Want to get your movie scripts into live action? Then you’d better know the rules of the game. It’s not just who you know in Hollywood.

Male rape, playing historical figures, and don’t start believing you are always going to deliver results because you have past glories.

Raping Men is funny…still

22 Jump Street was made in 2014 and features a plotline in which one prison inmate has another in sexual slavery. The Guardian newspaper loved this movie. The fact that one prisoner was castrated in the previous movie seems to be a way to tone down the reference that the younger inmate is being forced into sexual activity against his will. But the message from the movie is clear: men being raped is funny. In fact, there are two scenes in which 1) the inmate is scared out of his mind, and 2) another scene (the inmate being forced to sleep beside his abuser) in which the inmate is on the verge of tears, are supposed to be amazingly funny. But 22 Jump Street merely continues a trend. In Animal House (1978), the epilogue gleefully writes that Greg Marmalard was raped in prison in 1974. So the best (Animal House) and the worst (22 Jump Street) in comedy believe men being sexually assaulted is what will tickle the funny bone of the mass audience. Let’s Go to Prison (2006) practically built its entire movie around the prison rape trope. 

Biopic equals Oscar Glory

Hollywood likes bad history, but likes the biopic even more. There have been 22 biopic winners in the 21st century. Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Colin Firth, Rami Malek and Gary Oldman got their single Oscar win from the biopic. People ask why certain actors never win the big one. The answer is clear. They literally don’t know their history. If they did, they would be acting in a historical three-hour movie. Daniel Day-Lewis has three Academy Awards and two of them are for biopics. Benedict Cumberbatch knows this as does Michael Sheen and the glory hunt is on.

Make something Great…but don’t overstep it

The German TV series Dark is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, television shows of all time. It is brilliant from an intellectual, emotional and psychological standpoint. The characters are all superbly written. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese did something 99.9% of people will never do: create something brilliant that will not be beaten for quality. If they never do anything else, they have this absolute marvel of a television show. They are also proof that television can be art. However, they also created 1899. It is a baffling mess of a show, and it was rightfully cancelled after one season. You cannot have a premise on board a ship for several episodes and abandon that concept on a whim at the end of the season. A mess is even a polite way to put it. Whereas Dark was paced and always comprehensive, 1899 really did a number on the audience. And the space cliffhanger sent us over the top. Sorry, but they went too far into too many places. 

For some reason, they think you like twists

Smile was hugely successful. The twist of where the protagonist beats her inner demons to save herself, only to discover that none if mattered, seemed to have gone down well because all major horror movies are doing it. This new ‘pointless to fight back’ horror trope means that plot consistency or setup no longer matters. The Friday the 13th remake and the 2020 version of the Children of the Corn tell us something. Horror writers actually think you all like that the very last scene kills the consistency of the script. They think you will love having two hours completely wasted. I will give Truth or Dare (2018) a pass because at least the it was part of the plot. But what Children of the Corn and Friday the 13th are doing is either a misguided sequel request or thinking that having the villain jump up again for no logical reason is what we want. 

Imagine the following: 

Jack Torrence thaws in The Shining (1980) and puts the axe through Danny’s skull

At the end of the Exorcist (1973), the demon never left Regan and Fr. Karras died for nothing

It turns out that Steve Graham in Hereditary (2018) was the real villain and jumps up at the end.

Get working

The movie and television business needs ideas. They never said anything about original ideas.