What kinds of scripts are the Hollywood studios looking for? How much hope is there for a newer writer to sell a script there or get hired to write one?
Long-time movie critic David Denby recently revealed his view on the subject in the New Yorker:
“The six major studios want to make three kinds of movies. They want to make blockbusters costing a hundred and fifty million dollars and up (with another fifty to a hundred million dollars spent on promotion)—that is, films that are based on comic books, video games, and young-adult novels. These movies mostly feature angry pixels contending in the dead air—action sequences of total physical abandonment and virtually total meaninglessness, in which nothing imprints itself on your memory except the experience of being excited.
They want to make animated features for families, some of which—especially the ones from Pixar—are very good.
And they want to make genre movies—thrillers, chick flicks, romantic comedies, weekend-debauch movies (female as well as male), horror movies.”
There you have it. It confirms my feeling that writers interested in making solid dramas and non-slapstick comedies will increasingly find their future in digital, lower-budget films that will be distributed mainly via the internet, as well as HBO, Showtime, and some of the other cable outfits. Here in the UK, some recent changes in the tax laws should help free up some investment in independent films.
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