March 14 – 10 Cloverfield Lane

(registration deadline: Friday, March 11)

Meet on the Fox Studios backlot for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE.

Room meets Cloverfield. Waking up from a car accident, a young woman finds herself in the basement of a man who says he saved her from a chemical attack that has left the outside uninhabitable. Fearing she was really abducted, she tries to escape, despite the dangers she might face outside.

The original microbudget spec script, The Cellar, which is the draft we will be discussing, was written by Josh Campbell & Matthew Stuecken. Campbell, who was the editor for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, is currently writing an English-language remake of John Woo’s The Killer. Stuecken was previously an associate producer on G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Their contained thriller, The Cellar, was on the Tracking Board’s 2012 Hit List.

Paramount Pictures bought the script for their specialty label, Insurge (Project Almanac, Area 51), and Bad Robot (Star Trek). Academy Award nominated screenwriter Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) was hired to rewrite the script, which became a “blood relative” of Bad Robot’s found-footage hit, Cloverfield.

10 Cloverfield Lane stars scream queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3), John Goodman (Roseanne, Trumbo, Red State), and Tony award-winning Broadway star John Gallagher, Jr. (Spring Awakening, American Idiot).

Produced by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Lindsey Weber. Executive produced by Bad Robot co-founder Bryan Burk.

Release Date: March 11 (Paramount). If you plan to see the movie before our meeting, reading the script before watching the film is advised.

Rated PG-13. 105 minutes. 95 pages. Sci-Fi, Thriller.

WENDELL WELLMAN will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion. Trained at the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Wendell has acted in feature films, television, and on stage. He has taught screenwriting at UCLA and wrote FIREFOX, SUDDEN IMPACT, and the final Dirty Harry script for Clint Eastwood. He recently completed adapting the novel The River Journey by Robert Nathan and is currently working on setting up his screenplay Top Hat. Wendell’s book, A Writer’s Roadmap, is available at Amazon.