I urge them to be fearless in digging deep to understand the root of their insecurities and how that self-awareness will (ideally) inspire the stories, themes and characters they write.

I share with them how I was incessantly bullied and teased at a young age about my big ears and large lump on the back of my head (a form of birthmark that was surgically removed when I was in second grade). As a result, I became self-conscious, shy and insecure, leading to my affinity for underdog stories with themes involving inner-strength and self-acceptance.

To backtrack a moment, my belief is that everyone has been bullied in some way.  It could be verbal teasing like I experienced, physical bullying, or a form of emotional bullying where parents place undue pressure and unrealistic expectations on kids when it comes to academics, sports or any other endeavors, resulting in a child who never feels good enough or smart enough – along with lifelong struggles with anxiety, depression, and more.

For screenwriters, this kind of self-awareness and vulnerability will add depth and authenticity to their work, translating into a more emotional and visceral connection for the audience. It’s the difference between sympathy and empathy, with the latter being the deeper connection that leads to a more meaningful experience for all.

Digging deep; An example

One of the students I taught last year was on the spectrum. He was high-functioning and verbally communicative, but when it came to his screenwriting he tended to write these strange fantasy/horror scripts that had no real theme or meaning. It became apparent to me that he was avoiding anything personal and was essentially escaping into these weird worlds that had no relation to his inner self.

So, at the point in the semester when the class would be writing their next short script that they would actually produce, I sat down one-on-one with this student and  had an honest and open discussion about some of the issues he faced growing up (which he was more than willing to share). The gist of what he told me is that he had always been the target of bullying (both physically and verbally), leading to severely damaged self-esteem and some very dark moments in his life.

We then discussed how the best films and stories come from a place of pain and honest vulnerability – and that’s what helps them resonate and connect with the audience. We also talked about some of his own favorite films and how the themes of those stories and the arcs of the characters are what resonate with him.

I encouraged him to write something from his own life for his next script. I suggested writing a drama with a theme that’s relatable, real and meaningful to him…something he’s experienced himself. If not the exact situation, then at least in terms of the heartfelt, honest emotions.

That led to a discussion about the difference between sympathy and empathy. Tied into that, we talked about “undeserved misfortune” and how introducing it early on in a story is a way to engage the audience by creating both sympathy and empathy for the protagonist, resulting in an even more powerful and complex connection to the character.

By the end of our discussion, he was motivated and excited to get to work. I’m pleased to say that the next script he wrote was incredibly beautiful – and authentic. And the script he wrote after that, about an autistic protagonist dealing with grief, was chosen out of all the scripts in his class to be produced as the Capstone film the following semester.

I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Authentic vs. Artificial Intelligence

At a time when AI’s role in filmmaking is expanding, what the world needs — and I believe what audiences crave — is originality and authenticity.

And that’s all the more reason for screenwriters to dig deep into their own life experiences, including the most painful ones, in order to write from the heart and connect with others. Because one thing AI – the artificial kind – will never have is empathy and the power to connect on a genuine human level.

On a final note…

As a relapsed cancer survivor, the most important thing to me now is inspiring others by my story – and in the stories I tell. Below is an essay I wrote after my relapse that I hope will touch and inspire some of you.

Thanks for reading – and best of luck writing. Most of all, please become a  mentor to aspiring writers and others. There are so many diamonds in the rough out there just waiting for a chance to turn their pain into purpose.  But they can’t do it without a champion in their life.

I have cancer. Again.

By Larry Postel 

For the second time in my adult life, I have cancer. And I appreciate the love, support and prayers I receive. I really do. But please don’t feel sorry for me. I have the best doctors, a comfortable home, and a wonderful support system of friends and family, including my beautiful wife and daughter.

So, instead, think about those who have it so much worse.

Think about those who have cancer and other serious illnesses, including so many children, who don’t have access to decent, affordable healthcare.

Think about our war veterans who suffer from severe injuries and PTSD and don’t have access to proper care.

Think about those living on the streets through no fault of their own.

Think about those — also through no fault of their own – who struggle so mightily to make ends meet for their families, even when working two or more jobs.

Think about those who have been sexually abused and are scarred for life.

Think about all the lonely people out there, including so many senior citizens, who live in isolation with no one in their lives to even take them for care when they desperately need it.

Think about those who are unemployed and see no light at the end of the tunnel due to circumstances beyond their control.

Think about those in communities in America and across the world who live in dire poverty without even having clean water to drink.

Think about those who can’t afford healthy food for themselves and their families, and, as a result, face a future of illnesses, from heart disease to diabetes.

Think about those who suffer from severe depression, addiction and mental illness who feel they have nowhere to turn.

Think about the victims of domestic abuse and violence who feel trapped and hopeless.

Think about those who live in debilitating chronic pain with no real remedy.

Think about those in war torn countries, again, including so many innocent children, with no relief or hope in sight.

And we mustn’t forget about all the wonderful dogs and cats (and other animals) that are abandoned, abused, neglected – and worse.

Sure, cancer is bad. But for those of us who are fortunate enough to have a strong support system, a comfortable place to live, healthy food to eat, and access to excellent healthcare, it could be worse.

Please be kind to everyone. Because you never know what they’re going through.

The post The Psychology of Screenwriting appeared first on Script Magazine.

However, today, we’re focusing on voice because I have some serious concerns about the future of writing.

First, what does original voice even mean? Many new writers are hyper focused on proper formatting and the story concept, but don’t often think about how that idea reads on the page.

My first lesson in the value of voice came from Jane Friedman (you can listen to my convo with Jane here). When I was a baby writer, she gave me my first big break, writing an article for Writer’s Digest on the value of Twitter. So, I immediately wrote a very thorough, professional How-To piece that was … accurate, but as engaging as an Encyclopedia entry.

After submitting, Jane graciously emailed, saying it’s a perfect “Twitter 101” piece for Mashable, but what she wanted was my voice—the “Twitter Pimp Angel Jeanne” who engages in so many fun conversations online. Yes, they called me the “Twitter Pimp Angel” back in the day … long story. Moving on.

When she said “voice,” that was the first time anyone had explained its importance.

I dove into rewrites. instead of focusing on being educational, I pretended I was writing for myself, my followers, and my blog. What would I want to know about Twitter, and what tone would engage me? What would make me actually enjoy reading a How-To article? I put aside my self-imposed restrictions, even tossing mentions of tequila shots into the piece because that was my jam on Twitter at the time. No judgment.

She loved it. It would become my first published article in a print magazine.

That’s what we mean by “voice.” How can you write a story in a way only you could?

Quentin Tarantino has a hell of a unique voice. So does Shane Black. But you can’t discover voice by watching movies. You need to actually read their scripts. (If you don’t know how to find screenplays, here’s a link for downloads.)

But they are longtime pros. You can’t expect to master voice right out of the gate. Voice takes time and lots and lots of writing. Start out by simply retyping the scripts of writers you admire. Get a feel for the rhythm of a pro. Don’t imitate them, but learn from them. Then pull up a blank page and start writing your own idea. Use Stephen King’s advice of slamming the door shut and writing with reckless abandon.

Close out the world. Write with complete freedom. That’s how you let your voice loose. Welcome her on the page. Give her permission to sound absolutely bat-shit crazy and daring.

That’s what readers want. They want to be pulled into a story and almost imprisoned by it, unable to look away. Needing to keep reading. Aching to find out what happens next because you have magically kept them engaged.

And this brings me to my fear for the future writing world. Yep, I’m going there … A.I.

I get that people are in love with it. In some areas of our lives, it’s convenient—you have your own personal assistant or research tool. But for me? Nope. I tested it. And … it lies.

I write historical fiction, so getting the historical part correct is important to readers. It’s important to me. When I fed primary documents into Claude and asked questions about these real-life people’s relationships, it went into detail about a specific mother and daughter. Going on about how the mother supported her daughter during her painful divorce.

Fine. Except … her mother had died many years before.

Imagine if I had not done previous research and already knew this detail. Yikes.

But facts are not voice. Guess what? A.I. has its own voice … and readers can spot it. There are certain patterns in its prose that once you see, you can’t unsee. For example, it loves to group things in threes. In scripts, it consistently lists a single short sentence in a paragraph … sometimes a single word in a paragraph … ten straight paragraphs of one or two words. That is not a script, and that is not a unique voice. That’s an A.I. tell. And don’t get me started on how it’s ruined emdashes for those of us who love them.

The use of an emdash is indeed part of a writer’s voice, in my opinion. I will die on that hill.

If you use A.I. to help you brainstorm, that’s a different topic. I can see the temptation, but please remember A.I. can only spew out things that have already been done. Yes, yes, I know I suggested to retype your favorite scripts to understand voice, but retyping as an exercise and using ideas ripped from other writers by a machine are two very different things.

So, if you are trying to come up with an original idea, you’re going to have to rely on your own brain. There are no shortcuts to art. Isn’t that why we love to write? To make things up? To create new worlds and characters we love to hate … or hate to love?

When our fingers glide across the keys, our minds float with words, and they magically pour out in a way only we can arrange them. It’s a euphoric high impossible to describe to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. Why give that magic feeling away?

Don’t be lazy. Don’t give that joy of being a writer over to a machine.

And if you think executives and contests aren’t seeing an influx of A.I. scripts, you’re wrong. They see them. They are very aware of the patterns, and those scripts are not going to launch a writer’s career.

Please. I beg you. Reawaken your joy of the written word. Give yourself permission to actually love writing. After all, it’s called Creative Writing for a reason. A.I. doesn’t create. It regurgitates.

That’s not a voice I want to read. That’s not a voice at all.

The post Balls of Steel™: Speak Up appeared first on Script Magazine.

Few beginning screenwriters take the time to really flesh out their main storylines, let alone the side-streets and detours they should have their characters take to keep their scene progressions exciting and worth turning the page. This live webinar presents a process for creating a roadmap that reads as spontaneous, while also unfolding evolving characters’ story arcs that keep the reader engaged, and turning the page to see what happens next.

Join Jon James Miller, award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and professional story editor, will share what a successful 3-Act “road-map” looks like, and how to write a story rich with fully-realized characters that come alive through their cinematic journey. Also discussed will be how screenwriters can develop their own versatile and unique writer’s voice, combined with exciting visuals, to bring their story to life, no matter what the genre.

July 30, 2026
4:00-5:30 PM ET

The post Story Beats: What Makes the Heart of Your Script Tick? appeared first on Script Magazine.

Tuner (2025.  Written by Daniel Roher & Robert Ramsey. 147 minutes)

The film opens on two guys, Niki, who is younger, and Harry, who is older. They are talking, not like any other characters you have seen or heard in movies. Their first scenes establish that this is one of the freshest films in years.  There is virtually nothing in the opening scenes that is like anything we have seen before.  Boy, does that put us in a good mood. Well, it did for me. Sometimes you like to see familiar stuff; sometimes you want to see unfamiliar stuff.

So who are these guys?  Look at how long it takes for the film to tell us that they are not related.  By then we want to know.  Roher (a director of documentaries making his fiction film debut) & Ramsey (a writer with a long list of various credits who can see here on IMDb) follow the classic advice that you should not tell the audience something until they need to know it.

For the record we learn right away that they are piano tuners.  Harry is the old pro and Niki is his younger partner.   Harry is played by Dustin Hoffman at his energetic best.  Niki is played by Leo Woodall, whom you may remember from the Italian season of The White Lotus.  I did not remember him from that show; he makes much more of an impact here, even working with Hoffman.

They are taking a break at a diner and a beautiful girl, Ruthie, walks by and Harry pushes Leo to offer to carry Ruthie’s books.  He is shy and reluctant, but agrees.  Not one of the great meet-cutes in the history of film, but it does the job.  Ruthie is a music student who is composing for…the piano.

Ruthie is played by Havana Rose Lui.  She was fourth billed in Bottoms (2023), but as you can tell from my review of the film here, she did not make enough of an impression on me to mention her in my review.  Here she is spectacular.  The boys have written a great part for her, with enough detail that Roher lets her run with.  More like gallops.

So what we have here is a nice romance between a composer/pianist and a young piano tuner.

Guess again.  While Niki is doing a job one evening in a mansion, he hears noises. (His incredible hearing comes from a medical condition I will not go into here.)  He searches for the sound and finds…a gang of thieves trying to break into a safe.  A tense scene as the thieves learn about his hearing capabilities and get him to crack the safe.  Uri, the leader of the gang, seems like a nice guy.  He is quiet, polite, non-threatening, and makes Niki an offer he does not refuse.  The writers keep him nice for so long you think he might really be that nice.  Just when you are convinced, Uri shows his son of a bitch side.  But we learn later…

Roher’s previous films have been documentaries, which is perhaps why he realizes what great visual material both the piano tuning and the safecracking gives him.  And how they connect visually.  We have seen safecrackers at work, but we have not seen piano tuners at work, but Roher makes us see the similarities.

And what happens in the end?  I am deliberately not going to tell you to make you see the film and see how the writers (and the director) and the actors bring it off. Pay attention and you will learn a lot.

OK, to give you a little help.  Notice how important the line “Where did you get the watch?” becomes.

The Grandson of The Longest Day.

Pressure (2026.  Screenplay by David Haig & Anthony Maras, based on the stage play by David Haig. 100 minutes)

In 1962 Darryl F. Zanuck, one of the great studio heads and producers in the history of movies, made his last great film.  The Longest Day was based on the bestselling book of the same name by Cornelius Ryan.  You can read my review of the film here to get some idea of the hassles Zanuck went through to get a workable script. 

One of Zanuck’s great skills was helping writers develop scripts.  Zanuck’s emphasis in films was on telling a story.  With The Longest Day he had masses of material, which he and the writers had to cut and shape.  I have never read Ryan’s book, but Zanuck’s version of the Allies dealing the weather up to and including the landings on D-Day June 6^th, 1944, at Normandy on the coast of France, is handled in two ways. 

The first is that it is raining in England most of the first half hour of the film and everybody talks about the weather.  The second is made up of two short scenes involving British meteorologist James Stagg.  We meet Stagg in his offices.  Somebody hands him a report that says the weather may be clearing up.  Stagg looks at a tickertape, then another sheet of paper and walks out of the room.  The next time we see him he is at Southwick House, the headquarters of the Allied staff.  He is giving a report to the senior military officials, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American general in overall command of the Normandy invasion.  Stagg lays out how the weather may be improving, but conditions will be subpar.  Some of the senior officers speak.  Then Ike makes the final call: they will go on the Sixth.

Eisenhower does not have much to do in this scene.  He is played by a non-actor, Henry Grace, whose credits as a set decorator go back to the 1930s.  Zanuck had a tendency to cast people whom he thought looked like their characters.  Grace was a dead ringer for Ike, but only barely adequate as an actor.

In 2014 David Haig, a playwright and actor, wrote the stage play of Pressure.  Haig himself played James Stagg in the first productions.  Haig started writing the screenplay while the play was still on the stage. In the early twenties, Anthony Maras, who co-wrote the screenplay and directed the film, came on the project.  Because they were doing a feature, they could expand on what Zanuck and his writers had done.  Not in the play but in the film we have, early on, scenes from the training exercises called Exercise Tiger.  They were done off the coast of England and were a disaster.  700 people were killed.  Ike and everybody had the memory of that in mind, and because we see those scenes, we do too.

Haig had not included scenes with Stagg and his wife in the play, but he puts two into the film.  The first one is when Stagg is leaving to go to Southwark House.  Maras, as director, focuses on Stagg’s wife’s face not only because he knows reaction shots are the lifeblood of movies, but in this case they want to establish that Stagg is a nice guy because this beautiful woman loves him.  That is essential, because Stagg is a rather crusty character who rubs everybody the wrong way, and we still need to root for him.  The second is at the end.

The invasion was originally planned for June 5^th,  but ended up being postponed.  Eisenhower had his own meteorologist named Irving P. Krick, who had been very successful in predicting the weather in the North African campaign in 1942.  I have no idea if he is mentioned in Ryan’s book, but Zanuck did not include Krick in his movie. 

Here Krick and Stagg dislike each other from the getgo.  Krick assumes his predictions will be right as always.  His methods depend on historical analysis of past weather patterns, assuming if the sun was shining on this day in history, it will be shining on this day this year.  As Stagg points out, that may work in certain geographical areas, like North Africa, but not in the areas around England and France.  You can see why Zanuck left him out of his film; they just needed the discussion of the weather with Stagg to keep the story moving.  Krick provides some solid dramatic elements that help this film.

Eisenhower is not a minor player in Pressure.  He and Stagg are consistently at odds.   Ike is played beautifully by Brendan Fraser.  He does not look as much like Ike as Henry Grace did, but he can do a lot more, which the writers and director take advantage of.  Fraser lets you feel all, and I mean all, the pressure Ike was under.

Stagg is played by Andrew Scott in what I think is his best performance yet.  He captures the intensity and sensitivity of Stagg.

When we finally get down to the invasion, the production uses a lot of archival footage.  Maras had seen Peter Jackson’s 2018 documentary on World War I, which colorized footage for that war.  He decided they could do the same with archival footage from WWII.  They found a lot of footage, and as far as I can tell, none of it is from The Longest Day or Saving Private Ryan.  The team working with the footage found they were overwhelmed by how much there was.  They tried to find people who might help.  One of the people who showed up was James Stagg, the grandson of the James Stagg in the movie.

No, Steven, Return to E.T., Not Close Encounters.

Disclosure Day (2026. Screenplay by David Koepp. Story by Steven Spielberg. 145 minutes)

In my 1982 book Screenwriting I said that Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) was “two hours of exposition.”  That was a more formal way of saying what I told people: that it was two hours of foreplay.  It was all about what happened before the humans meet the aliens.  I mentioned that B movie writers of the Fifties knew that the most interesting stories were what happened after the aliens were here, as in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

When Spielberg made E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), I thought he had learned his lesson.  We get to know E.T. very well as he acts and reacts with the kids.

Unfortunately, Spielberg is back with two more hours of foreplay.  The new film starts off rather well, with the kind of writing David Koepp does really well.   Last year he did a terrific, smaller scale film Black Bag.  You can read my review here, which includes not only details about that film, but a mention of his other films, such as Jurassic Park, some of the Mission Impossible films, and an Indiana Jones film.  Here Daniel Kellner is carrying a backpack with some stuff in it and escaping from guys in black. 

What is in the backpack?  The Maguffin, of course.

For those of you who have never heard of the Maguffin, it is what Hitchcock said what the running around in a movie was all about, but was not very interesting in itself.  In North by Northwest (1959) what are they chasing?  A statue with a roll of microfilm inside.  We never discover what is on the microfilm, and we do not care. 

Koepp is smart enough here to get us involved with the chase for the first twenty minutes or so before we learn a little about what’s in the backpack.  It is, alas, supposed evidence of extra-terrestrials who have landed.  As the film goes on, we get more and more details about the aliens, but as we do, the film gets less and less interesting.   And less and less believable.  I have mentioned before that my late wife was a scientist and was highly critical of movies about science.  She would have had a field day with this one.

For example, Noah Scanlon, the head of Wardex (the company, not a branch of the government), has a magic crystal that seems to let him move through time and space.  A little, no, very convenient.  I know it is sci-fi, but by focusing here on the “fi” part, Koepp and Spielberg seem to undercut their own story.  When he did Close Encounters, Spielberg once said that he hoped that film would convince people that aliens were real.  Sorry Steve, but a fictional film is not going to convince anyone that the fiction is real.  It was a problem then and it is a problem now.

The longer the film went on, the sillier I thought it was.  While I admired the performances of Josh O’Connor and especially Emily Blunt, I could not help but notice that in several of the two-shots, both of them seem about to burst out laughing at what they are having to say.

If you think that does not happen, the next time you watch the 1951 Day the Earth Stood Still, notice that Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal do not look at each other in the cab scene.  This take was finally captured after they kept breaking up when he was trying to tell her how to talk to the robot.

The ending of Disclosure would make a great second act curtain.  Daniel and Margaret (Blunt) have managed to have the thumb drives broadcast over national television, and we get a lot of shots of people reacting in awe.  The TV announcer is played by Courtney Grace, a former television reporter, in a terrific cameo.  But we would really like to see how the reactions of awe, a Spielberg specialty, changed into the variety of responses people would eventually have.

How about religious leaders claiming it is all a fraud, or a shot of the White House with a voice artist doing Trump complaining it is fake news and all a Democratic plot? 

Sorry Boots, But Meryl Got There Before You Did.

I Love Boosters (2026.  Written Boots Riley.  113 minutes)

Unfortunately for Boots Riley, who also directed I Love Boosters, The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrived in theatres about a month before Boosters.  Both have a lot of satire about high fashion, but both Prada movies are much sharper than Riley’s.  The high fashion in Boosters is simply not as funny, ridiculous, or stupid as the real thing in Prada 2. 

I liked the first half of Riley’s first film Sorry to Bother You (2018) which was very sharp in its satire of phone telemarketers.  Then it turned into a conventional horror film, which simply not as interesting as the first part.  That first part was at least good enough that I wrote in my review, which you can read here, “I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for his next ones.”

Boosters is at least structurally better than Sorry.  The tone is consistent all the way through.  We meet a trio of Black women who “boost,” i.e. steal, high fashion clothes, which they then turn around and sell on the street.  Watching them in action in high fashion stores is fun.  It is very good physical comedy.  Eventually we also get a connection to the sweatshops in China where the clothes are made, which introduces us to a teleporter.  It is a device the Chinese have invented so they can teleport the clothes they make to America and not have to pay the shipping costs.  Think of it as the flux capacitor of this movie.  It gets involved in a lot of the physical action in the latter part of the movie, and it is consistence with the freewheeling action of the first half of the movie.

The grandma of the fashion is the designer Christie Smith , the Miranda Priestly of this movie.  She is not as sharply written as Priestly is in both Prada movies.  She is fairly well played by Demi Moore, but Moore runs into a problem with the script that nearly everybody else does.   Riley has loaded up the dialogue with a lot of four letter words.   A whole lot.   The actors tend to punch those words so much that the rest of the dialogue gets lost.  I suspect Riley realized the problem, but too late.  If you stay through the end of the credits, you will notice there is a long, long list of people credited for ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement).  But ADR is limited if we can visually read the intensity of the original actors speaking.  I don’t mind a few well-chosen four letter words, but Riley has let too many in.

On the other hand, there is a scene near the end when one of the boosters is breaking it off with a guy, who is also a demon, for an interesting reason. There are no standard four letter words in the scene, but with just more or less regular dialogue it is funny, moving, and really sexy.

Yes, I am certainly going to keep an eye out for Riley’s next films.

The post UNDERSTANDING SCREENWRITING: Two Terrific Films and Two Not-So-Terrific Films: ‘Tuner,’ ‘Pressure,’ ‘Disclosure Day,’ and ‘I Love Boosters’ appeared first on Script Magazine.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie autobiographical book series has been popular since its inception in the 1930s, having sold over 73 million copies worldwide. The 1974 show based on the books series lasted nine seasons and took home four Emmys. The show’s depiction of a bygone era of homespun Americana is being introduced to a new generation with Netflix’s upcoming series which starts streaming on July 9. Though a bit of a retread, the new production by showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine (Archive 81, The Boys, Vampire Diaries) presents the Ingalls family adventures on the frontier in a fresh light and the cast holds their own, for the most part, against the original.

Ingalls Wilder’s eight books have been widely criticized for their racist and degrading depictions of Native and Black Americans. For example, at one point Ingalls Wilder writes, “There were no people; only Indians lived there.” The original series managed to be progressive and the upcoming one is as well. Some will want to say it’s “woke,” but it’s a candid portrayal of what really happened on the frontier, sans Ingalls Wilder’s biased lens.

The first season of Little House on the Prairie had 24 episodes and a feature-length pilot episode versus the eight that will be streamed on Netflix. While the eight do a thorough job of letting us get to know the Ingalls, 24 episodes allows for characters and situations to be fully fleshed out.

The episode titles are “Independence,” The House on the Prairie,” “News of the World,” “Life Let Us Cherish,” “A Circle of Blue Sky,” “Peace on Earth,” A Softer Note in the Sound of the Wind,” and “This is Now”. Each episode has the Ingalls get more deeply entrenched in their Independence, Kansas environment and develop more of an understanding of their Native American neighbors.

The first episode incorporates some elements for the original’s pilot episode but also introduces CGI wolves, which take us out of the spirit of the downhome setting. Danger could have been exhibited in a different or more realistic way. Even the use of real wolves would have been better. After this rocky start, the story and visuals find their groove by episode two.

Luke Bracey (The Artful Dodger, The Travellers) as Charles Ingalls is earnest and manly. He doesn’t have Michael Landon’s pretty face, but he makes up for that with some decent acting.

Crosby Fitzgerald (Crime 101, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox) is Caroline Ingalls, the matriarch of the family, and she brings a real toughness and vulnerability to the character. She looks a bit like Sarah Snook, with her fiery red coloring enhancing her character’s persona.

Youngest daughter Laura is Alice Halsey (Lessons in Chemistry, Days of Our Lives) whose face is almost too perfect. She looks like she could start modeling in a couple of years. Melissa Gilbert, the original Laura, had the sweet-faced innocence of an everyday child. By episode two, Alice’s chemistry with her sister Mary, Skywalker Hughes (Joe Pickett, Ordinary Angels), is a keystone in the progression of the narrative. Melissa Sue Anderson played the original Mary and was nominated for her role. Laura and Mary’s concern for and search for surrogate uncle and troubled drunkard John Edwards, Warren Christie (Holiday Road, A Royal Montana Christmas),  is when the series ramps up the suspense and emotional stakes.

Dr. George Tann, a Black doctor, is played by Jocko Sims (Gross Pointe Garden Society, New Amsterdam). In real life, Dr. Tann saved Laura and her family from malaria. In the original series he was played by Don Pedro Colley and only appeared in one episode, season 3, episode 18. His character really gets a chance to breathe in this version and has his own storyline, which involves love interest shop owner Emily, Barrett Doss (Station 19, Grey’s Anatomy).

The question is, is a remake of the series necessary? The pilot movie aired in 1974, a year that America started to lose more of its innocence. Richard Nixon resigned because of Watergate and Patty Hearst was kidnapped. The nostalgia of the old west that Little House on the Prairie was a welcome distraction and comfort. The world is even more chaotic now than it was then. Perhaps reintroducing this story about the pioneering days of America when things were simpler yet tough is as relevant now as it was then and will provide a welcome distraction from the ailments of the world. The warmth of nostalgia never grows old.

One of the best aspects of the series is Dan Romer’s beautiful soundtrack. Like David Rose’s music from the original, it hits the emotional beats of the story and really captures the ambiance of a new frontier.

Besides Rebecca Sonnenshine, other writers include Eleanor Burgess, Adam Starks, Francesca Butler, Tom Hanada, and P. Carter Kristensen. The writing stays true to the books and the original series. The Native Americans are developed beyond stereotypes and are fully developed characters. Wren Zhawenim Gotts is a standout as Good Eagle.

The original Little House on the Prairie book series came out during the Great Depression. The original series came out during less cynical, more optimistic times. These characters and storyline have proven their staying power.  In 2024, the series had 13.3 billion minutes of viewing. The upcoming series provides a well-rounded view of the story and reintroduces beloved characters with new actors. The new generation may not have the template of the original show in their consciousness, so this serves as a worthy introduction into the Ingalls world.

Little House on the Prairie premieres on Netflix, July 9, 2026.

The post ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Review appeared first on Script Magazine.

Supergirl is the latest film in the new James Gunn-led DC universe and tells the story of Kara Zor-El, played wonderfully by Milly Alcock, best known prior to this for her role on the first season of Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon. Based significantly on the comic book /Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and with art by Bilquis Evely, Supergirl, with a script by Ana Nogueira, tells the story of a Supergirl having a hard time adjusting to the loss of her parents and home, opting to drink herself numb rather than feel. She spends her time on planets with red suns where her super powers are nullified, allowing her to actually get drunk—something not possible on Earth under its yellow sun.

On a far flung planet, we meet her celebrating her 23rd birthday. There, she encounters a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley). Ruthye’s family has been murdered by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), leader of the Brigands. Ruthye seeks aid in her quest for revenge against these powerful foes who killed her loved ones. One thing leads to another and Kara, despite her protests, finds Ruthye attached to her hip, begging for help in her thirst for revenge, in a plot reminiscent of True Grit (more Hathaway than Coen Brothers).

In the film, Kara Zor-El refuses to get involved, but when Krem steals her ship and poisons her beloved dog, Krypto, she has only three days to retrieve an antidote from Krem or Krypton will die. Together, they travel the galaxy two steps behind Krem, searching for the antidote and with Kara working to talk Ruthye out of her need for revenge.

Along the way, through flashback, we learn of the differences between Kara’s upbringing and that of her cousin, Kal-El (David Corenswet), and we meet Lobo (Jason Momoa), an intergalactic bounty hunter and total bastich. By the end, Kara and Ruthye discover that the Brigands aren’t just marauders, but sentient traffickers, stealing young girls from across the stars to create a forced breeding program for Krem’s entire cadre.

The film is an exercise in contrasts and cognitive dissonance. It’s as cynical as it is hopeful; it hews to the source material as much as it strays from it; it sticks to the themes it establishes as much as it betrays them; it feels as though it’s the product of one artist and writer’s vision and plagued by studio interference all at once. It contains multitudes.

The screenplay offers a number of things to teach screenwriters who take the time to do some close reading and pay attention.

The Visual Intro

The film gives us a superb visual introduction to Kara Zor-El and her living situation, tracking through the mess of her home, showing us the empty bottles of booze, trash littering her floor, and the general state of disrepair. Krypto, her dog—the one who stole the show in James Gunn’s Superman (2025)—even takes the time to urinate (mostly) on a newspaper. The choice of newspaper, the Daily Planet, replete with a headline and photo of Kara’s famous cousin, even does some storytelling.

All of this, plus Kara’s crumpled Supergirl suit lying on the floor tells us about her feelings about her cousin, her state of mind, and her feelings about her life as a superhero on Earth, all without her having to say a word. Being able to give us a sense of a character visually by describing their environment is a classic technique and something screenwriters and your other storytelling collaborators should be aiming for as you look to tell visual stories.

The technique might be most famously and elegantly done in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. In that film, the camera pans around to show us how hot the summer is, the dramatic photograph, framed above a broken camera, that must have been the one that broke the leg of our hero, whose cast we pass over that reads, “Here lie the bones of L.B. Jeffries.” The camera moves further through the apartment to set the scene and give us a sense of Jeff, the character played by Jimmy Stewart. We know it’s a hot summer, we know he’s a professional photographer and that’s how he broke his leg. We learn he also takes photographs in the world of fashion photography and that’s why it’s not so surprising when Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly) turns out to be his girlfriend.

In the case of both Supergirl and Rear Window, we get an excellent sense of who the main character is and what makes them tick in their current circumstance, all while they’re still sleeping. It’s excellent visual storytelling that allows the audience to start by getting engaged and adding equations about the character on their own before the film’s even really started.

Stay True To Your Theme

The themes of Supergirl revolve around Kara Zor-El’s attempt to prevent Ruthye from taking a life in revenge. The film asks us to weigh the difference between justice and revenge and the damage revenge does to our hearts and how it weighs on our souls. Kara lives with an anger inside of her, a heaviness that she seeks to numb and a way to lighten it for herself. She wants Ruthye to live a life free of that weight. Other characters eschew that system of revenge and justice, other characters seem ignorant to the theme entirely. Jason Momoa’s Lobo, although highly entertaining, stealing every scene he’s in, is completely agnostic to it, adhering instead to his own twisted love of money.

For Kara and Ruthye, this vengeance is present in most scenes that drive them, but it gets twisted in ways that could be confusing to the theme or actually betray it. In one scene, Krem seeks his own lethal justice against a family that failed to subdue Kara Zor-El for him as they agreed to. He gets ready to kill them, not knowing that Ruthye has snuck up behind him, sword raised, ready to take his head. Instead of swooping in with her super powers to take out Krem, Kara, focused on preventing Ruthye from killing anyone out of anger or lust for vengeance, whisks Ruthye out of the fray at super speed. This allows Krem to kill the entire family with impunity.

Ruthye and Kara both blame themselves for this senseless death. It also leaves Ruthye carrying a weight of guilt and resonsibility that tells her that if she would have ended up committing her murderous revenge, she would have been rewarded by saving those lives and made Kara wrong to stop her. It was an odd misstep that undercut the lesson Kara was trying so hard to teach Ruthye. Perhaps the screenwriter was trying to chalk this up to a failure on Kara’s part, which is possible, but it only ends up being confusing when taken with the ultimate ending of the film.

By the end of the film, Kara has subdued Krem and Ruthye brings out her sword to take his head for her revenge. Kara allows her the choice and one more monologue about how killing him for revenge won’t help anyone or bring her peace. Ruthye agrees, and walks away. And when Ruthye walks away, Supergirl takes Ruthye’s family sword and runs Krem through herself. Out of revenge. And stabs him twice, killing him, saying that once was for her dog that he poisoned, and the other time was for what he did to Ruthye.

In a film where the theme revolves around how much these damaging actions weigh a person down, having Supergirl teach that lesson to another character and then fail to take that medicine herself felt like a severe betrayal of theme. It smacked of the same misunderstanding of character Zack Snyder having Superman snap General Zod’s neck in Man of Steel (2013), though at a much lower level. Interestingly enough, both of those story points could have been solved by relying a little more closely on the source material—we’ll talk more about that in a moment.

As far as writing to theme, do your best to stay consistent and create questions and dilemmas for your characters that test them in ways that challenge their beliefs about the theme. Have the antagonists act in ways that represent other facets of the theme. Lobo could have very easily added to the theme in other ways, with half a page of dialogue or another quick story beat about revenge in his story, making his inclusion earn its running time for something more than Momoa’s obvious charisma. Also make sure that the theme you set up remains consistent through the body of the work—I’m not quite sure what the theme of Supergirl is by the end of the film. Though I was greatly entertained, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel like revenge is fine as long as I’m over 23 and not a kid or not? Or if they hurt my dog? It’s all a bit muddled.

Which brings me to the last point:

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It:

The film made two major departures from the source material (among many) that we’re going to discuss, and one could be for the better, but might cause more problems for the narrative than it solves.

The first major departure involves Krypto. Even if you’ve only seen the trailers, you know that Krem poisons Krypto and gives him only three days to live. Kara has a sudden time limit before she has to be back in time to save her dog. It works well enough in the film to create a sense of urgency, but its use in the comic book fits the theme of the story better.

In order to prevent Ruthye from staining her soul with the specter of revenge, Kara lies about the nature of Krypto’s ailment. Instead of being reluctant to go on the quest to catch Krem, as in the film, she invents the timeline and poisoning in order to force herself on Ruthye’s quest in the hopes that she can teach Ruthye a lesson about vengeance along the way. Although this is much more selfless, it doesn’t necessarily fit with the more cynical, hard-drinking version of character that was introduced in last year’s Superman. In order to give this version of the character an arc, and to create a sense of urgency for the plot, this change is for the better. And it would have created a better moment of decision and change for Kara, had she not chosen revenge at the end of the narrative as well.

The other major departure from the source material we’ll talk about is also the most baffling. It comes at the end of the film, when Ruthye swoops in to take her revenge against Krem. Ruthye is finally convinced to turn the other cheek and give up her revenge and Supergirl steps in. As stated before, in the film, Kara murders Krem anyway. The result is the same, but Kara takes on the weight of revenge instead of Ruthye.

In the comic, however, hewing close and consistent to the theme of the film and the source material, Supergirl opts for justice rather than revenge. Instead of murdering him, she banishes him to the Phantom Zone. Oddly, this is the same punishment often used for General Zod—instead of snapping his neck with impunity. It’s a common way for Kryptonians to banish their foes in the comics, used for decades in their four color adventures and even in previous film versions.

I’m on the record stating that we should allow filmmakers the leeway to make their own interpretations of stories, not to hold them to slavishly adapt the original media into their own artistic interpretation. On the other hand, this one change still has me scratching my head, only because this change didn’t improve anything and would have added very little screen time, if any, and would have sold the theme better. It also would have made what the film was trying to say and mean clear, and created a more solid arc for the protagonist. My biggest advice here is to make changes to source material only if they benefit the narrative and the media, rather than create more issues and muddy the narrative and pollute the waters of theme.

Having said that, despite the clarity issues and quibbles of theme, Supergirl is still immensely entertaining. It’s playing in wide theatrical release worldwide.

You can find out more about Bryan Young at his website.

The post Three Lessons from the Screenplay from ‘Supergirl’ appeared first on Script Magazine.

The previously announced conference line up also includes Richard Gadd (3x Emmy Winner, Baby Reindeer), Gurinder Chadha, OBE (Golden Globe Nominee, Bend it Like Beckham), Philip Barantini (2x Emmy Winner, Adolescence), Joe Barton (BAFTA Winner, Black Doves), Matt Charman (Oscar Nominee, Bridge of Spies), Thea Sharrock (Director, Me Before You), Neil Marshall (Emmy Nominee, Game of Thrones),  Tony Grisoni (BAFTA Winner, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote), Charmaine DeGrate (Emmy Nominee, Star Wars: The Acolyte) Monica Beletsky (Emmy Nominee, Fargo), Joy C. Mitchell (Writer/Producer, Bridgerton) and 25+ UK year TV/Film agent Abby Singer (Casarotto Ramsay) have all been confirmed with more leading filmmakers and agents expected to be added soon.

Unanimously regarded as one of Britain’s finest directors, Oscar nominee, BAFTA and Emmy winner Sir Stephen Frears was Knighted in 2023 for his contributions to filmmaking.

Storytelling360 is a live discussion event series featuring top storytellers discussing the state of storytelling across a full day of panel conversations, while benefiting a charitable cause within the arts.

Founded in 2025, the inaugural series took place in Los Angeles at the Writers Guild Theater and New York at the Directors Guild Theater, featuring speakers Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Marta Kauffman (Friends), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Jon Hurwitz (Cobra Kai), Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City), Pulitzer Prize winner and 4x Oscar nominee Tony Kushner (Lincoln), Oscar winner Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine), Oscar nominee Celine Song (Past Lives), 2x Oscar nominee Lee Daniels (Precious), Sundance Audience Award winning filmmaker Craig Brewer (Song Sung Blue), 4x Emmy nominees Michelle and Robert King (The Good Wife), Tony Award winner Warren Leight (Law & Order) and others.

The series, which will also return in to the New York City Directors Guild Theater on October 4, 2026, also returned to Los Angeles in March 2026 with speakers Kevin Smith (Clerks), Academy Award winners Cord Jefferson (American Fiction), Diablo Cody (Juno) and Graham Moore (The Imitation Game), multi-Emmy winning former DGA President Paris Barclay, indie film icon and Academy Award nominated writer Nia Vardalos, Cobra Kai co-creator Hayden Schlossberg, KPOP Demon Hunters scribes Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan, industry leaders including The Black List founder and CEO Franklin Leonard, 12:01 Films producer Scott Glassgold, Verve Agency Partner David Boxerbaum and Lit Entertainment Founder Adam Kolbrenner.

Event information is available on www.Storytelling360.com

The post Sir Stephen Frears Revealed as Keynote Conversation for Storytelling360’s State of the Story Conference at BFI appeared first on Script Magazine.

Check out this month’s course offerings led by Script University’s industry experts!

LIVE

July 30

Story Beats: WHAT MAKES THE HEART OF YOUR SCRIPT TICK? with Jon James Miller

No matter what the genre, screenwriting is about taking readers on a journey of discovery. But like any journey, the characters and destination will decide whether that trip is worth taking. This live webinar will share a simple story road-map every writer can use to plot a successful course, ensuring their audience enjoys the ride.

Join Jon James Miller, award-winning screenwriter, novelist, and professional story editor, will share what a successful 3-Act “road-map” looks like, and how to write a story rich with fully-realized characters that come alive through their cinematic journey. Also discussed will be how screenwriters can develop their own versatile and unique writer’s voice, combined with exciting visuals, to bring their story to life, no matter what the genre.

July 30, 2026
4:00-5:30 PM ET

COURSES

July 9

Beginning Television Writing with William Rabkin

In this four-week course, an established executive producer/showrunner will give you an inside look at the world of dramatic, episodic television. You will explore—and practice—the actual process involved in successfully writing a spec episodic script that will open doors across Hollywood.

Each session includes a written lecture, creative exercises to further your learning, and a writing assignment to turn in for personalized feedback from your instructor.

Course Dates: 07/09/2026 – 08/06/2026

July 17

Scriptreading Certificate Program with Brian O’Malley

This course will show you, step-by-step, how to write script coverage. We will cover key elements of screenwriting coverage, including writing a synopsis, analyzing a script, writing an evaluation, script formatting, and finding work as a reader. Whether you want to become a script reader, a story analyst, or just want to polish up your own script, a solid understanding of format and script structure will be essential. 

Each session includes a written lecture and a writing assignment to turn in for personalized feedback from your instructor.

Course Dates: 07/16/2026 – 09/10/2026

July 23

The Fundamentals of Screenwriting: Give your Script a Solid Foundation with Donald H. Hewitt

Have an amazing idea for a movie, but don’t know how to begin writing it? Get your screenplay on the track to success with the Fundamentals of Screenwriting online course. This four-week class is the perfect introduction to the fantastic world of writing a script, from the fundamentals of the story down to the revision process. In this course, you will gain the tools to structure your scenes, your acts, and your plots.

Each session includes reading assignments, a video lecture, and writing assignments to turn in for personalized feedback from your instructor.

Course Dates: 07/23/2026 – 08/20/2026

July 30

21 Days to Your Screenplay Treatment with Bryan Young

Not only is a treatment a vital selling tool for screenwriters, the process of writing a treatment can help screenwriters lay a solid foundation for their screenplay that can save valuable time in the writing process. This is your chance to map out your plot and develop your characters before you’ve backed yourself into a corner with ninety pages of blood, sweat, and tears behind you.

Each session includes a written lecture detailing the session’s topic. At the end of each session, writing exercises will help you apply and practice the information and insights you’ve learned. Your instructor will then provide personalized feedback on your assignments.

Course Dates: 07/30/2026 – 08/20/2026

The post Script University July 2026 Courses appeared first on Script Magazine.

The OG fast car film that started the multi-billion dollar franchise blows out 25 candles this month. While that simultaneously makes me feel adrenalized (totally a word) and very old, what is even more fascinating is how a little action flick about illegal street racing became a cult hit. And then a franchise opener with ten films and counting, a theme park ride, and television spin-off. 

What elevated the script from mere action fodder to—dare I say it?—timeless classic. Depends who you’re asking, because stories and the scripts that started them are as subjective as the people who enjoy them. It’s what makes screenwriting so damn hard. They’re ephemeral in what hits and what doesn’t.

Or are they?

You see, as much as Hollywood wants the “next big thing” that’s fresh and different, there are a few key elements that make a concept feel both that but also marketable in a way they can understand. A solid script is usually x meets y and features the following common elements: Well-defined, believable characters, engaging action, and a clear, defined story goal.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these in terms of how they were written, versus what the final product looks like on screen. Because another important factor to telling a good story is how it’s written. That tale as old as time battle of balancing show versus tell on the page. 

[Note: the script available online differs from the final shooting script, but features the key scene lines we’ll be looking at.]

Well-defined, believable characters. It doesn’t matter their situation, if we can’t connect with something human, some emotion of theirs, all is lost for the rest of the script. Here’s looking at you, Dom and Brian.

These two friends meet mid-fight. As in, Brian’s fighting one of Dominic’s oldest friends and the latter steps in at his sister’s request to break it up. We’ve already gotten plenty of characterization from that little set-up: Brian tries to avoid fighting but will get down-and-dirty if necessary (and Vince pushes him to just that brink). Then Dom avoids fighting altogether, subverting the violent profile Brian’s boss gives him of the “criminal”.

The introduction also sets up the love triangle between Brian, Mia, and Vince—as well as the “don’t touch your friend’s sister” trope—accomplishing a lot in under two pages (read: two minutes of screen time).

Script page reference: Page 12

After we, the audience that is, learn Brian’s a cop and quite possibly also being seduced to the dark side that is Toretto’s world, he and Dominic have a heart-to-heart that in true dude fashion is all car speak. Even though it started as a ‘beware I’m a beast since you insist on dating my sister’. But instead of saying that per se, Dom chooses to tell Brian about his backstory: beating the guy who was involved in his dad’s death to an inch of his life. In other words, screenwriters take note: subtext is king and you can say a lot without saying it, at all. And then: the line that sets up all the Fast & Furious lore to come.

Engaging action. Shocking, I know, especially for an action film. The Fast and the Furious had the pleasure of being the first so their action sequences are relatively tame in comparison to later franchise entrants, but that doesn’t take away from the thrill of the race.

That first race, Brian versus Dom down the streets of L.A., was always about more than who passes the finish line first. Sure it doesn’t matter if you win by an “inch or a mile”, winning’s winning. But the race itself while outwardly for movie-going thrills is about respect for the characters. Who’s got it for who, who wants it, who needs it, and who’s gonna get it. It’s about belonging in this world. A theme that’s woven through all the Fast movies.

Anyone else catch the double entendre in Brian’s “I’m gonna win. You’re gonna win.” As he psyches himself up to race Toretto? On the surface: it’s about the race. In the grand scheme — they both do. Toretto might win the race, but in the end, he also wins his freedom from Brian, and Brian wins Toretto’s respect and belong to his family.

Like his boss says while they’re at base camp, “there’s all kinds of family.” Brian just has to choose. Which leads us to: 

A clear, defined story goal. Preferably with escalating obstacles and plenty of twists. Like Brian’s life-saving 9-1-1 call revealing to he’s a cop. Didn’t see that one coming, did you, Dom?

In the climax of the movie, Dom’s insisted on going through with “one final heist” — let’s not even get into that red herring classic — and Vince is seriously injured. Brian, hot on their tail with Mia, calls for help so that Dom’s best friend doesn’t die. The catch: to get help faster, he reveals he’s a police officer on the phone while maintaining steady eye contact with Dom. The news lands and in a breathless moment, you’re just not quite sure what Toretto’s going to do.

A relatively mundane conversation developed in one of the most intense life-or-death situations. A reveal without, again, overtly stating the fact person-to-person. Powerful. 

But as we all know, this is in actuality just the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

From “living life a quarter mile at a time” to making NOS a household phrase, a rewatch, perhaps with script in hand, of The Fast and the Furious is a worthy lesson for screenwriters. Reading scripts in general is a good habit to get into, understanding the mechanics of how things translate from script to screen to keep honing those balancing skills. Want more Fast culture? You can also check out The Blockbusters That Shaped Us: Style and Structure in ‘The Fast & Furious’ Franchise.

The post From Script to Screen: Subtext in ‘The Fast and the Furious’ appeared first on Script Magazine.

The minion critters have been delighting us since 2010. There have been four Despicable Me movies and two prequels, Minions and Minions: The Rise of Gru. Minions & Monsters is another prequel that is a whacky take on how the minions conquered Hollywood, set during the time film transitioned from silent to sound. This new entry in the Despicable Me universe hits theaters on July 1.  While the franchise has a “four quadrant’ appeal, young children make up a large portion of the audience. “We may push the boundaries with what’s OK to say, but it’s about finding the balance of being funny and not warping the kids’ minds,” [laughs] says writer Brian Lynch (Minions, The Secret Life of Pets).

Directed and co-written by Pierre Coffin (Despicable Me 1-3, Minions), Minions & Monsters pays homage to early Hollywood, giving nods to the Lumière brothers, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton, amongst others. The film’s physical comedy is a hat tip to Tex Avery’s Golden Age animation that emphasized elasticity in some cases. Brian recently took the time to talk with Script about minions and more.

Banana!

Sonya: How did you get involved with the first Minions movie back in 2015?

Brian:  I was working on Hop with Chris Meledandri and Illumination. When Chris was on set one day, he asked me if I liked theme park rides. I told him I did and he asked me if I wanted to write the Minion Theme Park Ride. I thought it would be a quick thing. Theme park rides are four minutes. It ended up being a sixty page script. I think through that Chris realized I could do the world and voices of the minions. He asked if I had any ideas that might excite Pierre. I thought about it and came up with the villain idea. That’s the spark that got us talking and what led to the movie.

Sonya: How did you create the Minionese language?

Brian: That’s Pierre! In the scripts, I write it out completely in English, then Pierre would turn it into his version of what they’re saying. He thanked me for that because he said it really worked as a template for what the minions are going through. I haven’t stopped doing it that way since.

Sonya: How do you like collaborating with Pierre?

Brian: He’s the greatest. I worked with him first on the ride of course. Every time I learn more and more from him. He’s also just so supportive. If something isn’t working, we’ll sit down and figure it out. He never gets frustrated. He’s fun to come up with jokes and ideas with. This movie, Minions & Monsters, is the first one where we were co-writers. Where he literally wrote with me. Because he was in a different country and time zone, he’d write something and send it to me and I’d make it funny or vice versa. We really just tried to make each other laugh.

Sonya: Do you have a favorite minion?

Brian: The minion Henry in the new movie is named after my son. Pierre did that as a nice surprise. Until then, I always liked Stuart because while everyone else was excited, he was the one hanging back saying, “I don’t know about this.” Too cool for the room is really fun to write. But now that this movie’s out, the fact that James likes filmmaking so much and is so passionate about it, I see a lot of myself in that character. I have to go with James. He stands out from all the other minions.

Illumination

Sonya: How did you come up with the idea for the monsters?

Brian: It was so fun. We were talking about doing Lovecraftian monsters from the beginning. We talked about what would be the funniest version of that. We talked about having the audience expect one thing and then going the other way. When we talked about Lovecraft, we talked about Cthulhu, the giant sea monster. We thought the audience would expect that, so we decided to go with the little guy with the Napoleon complex who doesn’t like being small but uses his cuteness to his advantage. From there we went with other ones that would defy expectations. It was the big sea creature that starts with a roar and then becomes an everyman. We went with something similar to a muppet, voiced by the great Phil LaMarr.

Sonya: What are some of your favorite movie monsters?

Brian: I’ve always loved Gremlins. When I was a kid, I was scared to death of the movie. I’d watch it over and over again because I wanted to be scared. And also, it was so funny. Joe Dante got into my brain at an early age. I love anything Ghostbusters related. Bride of Frankenstein is so iconic. She’s only in the movie for ten minutes and she’s just the coolest character. That’s my favorite of the Universal monster movies. It’s so weird and takes such weird chances from the original Frankenstein. It takes these bold leaps and I always loved watching it because of that. And the visual of the Creature from the Black Lagoon can’t be topped.

Sonya: What are the challenges of writing for children?

Brian: I have a child and I didn’t when I started. He was born during the production of Minions. I always think about what Henry will think is funny. At the same time, it’s about doing jokes that kids will understand, but we don’t talk down to them. I grew up on the Muppets and Looney Tunes. It’s about not writing the simple joke because kids are smart and getting smarter every day. We want them to be entertained, just like adults are.

Sonya: What’s the difference in writing for a franchise as opposed to a single feature?

Brian: You want to keep the heart of the franchise. I came onto the Despicable Me franchise when the first one was out and they were working on the second one. You don’t want people to feel alienated who loved the first ones you didn’t work on. I also worked on Puss in Boots and there were three Shreks before it. You want to have the world they know, but you don’t want to have it the exact same way they’ve seen it. It’s all about finding that balance of what people love about it but also bringing yourself to it.

Sonya: What are the benefits of working with a director you’ve worked with before even if you’re not writing together?

Brian: I’ve worked with Pierre twice and Chris Renaud twice on the Pets movies. While I’m writing, I can kind of anticipate what they’ll bump up against and change accordingly. Or get ready to defend what I think works. This is my fifth or sixth movie with Chris Meledandri and he’ll go, “What do you think? Why do you think that?” It’s a shorthand and a trust that’s established. I love working with these guys. At this point, it’s like a family. I’m working on new projects with people I’ve never worked with before and that’s exciting too.

Sonya: How many drafts of this did you have to do of Minions & Monsters?

Brian: Hundreds..! The movie didn’t change in terms of the broad outline. The James story was very solid from the beginning. But the specifics changed for three years. The first Minions  movie definitely had more rewrites. That was about five hundred drafts. This was like a hundred drafts.

Sonya: When you write solo, what’s your writing process?

Brian: First, I outline. It’s about fifteen pages. It’s the hardest part of the process. After that, it’s about going to draft and then rewriting. I love the whole process so much.

Sonya: What live action film would you like to adapt into an animated film?

Brian: [laughs] I literally have one. At one point, Chris Meledandri asked me, “Hey, are there any Universal live action movies that would be fun to do?” There’s a Steve Martin movie called The Jerk that I wanted to tell in a Zootopia type world with all animals. I’d love to do that. Anything Steve Martin by the way. The guy’s amazing. I had the idea of doing Jurassic Park but from the point of view of the one goat that was going to get eaten and how he gets out of Jurassic Park.

Sonya: What was the last movie you saw?

Brian: Disclosure Day, which I loved. I’m going to see any Spielberg film opening weekend. Before that it was Masters of the Universe which I had to see because I grew up with it. And today I’m going to see Toy Story. I want to see everything!

Voice actors for Minions & Monsters include Pierre Coffin, Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeff Bridges, Zoey Deutch, Bobby Moynihan, and Phil LaMarr.

The Despicable Me/Minions movies always have notable music, including a toe tapper by Pharrell Williams (“Despicable Me”).  Two-time Oscar nominee John Powell provides the Old Hollywood themed score for the latest minions adventure. This is a Universal Pictures/Illumination release.

Minions & Monsters hits Theaters on July 1, 2026.

The post Staying True to the Heart of the Franchise: Brian Lynch Discusses ‘Minions & Monsters’ appeared first on Script Magazine.