As I come to a sense of temporary completion on Burnside, I have begun to work on what I want to be my next script. I had a low budget scifi thing I wanted to write, but I have no second act and I have yet to write a really good script that takes place in the present, so I altered my plan to work on this carjacking thing I've been thinking about. I've always wanted to write something in the vein of Three Days of the Condor, where your main character isn't a super badass, just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time with no discernible training.
So this is the fun part, the part where you shift ideas around. Should they dump the car in the lake? Nah. Too cliche. Crash it into a store front like in Lethal Weapon? Nah, then the cops would find it too easily.
It's a game where you throw pieces at the puzzle and see what fits. This doesn't work, so you try the next idea. That doesn't work, so you keep going until you find something that does. And sometimes even after you write what you think worked, you find out you just smushed a piece into a place where it didn't really fit. But sometimes, if you're lucky, you can lock it into place perfectly. You see that scene where the family runs from the zombies at the beginning, or where your lady ninja hops along rooftops to get away from the soldiers. And it plays in your head and then on the page and you never question it.
Anyway, it's pretty cool.
The lure of "Condor" for a writer is unmistakable simply because it's such an amazing film. I wish Hollywood would make more films like it because Redford's Joe Turner is bright and has innate survival skills but is far, FAR from invincible.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why I dread a remake of "Condor" so much - because I fear they'll turn Joe Turner into Jason Bourne
domremy03 I believe that WAS the pitch for the Bourne trilogy - "Okay, Imagine Joe Turner from 3 Days of the Condor - except he can't remember who he is AND can kill most people just by looking at them". Bam.
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