I am now a comic book adaptor ... I guess

Does the madness ever end? I am now writing FIVE screenplays ... the four I've mentioned in this blog before, and I'm now working on a screenplay for a fourth X-Men movie. Not that I have any hope of someone picking it up and it actually being turned into the fourth X-Men movie, but it's something I've been toying with for a little while anyway.

Been a huge X-Men fan since I was in middle school, and I thought it was high time Apocalypse and Sinister got their time on the silver screen. And yes, I realize he's actually Mr. Sinister, but for the purpose of the movie, I'm dropping the "Mr." because in a lot of people's eyes, the "Mr." part might seem really corny. So he's just Sinister.

Apocalypse as a villain is an obvious choice, and Sinister gives me a legitimate reason (and way) to bring back Cyclops and Jean. By bringing those two back and letting Sinister into the fray, I hope to have an X-Men film that won't focus seemingly only on Wolverine. He'll be in the movie, because X-fans the world over would kill me with their optic blasts and adamantium claws if he wasn't, but he won't be the focus this time.

Apocalypse will use Sinister in his scheme to take Magneto's message to the next step: not only human subservience and/or genocide, but a new world order in the truest sense ... since Apocalypse has been around since before ancient Egypt, he's had a while to enact grand schemes. Part of that would be the Legacy Virus, designed to wipe the world of mutants (and not in a nice, seemingly willing way the "cure" from X3 was). Sinister, on top of monkeying around with Cyke and Jean, will be Apocalypse's pawn in the whole thing.

Oh, yeah ... and what will become of the X-Men without Xavier? Or will they be without him ... ?

I've Noticed Something

In a lot of ways, I'm having an easier time planning and writing Funny Books (also known as Please Don't Sue Me, Kevin Smith!) than I am with either Bounty or Notna. I'm not sure what that is, aside from the obvious differences in each screenplay. With Bounty and Notna, I realize I'm dealing with fantastic, out-of-this-world material, stuff likely to be heavy of mysticism and special effects and all that. So not only do I have to worry about all sorts of convoluted continuity, I have to explain the unexplainable and make sure my fight sequences and all that are insanely over-the-top (for a prime example, see the fights in Spiderman 3). Over-the-top's not necessarily a strength of mine, so that's difficult.

But Funny Books ... I'm just whipping through that outline, plotting out all my characters and establishing pretty easily all the relavent plot points and all that shit. If this keeps up, I might have the first draft of the script ready and done within the next month or two.

Two More

Okay, now there are two more screenplays I'm working on:

Literal Movie (working title): This is actually a movie my friends Kenny and Beth are writing; I'm just converting what they write into screenplay format and help make sure there's an actual story here and not just an hour of random jokes and shit. It's really hard to describe; kind of like Seinfeld meets Family Guy.

Funny Books (working title): I love Kevin Smith's work, and I've always been a Chasing Amy fan. This movie is somewhat in that vein, what with the comic book artists and the love and shit, but there's a lot of other stuff to love here too. A tale of love, death and loss, kind of a Chasing Amy meets Jersey Girl.

Starting the Process

So I began working on the outline for my Bounty screenplay; got the first three scenes all lined out and stuff. I suppose I could go ahead and actually write those scenes, but I'm not writing page one of this thing until the outline and all that sort of stuff is complete.

But before I go any further, I need to re-establish Plot Point I, Plot Point II and all that other important stuff. I figure if I have those biggies already figured out, I can let everything else fall into place no problem.

I should begin the outline for Notna shortly. Seeing as how these are two stories I've had in my head for a little over 10 years now, I should have no problem working on them both simultaneously.

And hey, Hollywood seems to be all over the supernatural/comic book film, so my pieces should fit right in.

Annoying

You know what I find really annoying? Back when I took that screenwriting class, the professor told us time and time again to avoid words that end in "ly" and "is/are" words when writing our screenplays. For three straight weeks he told us to avoid those words.

But now I read a bunch of screenplays online (many can be found at http://www.script-o-rama.com) and what do I see? Tons of "is/are" words and words that end in "ly." I guess these are written by more established screenplay writers who can do almost anything they want, but it's a tad annoying when I'm told to not do something and then I see a bunch of other people doing it.

Oh, and as an aside, give the Buffy the Vampire Slayer screenplay a read. Much better than how the movie actually turned out.

Screenplay Goodness

Okay, so I took a screenwriting class in my final semester of college and it really helped get the creative juices flowing. But after that class, I had a 60-page screenplay and no time to finish it. But lately I've found myself wanting to revisit that screenplay, as well as develop another one, so here I am.

This blog is mostly to keep my thoughts and notes as I work on both of my screenplays. Feel free to read and comment if you'd like.

I've decided to scrap the 60 pages I wrote and start from scratch. Between the book we used in the class and a book I bought recently -- The Screenplay Workbook by Jeremy Robinson and Tom Mungovan -- I think I'll go step-by-step rather than just dive right in. It might make writing my screenplays a bit easier.

Here's what I'm looking at for my two screenplays:

Bounty: Baltimore homicide detective Jillian Andersen decides her everyday job isn't enough, so she becomes the vigilante Bounty to fight corruption and overcome her demons. Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Batman.

Notna: Archaeologist Jack Corbett discovers an ancient crystal and finds himself thrust in an eternal struggle for the fate of the world. Indiana Jones meets Lord of the Rings.