Sample Screenplays

When I first started out in the business I worked as an intern. Mostly I just filed things for other people and answered the phones with a sunny little Texas accent (went over real well with those hardened New Yorkers and jaded Angelenos, let me tell you), but my abiding joy was reading the spec scripts when they came in. I'm dating myself here, but one of my all time favorite scripts, the one that just completely blew me away and made me absotively sure I had to move to Hollywood was Andrew Kevin Walker's SEVEN script. Dark, moody, angry and ultimately about the triumph of evil over good, it was stunning in it's completeness. The day the spec hit the street, it was like an evil pleasure, an insider's read and a measure of how much a part of the game you were if you read it. Like AMERICAN BEAUTY, THE SIXTH SENSE, TRAINING DAY, that script made a mark on the game. When it came out a few years later, the film altered the landscape.

A really great spec can do that.

The above films are each great examples of genre films that have been so completely reimagined they feel like new subgenres in and of themselves. They aren't though, within their genres they utilize key features and turn them on their ears. In SEVEN, Walker's script took the thriller and combined it with the buddy movie. It introduced us to a retiring cop and his go-get 'em young partner, created a great puzzle with excellent stakes and clearly defined rules (the heart of every thriller), then wound us up about the hunt for the serial killer, the love story between Brad Pitt and Gywneth Paltrow, and then SLAMMED those two storylines together in a brilliant ending. The original spec was centered much more closely on the Morgan Freeman character, Mills, and I found it fascinating that the focus for the film version was more clearly split between the two detectives. It definitely made the death of Mills' wife more impactful.

Finding a great story to tell is difficult, but that's the writer's job. It's worth it, though. I'm working with a writer now who wrote a redemption tale set in New York. It's a great little story about father and son which has real resonance. Everyone I've pitched the story to tears up a little when they hear the particulars, and I can't wait to read the next draft of it. It's something that's almost strong enough to get him a rewrite gig. We'll do a little more work, focus the story a little better, and then do "polish" work making sure that his scene work is strong, sharpening up dialogue and going through each character's motivation moment by moment to insure that the entire film sings. I love this part of the work, in up to my elbows, using craft to fight my way to the finish. The writer I'm working with has excellent instincts and really understands his characters. It will be an excellent sample for him to use in the future.

If any of you have questions about a sample script (spec), let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Best of luck to all of you. I'm headed to a secluded cabin on Thursday to work on the book, catch up on my reading and finish a spec I'm writing myself. I've had great feedback on the treatment, but there's a long road between treatment and spec, so I got to get to steppin'.