“When we were starting [to write screenplays], we were told, ‘Write your story, write your story, write your story.’  But our story is not that interesting. So, I would say, don't write your story necessarily, write the story that you fall in love with and find the human connection between you and the characters that you are depicting,” says Dumb Money co-writer Rebecca Angelo. On today’s episode, I talk with writing partners Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo about their recent film Dumb Money, that tells the true story of the Game Stop stock roller coaster ride led by real-life populist hero, Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, played by Paul Dano. Lauren and Rebecca talk about writing the screenplay super quickly because there were at least nine other competing projects in development at the time. It seems everyone in Hollywood wanted to tell this feel-good story that has a happy ending for the common man. They also tell me about using the structure from sports movies to craft the screenplay, how they employ “radical empathy” will their characters and the importance of adding comedic elements when telling complicated stories. “You know, we could have made a choice to have this movie be a heavy drama. But it felt like we were able to land some bigger ideas when people are laughing before or after even during those moments,” says Lauren Schuker Blum. For a deeper dive into their writing process, take a listen to the podcast. 

Final Draft's Write On Podcast sits down with Blackberry writers Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller to talk about how they wrote this epic story of the rise and fall of the world's first portable email machine.  Johnson and Miller loosely adapted the script from Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff's book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. The film Blackberry is a bio-pic dramedy that follows the fictional story of the Blackberry creator Mike Lazaridis, played by Jay Baruchel and his main investor played by Glenn Howerton. “Because we had the book, it was the blueprint for the movie. It has so many of the facts and details that we extrapolated and then sort of placed in the script," says Miller. The production of the movie was a bit like the push to get Blackberry into the marketplace - there was a lot of hustle.  “The structure of the movie as it stands came from needing to reuse the same locations over, and over again,” says Johnson.  We sat down to hear about this wild ride from true story to script to budgetary concerns and on-screen production. Click to hear more and listen to the podcast. 

“I just really encourage people to truly go to those darker places because the way forward in dealing with dark material is not to do some partial version of it. Go there so that it sparks a truth to people watching it because people want to be moved. People want to see their experiences reflected in a new way back at them. If you're drawn to it and it's meaningful to you, chances are it's going to be meaningful to others. Stick with it and be brave,” says writer/director Sean Durkin about exploring the darker side of human nature on film. Durkin’s new film is The Iron Claw, starring Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White as brothers from the real-life wrestling family, the Von Erich Brothers, who are said to be cursed. Durkin talks about his childhood obsession with wrestling, using the structure of a Greek Tragedy to craft the screenplay and investigating American masculinity through the lens of this one Texas family. Just a warning: This podcast discusses suicide as it relates to the characters in the film. If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or is in crisis, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crises Lifeline. To hear more about Durkin's journey of writing and directing The Iron Claw, click to listen to the podcast. 

The film Air was released in theaters back in April – right before the WGA Writer's Strike. It tells the story of how the iconic partnership between Nike shoes and basketball player Michael Jordan came to be way back in 1984. It’s one of those partnerships that really wasn’t supposed to happen, but when it did, it changed the world of sports marketing forever. Directed by Ben Affleck, the script is written by Alex Convery and made the Blacklist in 2021. But just like the partnership between Nike and Michael Jordan, there are a million reasons why this film shouldn’t have happened but luckily, it did! “If you are really passionate about an idea and believe in it, you should write it. Whether it seems practical or not because that’s typically going to produce your best work. And producing your best work is ultimately the goal, right?” says Convery. Convery also says it’s important to be patient and persevere. “I came out from Chicago in 2010 and it took until 2023 to get a movie released. It can take a long, long, long time and that’s okay…there’s no finish lines. Just invest in the work itself. Surprise yourself on the page, have fun and make yourself laugh!” For a deeper dive into Convery’s screenplay, listen to the podcast.

“I like having sympathy for the devil. And all of them are devilish!” says Emerald Fennell about her characters in the new film Saltburn. Writer/director/actress Emerald Fennell dazzled us with 2020’s Promising Young Woman, for which she took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Now she’s back with Saltburn, a shocking romantic tragedy (or triumph according to her!). On this episode of the podcast, I speak to Emerald in depth about crafting the screenplay for Saltburn and finding empathy for even the most devilish characters. Just a note: there are spoilers in this interview which I feel are crucial to breaking down some of the most controversial scenes in the film, including the taboo “vampire scene” and the startling “bathtub scene.” “That scene was never meant to be disgusting. It is a love scene. It’s an act of, not service quite, but of devotion. It’s a kind of prayer. I think the thing films often get wrong about sex is that it’s just two people rubbing up against each other, it’s penetration. But the really fascinating thing about sex and desire is that it’s much, much more complicated than that,” says Emerald Fennell. Saltburn stars Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi and Rosemund Pike. It’s currently playing in theaters and streams on Amazon Prime Dec. 22.  

“It really comes down to scene work. Do these characters pop? Is this fun to read? Is it fun to imagine what’s going to happen next? When you get to the end of that pilot do you want to find out what’s going to happen in the next episode? It’s all of that,” says Graham Yost, showrunner for Silo on AppleTV+. You may not know the name Graham Yost, but you certainly know his TV shows: Justified, The Americans, Slow Horses, Sneaky Pete, From the Earth to the Moon, and Band of Brothers just to name a few – he also wrote the blockbuster film Speed in 1994. On today’s episode, I chat with Graham about his show Silo on AppleTV+ which is a startling apocalyptic thriller that’s been renewed for a second season. It stars Rebecca Ferguson, David Oyelowo, Common and Tim Robbins. We talk about the lessons he learned making Speed, which show impacted his writing the most and if a new season of Justified – that includes Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), will be coming back to television. Graham also shares his advice for emerging writers. “The big thing I say to writers who are starting out is, ‘What are you working on next?’ If they only have that one project, well, you need more. You need to find out what you’re good at. That’s the job. We’re paid to write,” he says.  

“We can’t make Lawrence of Arabia anymore – not that that’s not a good movie, but it’s kind of a thing of the past,” says screenwriter David Scarpa about writing the script for Napoleon. Scarpa says both he and director Ridley Scott wanted to bring a freshness to the historical figure from our history books by, “Showing the more irreverent, dark, more psychologically motivated side of [Napoleon].” In our conversation, we dig into writing the battle scenes at Toulon and Austerlitz and how to know when to stick to history and when to embellish scenes for dramatic effect. We also talk about the complicated relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, played by Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby, respectively, in the film, and how the power dynamics shift through the movie. And if you’re wondering why Josephine has short, spiky hair at the beginning of the film – Scarpa gives an explanation based on the shocking fashion trends of the time period that will make your blood run cold.      David also gives his expert advice on tackling historical figures and finding the scintillating details that may have been lost to history.  “[Take] those little moments that tell a part of the story that you wouldn’t have otherwise known and then expand on those. Find things that are so small, they’re relatable on a human level,” says Scarpa.

“My cardinal rule – the rule that you cannot break is: don't be boring. Because you can have the perfect script that follows every screenplay formatting rule, but if you're boring, it doesn't matter. First and foremost, you’ve got to hook the reader,” says screenplay and short story writer Chris Hicks. Hicks is the author of a short story called “I Am Not Alone,” that recently was the subject of a five-party bidding war that came down to Warner Bros. and Netflix, with Netflix proving the victor. Genre writer Misha Green (Lovecraft Country) is set to write the screenplay and Jessica Chastain is attached to star. Hicks is part of a growing group of short story writers who are quickly making the jump from Reddit (r/NoSleep) to the big screen. But Hicks’s success didn’t come overnight. He talks about the long process, sometimes even years, it takes to perfect a short story. But it’s clear he understands the relationship between reader and writer better than most. “You have a very limited window to grab somebody's attention. In the case of writing on Reddit, you have to have a clickbait title, something to entice somebody to click, ‘Oh, what is this?’ And then you've got a paragraph to set the hook…The internet is a vast place and people are fickle with their time, so you have to make it worthwhile for them to hang around,” says Hicks. To go deeper into Hicks’s writing process and hear details of the bidding war, listen to our podcast.  

“I don’t write sex scenes. I write character scenes and sometimes they’re having sex during their character scenes. It’s a beat about character,” says Tony McNamara. Known for the TV show The Great on Hulu and 2018’s The Favourite, screenwriter Tony McNamara’s new film is Poor Things, staring Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe with a genius performance from Mark Ruffalo who’s already getting Best Supporting Actor buzz. Adapted from the book Poor Things by Alasdair Gray, this film is part Frankenstein story, part fairytale and part coming-of-age story full of female sexual liberation! I chat with Tony about his ability to create fascinating female characters, sex without shame and the ways Poor Things is similar to this year’s blockbuster Barbie ­– both are wildly different takes on the theme of feminine identity. “This is a great Frankenstein premise to wrap a story of a young woman entering the world completely naïve and also be a satire about the seeming need for human beings, men in particular, to control. It was about this woman having this adventure and creating herself while everyone around her is trying to control what that creation is,” says McNamara about his vision of the protagonist, Bella Baxter, played by an electric Emma Stone. To go deeper into McNamara’s writing process, take a listen to the podcast. Poor Things is in theaters Dec. 8.

Eddie Murphy’s new holiday comedy Candy Cane Lane pokes fun at the idea of being super competitive during the Christmas decorating season. Kelly Younger sat down with Final Draft’s Write On podcast to talk about writing the spec script that became a reality in our latest episode. “My manager who I've had for years always sort of keeping track of my projects, and we put some under when he calls the three Ps: passion, propel, and paycheck. Write something that's a passion project, something that can propel your career and something that’s just a paycheck!” says Younger about writing his passion project Candy Cane Lane on spec. “I feel extremely lucky to have been on set for every single day and night of the shoot and that is what the director, Reggie Hudland, wanted. We would talk through the scenes with each other we would talk it through with the actors in the moment I was able to pitch alternate lines,” Younger says of the process of filming the holiday movie. Click below to hear more in the full episode. Candy Cane Lane comes out on Amazon December 1.