#scriptments

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016, Gareth Edwards)

01/02/2025

[hstayafanart]

Just felt like a quick doodle!

The ball's really rolling on the third installment of Blue's journey! The entire scriptment is done (outline + random scenes & scraps of dialogue). I have two half-chapters written (the first and last... because I like torturing myself) and generally feel like I have everything ironed out. I'm super excited to share it with you all!

[chriscdcase95]

"Dragons & Monsters" Update: List of monsters

Title says it all, but for nearly a year now, I've been revisiting one of my shelved fics; Dragons & Monsters — Game of Thrones crossover AU with Godzilla. Being a Canon Divergence, the story splinters off from the end of season four, before really diverging from the end of season six.

Dragons & Monsters story covers what would happen when Westeros has monsters on their hands during the war between Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister, as well as the looming threat of the Long Night.

While I am unlikely to write a full story, I am working on several docs for a timeline covering the history and lore of this AU — which will include an updated scriptment for what the full story would have been. So far, the doc is over two hours long!

And with House of The Dragon season two, I have been expanding Dance-era lore for this AU. So I decided to share a list and descriptions I have in mind for this timeline as a preview.

— — — —

1. Gojira/Godzilla I: Named after a legendary sea dragon in myths pertaining to the Long Night — and is quite possibly that exact monster —Gojira's current claim to fame is bringing about the Doom of Valyria. Because of atrocities and abominations committed by Old Valyria, Gojira's habitat was destroyed, along with his kin and congregation. As recompense, Gojira went on a rampage that razed Valyria, and spent the next century tracking down and picking off the survivors where they fled.

Thought to be the last of his kind, Gojira reaches Westeros either during or shortly after Aegon's conquest. Soon after, Gojira was slain by an expedition led by Aegon beyond the Wall. The story goes that Gojira was destroyed by a mysterious creation by Daisuke Waters, a Maester/rumored sorcerer of Valyrian and Yi Ti descent. After Gojira's death, Daisuke killed himself after destroying all his research of his creation, believing it too dangerous for mankind to have. Gojira's current resting spot is at the bottom of a frozen lake in the Land of Always Winter.

2. Godzilla II: Another of Gojira's species, and considered his surviving offspring; serving as the Godzilla of the Dragons & Monsters outline. Unlike his vengeful and hateful father, Godzilla II was ambivalent and aloof towards mankind; rarely intentionally attacking humans, save for defence or retaliation. He first appeared in Westeros in 112 AC, along with numerous monsters over the years, before departing after the Dance of the Dragons.

However, these encounters were muddled in hearsay and rumors, and not properly documented by the Citadel; in part because some of the stories told were considered too absurd to be part of a serious historical record — especially the “nonsense” about a flying, fire breathing turtle that appeared during the Dance.

Centuries following his departure, Godzilla returned in the year 301 AC, making landfall in King's Landing; just before the trial of Cersei Lannister by the faith militant. It is soon discovered that he arrived in response to something else...

3. The Hatchling: A juvenile of Godzilla's species, and a survivor of a destroyed nest, born from a submerged egg just in the sea off of Eastwatch. Dormant for centuries, upon hatching in 300 AC, the infant made landfall, soon appearing during — and disrupting — the Battle of Castle Back. The Hatchling quickly breaches the Wall, and spends about a year wandering the North, initially considered a nuisance by the people and a frequent hunting target of Ramsay Bolton — despite their weapons doing little serious damage to the infant.

After encounters with the Stark family, the Hatchling is normally docile towards people. However, he gradually begins to attack in self defense. especially as he grows and matures over time. In fact, there are worries that the Hatchling may outgrow his attachment towards humans. Besides Godzilla II, the Hatchling's presence draws the attention of other monsters in Westeros.

4. Ghidorah: Also known as the “God of the Void”, Ghidorah was worshiped as the god of Old Valyria before their pantheon became the dominant religion. Being the Greater Scope Villain of this setting, Ghidorah was first alluded to in Empire of the Dawn myths; implicitly tied to the “black rock�� worshiped by the Bloodstone Emperor. After the Long Night, the founders of Old Valyria uncovered Ghidorah's remains. Despite being “dead”, Ghidorah's body constantly healed and restored itself; feasting on his flesh and blood granted the Valyrians “revelations”.

It is through Ghidorah, that the Valyrians were able to practice blood magic and other abominations. Through this Ghidorah was not only the progenitor of their dragons, but was tied to the dragon lords by putting Ghidorah's blood into their genome. Despite being obscured over the centuries, Ghidorah was the ultimate source of Valyria's power, which lived on through its people.

Even their present descendants — including Jon and Daenerys — have unwitting ties to Ghidorah's lingering spirit. Some fanatics believe that the Long Night will herald the return of Ghidorah in his full form. And these fanatics don't mind bringing it about themselves.

5. Baragon and Varan: Two reptilian monsters that appear in Westeros in 301 AC, alongside Godzilla II. Their origins are unclear, but it's assumed they are among the last of their respective species from the World Below. With greater threats on the horizon, Varan and Baragon serve as the initial monster antagonists in the Dragons & Monsters plotline. Driven by animalistic instinct, the two invade Westeros in response to the Hatchling's presence in the North, acting as predators.

Taking parts of Westeros as their territory, Varan claims the Westerlands, while Baragon claims the Reach. Both monsters regularly attack the smallfolk and occupying armies, causing turmoil in the south; especially during Daenerys' and Cersei's war. Both monsters aim to reach the North in search of the Hatchling, putting them on Godzilla's warpath...along with six of the seven kingdoms.

6. Anguirus: A monster that first appeared in Westeros following Aegon's conquest. For centuries, Anguirus slumbered beyond the Wall, not far off from the Three Eyed Raven's cave. In the story outline for Dragons & Monsters, Anguirus first encounters Bran, Meera and Hodor during their stay at the Raven's cave. As the Raven, Brynden Rivers kept Anguirus asleep through warging with him on a regular basis. 

While Anguirus shows no immediate aggression towards humans, it's unclear if he's naturally docile or if Rivers ended up taming him through warging. However, Anguirus will go on the defensive if provoked. During an altered version of The Door, Anguirus awakens to fight off the Army of the Dead as they attack the Raven's cave, soon becoming overwhelmed, and fleeing southwards. Anguirus would then wander into Westeros being a regular presence when the Long Night approaches. After initial hostilities with Godzilla II, the two monsters develop something like a kinship the following year.

7. Mothra: Formerly known as “Mosura”, a “Mother Spirit” worshipped across different cultures, but was most prominent in the Infant Islands off of Essos. She is seen as a benevolent nature deity, or an angel-like being, represented by butterfly or moth iconography. Some believe she is associated with the Maiden Made of Light of Empire of the Dawn myths.

Due to Valyrian colonization of the Infant Islands, her religion is considered extinct in Essos; her temples were burned, her people enslaved; image replaced with that of a three-headed dragon. Though some surviving fringes of her followers may be found in Naath. In Dragons & Monsters, Missandei brings up Mothra in discussions of benevolent titans — but she herself is unsure if Mothra actually exists — as well when she talks about returning to Naath.

— — — — 

The next part of the list is monsters considered for this timeline; including other monsters that may have attacked Westeros during "The Dance" era.

They're either not set in stone, still in the "idea" stage, or I can't talk too much of them without going too far into spoilers. Hence why their descriptions are more vague.

1. Zilla: Following the Doom of Valyria, the remains of dragons and theirresidual cursed blood polluted many of their shores and bays. Marine iguanas regularly nest on these shores, and mutate as a result of centuries of exposure. These mutations include the iguanas growing to the size of Komodo dragons or crocodilians; developing draconic traits, and carnivorism — luckily for observing humans, their preference is fish. However, there soon came a specimen with more drastic mutations.

This creature mutated into something vaguely like Godzilla. In fact, many initially thought it was Godzilla. The creature made landfall in Meereen, were it was reportedly killed with Wildfire — albeit at the expense of exhausting military manpower and resources. It was soon discovered the creature asexually reproduced, spawning hundreds of eggs in the city. While considerably weaker than most monsters, this breeding aspect is what makes this creature and its spawn such a threat.

2. The Great Apes: Besides Skull Island being located in the Summer Sea, along with Basilisk Isles, tales were widespread further south; spanning from the Zamoyos river, and especially the Green Hell. Pirates, slave traders and such often hear or share stories of these lands and their wildlife. They would describe the “lesser dragons” (dinosaurs) along with numerous fantastic species; the most dreadful of them being the “lizards snakes” (Skullcrawlers). Most prominently, the Great Apes; with different accounts of how big they actually are. Though they may refer to different species of these apes.

It is said many of these apes had this bond with their human charges, while others were tyrant “gods” towards them. At the time of Dragons & Monsters, no one seriously buys into their existence...at least until an army of these apes are said to have reached Essos. These apes were war-hawks, living alongside the people of Essos and ostensibly protecting them from the growing presence of other monsters, such as the growing Zilla species. Later, it would seem these apes were domesticating or enslaving these creatures — including the “snake lizards” — in the same way mankind uses animals for war and labour.

3. Shimo: A legendary Ice Dragon in myths and folklore of the First Men, thought off as being worshiped by the Children of the Forest. She is said to be the source of their power, much like Ghidorah with the Valyrians. In fact the way Shimo is revered could be compared/contrasted with the Valyrians worship of Ghidorah. During their stay in the Raven’s cave, Bran and Meera see Shimo's image among the paintings and carvings. Meera notes a resemblance to an ice dragon illustration she uncovered at Greywater Rush, claiming that the tale of the Ice Dragon is a children’s story that is especially popular with Northern girls.

In a rare moment of wonder following her brother's death, Meera remarks she’d like to see this Ice Dragon, if she still exists. Leaf ominously warns Meera that she wouldn’t. According to Leaf, Shimo was a benign if not benevolent creature, before turning on the Children of the Forest as a “punishment” for reasons they keep vague and refuse to elaborate. Because of this, in the present day, the Children of the Forest no longer call upon Shimo.

4. Biollante: A creature said to have emerged following Ghidorah's appearance in Westeros, and nicknamed “The Monster of Tyrell”. The story goes she was born from ashes of a deceased Tyrell Lady or Queen, and the blood of her living kin, from which roses grew; what was supposed to be a symbolic ritual, keeping the latter’s spirit with her family. But it is said Godzilla's blood in that soil tainted these roses, thus giving the ritual an actual source of power. From these roses, a monstrosity was created. One can say, she brought a whole new meaning to “Growing Strong”.

Despite her frightening appearance, she is seen as a normally benign monster. She is described as recognizing, showing affection and protecting those she knew and loved in life; while being wrathful to those she hated. However, her protective streak is said to involve “spreading” across Westeros to combat other invading monsters, putting them on a warpath against her. Centuries after the fact, a sigil tapestry of her fighting both Ghidorah and Godzilla is uncovered in what was once Highgarden.

5. Rodan I and II: a mating pair of “fire-birds” with a nest in the Red Mountain, named after a Fire Dragon of southern folklore. First appearing in 115 AC, they'd attack villages and settlements throughout the Crownlands and Drone. When the Crown looked into the matter, they discovered four eggs in the nest.  Attacking the Rodans directly was impractical, with them being roughly twice the size of Balerion. And destroying their eggs is easier said than done due to the shells being covered in volcanic rock-like casing. 

Instead, they opted to lure the parents away; dragon-riders would steal each of these eggs, and transport them to isolated corners of Westeros, in hopes of drawing the parents to the re-emerged Godzilla II. The plan was to get the three monsters to kill the other. However it was discovered the Rodan attacks were the result of them hunting something else…

6. Meganulon: Dragonfly-like larvae, which were around the size of horses, and preyed on isolated villages throughout the Crownlands during 115/116 AC; in turn they were preyed on by the Rodans. The Crown considered the Meganuon a lesser priority since they could be dealt with by armed men, and focused their efforts on the Rodan pair. Two were captured and brought to the Citadel for study, where they soon grew into the elephant-sized Meganula, which created a nest in Oldtown. Without the Rodans' predation to thin them out, they continued to breed. 

The nest soon gave rise to their hive-queen, Megaguirus — apparently nicknamed “The Queen Bitch” — which grew between the size of Vhagar or Balerion. They began to spread across the south, abducting thousands across Westeros to their nest to be stored as food. Following an attack on King's Landing, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Queen Alicent Hightower were also abducted; if the dates are any indication, Aemond Targaryen may have been born during Alicent’s captivity. The nest and hive queen were destroyed by other monsters, and the Crown’s armies, marking the first time Godzilla II ostensibly fought for the realm.

7. Also appearing in 115 AC, was a pair of “sea dragons”, that were considered a different but closely related species to Godzilla. Unlike the mating Rodans, this pair was a parent and offspring. The adult is recognized as Ogra of Ironborn folklore. Ogra is said to have fought and killed the sea serpent Nagga, before later stories credited the Grey King. In 115 AC, she and her offspring were awakened and separated by an underwater volcanic eruption.

The infant itself ended up in the Step Stones, where it was captured by the Triarchy, who intended to tame and weaponize it. Despite their obvious differences — such as their size — the Triarchy mistook the infant for Godzilla II, and gave it the Myrish name for “Gojira”; that being Gorgo. Described as pretty docile, preferring to flee than fight, Gorgo escaped his captors when Godzilla II made landfall on the Stepstones, but was soon recaptured by the Crown.

In 116 AC, Ogra made landfall in the Iron Islands, beginning a warpath across the Westerlands and Crownlands. With Godzilla II also on the move, the Crown intended to use Gorgo to lure Godzilla and Ogra in hopes they'd kill each other. During this confrontation, a distressed Gorgo broke loose and ran amok on Kings Landing.

8. The Gryphon: A monster said to be born from a comet that fell from the stars and into the Bay of Ice in 129 AC. It lay dormant for some time, before a substance from that rock began feeding and mutating a cave of bats. It would go on to consume and assimilate numerous animals and people to build a definitive body for itself, becoming another adversary to Godzilla.

Survivors infected by its essence would claim that the Gryphon wasn't a natural animal, but a “Doomsday Beast” — a living weapon created by an empire in “a galaxy far, far away” that was looking to colonize their world. And may still aim to do so with the Gryphon's death. Centuries after the fact, no one takes this “future warning” seriously.

9. Gamera and Gyaos: Allegedly appearing during the Dance of the Dragons, the Citadel omitted them from historical records. However, they were written about in Essos, as part of “Empire of the Dawn” myths. Rather than being natural monsters, Gamera and Gyaos were said to be creations of the Empire to protect humanity from the Titans; to fight monsters, they created monsters of their own. Gyaos are considered something like predecessors to Valyrian dragons, but became ravenous as their breeding escalated, and their food supply depleted. The “guardian” (Gamera) was created as a countermeasure.

During the Dance, he is said to first appear when Gyaos eggs were uncovered and hatched after being mistaken for dragon eggs. Little is written down, but what's vaguely described includes clashes with Godzilla II; battles between dragons and the smaller Gyaos; a supreme Gyaos being mentioned, as well as a being called Irys. It is also indicated that Gamera had some connection with Aegon III and/or Jaehaera Targaryen.

These were omitted from the history books, being deemed too outlandish and nonsensical for a real historical account.

10. Bagan: A monster mentioned in both myths of Old Valyria and the Empire of the Dawn, Bagan is vaguely described as a “demonic dragon-god”. His monikers include the God of Darkness or the Bloodstone Dragon. Supposedly, Bagan also appeared during the Dance, having been awakened by the Red Sowing and the Blacks attempts to breed more dragons.

As with other monsters, Bagan is kept out of the history books. Some because Bagan’s name is synonymous with “Devil”, speaking of him is a curse or invocation, so the Maesters wrote him out of Fire & Blood. Others believe that, like with Gamera and Gyaos, these accounts were just too ridiculous to be considered historical fact.

[ineachretelling]

On the 23rd day in the month of September, in a year from a decade not too long before our own, a threat to the sanctity of a cult classic musical came into being... or did it? Dear listeners, your host did not expect her friends to be so eager to read her silly little sequel to one of her favorite musicals, but they did, and now you get to hear this utter nonsense! This podcast contains swearing and monster violence. This scriptment is a work of fanfiction, all familiar characters belong to their respective holders.

IER Presents Cast and Characters

Dree Krelborn - read by River Lane Fern Krelborn/Dawn - read by Charley the Pirate Theydy Seymour Krelborn/Summer/Bobby - read by Bex Silberfein Audrey Krelborn/Chiffon - read by Sydney McGaughey Ronette - read by Jas/Germ Crystal/Pamela - read by Shamila Karunakaran Rosie/Robbie/Jessica/additional voices - read by Jasmine Garcia

Songs sung by Jasmine Garcia and Sydney McGaughey

[iffltd]

Ken Miyamoto presents twenty-one outlines, treatments, and scriptments from major writers and filmmakers — past and present — that screenwriters can read and study.

[cinemablind]

Wonder Woman 3's First Scriptment Is Almost Complete

[kmlaney]

Star Wars: 1, 2, 11, 18, 33!

1. Jedi or Sith? To be? Jedi. I don’t know that I’d be a great Jedi but I’d be a terrible Sith. And not like in the fun, hoo-hoo eeevil, you-can’t-do-that! terrible Sith. You know the character in the SI story who Harkun kills right after the intro mission? Yeah, that’d be me. If I grew up Sith and had all the hoo-hoo eeeevil impulses encouraged it might be a different story. As a philosophy or religion? Jedi again. I have issues with Yoda and the way the Jedi are depicted but the core ideals appeal to me far more than the grasping, every-man-for-himself viciousness of the Sith. To write, read, or watch? Sith. The bad guys are fun, okay? Plus it seems a lot of writers have a hard time making interesting good guys who aren't actually bad (but no one knows! They're only pretending! Everyone is obvious-awful or secret-awful! Just like real life! It's edgy!) 

2. Rebels or Empire? The Empire might make the trains run on time but I don't want to live there (insert political comment here). Unless you're on the top of the pyramid life sucks. I don't know quite what the OT rebels were fighting for, especially after seeing the prequels, but they seem much nicer to non-humans overall and at least try to be better than awful.. 

11. Which planet would you want to call home? Going strictly on aesthetics and which ones I've seen depicted... Bespin. A city in the cloud bands of a gas giant sounds cool and it's not like any place on earth I could theoretically move to.

18. How has Star Wars impacted your life? Hugely. I remember standing with my family in lines wrapped around the theater to see Star Wars in 1977. Then again in ‘79 and ‘81. I wanted to be Darth Vader for Halloween. Mom vetoed It because she thought a kid in all-black costume wandering the neighborhood after dark was a bad idea--I still disagree. I had a lightsaber and action figures and a paintable Luke Skywalker riding a tauntaun. I used all my Lego to build an AT-AT. There was a Star Wars comic strip in the newspaper that I read every day and don't remember anything about, other than some images of Nausicaä's Toxic Jungle reminded me of it. 

I bought the OT on VHS when they came out, and watched the remastered versions in theaters, and bought those too. I never really got into the novels or comics until I met the person who became my husband. One of our first dates was seeing Phantom Menace on opening weekend. Married, we did the same for Attack of the Clones, which turned out to be pretty much what the leaked scriptment he found online said it was. We ran and played tabletop Star Wars RPGs (in at least 3 different game systems) with John Williams’s score in the background setting the mood. I couldn't get past the tutorial in KOTOR, but we had both games. 

When my son was little, we watched the movies and I read the opening crawl to him, like my Mom did for my little brother back in 1977. I found a wonderful group of writers who liked Star Wars and KotOR and were so welcoming, I shared some of my silly stories with them. And they liked them. I liked their stories too. So I kept writing and followed them to tumblr.

I had major obsessions with The Wizard of Oz, Star Trek, and The Lord of the Rings, but I never found those fandoms. Star Wars was everywhere. Everyone liked it. For once I shared a weird obsession with the culture at large. For all the rotten stuff some fans throw up, for as much as the Star Wars fandom can be toxic, and though I don’t like everything in the Star Wars universe, Star Wars feels like friends. Like community. 

33. Which movie have you watched the most? At a guess, A New Hope. I know I saw that one five times in the theater during its original run (which was A LOT for my family) and twice during the re-release. The only ones I haven’t watched countless times were the newest ones. I didn’t care for them as much.

[thearkhound]

Tomokazu Fukushima’s role in Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2

Tomokazu Fukushima/福島智和 was the co-writer for the original Metal Gear Solid, as well as Metal Gear Solid 2:Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, helping Hideo Kojima write the scenarios for each title. He also wrote the script for Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (as covered in previously translated interviews posted in this blog) and the Snake Tales that were added in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, as well as assisted in the writing for the Metal Gear Acid series. He would leave Konami during the development of Metal Gear Solid 4 (being last credited in the TGS 2005 trailer) before being employed by SIE Japan Studio, where his name can be seen in titles such as rain, Soul Sacrifice, Everybody’s Golf, Freedom Wars and The Tomorrow Children.

There has been a bit of speculation and misinformation over Fukushima’s exact role in the writing of the first three numbered MGS titles. Because of this I took the liberty of translating content from two MGS related books with material written by Tomokazu Fukushima himself that shed some light on how Fukushima was involved in at least the first two MGS games. The first is Fukushima’s profile from World of the Metal Gear Solid, published by Sony Magazines in 1998, which covers his involvement in MGS1, when he joined the team and Kojima’s thoughts on the man himself. The second translation is a two-page interview from the 2002 book Metal Gear Solid 2: The Making, also published by Sony Magazines, naturally covering his involvement with MGS2. Both of these books feature extensive information on the development of each title, which I will someday post on my blog, but for now I wanted to focus solely on Fukushima.

World of the Metal Gear Solid

Tomokazu Fukushima (writer, script unit)

“While the system employed by cinema and literature is closed to spectators, video games as a medium employ an open system that assumes interaction from the user. There seems to be a misunderstanding that the two systems can be fused when faced with the illusion of “the realization of narrative”, but since essential differences exists between them, their possible expressions differ and on top of that, their effective crafts are also different. In Metal Gear Solid, we tried to express things that are not only suitable for a video game, but can only be expressed in a video game. For example, when talking to Master Miller or Nastasha Romanenko, it seems that their vast amount of knowledge of survival techniques and nukes respectively don’t contribute much to the game at a first glance. But in reality each element behaves in an emergent manner as they are calculated and created in a matter that contributes to Metal Gear Solid as a whole work.”

Codename: Fusshi

Joined the Kojima Group on May 1997

Became part of the Metal Gear Solid team on July 1997

Joined at the last minute to write the [Japanese] voiceover script.

Kojima on Fukushima: “After the plot was decided, I had Fukushima helped me out on writing the script for the voiceovers. The harsher terms in the script, such as 父殺し/chichikoroshi (patricide) and 怯懦と蛮勇/kyōda to ban’yū (bravery and cowardice) were his contributions.

Metal Gear Solid 2: The Making

How was the procedure of writing a script with Mr. Kojima?

“I actually took part in Metal Gear Solid 2 after Ghost Babel ended development, which I wrote the script for. By that point Mr. Kojima had already written a rough draft of the scriptment [Note:A term coined by James Cameron as a portmanteau of “script” and “treatment”. In Kojima’s case, a scriptment is an overly detailed game design document that covers all sorts of aspects such as plot outline, game features, level designs, specifications, ect. Every game directed by Kojima since MGS1 has had a scriptment written for it.]. From there on we started transferring files to a PC based on that scriptment. We would correct each other by writing amendments directly into the scriptment using differently colored texts and writing down the reason for the change. We made around 20 or so revisions.”

How was the work divided between you two?

“While there were some parts that were edited by the both of us, but if I’ll be bold to say it, all the real-time cutscenes were written primarily by Mr. Kojima, as well as all the mandatory CODEC calls. I was assigned to writing all the optional CODEC. We ended up creating around 2,500 files.”

Were there any scenes that were particularly troublesome?

“The CODEC call with the Colonel and Rosemary at the end. We only had around two months to finish the script for the Plant chapter. There were many important scenes in the Plant chapter ,especially during the latter half, so we didn't have enough time to work on the CODEC calls. We even wrote the CODEC calls when the Colonel starts glitching out in a single draft, wondering whether our work was good. Perhaps there were lines of dialogue that didn't exactly convince Mr. Kojima.” (laughs)

Rosemary's lines were quite peculiar.

"We imagined her as something of an independent American office lady in her 20's, so we tried using movies and such for reference... It was pretty difficult... (laughs)"

What were you careful of when incorporating the theme of Metal Gear Solid 2 into the screenplay?

"There isn't just one theme, but we intended to have the problems that individuals and groups face in today’s information society manifest themselves in various ways. However, a script is just one part of the game during the planning phase. While the dialogue is expressed in a direct matter, we thought about effectively arranging the presence or absence of interactivity in certain parts while calculating its effects."

Which parts were you particularly fixated on when writing the script?

"It could be the modernity and the excess. For example I believe Metal Gear Solid 2 has both, real excess and imagined excess. Real excess would be things that are quantifiable like long CODEC conversations or long cutscenes involving each characters. Imagined excess would be excess of information of things such as anything involving the Patriots. If you pay attention closely, you will know that Metal Gear Solid 2 has an extreme balance between the acquisition and lost of excessive information. Naturally we were aiming for such results.”

“The character have an excessive expression, as well as a narrative aspect where they all betray each other. We put it there while calculating the effects it has on the player, although an interpretation is needed there. It is something that is difficulty to portray, but we wanted to show the possibility that it could be achieved on a major title.” Do you have any favorite lines in the parts that you in particular (Fukushima) worked on?

"I like Otacon's proverbs. They provided a relief during tension... They're so ridiculous, but fun... (laughs) Since he's an independent character, I was free to write him like I want."

Sources

World of the Metal Gear Solid/メタルギア　ソリッド　シナリオ・ 設定完全資料集 (ISBN 978-4789791854)

Metal Gear Solid 2: The Making/メタルギア　ソリッド2　ザ・メイキング (ISBN 978-4789718431)

[magicalhideoutengineer]

When and how was the decision made to come back to the Harry Potter franchise and to start that up again?

David Heyman: I was with [producer] Lionel Wigram and we were trying to figure out how could we come back to this world? And Lionel had the idea of doing a documentary about Newt Scamander, a faux documentary where we go with him to see as he's looking for his magical beasts. Pitched that idea to Jo, she said, you know, it's funny, I've been thinking about Newt Scamander myself, and I have this whole story about him, and what do you think of it? She told us and we went, uh-huh.

And she says, so yeah, and I'd like to write the screenplay. And [we had] mixed feelings about that, because she's a novelist, she's never written a screenplay before. So when the screenplay arrived — she handed it to me. And I read it. And as soon as I opened it, I felt [dramatic sigh] relief. Because while it was very rough, it's a first draft from a person who had written their first screenplay, the characters were so vivid. The scenes were thrilling. It's a bit whimsical, a bit light, didn't have the gravitas that one would have liked, that one associates with Potter. And then the second — we hired David Yates, brought David Yates on, Steve Kloves and myself and Lionel and David. And then Jo did a second draft. And that draft was really dark. Really, really dark.

What made it so dark?

It was just quite violent, it was quite ugly. The abuse of Credence was probably featured much more strongly, much more overtly, the suggestion of it was much more explicit. We saw things happening to characters. So we pulled back from that. The big thing was Jo finding her tone. Once she found the tone the rest fell into place quite quickly. She's amazing. She's a writer. She's voracious. She writes and writes and writes and writes and it just pours out of her, ideas. It's an amazing thing. This, we're working on the second script with David and she'd written a first draft, and David asked her to do a treatment, some structural treatment, and two days later, a 102-page scriptment — half script, half treatment — arrived. How does anybody do that? She just locks herself away, she'll go to a cafe or something and just write. It just pours out, which is amazing.

Part of the appeal of the Harry Potter movies is it's about watching this little kid grow up and I know a lot of the fanbase is really young. Is that something you were concerned about at all about when you decided to launch a spinoff with adult characters and an adult cast?

No way, you don't think of it that way. You just tell a story that feels organic. So making the films, and writing the films I imagine, it's about being true to what you create. If we thought about the audience, if we made the film with the audience as our main directive, we would be paralyzed. We couldn't do a thing. The pressure, the expectation, it would be too great. We wouldn't be able to do a thing. Ultimately, we are the harshest critics. Myself and David and the film, Jo with the script, Steve, Lionel, we are really tough on ourselves. We have to tell the story that we can respond to.

And actually, Harry's grown up now. He's 18 years old. So what would we be telling? Going back and telling a story of Newt and Tina and Queenie and Jacob, who are outsiders like Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who are awkward, who create their own family, not a family they're born into, a family they create, who are dealing with issues of being outsiders, like Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who in themes of being outsiders, being ostracized, about being stigmatized, about tolerance and intolerance, about a world divided, about the dangers of repression, those are things that are all through Harry Potter, that darkness, those rich themes, and that's very much at play here in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. So no, we didn't think about that. We just wanted to tell a story about characters. And the way Tina, Queenie, and Newt are also, they are like child adults. They have an innocence, a purity about them. So no, it wasn't really a concern at all.

Yeah, Newt strikes me as a really unusual kind of character. Most movies you see about a hero of his own franchise, they're not like Newt. He's a lot more awkward. He almost read to me like someone that's on the spectrum. Was that something you thought about?

Absolutely. You may be in love, you may have a boyfriend or a husband or a girlfriend, you maybe have really close friends, but you still feel alone at times. You may be comfortable in some situations but there are some situations where you feel really uncomfortable socially. That's Newt. Newt's alone. There's a sadness about him. I think we all have that sadness in us. I think Newt is someone who communicates better with his beasts than with people. I know at dinner parties, I like to go and do the washing, because that way I can go and hide and be on my own. That's Newt. He would go be with his animals.

Yeah, he's really unusually introverted for an action hero kind of guy.

But he's not an action hero, that's the thing about him. I mean, he's a hero. But he's us. He's you. He's me. He's not a superhero. I love some of those superhero movies. But I know I won't be able to fly. I know I won't be able to do things that Iron Man can do, or Superman can do, or Batman can do. I just won't. I know I can love animals. I may not be able to use a wand. But I think that Newt is a very accessible and relatable hero.

Who do you think is a bigger threat, Grindelwald or Voldemort? Who do you think is more evil?

I think both are evil. I think the thing that Grindelwald has that maybe Voldemort doesn't is, Voldemort was pure — he was just a brute, a bully. The thing about Grindelwald is, I understand what he's saying. When Grindelwald talks about living in the shadows and why should we live in the shadows, I understand that. Why? Why should wizards have to live underground? That's not right. I don't agree with his attitude toward people who are different to him. But I understand. He makes sense. So he has the ability to persuade, to seduce, to make you come on the side of what he is thinking. That is scary.

[letterboxd]

Trustworthy: The Lynn Shelton Q&A.

“I wanted to let myself have a bit of fun.” Filmmaker and actor Lynn Shelton chats with Letterboxd about the improvisational joy of her new film Sword of Trust, the “mixed bag” of streaming services, and the power of Claire Denis.

Lynn Shelton is a trusted director in the world of TV comedy, having helmed episodes of GLOW, Fresh off the Boat, Shameless, New Girl, The Good Place and many more. Along the way, she has written and directed several feature films that together form a smart, gently praised mumblecore-meets-naturalism oeuvre.

Shelton’s films are small delights, with low stakes and a human scale to them; introspective, contemporary chamber pieces that give her actors plenty of space to improvise. Your Sister’s Sister, which she wrote and directed, has been hailed on Letterboxd as a “terrific little character piece from three superb actors” (Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt), and her earlier mumblecore arthouse porno comedy Humpday (also starring Duplass, with a turn from Shelton as well) has received love for being “absolutely hilarious and deeply awkward”.

Her latest, Sword of Trust, which she co-wrote with Mike O’Brien (a.k.a. Pat the Pizza Guy from Booksmart), is a screwball inheritance comedy starring comedian and podcaster Marc Maron as Mel, a pawn shop owner. He teams up with a couple (Jillian Bell and Michaela Watkins), who are trying to hawk a Civil War-era sword. Together with Mel’s man-child shop assistant (Jon Bass), they are drawn into an absurd world of conspiracy theories.

Shelton’s association with Maron began in 2015 when she appeared on an episode of his exemplary podcast, WTF with Marc Maron. The following year, Shelton directed the first two episodes of the fourth and final season of the IFC series Maron (she also had an on-screen role in episode 11), and in 2017, she directed Maron’s Netflix special, Too Real. He is, it turns out, not only the star, but also the muse for Sword of Trust. “Since the first time I worked with him, I felt he had untapped depth that I wanted the world to see on-screen.”

Marc Maron as Mel and Jon Bass as Nathaniel in ‘Sword of Trust’.

What inspired the premise of Sword of Trust? Lynn Shelton: [Marc and I] started writing a script for a different movie but it was hard to make progress on it because we’re both so busy. I was getting frustrated since I wanted to get on set with him, until he told me he would show up for any part I wrote for him. For Sword of Trust, I was inspired by seeing a pawn shop and thinking he would be a great pawn shop owner and that it would be a great place for a narrative to unfold.

I knew that I wanted to give myself the opportunity to explore a new genre and do a screwball caper. It would be emotionally grounded and have authentic characters who resonated as real people, but goes on a misadventure; a comedy that allows itself to go into slightly unrealistic territories. That was something I’ve never allowed myself to do. Before this I always wanted to make sure that every single minute was completely realistic.

I wanted to let myself have a bit of fun. I also wanted to return to improvisation, which I haven’t really done since Your Sister’s Sister, which was nearly ten years ago. I was excited to return to that territory and I started to assemble a cast of people I knew that would be really good at improvising around Marc.

Lastly, I really wanted it to involve some sort of a con that was relevant to what’s going on in our cultural political situation. One thing I’ve been obsessed with right now is this peak moment we’re having in society of conspiracy theories and the idea of alternative facts. I wanted to make a film that would point it out, but also one that wouldn’t make you want to slit your wrists as you walk out of the theater. That’s where the whole conspiracy theory premise came from.

When you direct with improvisation, what structures do you have in place to ensure you and the cast keep the characters and the story consistent, yet also make sure you stick to the schedule? I built those characters with and for the actors, especially Marc’s character Mel. With improvisation in general, it’s important to have clear back-stories and relationships between the characters going in, even weeks before you arrive on set. I asked the actors to get together with the people they were supposed to have relationships with to get the wheels turning about who these people were. By the time we got there they were able to start spinning out some sort of narrative that reflected all of that work we put into their back-stories.

This is a very plot-heavy movie, which was tightly pre-constructed, so it wasn’t the kind of improvisational movie where you show up and wonder ‘what will happen to these people today?’. I knew exactly what had to happen in each scene to map out into the final narrative. In this case we had a 50-page scriptment, where some scenes are written out in terms of dialogue but actors were always free to toss the specific words out the window and come up with their own replacements. There’s a lot of room for embellishments or improvised little side roads.

There’s a moment I always think of: when Jillian Bell picks up a sale item she was inspired by in the pawn shop we were shooting at and she created a whole little funny side thing about it. People are inspired by the environment they’re in and something will just come out of their mouths and they’ll just go down that road. It’s a beautiful thing.

I ask them to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of getting some exposition out while planting seeds, but outside of that they can really play and have the freedom to find their own way through the beats of the scene and add their own little grace notes to how the scene plays out.

Jillian Bell as Cynthia and Michaela Watkins as Mary.

Did anything significantly change between the initial treatment and final film? How does it transform on set from the core essence of what you have on the page? There were a couple scenes that ended up getting thrown out on the cutting-room floor after we had a few feedback screenings. We had multiple endings and we got rid of a lot of them, which didn’t seem to hurt the film at all. We also had some great scenes that were added along the way. Halfway through the shoot we had a little break and Marc suggested a new scene that helped round out a couple of the side characters that we hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know very well.

I had planned for the confederate thug characters (who try to get the sword from Mel in the pawn shop) to turn up again later when the four characters are at the farm, but it was Marc’s idea for Mel to recognise them from when they were kids and embarrass them about how they would come into his shop when they were younger. It’s a tragic story Marc paints about them and it really shifts your perception of these two bozos and gives you a sense of sympathy for them even while they’re trying to be tough guys.

I love when you can take a couple of characters who seem to initially be two-dimensional and then you find out some extra facts about them and you’re able to turn them into fully fleshed-out human beings, even if they don’t get a lot of screen time. It’s a wonderful thing to humanize characters like that.

The scene in the back of the van—which I think is really the heart of the movie—also developed over time. In the script itself it just said: “they get to know each other in the back of the van.” That’s all it said. That was the most fully improvised scene in the film. I left it open-ended because I had a feeling it would fulfil a really important role in the movie but I didn’t know exactly what it was until we got going.

It became clear there was an emotional journey with Mel as he starts out very shut-down and he opens up a little bit by the end. I realized this scene needed to be used in the service of that arc, so I told the actors that I needed them to open up to each other and be vulnerable to each other so the characters could become more intimate. A lot of the time they drew from real life, drawing from first- or second-hand experiences to build those back-stories.

You’ve settled into a real groove with directing television. Your resume in that area is really impressive. What keeps you circling back to film when you could keep making a career out of being a TV director? Most of my income is from television and I really enjoy the extra-collaborative nature of television. It’s almost a pathology with filmmaking—I can’t stop doing it! This is my eighth movie and I just love it so much. I love the little family you develop. Obviously there’s a lot of overlap in the process of making film and television since it’s basically the same thing, but when I’m writing and directing I have more of an opportunity to set the tone and really create from the top-down of what I want the culture of the production to be like.

I can be the creative visionary in a way that, until I create my own television show, is not going to be possible. If I’m the director on a show, I’m ultimately in the service of other people. Luckily, I keep working with really visionary and talented people. This film, I sort of willed it into existence and it’s nice. I really wanted it to happen, so I asked a bunch of friends if they would join me, and it ended up becoming reality and there’s something really lovely about that.

Your last two films and your Marc Maron stand-up special are on Netflix. Anyone can (and should) watch them at any time, and streaming has completely transformed indie cinema in this way over the past decade. Yet, there are so many films that they can all still get lost in the shuffle. How do you feel about the way streaming has changed low-budget cinema? What work needs to be done to support them? This is a constant topic of conversation between filmmaker friends of mine. I know a lot of friends who were able to get films made that wouldn’t have been able to if not for Netflix, for instance. I don’t know if that’s even going to continue being the case because they seem to be shifting their paradigm in the kinds of films they’re producing, but for a while there they were almost the last bastion of producing films of a certain size that weren’t just giant tentpole movies.

Obviously films are still being made, little- to medium-sized films, but the issue of them getting lost in the shuffle because of this vast ocean of content that’s out there—unless you have this big machine waving flags to say: “look at this over here”—they will continue to disappear into the ether. It can be disheartening for sure.

My last film Outside In [one of Shelton’s more highly rated films on Letterboxd] had a very tiny theatrical run and basically went straight to Netflix, so I don’t really have any sense of who is seeing the film. But it’s interesting how I do have people reaching out to me saying they didn’t know I directed it but watched it because of Edie Falco, or they were recommended it. People do seem to see the movie, I just don’t know exactly what the numbers are. You just don’t know, so it’s a very strange feeling.

On the other hand, it’s very nice that it’s accessible and it can be discovered. If I wanted to point somebody to one of my films on Netflix, I know they can easily access it anytime. Streaming is a real mixed bag for independent filmmakers. Right now I have about 30 theaters showing Sword of Trust and I’m so thrilled that even if it’s just a weekend, at least a good chunk of folks will be able to see the film and have the communal experience the way I wanted in the first place.

Lynn Shelton turns up on screen as well as behind the scenes, playing Mel’s ex, Deirdre, in ‘Sword of Trust’.

Finally, a favorite Letterboxd question: what was the film that got you into films? I could go to different points in my life. My mother was a huge fan of Jules et Jim so I saw that at a really early age and it had a big effect on me. It was the first time where I was ever aware of the filmmaker’s hand. I never started thinking about it until the one sequence where Jeanne Moreau is singing and it freezes and then it plays and then it freezes again and then it plays again and it made me realize there was a director who made that decision to do that. What does that mean? That got me thinking about filmmaking when I was really young.

Then later in life I heard Claire Denis speak when her film Friday Night was coming out. I remember finding out that she was 40 when she made her first feature and Friday Night was her sixth or seventh film. I had an epiphany that I could start making movies and it wasn’t too late for me because I didn’t make movies in my 20s and 30s. I didn’t make my first feature [We Go Way Back] until my late 30s. That was the film and filmmaker that really made me feel like ‘I can do this too’. Those would be my two bookends about being inspired to be a filmmaker.

‘Sword of Trust’ is on streaming services and playing in select US cinemas now. Images courtesy of IFC Films.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

What Did Jack Do? (2017, David Lynch)

23/04/2025

[hstayafanart]

Hstaya MASTERPOST

Updated 04/06/25

A Masterpost of my stories and art under the cut!

Search on my blog by:

Character ('Dust sans', 'Blue sans')

Group ('Nightmare Gang', 'The Stars')

Writing

Next story update

11/5/25: Outline/scriptment complete. Chapters written: 9/30.

Completed fics

Blue's Emotional Intelligence Toolkit fanfiction series (all on AO3)

Building your own Emotional Intelligence Toolkit with Blue

Having discovered Dream was emotionally manipulating him with his aura, Blue leaves the Stars and bunkers down with Nightmare and the gang.

Happiest Person in the Multiverse

Prequal scenes to Toolkit. Blue tries and fails to cope with Dream manipulating him.

Zombie

Cross joins the Gang. Set before Toolkit and Happiest Person.

Painkiller

Set before the truce, Horror gets injured in battle and Dream calms him down with his aura. Nightmare takes issue with this.

The Mortal Care Handbook

The truce Blue made between the Guardians of Feelings is so flimsy he feels it could collapse any moment. Blue, expert Outcode-wrangler that he is, needs to work hard against the Gang's hostility and the Stars' naivety to get these people, who've been fighting for so long, to sit down and talk.

Nightmare, meanwhile, is trying to make sure a certain Swap Sans isn't falling apart himself.

Error feels quite left out of the whole thing.

Blood and Apples

The aftermath of the apple incident. Very graphic, including a graphic header image. Includes some surprise character appearances.

Art

Cat Sanses (all)

Blue

Ink

Dream

Nightmare

Dust

Horror

Killer

Cross

Error (original)

Error (new)

Sci

Red

Crop

Geno

Reaper

Stretch

Classic

Lust

Paprika

Swapfell

Fellswap

Group images

The Gang

The Stars

Down Under AU (all)

Intro:

Part One

Characters:

Undyne, Underyne sketches

Alphys

Lesser & Greater Dingoes

Muffet

Toriel

Toriel doodles

Budgie That Carries You Over A Disproportionally Small Gap

Bilbiesville Inn & Hotel, and Innkeeper

Gerson

Frisk

Doggo

Burgerpants

Fanart (all)

For the Forgotten Ones comic

Underverse 0.7 (2)

Horrortale

Outertale Ink

Ocean Blue

Dust (Kakadu series)

Cross (Kakadu series)

Horror (Kakadu series)

Drunken doodles

Murder Trio

Caught

The Mortal Care Handbook art (all)

Nightmare and Horror

Blue's not a burden

The Handbook

Hard Nights

Worth more than work

Blue's Emotional Intelligence Toolkit art (all)

Suffer

Group Pic!

Blood and Apples (WARNING: graphic imagery)

Broken skulls

(Not) Inevitable

Chapter Headers (all)

The Mortal Care Handbook:

Chapter One

Chapters Two and Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

[movie-magic]

DC's Future Plans:

- 'The Flash 2' script already written

- 'Man of Steel 2' with Henry Cavill in development at WB

- 'Wonder Woman 3' scriptment soon

- At least 1 new James Gunn movie

- Matt Reeves is planning several Batman villain spin-offs

[irvinenewshq]

DCs Man of Metal 2 New Batman Films Probably on the Approach

Picture: Warner Bros. Nobody is aware of for positive what the way forward for DC will maintain on the large display screen, however two of its hottest stars are going to be entrance and heart: Batman and Superman, in addition to the worlds of each characters. The Hollywood Reporter has a blockbuster new story diving behind the scenes at DC, with information on all the things from this week’s Black Adam to potential new movies by James Gunn. Two of the standout revelations, although, are {that a} new Superman movie starring Henry Cavill is in very early growth with Warner Bros.—and that Matt Reeves isn’t simply doing a sequel to The Batman, he’s seeking to make further movies based mostly on a few of his villains. Let’s take these separately. The concept of Henry Cavill returning as Superman has seemingly been in all places the previous few weeks, with Black Adam star Dwayne Johnson closely hinting that the character may have a cameo in his movie. If that’s truly true (which audiences will discover out later this week), a possible cameo would mark the official return of the character; in consequence, the following step would a brand new film. Whether or not that’s an official Man of Metal 2 or one thing having to do with Black Adam, time will inform. However io9 has heard that the reporting is correct right here and writers are at present being wanted for a brand new Superman film. (That is unbiased of the Ta-Nehisi Coates Superman movie, which, if it occurs, will probably exist outdoors of continuity a la Joker, based on the report.) As for The Batman, it’s already been confirmed and made official that Matt Reeves is making its sequel, and can be full steam forward on the Penguin present for HBO Max. However this new report says extra exhibits and sure, films, are in “very early phases of gestation” set within the Robert Pattinson Bat-universe. The examples given by the commerce are “characters starting from the Scarecrow to Clayface to Professor Pyg.” Will Batman be part of these? Will they even occur? Once more, nothing is official, however it’s attainable. Rounding out the large three of DC, Patty Jenkins is outwardly able to ship in a “scriptment” (a Hollywood time period for lower than a script, however greater than a remedy) for Marvel Lady 3 quickly, which marks the primary replace on that movie in a while. Plus, a script to The Flash 2 has already been accomplished, if that movie seems to be successful. Head to the Hollywood Reporter to learn extra and we’ll have extra quickly. Need extra io9 information? Take a look at when to count on the newest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and all the things it is advisable find out about Home of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy. Originally published at Irvine News HQ

[aion-rsa]

The James Cameron Spider-Man Movie We Never Saw

https://ift.tt/3GzzAxY

James Cameron’s Spider-Man. Kind of has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Well, unlike the fictional James Cameron’s Aquaman–of which only a few fleeting seconds exist in the universe of the long-defunct HBO series Entourage–a Spider-Man movie written and directed by the legendary filmmaker almost came to pass in the early 1990s.

But like so many superhero and comics-based projects during that time–a relative Dark Ages for the genre–Cameron’s vision for the webslinging high school student never swung into theaters.

Almost all of it was down to legal issues surrounding the rights to Spider-Man, which kept him off the screen for years. But a glance through the “scriptment” that Cameron worked up–a detailed treatment outlining the story, characters, and even passages of dialogue–indicates that Cameron’s conception of the character and his mythos was very faithful in its own way. He did, however, incorporate a few bold changes to both Spider-Man himself and some iconic villains that would’ve divided fans. Some of those changes ultimately still did divide them, even if Cameron never got to be the one to implement them on the big screen.

“I wanted to make something that had a kind of gritty reality to it,” Cameron told Screencrush in a recent interview. “Superheroes in general always came off as kind of fanciful to me, and I wanted to do something that would have been more in the vein of Terminator and Aliens, that you buy into the reality [of it] right away…I wanted to ground it in reality and ground it in universal human experience. I think it would have been a fun film to make.”

Here is the story of James Cameron’s Spider-Man and why we never saw it. 

The Cannon Films Era

With the exception of Tim Burton’s two Batman films, the ‘80s and early ‘90s were bleak for superhero cinema. The once-celebrated Superman series starring Christopher Reeve had crashed and burned with both Superman III (1983) and the unwatchable Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and little else was happening. Two cheapo attempts at Marvel movies–Captain America (1991) and Fantastic Four (1994)–were never even released, while movies revolving around characters outside of DC and Marvel, like The Rocketeer (1991) and The Shadow (1994), quickly vanished at the box office.

Although legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman had briefly held the film option for Spider-Man, it was picked up in 1985 by Cannon Films–the exploitation factory that had actually bankrolled Superman IV. Why did Marvel sell the rights to Cannon? According to the book Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon (via Gizmodo), Marvel’s film agent at the time, Don Kopaloff, couldn’t sell Spider-Man anywhere else. “I would never have gone to [Cannon] as a first choice,” he recalled. “I went to them after I couldn’t get Captain America or Spider-Man sold.”

Nevertheless, Cannon heads Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus set about developing a Spider-Man movie over the next five years. The problem was, Golan and Globus apparently mistook Spider-Man for something along the lines of a monster, and the first script they commissioned–by The Outer Limits creator Leslie Stevens–had a scientist turning Peter Parker into literally a human spider and asking him to join a new race of human mutants.

Director Joseph Zito, one of the first filmmakers picked for the project by the producers, told the Los Angeles Times in 2002 that “Golan and Globus didn’t really know what Spider-Man was. They thought it was like the Wolfman.” Apparently they really did think they were making a horror movie since another potential directing choice was Texas Chain Saw Massacre creator Tobe Hooper.

Even so, the producers budgeted the picture at $20 million–a huge cost at the time for any studio, let alone a quickie shop like Cannon–and began burning through a succession of screenplays by writers like Ted Newsom and John A. Brancato (the latter went on to co-write The Game), Barney Cohen (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), and Frank LaLoggia (Lady in White), with the budget shrinking at each pass. As the money available to finance the picture diminished, Zito left the project, with directors like Albert Pyun and Stephen Herek in the mix at one point or another.

By 1991, however, Cannon was in financial freefall. As per their deal with Marvel, the company lost the rights to Spider-Man since no film had been produced within the five-year option period. Golan then sold the rights to Carolco Pictures, which was about to explode with Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Enter James Cameron

Carolco immediately offered Spider-Man to Cameron, who was about to bounce back from 1989’s financially disappointing The Abyss with the already-buzzing and groundbreaking Terminator 2. Although Carolco received all the previous Spider-Man scripts that Cannon had commissioned when it picked up the rights, Cameron reportedly did not even look at one of them. He instead decided to start from scratch.

Or did he? Confusingly, one of the last scripts of the Cannon era–which was submitted to Columbia Pictures, back when the studio had a deal in place to distribute any Cannon-produced Spider-Man movie–named the authors as “James Cameron, John Brancato, Ted Newsom, Barry Cohen and Joseph Goldmari.” The latter two were misspellings of Barney Cohen’s name and Menahem Golan’s own pseudonym, Joseph Goldman… Still, there was Cameron’s name right at the top!

Unlike the first script by Leslie Stevens, succeeding versions had gone back to the comics, incorporating Doctor Octopus as the main villain and returning Peter Parker to a more traditional origin story. The script also had Doc Ock going on an insane rampage after his research was shut down by corporate investors–oddly enough, not a million miles away from what eventually became Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 (other versions reportedly swapped out Doc Ock for a Morbius-type vampire scientist and the Lizard).

It’s not clear whether Cameron actually did work on this script, despite his name being on it, but what is known, and what has become kind of legendary in its own way, is that he later wrote a nearly 60-page document, labeled a “scriptment,” which laid out his own vision for Spider-Man. David Koepp, who wrote the 2002 movie Spider-Man, told IGN about Cameron’s work, “It took Peter seriously as a character and it took a superhero movie seriously as a genre. And you hadn’t seen that before.”

Read more

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Doc Ock Is Still the Best Spider-Man Villain On-Screen

By David Crow

Movies

Tom Holland Says Spider-Man: No Way Home Introduces ‘Raimi Camera’ Style in MCU

By David Crow

Cameron’s Electrifying ‘Scriptment’

According to David Hughes’ The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, no less an authority than Stan Lee said this about Cameron’s involvement with Spider-Man: “There is no doubt that Jim is the best man on Earth to do the Spider-Man movie. He wants to do it, and I want him to do it.”

While Cameron, indeed, seemed to take Spider-Man seriously, he certainly didn’t feel the need to stay rigorously faithful to the comics in the story he concocted (which you can read here). Nonetheless, the 17-year-old Peter Parker in Cameron’s scriptment is one we all know well. He’s socially awkward yet intellectually gifted; he’s bullied by high school jocks; he has an unrequited crush on popular classmate Mary Jane Watson; and he’s an orphan living with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

Although the spider that bites him is not radioactive and has instead been genetically altered by its own ingestion of an experimentally re-coded fruit fly, the effects on Peter are the same: he develops acute senses, super strength and agility, and finds he can climb walls. He has strange dreams of insects and other bizarre manifestations, awakening from one of them to find himself on top of a tower in nothing but his skivvies.

And, in a change that would have been as divisive in 1993 as it was when Sam Raimi borrowed the idea for the 2002 Spider-Man movie that eventually did come out, Peter discovers that he can shoot organic webs from under his wrists. The pubescent metaphor is even more direct in Cameron’s vision than Raimi’s, with Peter awakening after a weird dream to find his body covered in white fluid and the sheets sticking to his skin.

Cameron told Screencrush that he saw Peter Parker’s transformation as a “metaphor for puberty and all the changes to your body,” which is why he changed the web-shooters from tech that Peter invented to an organic mutation in Peter himself: “Going with the biological web-shooters as being part of his biological adaptation to the radioactive spider bite made sense to me.”

From there the story goes through a number of familiar paces: Peter starts doing stunts in disguise on the streets of New York, gaining attention for himself in his Spider Man (no hyphen) persona, and even earning a little cash. But all that comes to an end when his Uncle Ben is murdered, leading Peter to pivot to a life of fighting crime with his newfound powers. That draws the attention of the police and a local TV reporter named J. Jonah Jameson, who turns the public against the masked vigilante , as well as a corrupt billionaire named Carlton Strand.

Strand, an original creation by Cameron, is the filmmaker’s loose version of Electro, the character known as Max Dillon in the comics (and played by Jamie Foxx in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home). Strand can control electricity after surviving a lightning strike, using his powers to build himself a criminal empire that he’d like to recruit Spider Man for. His right-hand man is Boyd, who can shapeshift his body into any form by turning into sand–in other words, Cameron’s take on another classic Spidey villain, the Sandman (whose name in the comics is Flint Marko and who was played by Thomas Haden Church in Spider-Man 3).

The early ‘90s, pre-internet, was a time when filmmakers could make some fairly extensive changes to characters and their origins without incurring the wrath of online fandom (see the way Tim Burton reimagined Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman in his two Batman movies). Canonically, altering the backstories of two of the best-known villains from Spider-Man’s rogues gallery is probably the furthest afield that Cameron goes.

But his Peter Parker is also rougher around the edges than Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s introverted but well-meaning superhero (or the more outgoing version that was later popularized by author John Romita Sr.). By contrast, Cameron’s interpretation briefly seems to take pleasure in hurting people. He also curses vigorously (as do others in Cameron’s tale), and he and Mary Jane–who falls in love with Spider Man without knowing it’s her school friend Peter behind the mask–even have sex atop the Brooklyn Bridge in one sequence while MJ keeps her eyes closed.

It all ends in a furious battle at the top of the World Trade Center, with Spider Man rescuing Mary Jane from Strand and revealing his true identity to her in the process. Stan Lee loved the scriptment: “What Jim managed to do was do Spider-Man exactly the way Spider-Man should be,” he told Premiere magazine (via Hughes). “The same personality, the same gestalt. And yet, it all seems fresh and different, something we have never seen before.”

Cameron himself kept suggesting that Spider-Man would be his next film after wrapping production on True Lies in 1993. “I’m doing the origin story and then going way beyond that and delving into the whole story of teenage angst,” he told Platinum magazine (via Hughes). “What if you were 17 years old and could do whatever the fuck you wanted, anytime you wanted?” His choice to star in his “deeply philosophical” take on the character, Leonardo DiCaprio, was already known in Hollywood for several excellent performances but was still a few years away from reaching superstardom via Cameron’s Titanic.

Wait…Titanic? We thought Cameron was doing Spider-Man after finishing True Lies?! Well, he was…until the story got complicated.

Oh, What A Tangled Web

Soon after Cameron was done with True Lies and presumably ready to turn his full attention to Spider-Man, Carolco went bankrupt, the result of several massive box office failures like Cutthroat Island. Although 20th Century Fox had offered to buy the Spider-Man rights, Carolco held onto them for dear life. Or at least until the company lost them anyway when all its assets were picked up by MGM in a fire sale.

Well, not all the assets. While Carolco had the Spidey film rights, Sony had home video, and Viacom had won the broadcast rights. After MGM picked up the film rights, both Sony and Viacom claimed to have, as a result of their contracts, the right to make a Spider-Man feature film. At the same time, a financially strapped Marvel Comics sued to get the rights back, on the basis that Carolco had failed to make a film before its option expired. Even Menahem Golan came out of the woodwork, suing everyone else and claiming he still had a piece of the action.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the nearly four years of litigation over the rights to Spider-Man involved “four bankruptcy cases and five lawsuits involving 18 separate written agreements.” Nearly every studio in Hollywood, along with other entities, got involved in the legal wrangling. As the suit boiled down to a pissing match between MGM and Sony, even the James Bond franchise got caught in the middle since both studios were planning competing 007 films due to a rights issue. One of the conditions of the eventual settlement–which awarded the Spider-Man film rights to Sony in 1999–was that the latter company gave up any effort to make a James Bond movie.

When the smoke finally cleared, and Sony emerged victorious with Spider-Man rights in hand, the path seemed finally clear to make a movie about the wallcrawler. But by then, Cameron, who went home with an armful of Oscars for Titanic, including Best Picture and Best Director, had moved on. Even though Stan Lee and then-Sony head John Calley still wanted to see Cameron behind the camera, the director was no longer interested in adapting someone else’s material.

“With the amount of time and energy that I put into a film,” Cameron told Premiere, “it shouldn’t be somebody else’s superhero.” Of course Sony eventually recruited Sam Raimi to direct the first major film adaptation of the character. And the screenplay for 2002’s Spider-Man by David Koepp (with revisions by others, including most notably Alvin Sargent) did use elements of the James Cameron scriptment, including the organic web-shooters. So James Cameron’s Spider-Man does exist in some form in the real world. Which is more than “his” Aquaman can say.

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[donavanhall]

The speed of literature

The speed of literature : My books follow digressive and double+sum paths.  The reader is encouraged to skiparound. : to weave a thread is to risk entanglement. / All proper reading is a question of speed.  Not to establish author-ities : one of the early titles for My Blog was slow work : as if reading could be work.  Writing too , the author must find the appropriate speed : if everyday, the author sits at his desk seeking speed [the splash state] then… I make no pronouns, no pre-scriptments.  When I start a new book, I shift gears.  The difficult part is learning when to apply the breaks.