Meet ONLINE from 7:00-10:00 PM Pacific Time on November 13th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay for Todd Haynes’s MAY DECEMBER.
LOGLINE: A movie star researching a role dredges up memories of a decades-old tabloid scandal, threatening the stability of a seemingly happy family.
ABOUT THE WRITERS: May December is the feature screenwriting debut of SAMY BURCH, who shares story credit with ALEX MECHANIK. Before their script put them on the Black List in 2020, the duo had previously co-directed several short films together, including All You Can Eat, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2013, and worked together in the casting department for Shane Black’s The Nice Guys starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Some of Mechanik’s other credits include Iron Man 3 (production assistant) and Ant-Man (casting assistant), while Burch’s additional casting department credits include Iron Man 3 and the first four Hunger Games movies. Burch’s next writing credit will be for her rewrite of James Gunn’s Coyote vs. Acme starring Will Forte as a lawyer hired by Wile E. Coyote to sue the ACME Corporation after their products have consistently failed to help him catch the Road Runner.
(registration deadline: Friday, November 10)
Registration in advance is required to attend the discussion, and includes a copy of the script sent to you in advance.
Single Meeting Fee: $45
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Partially inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal of 1997, May December premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May where it was purchased by Netflix for $11 million, and was the opening night film at the New York Film Festival last month.
Directed by Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, Carol), the film stars Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Star Wars prequel trilogy, Thor franchise), Julianne Moore (The Hunger Games franchise, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), Charles Melton (Riverdale), and D.W. Moffett (Switched at Birth), and will see a limited theatrical release on November 17 before streaming on Netflix beginning December 1.
Rated R. 100 pages. 117 minutes. Drama.
DANNY HERCULES will provide in-depth script analysis and lead our discussion. Dan is the creator, publisher, and one of the authors of ScripTipps, a line of inexpensive ebooks on screenwriting conceived in part by his participation in StoryBoard. An award-winning filmmaker, Danny was co-founder and president of San Diego Filmmakers and sat on the board of directors of Scriptwriters Network where he ran their writers groups and staged readings programs. In 2012 he published the popular young adult Christmas novel North Pole High: A Rebel Without a Claus and later adapted it into a musical through the Academy of New Musical Theatre, where he also wrote the book for Chaturbate: The Musical, which premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2017. A member of StoryBoard’s Screenplay Discussion Group since November 2009, Hercules has never missed a meeting.
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