The Marvelization of Movies

Back in 2008, Marvel took a chance and released an adaptation of Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role.

Here’s a few reasons why this was a gamble:

• Marvel Studios (the first major independent film studio in years) took out a $500 million plus line of credit to produce these films
• Robert Downey Jr. was rebuilding his career after a string of personal troubles, but had not reclaimed the star power he once had
• Kevin Feige, then second-in-command at Marvel Studios, had a radical idea to interconnect future films in a way that hadn’t been done before

As we all know, Iron Man was released in May 2008 to fanfare from fanboys and praise from critics. The quality of the film was lauded by critics (considering the flops of X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-Man 3 earlier).

The film that started it all. Credit: Paramount/Marvel.

And cinematic history was being made.

A month later, the second film version of The Incredible Hulk was released to slightly warmer reviews than Ang Lee’s 2003 take on the smashing powerhouse. While the film seemed to be standard superhero fare, it was Robert Downey Jr.’s appearance as Tony Stark at the end of the film that proved to be the real game changer.

For the first time, a character from one series of Marvel films appeared in another Marvel character’s film. Marvel fans had wanted a crossover between Fox’s X-Men series with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man but complicated studio rights and competition all but made that idea laughable. Marvel was able to accomplish this crossover, just as their comics had done so many decades earlier.

 

Spidey’s historic entrance in Captain America: Civil War. Credit: Marvel.

Now, we’re coming up on 10 years and 17 films later, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has kept its interconnected series of superhero films going strong. The company continues to make cinematic history, in 2015 reaching a deal with Sony to share the film rights of Spider-Man, allowing the wall-crawler to join his compatriots in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.

 

 

Marvel’s impact on the film industry is made, for better or worse, and their reach can be seen by examining the business practices of other film studios.

DC Comics was in a similar situation as Marvel: Batman proved to be their most successful superhero for the big screen, but the films of the 1990s hardly fit together in a cohesive story, and Christopher Nolan’s mid-2000s trilogy was a dark, but successful, take on the caped crusader. But he was about it.

A Superman film was released in 2006, but didn’t take off like DC or Warner Bros. had hoped. With the Dark Knight film series ending in 2012, the companies felt that they needed to follow in Marvel’s steps and begin to lay the groundwork for their own cinematic universe for their comic heroes to exist in.

In 2013, Man of Steel was released to reboot the Superman character, and begin to establish a DC cinematic universe (unofficially dubbed the DC Extended Universe). In 2016, a crossover film, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was released to reboot the Batman character and lay the groundwork for the Justice League crossover film, which would function similar to Marvel’s Avgeners films. This 2016 film also gave us an updated film version of Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot’s portrayal of the Amazonian princess proved to be the highlight of the otherwise shaky film. While the theatrical version of the film failed to live up to the hype, the extended Ultimate Edition of the film was a bigger hit with audiences. DC followed up with a Wonder Woman origin story film in 2017, which shattered all expectation for the DC film.

DC’s upcoming Justice League.

Meanwhile, DC had also launched several successful television shows based on their characters. Arrow, the Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow were released on the CW in a shared universe of their own; Supergirl premiered on CBS; and Gotham is a gritty take on a pre-Batman Gotham City.

Marvel’s groundbreaking business model of using its IP to create an interconnected series of films and TV shows was a good model for DC to follow (even if the company has not connected their series like Marvel has), but other studios were looking at how to take trilogies and turn them into multi-movie franchises.

And many of them have (tried), producing a long line of films and successors and sequels and prequels and spinoff films to get every last dime out of their properties.

• Paramount has Transformers, having just released their fifth film in the franchise.
• Disney recently added two sequels to their Pirates of the Caribbean series, also bringing the total number of films to five.
• Legendary Entertainment released a reimaging of Godzilla in 2014, and followed up with Kong: Skull Island, a King Kong reboot, in 2017, intending to make a “MonsterVerse” of films.
• Warner Bros. bought the film rights to J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series as a follow-up prequel series to the Harry Potter phenomenon.
• Warner Bros. also commissioned the three-part Hobbit film series, serving as a forerunner to the Lord of the Rings trilogy from the early 2000s.
• Fox rebooted their X-Men franchise in 2011 with First Class, serving as a soft-reboot in the form of introducing the idea of alternate timelines to the superhero franchise. The company has also released a string of spinoff films focusing on Wolverine, portrayed by Hugh Jackman for a staggering 17 years.
• Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012 saw the revival of the beloved space saga with a new sequel trilogy being kicked off in 2015, and a series of spinoff films launched in 2016 with Rogue One.
• In 2017, Universal released The Mummy, a reboot of the late-1990s film, intending to reboot several of their classic monster movies from the mid-20^th century in a shared cinematic universe.

Basically, every studio wants a piece of the action in this “shared universe” business.

But it’s hard to argue that any of them have been as successful as Marvel has.

Kevin Feige’s ambitious plan (which resulted in him being named President of Marvel Studios and reporting directly to Disney CEO Bob Iger) has fundamentally changed the way film studios approach properties. Certainly, a creative idea which allows for iteration upon iteration, sequel after sequel after spinoff after prequel, to be produced is appealing to every studio executive.

But Marvel’s properties lend themselves exceptionally well to this cinematic universe set-up for a reason most of the aforementioned properties do not: the Marvel superheroes have always been interconnected, even back in the 1960s comic book series. Spider-Man was a close friend of the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch; Iron Man faced down the intergalactic mad titan Thanos back in 1973; and a string of crossovers such as The Avengers (incidentally inspired by DC’s Justice League series), Civil War, and Secret Wars brought together nearly the entire pantheon of Marvel’s incredibly large cast of characters.

The Avengers #1. Credit: Marvel Comics.

It will be interesting to see how the idea of cinematic universes evolves over the coming years to decades, especially with Marvel releasing a game-changing film in 2018 that promises to bring together nearly every superhero they’ve introduced in their film series so far. It will also be interesting to see how movie studios approach the creation and acquisition of other intellectual property to bring to the big screen, and if they keep their eyes on a single film, or thinking of ways to expand the story and characters to fill up several films for years to come.

Time will tell.

The Study of Screenplays

So three acts.

My last post seems basic enough, but I want to touch on something even more basic.

Learning the art of screenwriting.

Screenplays are documents unlike any other documents. They are not meant to solely be read. They are not written to express an author’s grand ideals or intentions, or to display a masterful command of the English language.

Screenplays are efficient.

Fewer words. Short sentences. Smothered in subtext but also clear intentions.

We are familiar with the unconventional rules of novels or poetry, namely that the author makes the rules for their writing. But screenplays are some form of alien creation. There are rules  imposed upon them and they are expected to be  quick and concise. Unlike novels, screenplays are intended to be translated from the written form to a visual form.  That in itself is just odd. It is similar to reading sheet music: unique rules, essentially a different language, strange formatting, and the written form is merely a preview of the finished product, which will capture a different sensory function altogether.

Many screenwriting gurus have published books on learning to write a screenplay. Perhaps the most famous (and useful) is Syd Field’s Screenplay. This tome covers basic ideas regarding story structure and function, creating characters, and the rules of screenplays.

I say useful because most other books on the subject are, well, not as useful. Sure, chances are that you’ve heard of Save the Cat! By Blake Snyder. You could have also heard of literally a thousand clones of said book by said author. But these books should, unfortunate as this is to say, be viewed with suspicion. How many screenplays have those authors written?

How many of those screenplays have been produced?

It’s a little bit like having a soccer coach whose only experience was a summer soccer league she played in when she was 7.

I don’t want to sound dismissive or cynical. It is entirely possible that you can pull some useful information or truth from these books.

But I believe there is a huge source of knowledge on screenplays that we tend to overlook.

Screenplays!

Yes, if you want to learn how to write screenplays, you should read screenplays.

I know, this advice seems incredibly basic, but I think that’s why so many people wouldn’t think of doing it. But really, reading screenplays, especially produced screenplays, is like taking a master class without having to pay for it. Even better is if you can read a screenplay while watching the produced film version. It’s almost an exhilarating rush to see just what was translated so faithfully and what has changed from page to screen.

Many screenplays can be found online for free. The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) is one such example. Or just do a Google Search. Other screenplays are published in conjunction with the producing studios and are available for purchase, often including other behind-the-scenes content like storyboards or written screenwriter commentary.

(Film commentaries are also useful, especially if they include input from the film’s screenwriters.)

There are other screenplay library sources out there, including an app called Weeknd Read, that offer several screenplays, both classic and modern, for your reading pleasure.

Learn from the masters. If you are interested in learning how to write screenplays, then take a few minutes and do some internet research, and start reading screenplays. See how other filmmakers write their stories, see what rules they love to follow and what rules they love to break and play with.

The Three Acts

There’s something about threes.

From the primary colors and blind mice to the Holy Trinity and Destiny’s Child (pretty much the same thing, right?), humans (and sometimes nature) seem to have a fascination with grouping things into triplets. It makes sense then that modern screenwriting has created a model for storytelling composed of three acts – the Three Act Structure.

(I know, duh right?)

But why? Who sat down and said screenplays should be constructed in three acts? Who decided what they all mean and how they should function?

I blame Aristotle.

This guy.

In his Poetics, Aristotle proclaims that “a whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.” This seemingly simple breakdown of story structure gave birth to the dramatic structure, which has prevailed over imitators throughout the centuries (including a five act structure and the eight act structure, which actually factors into film structure – another post maybe). Thanks to mythologist Joseph Campbell, modern storytellers now understand that stories as far back as Ancient Greek myths share this similar story structure.

But enough about history. I don’t assume that’s why you’re reading this.

A screenplay is a document roughly 90 to 120 pages that is written to, not only express a story or adventure, but to eventually be translated into a different type of medium altogether. (Screenplays are unique like that.) These pages can be divided into three distinct phases, or acts, in which certain events or story moments or character changes need to happen. This is where pessimistic film critics proclaim this is the reason that films are so formulaic. To them I remind you: stories since the Ancient Greeks have been written in a similar structure and have entertained and inspired thousands, if not millions of people. The three acts still allow for a lot of room for creativity. More on this soon.

Let’s begin… at the beginning. Act One. Or I, if you prefer numerals. We are talking about the ancient Greeks and Romans, after all. Act One is considered the Set-Up, and a lot has to happen in these first 15 to 30 pages. First, and perhaps most importantly, you need to introduce the reader, or audience, to the world of your story. Everything hinges on successfully showing the world. And that’s not hyperbole. Literally everything that comes after this first act will depend on how you wrote this first act.

Next, we need to meet your characters, namely your hero or protagonist and your villain or antagonist. (I consider these different character types – again, another post.) Finally, you as a writer need to create a dramatic situation. This dramatic situation or incident is what will motivate your character into action. Think of Elliot finding E.T. In the cornfield behind his family’s house. After this initial event that should begin to lay the groundwork for your film’s theme, the first act usually ends with another incident (or even better – a decision made by your hero) that forces the hero out of their normal world – a propulsion from which they cannot go back from. They are changed. Nemo’s taken by a boat. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are dead. Your hero literally cannot go about their life as before.

Luke Skywalker finds his home destroyed. Credit: 20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm

They have a problem. They need to solve it.

This brings us to the second phase of the story. This is where we can start to see what your hero is really made of – or what they can be. The first act is like when they were a toddler – all they could really do was react to the things happening around them. The second act is more akin to those awkward teenage years; the hero tries to be proactive, but usually fumbles (several times) before they pick up the pace.

The second act is usually full of trials that will test your character. An audience needs to see your hero make an attempt at being the hero, otherwise they’ll get bored. Halfway through the second act, reward your hero with a small victory. They need to make some progress in the story – they don’t solve the big problem, but they make some headway, usually. Crush was able to save Marlin and Dory from the jellyfish and take them to the current that would lead them to Nemo.

Progress!

It’s easy to think of this second act as split into two parts. That halfway point is what separates the first half, from the second half. After that small victory, sorry to say, it’s usually downhill for the hero. There are now even more trials – bigger trials. Remember that small victory they achieved at the halfway point? Well, it comes at a price, and that price is paid at the end of Act Two. Somehow, someway, the villain has to succeed over the hero, or the hero has to face a major setback.

A good way to think of how the entire second act should generally flow is that the hero embarks on the main journey of the story, a journey that they can’t turn back from (at least, they can’t turn back without paying a hefty price), and faces a couple of initial trials where they slowly begin to prove their worth. They eventually succeed at something, but they may begin to overestimate their abilities. This hubris is their downfall, as they eventually come face-to-face with the villain or main problem of the story and painfully realize that they are not able to succeed.

Yet.

This is where we dig into the third and final act. This act typically begins with the hero of your story at their lowest point. Lower than they even were at the beginning of the film. In Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig’s Annie begins the film after the failure of her baking business, working a retail job she hates, in a sexual relationship with an arrogant asshole, and living with a weird albino and his equally weird sister. You would think her character couldn’t get much worse, but at the beginning of Act Three, she no longer has that retail job she hated, she breaks it off with Jon Hamm’s character, sabotages her actual budding relationship with police officer Rhodes, moves in with her mom (how embarrassing), and loses the respect and trust of her only true friend.

This where your hero needs to start Act Three. Put them at their lowest. But then give them a beacon of hope. An opportunity – one last chance – to finally prove themselves. They really have nothing left to lose. They’ve returned to their previous life or way of thinking, only more traumatized and damaged than before. The third act is when they finally confront their fears or face their villain – and succeed. They cut loose, or use some power or deeper understanding of themselves to prevail. And this is what they needed all along, to come to this realization. Elliott in E.T. has to let his new best friend go home. Luke Skywalker learns to believe in himself and use the Force.

Elliott must say goodbye to E.T. Credit: Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment

So, there you go. Three acts. That’s your framework for writing a script. It’s all you need – nothing more, nothing less. All of your major character moments and plot elements can fit in this paradigm, and the story is constructed around this system. (Story versus plot – again, another post.)

Go forth writers, and write. Or read and learn about this three act structure more. Read Joseph Campbell The Hero With a Thousand Faces. It goes over all of this, but much better and much more interestingly.