Magic Hour is a film that immediately grabs your attention and relentlessly holds onto it for 80 minutes. As you fit the puzzle pieces together in real time, holding your breath for a glimmer of hope and asking questions that should make or break a character, there’s instantly a turn and twist that you didn’t account for. And once the end credits hit the screen, you’re left with answers, yes, but are still perpetually bound to these characters and the ‘what if’ and what will become of Erin, played by writer-director Katie Aselton.

Going into this movie solely based off the little we are told and show in the trailer, that’s truly all you need. It’s a film to experience, a film that does leave you devastated, grappling with your emotions, and vulnerability rearing it’s pretty head.

I had the great honor of speaking with the wonderful creative and human that is Katie Aselton. After sharing a very practical and important parenting/marriage tip and advice, we got into the weeds about her new film Magic Hour. I left our conversation incredibly inspired and uplifted and with a resounding feeling of hope as an independent creative – in that it’s OK to be selfish.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

The Desert’s Emotional Plane

In most instances when one thinks of the desert, it invokes images of isolation, vast emptiness, drought ridden, lifeless – still. But in reality, the desert has a beating pulse, every crack leads to a sign of life, and that stillness gives room to settle with yourself, completely. And that is the overwhelming feeling you get when you step foot in Joshua Tree, California.

There is something in the wind, in the dirt, the creatures, and amongst the people that call this desert oasis home that inevitably takes you onto a creative journey that insists you tap into your vulnerability – whether you asked for it or not. I’ve had my fair share of those creative sparks while in Joshua Tree, from writing to filming on location.

Filmmaker Katie Aselton is one of those lucky few that has found a profound spiritual creative spark while visiting Joshua Tree. “It’s freaking real. The subject matter of Magic Hour is trippy and wild, and that was a very strange emotional place to be in… Now when I go back to Joshua Tree, my whole soul goes wonky… This sounds so stupid to say out loud [laughs] I’m gonna acknowledge that part, but it feels like I was on an emotional plane that I don’t normally exist on.”

And it’s true, the subject matter of Magic Hour is trippy and wild, and could only exist as it is in a place like Joshua Tree. Without going into much spoiler territory, as the film does play out, there are emotional revelations, both internal and visually, that conjures mirages of otherworldliness.

Chasing Creative Freedom

Katie and her husband and creative partner (and film’s co-writer), Mark Duplass, have certainly had a reasonably successful careers in show business. Having kicked down the doors with their indie darling Puffy Chair in 2005, and acting in shows like The League and The Morning Show to Katie working alongside giants like Diane Keaton. But along the way, the creative satisfaction was lost. When Mark asked her the simple question, “What do you want this year to look like?” on the drive home from a ritual top of year vacation, Katie said, “I really want to make a movie for me.” Not something to please anyone. Not for the critics. Just a movie for her.

So, she and Mark got down to the brass tacks of what to write about. “We only write what we know. Puffy Chair was about us, without being about us. Freebie, my first feature that I directed was not about us, but it was definitely based on people we knew. How do we mine our own personal lives?”

While married life with kids can be less than stimulating and as she says, “We’re so boring, there’s no drama. Where’s the conflict?” They began to dissect their whole dynamic, and what sparked their curiosity was the idea of codependence. And the idea of being so deeply in love with someone, you can’t live without them. “That was our jumping off point. Let’s play in that world. It’s based on us, without being based on us.”

There is fun in the game of “What if?” especially if the mirror is held up to your life… what kind of stories could you come up with? Tapping into that vulnerability and maybe finding some emotional catharsis along the way.

And while Magic Hour is far from Katie and Mark’s life – the characters Erin (wonderfully played by Katie) and Charlie (played by the incredibly compassionate actor Daveed Diggs), in some ways do find their way to emotional catharsis – as does the audience.

Sharing Magic Hour with Audiences

While Katie’s goal was to make a movie for herself, I’m so glad she decided to share this film with audiences. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Sarah Whelden – it would have been a shame for audiences to not be able to sit in this world.

There is some irony however in her selfishly making this film for herself – the themes are so incredibly universal, that people can find their way in to relate, for the themes to emotionally resonate.

“Mark says this thing that I love – you make a movie and you think it is about something, and then you share it with an audience, and they tell you what it’s about.” Magic Hour had a great year long festival run, where Katie was overjoyed by the audience’s reaction and participation. “There’s three types of audiences: the people who stay seated for the Q and A… And people who want to talk about it… they have experienced that love going away and want to share their experience in this loss… And the people who want to be devasted,” she equates the devastation aspect to a line from a poem that a tattoo artist did, ‘Devastate me, baby.’

And devastated you will be with Magic Hour. As the story unfolds, the world closes in, and Erin spirals, you get a grip on reality and boy… it’s devastating, no matter how hard Charlie attempts to make you dislike him.

Flashbacks and Reshoots

Yes, flashbacks. A technique abused by many. But in this instance, the way the flashbacks are creatively introduced and utilized are truly a chef’s kiss. The opening scene, minor spoiler alert, begins with what we will later learn is a flashback. But it does achieve a few main objectives in answering: Who are these people? What is their relationship? What are their fears? What do they want? You are immediately emotionally hooked. Not quite sure where the ride ahead will take you, but you’re along for the ride regardless.

“Those were reshoots… after getting advice. We shot from a scriptment. 45 pages of scenes, little bits of dialogue. And the movie opened with the first scene at the house in the desert. When you’re writing, you’re with those characters. And you sort of forget you’re asking a lot of the audience to know who they are in the first five minutes of the movie.”

The reshoots are also indie/guerrilla filmmaking genius. While Magic Hour is wonderfully and beautifully cinematic, the flashbacks were filmed on a cell phone, mostly by Daveed portraying his character, Charlie. The juxtaposition of the self-facing images are rather flat and isolated, but punctuate the emotional turbulence on hand.

“Mark had the idea of doing these flashbacks… I was so torn, because we have no technology in the whole movie. Once you’re in the desert, there’s no cell phones, there’s no computers… she’s just alone. It was a surprising gift to me. I was pleasantly surprised at how it worked and how it really did give you a separation of what their life was like before in a window.”

Catch the Greenwich Entertainment release only in Theaters on May 15, 2026.

The post INDIE SPOTLIGHT: Finding Grounding in Creative Freedom with ‘Magic Hour’ Filmmaker and Co-Star Katie Aselton appeared first on Script Magazine.

There is something deeply unsettling about the idea of being loved for the wrong reasons. Not admired. Not understood. Not connected with. But wanted so intensely that the other person stops seeing you as a human being and starts seeing you as an answer to their own loneliness. That is the terrifying emotional core sitting underneath Curry Barker’s Obsession, a horror film that weaponizes romantic fantasy and slowly mutates it into something ugly, cruel, and emotionally suffocating.

I have been following Curry Barker’s work for a while now, so I went into Obsession with pretty high expectations. Thankfully, he really delivers here. What immediately stands out is the confidence of the filmmaking. Barker knows exactly what kind of tone he wants to create, and more impressively, he understands how fragile that balancing act actually is. This is a film constantly shifting between comedy, discomfort, psychological horror, and outright brutality, often within the same scene. Yet somehow it never completely loses control of itself.

The premise itself sounds deceptively simple. A hopeless romantic named Bear makes a wish using the mysterious “One Wish Willow” in hopes of finally winning over his longtime crush Nikki. What follows is not a fantasy fulfillment story, but a spiraling nightmare about coercion, emotional cowardice, and the horrifying consequences of forcing intimacy into existence.

The genius of the film lies in the fact that it understands the wish itself is not the real horror. The horror is the mindset behind it.

Bear does not make the wish because there was absolutely no possibility of connection between him and Nikki. In fact, the film quietly suggests the opposite. Their friendship already contains warmth, affection, humor, and genuine closeness. What Bear truly wants is not love. He wants certainty. He wants to bypass the vulnerability, awkwardness, and emotional risk that real connection demands. The wish becomes a shortcut around humanity itself.

That is where Obsession becomes far more psychologically rich than many recent horror films operating in similar spaces.

Michael Johnston plays Bear with an anxiety ridden fragility that works beautifully for the film. He captures the character’s quiet internalized cowardice so well that there are moments where you genuinely feel sympathy for him even while recognizing the damage he is causing. Barker smartly keeps us trapped inside Bear’s perspective for most of the runtime, which creates an uncomfortable emotional tension throughout the film. We are watching someone slowly realize the consequences of his actions while also continuing to exploit them.

But make no mistake, this is Inde Navarrette’s movie.

She is absolutely extraordinary here. Truly one of the standout horror performances of the decade so far. Nikki begins as someone grounded, warm, and recognizable, but after the wish takes effect, Navarrette transforms the character into something deeply uncanny and emotionally devastating. The way she moves, the way she pauses mid sentence, the way her body seems slightly disconnected from itself, it all creates this constant feeling that something is profoundly wrong beneath the surface.

There is one particular physical effect involving Nikki that becomes increasingly disturbing the longer the film goes on. Barker uses it sparingly enough that it never loses impact, and Navarrette commits to it completely. It is not flashy horror filmmaking. It is controlled, patient, deeply uncomfortable horror filmmaking.

That patience is probably what impressed me most about Obsession overall.

So much modern horror relies on loud jump scares, random visual interruptions, or endless fake outs to manufacture tension. Barker instead roots almost every scene in fundamentals. Tight editing. Carefully controlled lighting. Patient blocking. Sound design that slowly crawls underneath your skin. There were multiple scenes where absolutely nothing outwardly horrifying was happening, yet the theater felt completely frozen because of how the scene was framed and paced.

And the sound design deserves serious praise. Horror lives and dies through sound, and Obsession uses it masterfully. Certain moments hit with such sharp immersive force that you physically feel your body tense before your brain even fully processes what is happening. It constantly keeps the audience uneasy without overplaying its hand.

At the same time, Barker understands that horror and comedy often work best when they are sitting uncomfortably beside each other. Obsession swings wildly between absurd sight gags, awkward humor, disturbing violence, and genuinely emotional character moments. Sometimes the tonal pivots are intentionally jarring. Not every transition lands perfectly, especially in the third act where the comedy occasionally arrives too quickly after especially heavy scenes, but even then, the unpredictability becomes part of the experience.

There is also something refreshingly mean about the film.

Not cynical. Not edgy for the sake of it. Mean in the sense that it refuses to comfort its protagonist. Obsession understands the manipulative entitlement hiding underneath the so called “nice guy” fantasy, and it drags that fantasy into the ugliest corners imaginable. Barker takes the familiar romantic comedy structure and slowly exposes the ugliness buried beneath its wish fulfillment mechanics.

What if the dream girl stopped feeling like a person and became emotionally trapped inside someone else’s fantasy?

That question hangs over every frame of this film.

What makes it even more effective is that Barker never turns the film into a lecture. The themes around consent, coercion, agency, and emotional manipulation are all present, but they emerge naturally through character and atmosphere rather than through overt messaging. The film trusts the audience enough to sit with the discomfort.

And honestly, some of the scariest moments in the film are not the gore sequences, even though the practical effects here get impressively gnarly at times. The truly terrifying moments are the quieter ones where Nikki’s sense of self begins slipping away. Those scenes carry a sadness to them that lingers long after the shock fades.

There is one emotional truth at the center of Obsession that genuinely stuck with me after the credits rolled. Sometimes meaningful friendship already is a profound form of love. And sometimes the inability to recognize that can destroy the very thing you were trying to hold onto in the first place.

That emotional maturity is what elevates the film beyond being just another clever horror premise.

Not everything works perfectly. The mythology surrounding the wish occasionally becomes a little too explained toward the end, and some viewers may absolutely struggle with how the film frames certain moments from Bear’s perspective. I also think the film is strongest whenever it leans directly into Nikki’s experience, and there were moments where I wished Barker pushed even further into that territory.

Still, those issues never derailed the experience for me.

Because what Obsession does exceptionally well is make you feel trapped inside its emotional nightmare. It is thrilling, uncomfortable, funny, upsetting, and deeply human all at once. It feels like a haunted house attraction designed around modern loneliness and emotional insecurity.

Curry Barker announces himself here as a filmmaker with a genuinely exciting voice in horror. And alongside him, Inde Navarrette delivers the kind of performance that should immediately put the entire industry on notice.

I walked into Obsession expecting a smart little horror film with a fun premise.

I walked out feeling emotionally wrecked, deeply unsettled, and honestly a little haunted by it.

That is horror doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

Catch Obsession only in Theaters on May 15, 2026.

The post ‘Obsession’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

The good news is, once you ask yourself a bunch of questions, the answer may hopefully become a little clearer.

If we step back a moment, it’s important to think about the goal of your writing. Why do you want to write this idea? What is it you love about writing? Why is this idea speaking to you, when all the other ideas, like the one about the cow who learns to fly a plane, ‘Cow Air’, didn’t get past the cool title stage? Seriously, why this one?

Then there are the questions you can ask about your own strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and how they may apply to this idea. What aspect of writing do you love best, and hate the most? Not only will this stuff help you decide what to do, but it might actually help you decide whether your idea is worth pursuing at all. Undertaking a script or a novel is a big deal…so the more time you spend now, taking your idea, and you’re writing seriously, the less time you will spend on the bad days…and there will be bad days…wondering why you bothered to do any of this, when you could’ve been knitting.

In many ways this is all about your relationship with being ‘present’. Writing takes up a lot of time, imagination, and brain power. Whatever the format. So, take a minute now, and try to focus on the type of writing you actually enjoy, because your days/spare time will be dominated by this idea…and you never want to wish that time away.

There are differences between scripts and novels…obviously. For novels, the big two for me are world building, and internal character motivations. And language use…OK that’s three. If you love the first two, and embrace the idea of a story being not just about what happens, but about how it’s told, think about a novel. With screenplays, there are way more rules, guide rails, restrictions, and forced collaborations. If all of that sounds awesome, and you also like writing dialogue…and a novel seems scary long…a screenplay might be for you.

This decision doesn’t have to be agonizing, but in today’s entertainment climate, it’s definitely worth pondering. Whatever you choose, make sure one thing is absolutely true…you are exploring this idea because it’s something that excites you, not because it’s in a genre you think will sell. Give that fantasy up right now. All you need is the thought that spending days, weeks, months or even years bringing this idea to life fills you with maybe a little mild fear, but definitely a solid sense of joy. Otherwise, I hear knitting is quite satisfying.

Join Tim in his webinar on Thursday, May 14 where he will go into all of this in much more detail, offer more tips and suggestions to help you choose, and even give you a chance to pitch your idea to get some advice on where it might fit best!

The post Is My Idea Better Suited to a Novel or a Screenplay, and How Do I Decide? appeared first on Script Magazine.

Writers have ideas all the time. Hopefully. Some of them we actually want to pursue, and commit to putting in hours and hours and hours of work to bring to life. But before we do all that, how do we figure out if the idea in our head would work better as a screenplay or a novel? Why does that even matter in today’s world of books and films becoming almost interchangeable?

It turns out it matters a lot. Not having that internal conversation with yourself, or an external conversation with friends or industry people could mean you are about to waste a lot of valuable time creating something that doesn’t quite fit where you hope it will.

Tim Schildberger is a screenwriter, script coach and screenplay competition founder who has read many scripts he wishes were novels. This webinar will give Tim the chance to explain why thinking about your idea in these terms is important, how you go about figuring out the answer to this question, and tips for bringing your potentially amazing idea to life. Along the way, this webinar will help you understand your own writing passions, interests and skills in more specific detail which will enable you to truly maximize your strengths. At the end of the day, it’s not about writing the ‘best’ screenplay or novel, it’s about writing a project that showcases the best of your unique writing abilities. 

This live webinar will be interactive, with plenty of time for questions and answers.

May 14, 2026
4:00 – 5:30 PM ET

The post Screenplay or Novel? Understanding Your Idea’s Potential appeared first on Script Magazine.

You can also read a transcript of this episode.

Links mentioned in the show:

• Ashley Scott Meyers on IMDb
• Lynda Flynn Trailer
• Lynda Flynn on IMDb
• Lynda Flynn website
• Enter the Six Figure Screenplay Contest Here.
• Read the Lynda Flynn Screenplay.
• Here is the Lynda Flynn budget.
• The SYS script analysis service
• Our free guide, “How to Sell Your Screenplay in 5 Weeks!”

The post SELLING YOUR SCREENPLAY: Ep. 544 – How To Make a Micro-Budget Feature Film with Ashley Scott Meyers appeared first on Script Magazine.

There is a particular kind of joy that only certain films can deliver. It is loud, unapologetic, a little ridiculous, and completely sincere in its intent to entertain. Mortal Kombat II taps into that energy with surprising confidence, arriving not as a reinvention of the franchise, but as a course correction that feels both necessary and, more importantly, earned.

Going in, I will admit, my expectations were measured. The first film had its moments, flashes of what could have been, but it never quite found its footing. This time, though, something clicks. Not perfectly, not flawlessly, but enough to make a noticeable difference. This is actually enjoyable and entertaining, at least for me as a fan of the games. It fixes a lot of mistakes from the first film, especially when it comes to the fight scenes. They may still not reach the heights one might hope for, but they are staged with more clarity, more intent, and a stronger sense of rhythm.

And perhaps most importantly, this time, it is finally about Mortal Kombat itself. The tournament is here. The stakes feel real. There is a sense of impending doom that hangs over the narrative, giving the action a purpose that was missing before. You are no longer just watching characters move from one set piece to another. You are watching them fight for something that matters within the world of the film.

Director Simon McQuoid leans into this with a clear understanding of tone. There is no hesitation in embracing the inherent camp of the material. This is not a film interested in grounding itself in realism. It knows exactly what it is, and that self-awareness becomes one of its greatest strengths. It throws itself into the spectacle, into the absurdity, into the sheer physicality of combat, and invites the audience to come along for the ride.

A large part of that success comes from the writing. Jeremy Slater steps in and brings a sharper focus to the narrative. The structure is still loose, and there are moments where it feels like the film is sprinting rather than building, but there is a clarity of purpose that was previously absent. This sequel fixes pretty much everything that was missing with the first part, particularly in how it prioritizes action, pacing, and fan service without overcomplicating the mythology.

And yes, this is very much a film built for fans. It is a love letter to the franchise in a way the first film only hinted at. The references, the callbacks, the moves, the energy, it is all here. At times, it almost feels like watching matches play out in real time, with the film moving from one confrontation to the next with very little wasted space in between. The pacing is relentless, and while that occasionally comes at the cost of deeper character exploration, it works in favor of the overall experience.

The fights themselves are the undeniable centerpiece. The choreography is more visible, the camera work less chaotic, allowing the audience to actually appreciate the movement and impact. There are some genuinely standout sequences here that deliver exactly the kind of visceral thrill you hope for. It is violent, it is excessive, and it is completely in line with what this franchise has always represented.

Of course, not everything lands perfectly. The story remains thin, functioning more as connective tissue than a fully developed narrative. You do feel, at times, that the film is more interested in getting to the next fight than in letting moments breathe. The structure can feel uneven, with emotional beats that do not always land as strongly as they could. But strangely, that does not entirely detract from the experience. If anything, it reinforces what the film is trying to be.

The character roster is expanded significantly this time around, which is both a strength and a limitation. On one hand, it is exciting to see more familiar faces enter the arena. On the other, not all of them get the space to truly shine. Some are reduced to brief appearances, flashes of potential that leave you wanting more. But again, within the context of a film that prioritizes momentum, it feels like a compromise the filmmakers are willing to make.

One of the most enjoyable additions comes in the form of Karl Urban as Johnny Cage. He brings a level of charisma and energy that immediately elevates every scene he is in. There is a playful arrogance to his performance that fits the tone perfectly, and he becomes a key anchor for the film’s humor. Some of the best moments come from his interactions, delivering one-liners that walk the line between cheesy and genuinely funny.

The film also benefits from a stronger sense of stakes. This is something the first installment struggled with, but here, you feel the weight of what is at risk. There is a tension that runs beneath the surface, a constant reminder that not everyone will make it through. That unpredictability adds an edge to the proceedings, keeping you engaged even when the narrative itself is relatively straightforward.

Visually, the film makes noticeable improvements. The effects are more polished, the environments more distinct, and the overall presentation feels more confident. It may not always be visually stunning, but it is effective in creating a world that feels consistent with the heightened reality of the games. The cinematography, while still functional, shows glimpses of ambition, particularly in how it frames the fights and uses space.

What surprised me the most, though, is how much fun the film allows itself to have. It cranks the humor up just enough to keep things lively without tipping into parody. There is a sense of joy in the filmmaking, a willingness to embrace the silliness without losing sight of the core appeal. It is unapologetically cheesy at times, but that is part of the charm.

And that is really what defines Mortal Kombat II. It is not trying to be a groundbreaking piece of cinema. It is not aiming to redefine the genre. What it does instead is understand the assignment. It knows what fans are coming in for, and it delivers that with conviction. It embraces the brutality, the spectacle, the characters, and the mythology in a way that feels far more authentic to the source material.

This is huge fun and much better than the first part. It is not a flawless victory by any means, but it is a decisive step in the right direction. There is a confidence here that suggests the filmmakers have finally found their footing, and that alone makes it worth watching.

In many ways, this feels like a blueprint for how adaptations of this kind should operate. Keep it simple. Focus on what works. Respect the audience. And above all, do not forget to entertain.

By the time the film reaches its final stretch, there is a sense of satisfaction that lingers. Not because everything has been perfectly executed, but because it has delivered on its promise. It has given fans the tournament, the fights, the characters, and the moments they came for.

And sometimes, that is more than enough.

Mortal Kombat II hits Theaters and IMAX on May 8, 2026.

The post ‘Mortal Kombat II’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

There are films you walk into with a certain expectation, and then there are films that quietly sneak up on you, wrap themselves around your heart, and refuse to let go. The Sheep Detectives is very much the latter. On paper, it sounds like a gentle family diversion, the kind you might put on for younger audiences on a lazy weekend afternoon. A shepherd, his flock, a mystery, and a bit of light chaos. That is the pitch. What the film actually delivers is something far richer, far stranger, and honestly, far more affecting than it has any right to be.

I have not laughed like that in a cinema for a while. And I certainly did not expect to be sitting there, a grown adult, getting emotional over a group of animated sheep trying to make sense of the world around them. Yet here we are. Tears were shed. And I am not even pretending otherwise.

Directed by Kyle Balda and written by Craig Mazin, the writing wizard behind shows like The Last of Us and Chernobyl, the film takes a deceptively simple premise and expands it into something that feels both intimate and surprisingly expansive. A whodunnit for families is already a fun hook, but The Sheep Detectives goes further, blending the pastoral warmth of Babe with the puzzle driven pleasures of Knives Out. It is a combination that should not work on paper, and yet it does, largely because the film never underestimates its audience.

At its core, the story follows a flock that begins to question everything they thought they knew. Their world, once simple and contained, suddenly becomes layered with uncertainty. The mystery itself is engaging enough, structured with familiar beats that guide the narrative forward without overwhelming younger viewers. But what makes the film stand out is not the mechanics of the mystery. It is the emotional undercurrent running through it.

There is grief here. There is loss. There is confusion. And perhaps most importantly, there is an honest attempt to grapple with these ideas in a way that feels accessible without being reductive. The film trusts its audience, young and old, to sit with these emotions. It does not rush to provide easy answers. Instead, it allows its characters, and by extension us, to simply feel.

I went in expecting something silly, something light. A film you bring your nephews, nieces, or younger siblings to, maybe smile at, and then move on. But wow, I was genuinely taken aback by how heartfelt, funny, and surprisingly mature this turned out to be. There is a great message here about grief and the difficult things that happen in life, and how we choose to carry them forward. It is handled with a softness that never feels forced, never preachy, just quietly present.

The humor plays a big part in that balance. It is clever without being overwhelming, playful without ever dipping into laziness. There is a rhythm to the comedy that feels organic, built out of character rather than punchlines. One moment you are laughing at a beautifully timed gag, the next you are caught off guard by a line or a look that hits somewhere deeper. It is a tricky tonal dance, but the film pulls it off with confidence.

Visually, the animation does not always aim for hyper realism, and that works in its favor. There is an expressiveness here that allows the characters to truly emote, something that feels increasingly rare in an era obsessed with visual polish over emotional clarity. It is amazing how much easier it is to connect with a character when you can actually read what they are feeling. What a concept.

The voice cast brings a lot of life into this world. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a standout, bringing a sharpness and warmth that anchors many of the film’s key moments. Bryan Cranston delivers a performance that, while not always showy, carries a quiet weight. Emma Thompson adds a layer of grace and humor that fits perfectly within the film’s tone. Even brief appearances from actors like Hugh Jackman leave a lasting impression, lending emotional resonance in ways that feel surprisingly effective.

The live action elements vary in impact, but they never detract from the core of the story, which firmly belongs to the sheep themselves. Characters like Lily, Sebastian, and Mopple quickly become endearing companions, their interactions forming the emotional backbone of the film. There is something deeply comforting about the way they navigate their world, even as that world becomes increasingly complicated.

What struck me most was how the film chooses to engage with heavier ideas. It does not have to go there. It could have easily stayed within the boundaries of a simple mystery. But instead, it leans into questions about existence, about memory, about what it means to belong. There is even a thread that touches on prejudice and the fear of the unfamiliar, handled with a gentle hand that invites reflection rather than dictating it.

It gives the film a sense of weight, a feeling that there is something more at stake beneath the surface. A sincere wistfulness lingers throughout, occasionally breaking through the lighter moments, reminding us that even in a world of talking sheep, life is not always simple.

At the same time, the film never loses sight of its identity. This is still a cozy, feel good, comfort watch. A film that you can share with family, with friends, with anyone really. It has that rare quality of being able to speak across generations, offering something meaningful to each viewer without alienating any of them.

Of course, it is not without its imperfections. The mystery, while enjoyable, is not particularly complex. There are moments where you might wish it pushed a little further, took a few more risks. The animation, while expressive, occasionally lacks the consistency seen in bigger studio productions. And some thematic threads could have been explored with a bit more depth.

But these are minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things. Because what the film achieves emotionally far outweighs any technical shortcomings.

This is one of those rare family films that genuinely respects its audience. It does not talk down to children, nor does it rely on nostalgia to keep adults engaged. Instead, it finds a middle ground that feels honest and sincere. It trusts that viewers are capable of handling complexity, of sitting with difficult emotions, of finding meaning in unexpected places.

And that trust pays off.

By the time the film reaches its final stretch, there is a quiet sense of catharsis that settles in. It does not hit you over the head with its message. It simply lets it exist, allowing you to take from it what you will. For me, it was a reminder of the power of storytelling. Of how even the most unlikely narratives can carry profound truths.

What an unexpected gem this turned out to be. I went in expecting a light distraction and walked out feeling something much deeper. It is funny, it is heartfelt, it is surprisingly profound, and above all, it is full of life.

Bring everyone to see this. Honestly. All ages.

Because sometimes, the films that seem the smallest on the surface end up leaving the biggest mark.

The Sheep Detectives opens in Theaters on May 8, 2026.

The post ‘The Sheep Detectives’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

When I first came across the book Remarkably Bright Creatures, I was immediately taken aback by the world building, the characters, the atmosphere and the comedic tone that author Shelby Van Belt established. As the story unfolded, from multiple character point of views, there was a simplicity to the approach, yet there was more happening between the white space of the text on the page. It was deeply emotional and incredibly visual. And really, a great stepping stone and foundation for a film. But how would you distill all of the great character work and the specificity of time and location? Well, director and co-writer Olivia Newman found her way in.  

Olivia Newman is no stranger to helming adaptations. While this is her first as a writer, she did not shy away from digging deep into the material and what shook her emotionally – she took the job quite seriously.

In this conversation, Olivia Newman shares insight into why the characters drew her in, dialing in unique perspectives, overcoming challenges by taking creative liberties to find the structure of the story, the importance of capturing the book’s tone and humor, and the importance of building her core creative team to enhance the story’s authenticity.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Let’s talk about the adaptation process – what spoke to you when you read the book?

Olivia Newman: I think what spoke to me about the book was the journey that these two characters, Tova and Cameron, who are so seemingly different on the outside, end up having so much in common, because they’re both finding themselves in this place where they’re a bit stuck and a bit lost as to what the next chapter holds and what they’re supposed to do with their lives. And I just found it so wonderful to read about someone in their 30s and someone in their 70s going through the same thing.

And then to have an octopus observing all of this, who is so brilliant and able to look at the human species through this very particular lens as a creature who thinks very highly of themselves and smarter than humans in every way. That was so fun, the idea of being able to get inside a very specific and unusual perspective. I also, like Shelby [Van Pelt], the author, have been fascinated with octopuses since watching My Octopus Teacher, that was a big influence for her on writing from Marcellus’ point of view.

So, when I thought about, oh my god, I’d get to photograph an octopus and get inside of an octopus’s point of view, living inside of a tank both what it looks like and sounds like – that to me, was an amazing creative challenge.

Also, the small town of Sowell Bay, and all of these amazing, colorful characters that Shelby wrote just reminded me so much – I grew up in Hoboken, which, at the time that I grew up there, felt very much like a small town. Everybody knew everybody. I grew up on the block with generations of families, and everyone’s grandmother was watching us out the window when we were playing in the street. So, I had that same sort of you feel a little bit like you’re in a fishbowl, and everybody has their eyes on you. And the fact that it was set in this beautiful part of Washington State, on the Puget Sound, all of those things were really exciting to me to adapt.

Sadie: There’s so much to tackle. And I’m curious, maybe you did or didn’t have a say in this, but was there ever a discussion between which medium to make this as – film or TV?

Olivia: It came to me as a book that they were planning to make into a movie. But it did take a while to find how we were going to create a sort of engine for the story and a spine for the movie version, because the way the story unfolds in the book is very different from how we ended up sort of structuring it for the movie. So that was definitely a challenge.

I always knew where I wanted Tova to begin her journey and where I wanted her to end it, and I always knew what was going to happen to Marcellus in the course of that journey. And then it was sort of trying to figure out how to then have all of these other characters impact those journeys. That was definitely a challenge. I would say, it’s not a straightforward adaptation by any means. And it took a lot of experimentation and trying different things to kind of end up finding the structure that we landed on.

Sadie: The book definitely goes into much detail about these different characters in this particular world, which gives us a lot of insight. And while watching the movie, you’re immediately drawn to these people from those pages. All their highs and lows, baggage and all is there, without having to say much. It can be carried across with a simple exchange or even a glance. How were you able to dial all that in?

Olivia: Well, that’s the joy of filmmaking, right? Through your production design and your costume choices, and your wonderful actors carrying so much behind their eyes, you can capture in one image what it might take a page to describe. So, that is sort of the task, or the job of adaptation…The book becomes the Bible of information about the characters, about the town, and we go back to it over and over and over again, throughout the writing process, throughout the prep process, we go back to passages from the book, and we really treat it as a huge resource.

But then it’s kind of like turning prose into poetry, how do you fill all of this information, how can you get it across in the most sort of concise way and show it through action rather than description. I mean, we did have in this movie, we did have the benefit of having a narrator, so Marcellus could also share insights and sort of add color to certain things. And I was able to kind of use some of Shelby’s beautiful writing in his voiceover as well.

I think that’s sort of the task of the screenwriter is how do you distill it? And knowing the actors that you have to work with, and the creative team that you have to capture all of it is – that’s the job of all of us.

Sadie: And speaking of actors. Tova is played by the wonderfully talented Sally Field – she carries this character so well. What was that creative collaboration like?

Olivia: Sally was involved before I even came on. The producers brought the book to her, and she attached based on the book. And I think she, by the time we started shooting, she had so internalized Tova. I mean, she was dreaming as if she were Tova, as she told me… just really understood who this character was… I really put my trust into her interpretation of this character.

I also know Shelby wrote the book imagining Sally, [laughs] even though Tova is based on her own grandmother, she imagined Sally in the character. And then when I was writing the script, I could hear Sally’s voice saying the lines, which I’ve never written anything with an actor already cast. And so that was just, oh my gosh, that was such a gift.

Sally was a really close collaborator on set. We would often take the script and play with it and find new things, add her own voice when it felt natural. She was hugely collaborative in that way. She read every draft of the script and gave notes… Understanding her interpretation of the character was something that happened over a long process, both in the writing and then in prepping the movie and eventually shooting.

Sadie: There are a lot of thematic elements at play, like second chances, resilience – and all three characters connect over this. As both writer and director, what was a guiding principle to keep you and your team on the same page with tone and theme?

Olivia: For me, the thing that was really important was capturing the tone of Shelby’s book. She does such a beautiful job of walking this line of talking about things that are really emotionally resonant. She’s talking about how grief can shape us. She’s talking about loneliness and feeling disconnected, about longing for answers that we may never get.

But at the same time, the characters all have this really singular perspectives on the world that are very funny. And I really wanted the humor to come through the individual characters perspectives and point of view on the world, whether it’s Marcellus or Cameron or Ethan, like they all have really funny voices in the book.

And so, I wanted to make sure that the film, even if we strayed from the structure of the book, that it still captured that same tone where you could laugh and you could feel big feelings, but that it was a joy to be inside of that world. And so, finding the joy and the fun even when you’re sort of facing hard experiences and emotions, that was really important to me that we not lose track of that.

Sadie: And it’s handled so well. Plus, the casting across the board is spot on. I couldn’t imagine anyone else as these different characters – and without going to spoiler territory – it makes that ending that more touching. The silence, what’s unsaid, but doesn’t need to be said out loud.

Olivia: It was also important to me that we not overwrite their dialogue. Also knowing these amazing actors that we had to work with. There’s so much that you understand about what they’re going through without them having to articulate it. And so, preserving that subtext and making sure that we gave them the room to hold back until they really felt comfortable sharing that – we were conscious of allowing it to be as natural as possible.

Also, having this octopus in the movie that does narrate, there’s a risk there of it feeling hokey, or sort of taking you out of the grounded world of the movie. It was always important to me that Marcellus feel as much a real part of this world as all of the other characters, and that the one thing that pushes it a little bit into magical realism is the fact that he is narrating and that we can hear his thoughts, but I never wanted it to turn into a talking octopus movie…

And so, designing the octopus, I know this is not really related to the script, but what he says, the dialogue, the specific voice over, needed to feel again, tonally in concert with the rest of the movie. And then it was really important to me that the visual effects be as photo real as possible, which is a huge thing to ask of such a complicated creature [laughs] to design – I don’t think anybody on my VFX team will ever do an octopus ever again. [laughs] In fact, they all deserve a year’s vacation after what they just went through.

But it’s important to me that the film, even though it has this slightly otherworldly aspect to it that you really feel like you are in a real small town in Washington State with these real quirky characters that you can see in people in your life that fit those molds and that you never sort of felt like you were outside of it.

Sadie: This film does such a great job with immediately establishing that tone right off the top. What were those creative conversations like with your key department heads, like your cinematographer to your production designer, in dialing in the tone?

Olivia: My cinematographer is Ashley Connor, who shot my first movie, and she’s one of my favorite artists to work with, because she’s so committed to story. Anytime we were talking about how we were shooting anything, it always came back to the story.

And my production designer, Jen Morden, it was my first time working with her, but she totally understood from our first meeting that there were elements of slightly heightened otherworldly aspects, especially in the aquarium, which was meant to feel like a space that is really different from the rest of Tova’s world, but otherwise we are really grounded in this specific place.

And again, we would go back to the book for what would be in Tova’s house. Well, she’s from Sweden, and she came here with her parents. And so, we talked a lot about how she’s not somebody that would necessarily have lots of photographs. We thought she’d have more things that were textured and handmade, and that she’s much more of a tactile person. And so, Jen, she sourced so many amazing Swedish antiques from all over the place, and had her furniture hand painted in the same style, and was really committed to the research.

That was true across the board… everybody would go back to the book – where are these characters from? What’s their socioeconomic background? What do they wear to sleep in? What do they wear when they’re out and about? It was all with the intention of really staying true to those characters as written in the book, and giving and allowing their personalities to come out through all of those decisions.

Most of our locations were on real locations, and they are not the easiest to shoot. Tova’s house I actually saw from a scout van down a hill. And I said, ‘Stop the van!’ And I ran over and looked down, and I saw this house built out the side of a hill. And just from the outside, I said, ‘That looks like Tova’s house, that looks exactly how I imagined it in the book.’ Long story short, that house was for sale, and they didn’t want anything to do with a film crew, so we… scouted dozens of other houses, and I couldn’t get that house out of my head.

And then finally, a few weeks before we were supposed to start shooting, the woman agreed to open the doors and show us the house because it hadn’t sold yet. So, we finally got in, and lo and behold, that ended up being the house. But it was a nightmare to shoot in. There was nowhere to put lights. [laughs] And this house, literally was a log cabin that the woman’s family expanded and expanded and expanded upon. So, it had the bones of the house as described in the book, or at least, it had a kind of history like that house in the book…

Sadie: Any advice for tackling an adaptation, specifically as a writer-director?

Olivia: I can only speak to my experience – I think when you first start adapting, it can feel very tempting to be as true to the book as possible, because you’re so worried about disappointing the book fans. And I think what I’ve learned in going through this process a few times is that as long as you understand what the DNA of the book is and the sort of heart and soul of the book that readers love, you really have to tackle the movie as its own entity and think about what is going to keep an audience engaged with moving pictures for two hours.

When I do my book adaptations, I go crazy with my books. [Olivia shows her extensively annotated copy of Remarkably Bright Creatures book] Every page of it has some kind of note that I want to remember, that I can go back to and recall, but at a certain point, when I start writing the script, I don’t look at the book anymore. Maybe I go back to it to see what was that great line of dialogue that Shelby had in that scene, or find a description of the location. But I really try to stop looking at the book at a certain point and really start just dealing with the script.

And hopefully by the end, you’ve almost forgotten what is just in the script and what is in the book, and that’s happening to me now with the movie, where I forget certain things that we left out, that are in the book, and someone will remind me… but I’ve stepped away from it for so long because I kind of have to detach myself in order to tackle the script as its own thing.

Remarkably Bright Creatures premieres on Netflix May 8, 2026.

The post Very Specific and Unusual Perspectives: A Conversation with ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ Filmmaker Olivia Newman appeared first on Script Magazine.

Hoppers (2026.  Screenplay by Jesse Andrews, story by Daniel Chong and Jesse Andrews, additional story contributions by Jordan Harrison and Faith Liu. 104 minutes)

Mabel, whom we first see as a kid, is a first cousin to Lilo of the and Stitch movies.  She’s a troublemaker.  We meet her as she is trying to kidnap and free a lot of animals in a science building at a university.  It is a brilliant slapstick sequence, beautifully designed and animated by the GAPS (the Geniuses at Pixar, for those of you who are latecomers to this column).  Buster Keaton would have been proud to call it his own.  Yes, it is that good.

Mabel’s only parental unit seems to be her Grandmother, whom she loves dearly.  We do too, since she is beautifully drawn and animated (GAPS again).  We are upset when she dies, but she comes back again and again.

Here I have to admit personal interest.  One of the reasons I wanted to see the film is that Grandmother is voiced by a former student of mine at Los Angeles City College, Karen Huie.  I have seen her in plays and on television. You can see her resume here.  I think this is her first Pixar film and her Facebook accounts suggest she was having a ball.  She is perfect casting and I am glad she comes back as a ghost.

Ah yes, the story.  Mabel is visiting the pond where she and Grandma used to hang out.  She discovers the animals have gone missing.  She uses a device in the science lab that will allow her intelligence to hop into the mind of an animal. (Do not worry about the scientific improbability; think “flux capacitor,” one of those all-purpose movie devices that allows you to do whatever needs to be done for plot purposes.)

So she ends up in the form of a beaver and connects with all the other animals.  You can check IMDb here to see the all-star cast doing voices.  What she discovers is that the Mayor of her town is trying to build a bridge over the pond and had to remove the animals to get to do it.

The mayor may remind you of the bad big shots in the later Frank Capra movies, like Edward Arnold in Capra’s You Can’t Take it With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and Meet John Doe (1941).  Arnold was very fat. The Mayor here is very thin and handsome and appropriately voiced by Jon Hamm in his Mad Men range. 

The writer who led Capra to his social commentary films was Robert Riskin.  Riskin wrote It Happened One Night (1934), which is mostly a pure romantic comedy.  Two years later Riskin added social comment in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and then wrote You Can’t Take it With You. Riskin had the balance as a writer to brilliantly combine comedy and social comment.

Pixar has mostly avoided social comment, with the exception of Wall-E (2008) and its environmental message.  In Hoppers  the social commentary is much stronger, which makes the film feel different from most Pixar films. Fortunately this set of GAPS manages the combination of character comedy and social commentary as well as Riskin and Capra did.  They did it so well that after a spectacular fire and dam-busting sequence leads the Mayor to change the path of his highway, I wondered about whom he was now building it over.

Only time will tell if other sets of GAPS will continue this development in Pixar films. Given that Hoppers has made a BIG pile of money, they probably will.

A big pile of money in MOVIE THEATRES.  So there Netflix.

A Trip to the Stars…and a Great Star Performance.

Project Hail Mary (2026. Screenplay by Drew Goddard, based on the novel by Andy Weir. 156 minutes)

My late wife was a scientist and I learned early not to take her to science fiction films.  A year after our daughter was born, the three of us went to see Fantastic Voyage (1966).  That’s the one where Raquel Welch and some other people are miniaturized and put in a very small submarine.  They are injected into the body of a man with medical problems.  The submarine works its way through his body to get to the brain.  Thank goodness we were at a drive-in so the audience around us could not hear my wife saying things like, “That’s not the right color,” “That organ is not the right texture,” or “You can’t get there from there.”

Many years later, after the good reviews of The Martian (2015) which emphasized the scientific accuracy of the film, she decided she wanted to see it.  So we went and she loved it.  You can read my review of it here.

The Martian was based on a novel by Andy Weir and the screenplay was written by Drew Goddard.  So here they are again, and the results are just as good or maybe better.  The film opens with some shots of zippers.  For a minute I thought I’d wandered into a theatre showing a porno film, but thank goodness no, since I was more in the mood for outer rather than inner space. The film starts with Ryland Grace, realizing he is the only survivor of a mission into deep, deep space. He seems to have amnesia and we learn stuff as he learns stuff, smart writing.

Eventually we learn that the mission is to the one star in the universe that is not being eaten alive by a bug of some kind.  Well, it made sense to me at the time, and I am sure if my wife was still alive, you could have explained it to me. Anyway, the mission is to get the stuff that is keeping the other star alive and bring is back to earth so we can save our sun.  And now Grace, who has only been a high school science teacher (but who once wrote a thesis about this issue that nobody believed), has be a pilot and technician and everything else.

One of the things Weir and Goddard did in The Martian is give Matt Damon’s character, who is trapped on Mars, a sense of humor.  It paid off in that film, and it really pays off in this film.  The lead here is Ryan Gosling and he gives one of the greatest star performances I have ever seen. I assume a lot of that is in the script, but a lot of it is Gosling’s reactions to what is going on.  He can shift from sly to serious to silly to a lot of other things.  Justin Chang, the film critic for The New Yorker, thinks that performance is uneven, but I think that is what makes in interesting.  And boy does it hold our attention.

For a while at least.  One of the problems I had with The Martian was that it went on way too long.  That’s problem here.  Late in the picture we get a couple of flashbacks as to how Grace ended up being on the trip.  These scenes seem to be written to play earlier in the film, since they are telling us stuff we already know by two hours into the film.  I suspect they may have been intended for earlier and then edited in later to help the first part move quicker, but by the time we get them in the movie, we don’t need them.

There are also three or four or more climaxes that could have been speeded up. You don’t want your film to drag as it gets near the end.  We the audience have been sitting there for a long time, and we are ready for the movie to end.

 A Low-temperature Heat.

Crime 101 (2026. Screenplay at Bart Layton, based on the novella by Don Winslow. 140 minutes)

Heist movies used to be reasonable length.  The Asphalt Jungle (1950) was 112 minutes. The Killing (1956) was 83 minutes.  But Heat (1995) stretched it out to 170 minutes.  Michael Mann, the writer of Heat, based that script on the script he wrote for the 1989, 97 minute television movie, L.A. Takedown.  That’s what happens when writers become successful directors: their movies get longer.

Crime 101 is about a jewel thief, Davis, who feels mistreated by his boss, Money, and decides to work for himself.  Davis is being tracked by a cop, Lou, who notices the pattern of Davis’s jobs: they are all along the 101 freeway in Los Angeles.  Meanwhile, there is an insurance investigator, Sharon, who leaves her job because she is not getting promoted. 

The early scenes establishing all these characters are not as well written as they ought to be.  They are rather flat and do not give the actors (Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Halle Berry as the three characters above, respectfully) much to do.  Those scenes drag.  Once the action picks up in the second half, the dialogue and acting improve, because the characters are talking about things that matter to them, so there are subtexts (the emotions underneath the dialogue) for the actors to play.

Bart Layton, who also directs, lets the whole picture drag.  He includes a lot of long takes of overhead views of cars in LA.  The great TV show The Rookie has similar shots as scene transitions, but they are short and to the point.  If Layton and his editor had cut the car shots down, he could have gotten the film down to a flat two hours and it would have been better for it.  There is at least one great car/motorcycle chase.

On the other hand, while the actors are good solid actors, they are not the all-star cast Mann put together for Heat.

Some Spring 2026 Television.

Let’s follow Roberts Rule of Order and take care of some old or at least ongoing business first.

A few columns ago I wrote an item on 9-1-1 Nashville that you can read here. I was disappointed in the show for a couple of reasons.  The balance was off between the professional (firefighting, general life saving) and personal (Don, the head of the station, reconnects with a son he had by a girl friend and has him training to be a firefighter, much to the irritation of his current wife and their son, who also works at the station). 

As the season has progressed the writers have improved the balance.  We spend more time with the professional activities, but the personal stuff raises its ugly head just enough times to be interesting.

The second problem was that Chris O’Donnell did not have the gravitas that he needed as the head of the station.  O’Donnell had played a team player on his previous show, NCIS: Los Angeles, and he was good at it.  As Nashville has proceeded, he has gained that gravitas.

Elsbeth is in the same situation it has had from the beginning.  When they have a great guest killer, the show clicks.  When they don’t, it doesn’t.  One of the best episodes this season was “Otherwise Enraged,” with the great Beanie Feldstein as Rachel, a woman who loves planning parties and assumes people love her.  When she finds out one of her “friends” has sent messages telling their friends not to show up at one of Rachel’s parties, she kills her.  Feldstein gives a powerhouse performance that provides great chemistry between Feldstein and Carrie Preston as Elsbeth.

Matlock has been dragging a bit.  The setup at the beginning of the series is that a woman pretending to be Matty Matlock has joined a New York law firm to find incriminating evidence that somebody at the law firm had helped a pharmaceutical company release a dangerous drug that had killed Matty’s daughter.  We have been following Matty in her search for two years now and it is getting tiresome.  The April 23 two hour season finale finally brought the case to a head, but before then there was a lot of discussion, particularly between Matty and Olympia, about how they are coming to the end of the case and what they are going to do next.  It sounds what the writers were talking about in the writers’ room.  There is back and forth as to whether the two women get the people involved arrested.  They finally do and we will have to wait until next season to see what happens.

The problem now is that while we have had individual cases, we have had very few continuing storylines and characters that the show will need to have after they get the evidence.  On the other hand, we will still have Kathy Bates and the rest of the cast who are not in jail.

NCIS the mothership celebrated its 500^th episode.  Yeah, hurrah, etc.!  And they celebrated by… killing off one of its most important secondary characters, Director Leon Vance, played beautifully for 396 episodes by Rocky Carroll.  Fans have been furious.  According to at least one account, so has Carroll.  But Carroll has directed at least one episode after Vance’s death.  Maybe the NCIS investigators should find out what that is all about.

OK, now for some newbies.

Marshals is the 1,435th spinoff from Yellowstone.  It is not created or written by Taylor Sheridan, but based on characters created by him for Yellowstone.  The creator for Marshals is Spencer Hudnut, whose previous credits include being both writer and producer of the series Seal Team (2017-2024). So you can see how he got the job on Marshals; Kayce Dutton was already established as an ex-Navy Seal in Yellowstone.

Kayce is the youngest son of John Dutton.  He was married to a Native American woman, Monica, but for some reason the writers have had die before Marshals starts.  She was played by Kelsey Asbille and I am going to miss Monica, since she gave a little warmth to Kayce, who always seemed to be moping around as the youngest Dutton son.

In Marshals Kayce is talked into joining the local federal marshals unit run by his ex-Navy Seal friend, Pete.  They chase bad guys.  There is a lot of gorgeous scenery, and it is nice to see chases with guys on horses instead of cars in Los Angeles.  

The supporting cast as members of the marshals team is good, but the problem is Luke Grimes as Kayce.   Like Chris O’Donnell in the early episodes of 9-1-1 Nashville, he is still in a supporting actor mode.  The writers need to give him something more to do that just sulk.

CIA is a new CBS mystery with a whole pile of creators, never a good sign.  The ones you will be familiar with are Dick Wolf, the God of the Law & Order kingdom, and Warren Leight, a veteran of the Law & Order world, particularly Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

You can see the L&O influence.  The team of a CIA agent and an FBI agent are constantly chasing crooks, spies, terrorists and whatever around very New York City locations.  The problem is that the show is not very smart about how both the CIA and the FBI work.  Yes, the FBI folks chase crooks, but the CIA folks are mostly investigating, looking at documents and other evidence.  I will grant you that since 9-11 the two organizations, which for decades hated each other, now work together more than they used to. (Brief history lesson: when the CIA was being formed in the late forties, J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, wanted to be the head of it too.  The government knew that was giving too much power to one rather ruthless person.  Hoover never forgave the slight.)

The other problem with CIA is that there is very little chemistry between the two leads. Tom Ellis, who plays the CIA agent Glass, is a compelling presence.  Nick Gehlfuss, playing the FBI guy Goodman, is not very expressive.  They do not make a watchable team.

Rooster is a new HBO comedy. It stars Steve Carell and was created by Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso) and Matt Tarses (wrote for and was co-executive producer on the original [2001-2004] Scrubs).  So these guys are not amateurs.

But the show simply never quite works.

Carell is an author of mystery novels who is not completely over his divorce.  His adult daughter, a teacher at a college, has learned that not only has her husband been unfaithful, he has gotten his girlfriend pregnant.  (I think it is more than about time to drop storylines about professor sleeping with their students.  It does not happen as often as television and the movies think it does.  Most of us professors are smart enough not to get involved in that sort of thing.)

Carell’s Greg comes to the college to support his daughter Katie. He ends up teaching a course.

Most of the attempts at humor you have seen before in a lot of college movies.  There is nothing fresh here, and most of the humor simply falls flat.

RJ Decker, new on ABC and Hulu, is a private eye series, very much influenced by The Rockford Files (1974-1980).  Like Rockford, Decker is an ex-con who is now a private eye and lives in a trailer.  Decker’s is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, rather than on the beach at Malibu, California.

Decker is created by Robert Doherty, and is listed as “inspired by the novel Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen.”  Thank goodness we get a lot of Hiassen’s sense of humor, beautifully delivered by Scott Speedman, late of Felicity (1998-2002).  Very late, since he is no longer the pretty boy he was then, but a rugged, unshaven guy in Hawaiian shirts, and funny.  The supporting cast is good from the get-go.  See for yourself.

The post UNDERSTANDING SCREENWRITING: Two Dandy Movies (‘Hoppers,’ ‘Project Hail Mary’), A Not-So-Dandy Movie (‘Crime 101’), And Some Dandy and Not So Dandy Television appeared first on Script Magazine.

I had the opportunity to see an early screening of Mortal Kombat II, and what struck me most was not just the scale of the action, but how much the film cares about the people inside it. Karl Urban is an absolute blast as Johnny Cage, electric and funny and genuinely moving when the film asks him to be. The tournament delivers. The fatalities deliver. And underneath all of it, there is a story that earns its emotional beats rather than just gesturing toward them.

I spoke with Jeremy about the long road in, the craft of large-scale IP, and what it feels like to hear that the film you gave everything to actually landed.

This interview has been edited for flow and brevity.

Rahul Menon: You have built an unusually wide creative portfolio across major IP: Moon Knight, The Umbrella Academy, The Exorcist, Godzilla x Kong, and now Mortal Kombat II. But before any of that, there was a version of Jeremy Slater writing his way in. Where did it start, and what was the project or moment that made you feel like large-scale, mythology-driven storytelling was the space you wanted to live in?

Jeremy Slater: I was a teenager in the late-90s, which was probably the golden age for big, fun summer blockbusters. Movies like Jurassic Park, Speed and The Matrix absolutely changed the course of my life and made me dream that maybe someday I could give other people as much joy as these incredible filmmakers were giving me.

Breaking into the industry is already hard enough; breaking in writing big summer blockbusters is damn near impossible. I found my agent and manager thanks to some low-budget horror specs, which got my foot in the door but also meant every project coming my way was a nasty little Saw rip-off. The only way to break out of that box was to show people I had more to offer. So I passed on everything sent my way and wrote a spec called Man of Tomorrow, basically The Untouchables with superpowers set in 1940s Chicago. It never got made, but it impressed enough people that new offers started coming my way.

Rahul Menon: You have described the creative freedom of Moon Knight coming specifically from the fact that almost nobody knew who he was. As a writer, how do you approach that blank-canvas freedom differently from working with IP that carries enormous fan expectation?

Jeremy Slater: Your job as a writer is to always be anticipating the audience’s reaction and calibrating your work to find new ways to surprise or satisfy them. In every single scene you should be asking yourself: what does the audience think is going to happen next? What do they want to happen next? That doesn’t mean you automatically give them whatever they want, because that leads to stories that feel pandering or obvious. You have to give them what they ultimately want, but in a way they’re not expecting.

So even if you’re dealing with a relatively unknown character like Moon Knight, your audience still has expectations for what they want in a Marvel project: likable characters, a certain amount of humor, spectacular action sequences. It’s your job to deliver on those expectations.

Rahul Menon: Moon Knight required you to build a writers’ room around a character with Dissociative Identity Disorder, asking Oscar Isaac to carry the weight of multiple fully realized people simultaneously. How do you write a character like Marc or Steven on the page in a way that is specific enough for an actor to inhabit, but open enough that someone like Isaac can find what only he can bring?

Jeremy Slater: It starts by making sure both Marc and Steven felt like two separate but weirdly complementary characters on the page. Give each aspect his own unique voice and personality, and a talented actor will take that work and run with it. Oscar was certainly up to the challenge, and even ramped up those differences in crucial ways. The decision to give Steven a British accent was all his idea.

Ultimately, you want to give actors enough material to understand their character and ground their motivations, but not so much that they feel creatively stifled.

What comes through across these early answers is a philosophy rooted in calibration: reading what the audience needs, reading what the actor needs, and threading the needle between fidelity and surprise. It is the discipline that makes Moon Knight work as well as it does. Slater delivers on expectations and then quietly subverts them.

Rahul Menon: The Umbrella Academy, Moon Knight, Mortal Kombat II: each has a different kind of fandom with different expectations of fidelity. How do you calibrate the relationship between faithfulness and invention, and where do you draw the line between honoring a source and serving the story you need to tell?

Jeremy Slater: Fans are probably split on what they want from an adaptation. Some just want you to translate comic panels or video game cutscenes word-for-word and get angry any time you deviate. Personally, I find that approach a little boring. If I’ve already experienced an incredible story in one medium, it’s never going to have the same emotional impact watching the same story play out the same way.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want fidelity and respect for the source material, because nothing is more frustrating than an adaptation that misses the point or butchers characters you love. But I want an adaptation to surprise me, to give me the same sense of discovery and excitement I felt when I first fell in love with the story.

Rahul Menon: Godzilla x Kong was engineered to feel like a beat-em-up video game, and Mortal Kombat II is your first actual video game adaptation. As a self-described hardcore Mortal Kombat fan, how does personal fandom help you as a writer, and when does it get in the way?

Jeremy Slater: I’ve learned the hard way to steer clear of adaptations unless I’m a genuine fan of the source material. It’s easy to say ‘yes’ when a big paycheck is dangled in front of you, but the movie won’t get made if you don’t do a good job with the script, and you won’t do a good job if you don’t genuinely love what you’re writing. I’ve passed on some major projects because I knew other writers were bigger fans and would do a better job bringing them to life.

Personal fandom isn’t a detriment when you’re taking these jobs. I’d say it’s almost a requirement. Passion for what you’re writing is something that can’t be faked, and it’s usually the difference between a good adaptation and a bad one.

Rahul Menon: You have worked across features, television, limited series, and now a theatrical IMAX sequel. How has moving between formats changed the way you think about building a scene, and is there a format that feels most natural to how you actually write?

Jeremy Slater: Without a doubt, I’m happiest writing for the big screen. My imagination tends to run on the expensive side. When you’re working in television or a low-budget feature, you’re constantly fighting the budget. Instead of asking what can we do in this moment to blow the audience’s mind, you start asking what can we afford, or are there locations we could re-use to cut down on our days.

But when you get the chance to write something like Mortal Kombat II, the sky is the limit. That creative freedom lets you take off your responsible producer’s hat and just let your imagination run wild.

Having now seen the film, that freedom is visible on screen. Mortal Kombat II is the work of someone who was not rationing himself. The action sequences have an inventiveness that only comes from a writer who knew the tools were there and used every single one of them.

Rahul Menon: Mortal Kombat II inherits two specific obligations from the 2021 film: the promise of a tournament and the arrival of Johnny Cage. How do you approach writing a sequel where the opening moves were already dealt before you sat down, and how do you make inherited promises feel genuinely yours?

Jeremy Slater: It’s kind of a blessing, because it gave us very clear marching orders. We didn’t have to waste time on the basic premise, because we knew fans would revolt if we didn’t deliver on those two promises. And luckily, those were two things I really wanted to see as a Mortal Kombat fan, so it dovetailed nicely with my natural instincts.

Rahul Menon: You have talked about the challenge of tournament structures in film, specifically the risk of characters sitting around killing time between fights. How did you solve for that in the script?

Jeremy Slater: I have to tread lightly because of spoilers, and because the studio still hasn’t revealed certain elements of the plot. But when I was originally brought in as part of a writers roundtable, that was something I was adamant about. If the entire movie is just characters standing around waiting for the next fight, the audience is going to get restless. So we worked hard to devise a B-plot running throughout the film, so our heroes had specific goals and objectives to fulfill beyond just staying alive in the next match. I’ll go into more detail once the movie comes out!

Rahul Menon: Mortal Kombat II has a cast of roughly twenty characters. How do you decide which characters need to be in the story versus which ones deserve to be in it?

Jeremy Slater: The first question for any project is always: what is our emotional attachment here? Who do we care about, and why?

We had two killer new characters in Johnny Cage and Kitana, and fans had big expectations for both. That meant making sure they had full character arcs, that they legitimately changed over the course of the film. Johnny is such a funny character that it’s always easy to stick him in the background making fun of whatever is happening, but I wanted you to actually be rooting for him. That required real screen time to land those arcs in satisfying ways.

Which naturally meant less screen time for some of the other heroes. We took a hard look at which characters felt like their arcs had concluded, or had gotten enough attention that fans would be fine giving someone else a turn. But even for those getting less to do, we made sure everyone had their own individual hero moment. Everyone is someone’s favorite character!

Rahul Menon: The fatalities are one of the great dramatic and tonal challenges of this franchise. How do you write a fatality on the page, and how much of what ends up on screen was yours versus something the stunt team built out?

Jeremy Slater: All of our fatalities are pretty faithful to what was on the page. Coming from the horror space, it’s not hard for me to dream up outlandish ways to kill characters. But we also had one of the best stunt and fight teams on the planet, and they added so many cool beats and ideas to every fight.

One of the scariest things about writing an action movie is that you ultimately have to put your trust in your partners. You would never write out every single beat of an action scene since you’d end up with unreadable gibberish. All you can do is lay out the general shape of the sequence and flag: here are the important moments, here are the gags that matter, here are the beats where the tempo changes. All the other details will be out of your hands. All you can do is give them the tools they’ll need on set. And if you’re lucky, the director and crew come back with something even cooler than you imagined. On this movie, I was very, very lucky.

Rahul Menon: You have been in those test screenings watching Mortal Kombat fans react the way you once reacted to Avengers: Endgame. Having now seen the film myself, I can say it genuinely delivers: bigger, bolder, and yet somehow still emotionally grounded. Karl Urban is an absolute blast as Johnny Cage, electric in every single scene. What does it mean to finally hear that the balance landed?

Jeremy Slater: You’re actually the first person I’ve spoken with who has seen the movie, so I’m absolutely thrilled to hear that!

I’ll be honest: I have complicated feelings about a lot of the projects on my resume. Any time you’re writing above a certain budget, it’s almost a guarantee you’ll be replaced and rewritten somewhere along the line. That’s just the price of playing in these particular sandboxes. Some previous projects turned out great but I wish I had been more creatively involved. Others took scripts I loved and turned them into something I barely recognize. But it’s incredibly rare to have the experience I had on Mortal Kombat II, where I was the only writer from start to finish.

Sitting in that test screening and watching a theater full of diehard fans cheer and laugh and lose their minds at all the right moments, it was genuinely one of the best nights of my entire life. It felt like all the decades of hard work and setbacks and disappointments had finally paid off. I’m so proud to have helped bring this movie to life, and I really hope some of that pride and passion comes through on the screen.

Rahul Menon: Looking across everything you have built, from finding your way in to creating Moon Knight to now delivering a sequel fans have been waiting years for, what is the thing about this craft that still genuinely surprises you? And for writers still in the middle of their own long climb, what do you want them to understand about what this career actually looks like from the inside?

Jeremy Slater: Both questions probably have the same answer: if you want to work consistently, managing relationships is just as important as having talent.

It took me more than a decade to sell my first script. Ten years of cheap ramen noodles and missed car payments and people telling me to give up on this stupid dream. You need a healthy ego to survive in this business, but that same ego can get you in trouble. I’ve seen young writers flame out because they received bad feedback or disagreed with notes. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of feeling like the misunderstood genius. I did it plenty of times, and I still regret the bridges I burned.

It’s not your job to make a great movie; leave that to the director. Your job is to give everyone else the tools they need to make a great movie. That sometimes means swallowing your pride. You may not agree with all of your bosses’ notes, but it’s your job to hear them, understand them, and sometimes figure out the real note behind the note. Don’t be the guy they have to fight every step of the way. Be the person who solves their problems and makes everyone’s lives a little easier. And you’ll never stop working.

There is a line near the end of this conversation that stayed with me. It is not your job to make a great movie. Your job is to give everyone else the tools they need to make a great movie. Coming from a writer who has spent two decades navigating one of the more unforgiving industries on earth, that is not resignation. It is hard-won clarity.

What Jeremy Slater’s career illustrates is that the path into large-scale storytelling rarely runs straight. It runs through unsold specs and projects that came back unrecognizable and a decade of people telling you to quit. And then, if you are patient and disciplined and honest about what you love, it runs through a test screening where a theater full of people cheer at something you built from scratch.

Mortal Kombat II is that film for Jeremy Slater. Not just a sequel, but a proof of concept. Passion, as he says, is the difference between a good adaptation and a bad one. The long game, it turns out, is still the only game worth playing.

Mortal Kombat II hits Theaters and IMAX on May 8, 2026.

The post The Long Game: A Conversation with ‘Mortal Kombat II’ Writer Jeremy Slater appeared first on Script Magazine.