Annabelle: Creation & the First Ten Pages of Your Script

Annabelle: Creation &  The First 10 Pages of Your Script By Jacob Krueger This week we’re going to be discussing Annabelle: Creation, directed by David F. Sandberg and written by Gary Dauberman. Normally, since this is a screenwriting podcast, I don’t talk a lot about directors. But this is a case of a good director taking a struggling script, and turning into something far better than what exists on the page. I’m not saying Annabelle: Creation is a fully successful film. The truth is it’s a pretty cheesy horror movie, full of holes, gaps in logic, violations of its own rules, crappy dialogue… But it’s also a movie whose director understands the demands of its genre, and capitalizes on that understanding to turn a script that could have been a total flop into a finished product that not only squeaked to a 68% approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, but also has generated over $280 million at the box office for a reported budget of $15 million. Not a bad return on investment for the producers.   Now the truth is, Annabelle: Creation is a prequel to an extremely strong horror franchise, The Conjuring, with a dedicated fan base and a loyal following among critics and moviegoers alike. And the connection to that franchise, and the very strong script, The Conjuring, that launched it, certainly has a lot to do with its success. So if you’re a new writer, please don’t take Annabelle: Creation’s success in spite of its problems as a suggestion that all you have to do is hit your marks with your genre elements to succeed as a writer. For you to get noticed and get your script made and have that kind of success in this challenging business, the truth is you have to write better than the professionals. Because you neither have the connections in the industry, the track record on your resume, nor the fan base out there in your audience for producers to see the dollar signs unless your script knocks it out of the park. Nevertheless, studying Annabelle: Creation is not a bad return on investment for you as a writer. Because while you will certainly be frustrated by the way Annabelle: Creation fails to live up to what should be a very strong premise, you can also learn a ton about rewriting from the film. That starts with understanding the tools David F. Sandberg used to transform a weak script into a genre success. It means understanding the power of genre, and how to use it to your advantage, regardless of whether you’re writing a horror movie, action movie, romantic comedy, web series, or even a little indie drama. And it also means understanding how the writer, Gary Dauberman, fell into the most common trap in screenwriting and lost track of his own premise. So that you’ll know what to do if the same problem starts to happen to you. And it all comes back to one simple premise.   Screenwriting Rule #1: You’ve got to nail the  first 10 pages of your script! The first 10 pages in your script are the most important 10 pages in your script. And the first page of your script is the most important page of your script. Not your brilliant trick ending. Not that fabulous turn halfway through the movie. Not that moment that makes you laugh or cry or hurl on page 72. The first page. The first 10 pages. And why are these first pages the most important pages? For 3 very important reasons. #1 - The first 10 pages of your script are the only pages everyone is going to read! By the time your producer, coverage reader, A-list actor, director, manager, agent… hell even your great great great uncle who you’re begging to invest… reads the first page of your script, they are already making a decision about whether this script is actually worth reading. You either grab them, or you don’t. And by the time they get to page 10, if they even get that far, they’ve already made a decision about whether this script is actually for them-- if they’re going to read it, or skim it,