you won’t remember it tomorrow.
10 – The Heart. Christmas! Wait, what? Santa kind of comes to save the day in the form of Bruce Willis, but it’s a great way to remind your friends that Die Hard is technically a Christmas movie and a romance that could be called “Bruce Willis Gets His Wife Back on Christmas While Other People Die Pretty Easily”. Yeah, at the heart, Die Hard is about a man who just wants his wife back for Christmas. And all I want for Christmas is for you to know that…
…*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Die Hard. Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza did based on the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp.
How to Write Dirty Dancing
How to Write Dirty Dancing
by L.A. Zvirbulis
1 – The Inspiration. Write a movie for Michael Douglas that has a sexy dance sequence cut out by producers. Decide to write a movie that has mostly sexy dance sequences. But how? Think “Hey, my life would make a great movie”, specifically the part when you visited a vacation resort with your family in the 1960s. Just add the fantasy of a sexy dance instructor. Name the main character after the same nickname you had in real life, Baby.
2 – The Genre. Sexy dance movie. Musical romance with some period drama. Or I guess lack of period drama, because of dancer Penny being pregnant and all. Also coming of age story.
3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? No one can sexy dance when sexy dancing was expected. Also Penny wants an abortion, and Baby lies to her father for the first time. This whole story is about a father accepting his daughter growing up, so anything that could go wrong in that vein. Like the silent treatment, suddenly liking your sister more, and leaving family camp early.
4 – The Fun Stuff. Dirty Dancing. Kenny Ortega choreographs classic numbers in this movie, most famously the “lift” successfully accomplished at the end of the film. Baby learns how to dance from the sexiest of dance instructors Patrick Swayze. Also there’s sex implied.
5 – The Device. The music. In order to pitch this around, have the producer send mix tapes of the proposed soundtrack, a combination of music from the 1960s and the current 1980s. The soundtrack is classic and this pitch cassette tape will become a collector’s item. Dirty Dancing is a period film that uses both period music and modern music, and while it’s not the first to do so, it does it very well. I’m sure the rights to the music aren’t cheap, but they’re worth it.
6 – The Doctor. Baby’s relationship with her father is the real spine of this story. This Jewish Physician loves his sweet innocent daughter at the beginning, only to think she’s been corrupted by the black leather wearing Patrick Swayze. The Doc also thinks Patrick Swayze is the reason Penny needs to be fixed from a botched abortion, and changes what he thinks about Baby. In the end, when he sees Baby dance, he accepts how good Patrick Swayze is for all of our emotional growths.
7 – The Jokes. This movie is charming. It’s romantic. It’s heartwarming. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”, “spaghetti arms!”, and “I carried a watermelon.” are classic lines.
8 – The Title. Dirty Dancing. It gets to the point. Make sure you put the sexy dances in the opening credits and the audience will be on board from the beginning. Alliteration also adds.
9 – The Ending. Baby grows up. Family camp ends. Doctor accepts Baby as a grown woman. Patrick Swayze has more confidence in himself, but probably doesn’t ever see Baby again. Maybe a letter or two but nothing serious. Probably a meet up at a dive bar in NYC ten years later but only for one fun night. That should be the real sequel, not Havana Nights.
10 – The Heart. Baby grows up to great music with Patrick Swayze. What more could you ask for?
*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Dirty Dancing. Eleanor Bergstein did.
How To Write Your Favorite Movie 