March 13 – Everything Everywhere All at Once

Meet ONLINE from 7:00-10:00 PM Pacific Time on March 13th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the Oscar-nominated screenplay EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE.

LOGLINE: During an IRS audit, a laundromat owner is confronted by a version of her husband from a parallel universe who tells her she is the only version of herself who can save the multiverse from an evil version of her daughter.

ABOUT THE WRITERS: DANIEL KWAN and DANIEL SCHEINERT, collectively knowns as the Daniels, met while studying film at Emmerson College in Boston. They began their career making music videos for the likes of Foster the People, The Shins, and Tenacious D. Their 2014 video for “Turn Down For What” by DJ Snake and Lil Jon went viral, reaching one billion views on YouTube by 2020. Their first feature film, Swiss Army Man, stars Paul Dano as a shipwrecked man on an island whose only companion is a dead body that washes ashore, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Everything Everywhere All at Once is their second feature film together, following Scheinert’s solo outing, The Death of Dick Long, starring himself in the title role.

UPDATE: The Daniels originally wrote the script for Jackie Chan to star as the hero, Waymond. When he wasn’t available, they rewrote the script with Waymond’s wife, Evelyn, played by Michelle Yeoh, as the protagonist. We will discuss BOTH drafts, as well as how the finished film turned out.

(registration deadline: Friday, March 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
SPECIAL OFFER – ONLY $150 FOR A 6-MONTH MEMBERSHIP OR RENEWAL!

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Everything Everywhere All at Once premiered at last year’s South by Southwest film festival and became distributor A24’s first film to gross $100 million worldwide. Currently, it leads this year’s Academy Award nominations with 11, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and four acting nominations. So far, the film has won two Golden Globes, four SAG awards, five Critics Choice Awards (including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay) and the Producers Guild award for Best Picture.

Currently streaming on Showtime and available everywhere to rent or purchase digitally or on DVD and Blu-ray, Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Avatar 3), Stephanie Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies), James Hong (Blade Runner, Chinatown), and Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween, A Fish Called Wanda). If you have not yet seen the movie, it is highly recommended that you first read the screenplay so your initial impression is from the writing on the page.

Rated R. 125 pages. 139 minutes. Sci-Fi. Action. Comedy.

STEVE KAPLAN will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion. The industry’s most sought-after expert on comedy, Steve has taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale, and other top universities, and created the HBO Workspace and the HBO New Writers Program. As co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre he developed writers such as Peter Tolan (Analyze This), David Crane (Friends), Tracy Poust (Ugly Betty), Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea), and Mark O’Donnel (Hairspray). Steve teaches a number of different workshops all over the globe, including The Comedy Intensive, a 2-day workshop that covers the fundamental principles of comedy. Look for his books The Hidden Tools of Comedy and The Comic Hero’s Journey, learn more about Steve and his workshops at kaplancomedy.com, and follow him on Twitter at @skcomedy where you can tweet quick comedy questions at him with the #AskKaplan hashtag.

October 11 – DUNE (2021)

Meet ONLINE from 7:00-10:00 PM Pacific Time on October 11th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay for the upcoming remake of DUNE.

LOGLINE: A duke oversees the spice mining operations on a dangerous, desert planet, battling the natives for the most valuable substance in the universe, a drug that extends human life.

THE WRITERS: Dune is based on the first half of the Nebula and Hugo award-winning 1965 novel by FRANK HERBERT and is expected to be followed by a sequel based on the second half of the book. Inspired partially by the author’s experiences with psychedelic mushrooms, Herbert wrote five sequels to Dune before his death in 1986. The novel was adapted by screenwriters ERIC ROTH and DENIS VILLENEUVE and JON SPAIHTS. Roth won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Forrest Gump and has been nominated four other times, most recently for the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born. He has also written the upcoming Martin Scorsese Western Killers of the Flower Moon. French Canadian Villeneuve, who also helmed this version of Dune, gained prominence as the director and co-writer of Incendies, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. He has also made the acclaimed thrillers Prisoners and Sicario and sci-fi films Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Spaihts started his career when his sci-fi spec script Passengers appeared on the 2007 Black List; it was produced in 2016, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. Spaihts’s other screenwriting credits include Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel, Prometheus, and Marvel’s Doctor Strange.

(registration deadline: Friday, October 8)

Registration in advance is required to attend the discussion, and includes a copy of the script sent to you in advance.

SPECIAL OFFER – ONLY $150 FOR A NEW MEMBERSHIP OR RENEWAL!
Save $120 over the single meeting fees and get six consecutive online meetings!

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(Email StoryBoardDG@gmail.com if you have any questions.)

Dune: Part One stars Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name). Also featured in the epic film are Rebecca Ferguson (The Greatest Showman), Oscar Isaac (Star Wars episodes VII-IX), Josh Brolin (The Goonies), Stellan Skarsgård (Erik Selvig in the MCU movies), professional wrestler Dave Bautista (Drax the Destroyer in the MCU), Zendaya (MJ in the most recent Spider-Man movies), Charlotte Rampling (Basic Instinct 2), and Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men). The film premiered September 3 at the Venice International Film Festival and will be released theatrically in the U.S. while simultaneously streaming on HBO Max beginning October 22.

Rated PG-13. 130 pages (9/24/18 draft). 155 minutes. Sci-Fi. Action/Adventure. Drama.

WENDELL WELLMAN will provide in-depth script analysis and lead our discussion. Screenwriter, actor, playwright, teacher, and author of A Writer’s Roadmap, Wendell has taught screenwriting at UCLA and UWV and has been a frequent guest moderator at StoryBoardDG.com’s Screenplay Development Group. As an actor, Wendell studied under Lee Strasberg and Peggy Feury at the Strasberg Institute and has appeared in episodic television, theater, and motion pictures, including prominent roles in the films The Klansman starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton, Sudden Impact, Sommersby, and Street of Dreams. As a writer, he teamed up with Alex Lasker to adapt the novel Firefox for director Clint Eastwood. He also did additional work for Eastwood on the screenplay for Sudden Impact and wrote a final Dirty Harry project. Wendell also worked with the West End Theatre Group as co-founder and artistic director while continuing to alternate between acting and writing assignments. He is currently writing original feature scripts.

September 13 – Finch

Meet ONLINE from 7:00-10:00 PM Pacific Time on September 13th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the comedy screenplay FINCH.

LOGLINE: On a post-apocalyptic earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his creator’s beloved dog, learns about life, love, friendship and what it means to be human.

SCREENWRITERS: CRAIG LUCK initially wrote Finch as a short called BIOS. Too expensive to be filmed as a short, Luck expanded the script to feature length with 78-year-old British producer IVOR POWELL, who began his film career as a publicity department liaison for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and later served as associate producer on Ridley Scott’s first three films, The Duellists, Alien, and Blade Runner. Powell brought Finch to Game of Thrones director Miguel Sapochnik, with whom he had previously co-written The Dreamer, a 2000 sci-fi short about a clone trying to escape the fate of being recycled. Finch, which appeared on the 2017 Black List, is the first produced feature writing credit for both scribes.

(registration deadline: Friday, September 10)

Registration in advance is required to attend the discussion, and includes a copy of the script sent to you in advance.

SPECIAL OFFER – ONLY $150 FOR A NEW MEMBERSHIP OR RENEWAL!
Save $120 over the single meeting fees and get six consecutive online meetings!

Click the Register Now button for instructions.
(Email StoryBoardDG@gmail.com if you have any questions.)

Finch stars Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump), Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men: First Class, Get Out), Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black), Laura Harrier (Spider-Man: Homecoming), and Skeet Ulrich (Scream, Riverdale).

There is no trailer yet, but watch screenwriter Craig Luck discuss the film’s development:

Amblin Entertainment won a bidding war for the spec script in 2018. Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) is among the executive producers. Originally intended to be distributed by Universal Pictures, Apple Original Films won the distribution rights at auction in May after the COVID pandemic delayed the film’s release. Finch is now set to premiere on Apple TV+ on November 5, with a possible limited theatrical run for awards qualifications.

Rated PG-13. 114 pages. Sci-Fi Drama.

JEFF KITCHEN will lead our script analysis and in-depth screenwriting discussion. Jeff trains writers in a two-year apprenticeship program as well as a three-month program at http://script.kitchen. He has taught thousands of writers from Broadway to Hollywood, with former students nominated for multiple Oscars and Emmy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Jeff is the author of the bestselling book, Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting.

August 9 – Free Guy

Meet ONLINE from 7:00-10:00 PM Pacific Time on August 9th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the comedy screenplay FREE GUY.

LOGLINE: A bank teller discovers that he’s actually an NPC (non-player character) inside a brutal, open world video game.

SCREENWRITERS: The first draft of Free Guy was a spec script by MATT LIEBERMAN that appeared on the 2016 Black List, an annual survey of the industry’s best unproduced screenplays. Lieberman’s screenwriting career began in the Disney Feature Writer’s Program, where he worked on various scripts based on IP like Monopoly and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride that are still in development. His first spec sale, 12/24, a found-footage feature about two kids trying to catch Santa Claus on video, eventually became Netflix’s hit comedy The Christmas Chronicles. Lieberman also received story and writing credits on computer animated reboots of The Addams Family (2019) and Scooby Doo (Scoob!, 2020), and has several other projects in development, including reboots of The Jetsons and Rin Tin Tin, as well as the original screenplays Meet the Machines and Meebo and Me. Before going into production, Free Guy was re-written by ZAK PENN, whose other high-concept output includes Last Action Hero, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, and Ready Player One. [We will be reading and discussing Lieberman’s draft only.]

(registration deadline: Friday, August 6)

Registration in advance is required to attend the discussion, and includes a copy of the script sent to you in advance.

SPECIAL OFFER – ONLY $150 FOR A NEW MEMBERSHIP OR RENEWAL!
Save $120 over the single meeting fees and get six consecutive online meetings!

Click the Register Now button for instructions.
(Email StoryBoardDG@gmail.com if you have any questions.)

Directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum), Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Lil Rel Howery (Get Out), rapper Utkarsh Ambudkar (The Mindy Project), Joe Keery (Stranger Things), and Academy Award winner Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit). The comedy will be released theatrically by Disney’s 20th Century Studios on Friday, August 13.

Rated PG-13. 115 minutes. 109 pages (Lieberman’s undated Black List draft). Sci-Fi Action Comedy.

STEVE KAPLAN will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion of the sci-fi action comedy Free Guy. The industry’s most sought-after expert on comedy, Steve has taught at UCLA, NYU, Yale, and other top universities, and created the HBO Workspace and the HBO New Writers Program. As co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre he developed writers such as Peter Tolan (Analyze This), David Crane (Friends), Tracy Poust (Ugly Betty), Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea), and Mark O’Donnel (Hairspray). Steve teaches a number of different workshops all over the globe, including The Comedy Intensive, a 2-day workshop that covers the fundamental principles of comedy. Look for his books The Hidden Tools of Comedy and The Comic Hero’s Journey, learn more about Steve and his workshops at kaplancomedy.com, and follow him on Twitter at @skcomedy where you can tweet quick comedy questions at him with the #AskKaplan hashtag.

October 14 – Gemini Man

Meet on the lot at Fox Studios on October 14th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay GEMINI MAN.

LOGLINE: A retiring government assassin finds himself the target of another assassin who turns out to be a clone of his younger self.

THE SCREENWRITERS: Conceived by screenwriter DARREN LEMKE, his original spec sold to Disney way back in 1997, with the late Tony Scott (Top Gun) attached to direct. Lemke’s produced credits since then include the hit family films Shrek Forever After, Goosebumps, and this year’s Shazam! In 2007, writer/showrunner DAVID BENIOFF rewrote the script prior to co-creating the phenomenally popular HBO series Game of Thrones and shares a story credit with Lemke on Gemini Man. Benioff’s other feature writing credits include 25th Hour (adapted from his novel), Troy, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Other screenwriters who worked on the project during its lengthy development period include Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, The Truman Show), Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River), and Jonathan Hensleigh (Jumanji, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Armageddon), but the final screenwriting credit is shared by Lemke, Benioff, and BILLY RAY, whose other credits include The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), and the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate. (Note: We will be discussing David Benioff’s “revised first draft” of Gemini Man dated October 29, 2007.)

(registration deadline: Noon, Wednesday, October 9)

Registration in advance is required to attend the discussion, and includes a copy of the script sent to you in advance as well as sandwiches, snacks, and beverages at the meeting. Click the Register Now button for instructions.

Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Nicolas Cage, and Sean Connery were among the A-listers attached to the challenging dual lead role for directors Scott, Joe Carnahan, and the late Curtis Hanson before Skydance acquired the property from Disney for two-time Oscar winning director Ang Lee (Life of Pi). Will Smith (Independence Day, Aladdin) stars as the 50-year-old assassin and his younger clone, along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), Clive Owen (Children of Men), and Benedict Wong (The Martian).

Paramount Pictures is scheduled to release Gemini Man on October 11, three days before the meeting. If you plan to see the movie on opening weekend, reading the script before watching the film is advised.

Rated PG-13. 117 minutes. 115 pages (revised first draft, 10/29/07, Benioff). Sci-Fi, Action.

WENDELL WELLMAN will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion. A teacher, screenwriter, actor, playwright, and author of A Writer’s Roadmap, Wendell has taught screenwriting at UCLA and has been a frequent guest moderator at StoryBoardDG.com’s Screenplay Development Group. As an actor, Wendell studied under Lee Strasberg and Peggy Feury at the Strasberg Institute and has appeared in episodic television, theater, and motion pictures, including prominent roles in the films The Klansman starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton, Sudden Impact, Sommersby, and Street of Dreams. As a writer, he teamed up with Alex Lasker to adapt the novel Firefox for director Clint Eastwood. He also did additional work for Eastwood on the screenplay for Sudden Impact and wrote a final Dirty Harry project. Wendell also worked with the West End Theatre Group as co-founder and artistic director while continuing to alternate between acting and writing assignments. He is currently writing original feature scripts as well as a screenplay adaptation of The River Journey by acclaimed novelist Robert Nathan.

September 9 – Ad Astra

Meet on the lot at Fox Studios on September 9th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay AD ASTRA.

LOGLINE: An astronaut goes into space in search of his lost father, whose experiments threaten the solar system.

Ad Astra (Latin for “To the Stars”) was directed and co-written by JAMES GRAY, whose first film, at age 25, 1994’s Little Odessa, won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. His next four films, including The Yards and We Own The Night (both starring Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix), and The Immigrant (starring Marion Cotillard), all played in competition for the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, while his most recent release, 2017’s The Lost City of Z, starring Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson, was nominated for the prestigious USC Scripter award. Gray co-wrote Ad Astra with ETHAN GROSS, best known for his work as writer and executive story editor on 22 episodes of the FOX sci-fi series Fringe.

Registration in advance is required to attend the discussion, and includes a copy of the script sent to you in advance as well as sandwiches, snacks, and beverages at the meeting. Click the Register Now button for instructions.

(registration deadline: Thursday, September 5)

Compare the script to the finished film when it opens wide on September 20, a week and a half after our discussion! The film, which Gray describes as a mash-up of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apocalypse Now, stars Brad Pitt (Fight Club, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive, Men in Black), Ruth Negga (Loving, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Liv Tyler (The Lord of the Rings trilogy), and Donald Sutherland (The Hunger Games franchise).

Rated PG-13. 124 minutes. 108 pages. Sci-Fi, Drama, Adventure.

BARNEY MILES LICHTENSTEIN will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion. Barney has worked as a professional story analyst for such companies as Amblin, Imagine, and New Line Cinema. He also assists in training new analysts for the Sundance Institute and is the recipient of the UCLA Extension Outstanding Instructor Award in Screenwriting.

March 12 – Ready Player One

(registration deadline: Friday, March 9)

Meet on the Fox Studios backlot on March 12th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay READY PLAYER ONE.

Logline: In an overpopulated dystopian future, Wade Watts escapes into the 1980s-pop-culture-influenced virtual reality world of OASIS where he searches for hidden “Easter eggs” that may win him inheritance of the game creator’s vast fortune.

The Writers: Sci-fi novelist and screenwriter ERNEST CLINE started out as a competitive slam poet, winning the Austin Poetry Slam in 1998 and 2001. After writing a fan-fiction screenplay based on Buckaroo Banzai, his first produced screenwriting credit came in 2009 from Fanboys, a spec script he wrote in 1998 about a group of Star Wars fans on a cross-country road trip hoping to get their dying friend an advance screening of the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace. Cline’s first novel, Ready Player One, described as the “Holy Grail of Pop Culture,” sold to Random House’s Crown Publishing in a bidding war in 2010 and was published in 2011. Cline wrote the first draft of the screenplay, with uncredited rewrites provided by ERIC EASON (A Better Life) and final, credited rewrites by ZAK PENN (Last Action Hero, The Avengers).

Directed by Steven Spielberg, whose sci-fi hits include E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, Minority Report, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film stars Tye Sheridan (The Tree of Life, X-Men: Apocalypse), Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline, Rogue One), T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Star Trek), and Mark Rylance (Brigde of Spies, Dunkirk).

Producers and Production Companies: The film rights sold at auction to Warner Bros. and De Line Pictures the same day the author’s publishing deal with Random House was finalized. Donald De Line, former head of production at Paramount Pictures, whose production credits include last year’s remake of Going in Style and 2011’s Green Lantern, produced Ready Player One under his banner, which he established in 1998, along with former Scott Rudin intern Dan Farah (the upcoming The Crow reboot) for Farah Films, Amblin Entertainment partner Kristie Macosko Krieger (Bridge of Spies, The Post), and director Steven Spielberg for his companies, Amblin and DreamWorks. Random House also shares a film production imprint credit, as do Brent Ratner’s RatPac-Dune Entertainment and Village Roadshow Pictures.

Release Date: Opens worldwide on March 29th (Warner Bros.).

Rated PG-13. 121 pages. Sci-Fi, Action-Adventure.

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.

April 10 – The Circle

(registration deadline: Friday, April 7)

Meet on the Fox Studios backlot on April 10th for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay THE CIRCLE.

Logline: A woman lands her dream job at the most powerful tech company in the world only to find herself facing questions of privacy, identity, and freedom that will determine the future of humanity.

Writers: The Circle is based on the novel by DAVE EGGERS, who wrote the first draft of the screenplay. He also wrote screenplays for Away We Go with his wife, novelist Vendela Vida, and Where the Wild Things Are with director Spike Jonze, and has a story credit on Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land. The Circle is Eggers’ tenth novel. His 2009 book, Zeitoun, has been optioned by Jonathan Demme, and his novel A Hologram for the King was made into a movie in 2016 by Tom Tykwer starring Tom Hanks. JAMES PONSOLDT rewrote the script for The Circle and is the film’s director. Ponsoldt’s other writer-director credits include Off the Black starring Nick Nolte and Smashed starring Aaron Paul. He also directed The End of the Tour starring Jason Segal and Jesse Eisenberg and the acclaimed The Spectacular Now starring Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley.

The Black Mirror-esque sci-fi thriller stars Emma Watson (Harry Potter film series) and Tom Hanks in his first-ever villain role, with John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Karen Gillan (Doctor Who, Guardians of the Galaxy), Ellar Coltrane (Boyhood), Patton Oswalt (Young Adult), and the late Bill Paxton in his final film appearance.

Producers and Production Companies: Hanks optioned the novel in 2014 to star in and produce through his Playtone banner with producing partner Gary Goetzman (Sully, Game Change). Anthony Bregman (Collateral Beauty, Sing Street, Foxcatcher) joined the producers with his company, Likely Story. Sophia Dilley (Netflix’s Tallulah) co-produces through Route One Entertainment. Writer-director Ponsoldt also has a producing credit. The film’s financing came from Image Nation (Rings, Contagion).

Release Date: April 28 (STX Entertainment), after its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Rated PG-13. 110 minutes. 141 pages. Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller.

LINDA COWGILL will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion. After completing her MFA at UCLA’s School of Film and Television, Linda landed her first TV writing job on The Incredible Hulk and sold her first feature screenplay to Orion Pictures. She continued writing scripts for Paramount, Universal, MGM, Warner Bros., and for the acclaimed series Life Goes On, until deciding to focus on teaching screenwriting. She has since taught seminars and workshops at AFI, Kennedy Center, Boston Film Institute, Loyola Marymount, IFP Miami, and NALIP and now heads the Screenwriting Department at Los Angeles Film School. She has also published three books, The Art of Plotting, Secrets of Screenplay Structure, and Writing Short Films, and has many useful screenwriting articles on her website, Plots Inc.

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.

July 13 – Self/less

(registration deadline: Monday, July 6)

Meet on the 20th Century Fox studio lot for an in-depth analysis and discussion of the screenplay SELF/LESS.

When a wealthy man dying of cancer has his consciousness transferred into a healthy body, he discovers the mystery of his new body’s origin and the organization that will kill to protect its cause.

Directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, Mirror Mirror).

Written by brothers David Pastor & Alex Pastor, who were nominated for two Gaudi Awards last year for writing and directing the dystopian thriller The Last Days in which the entire population of the world is stricken with agoraphobia so severe, if they step outside they will die.

Universal’s Focus Features relaunches its action/horror/sci-fi label Gramercy Pictures with Self/less as its second new release since 2001.

Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) stars as the new and improved version of Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, House of Sand and Fog). Also starring Matthew Goode (The Good Wife), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), Natalie Martinez (Under the Dome), Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher), and five-time Emmy nominee Victor Garber (Alias).

Release date: July 10 (Gramercy Pictures). If you plan to see the film before the meeting, reading the script before seeing the movie is advised.

Rated PG-13. 116 minutes. 118 pages. Sci-fi, Thriller.

PETER RUSSELL will provide in-depth analysis and lead our discussion. Peter started as a story analyst reading thousands of scripts for Imagine, Participant, HBO, CBS, Walden, and more. He began teaching screenwriting at UCLA in 2004, and in 2009 was named UCLA Extension Instructor of the Year for Film & Television. Recently, he was invited to teach television pilot creation for Pepperdine University’s Seaver College Screenwriting MFA program. Along with Celia Stewart Russell, he has discovered deep, hidden patterns in the best films and developed The Storymaker, a process for quickly developing an original, complex, vivid story from a single idea. Meet Peter in person at StoryBoard on July 13, and find out more about his seminars, workshops, and online classes at How Movies Work (howmovieswork.com).