Genre: Adventure-Comedy
Synopsis: A Goonies-like gang grows up and decides to go on one last adventure.
About: The Treehouse Gang sold for 750k against 1.5 million.
Writer: Timothy Dowling
Timothy Dowling is a writer/actor who came up with the idea for the then brilliant concept, "George Lucas In Love." He also wrote the recent box office mini-hit "Role Models", which I liked quite a bit. The Treehouse Gang landed him one of the biggest script sales of 2008. But do those dollar signs translate into a well-told engaging story? Let's find out.
The Treehouse Gang's first 10 pages sucked. In fact, they're so bad, I contemplated not reading any more. Now when I say "bad", I don't mean "this person doesn't know how to write" bad. I mean "What the hell were you thinking?" bad. When I hear "The Goonies", I'm expecting something similar in tone to...The Goonies! See while that 80s classic may have been eccentric, it was still based in a realistic world. The Treehouse crew's world is more like some sort of weird fantasy universe that makes up its rules as it goes along.
The "gang" consists of four high school freshman: good looking leader, Billy Hawkins, really good-looking wise-cracker, Trevor, the fat guy, Scottie, and the nerd, Milo. For the most part, I just envisioned the characters from Stand By Me. Anyway, this group goes on a series of adventures in search of real treasure! Like huge golden monkeys that are protected by Indiana Jones like lairs. Each mission is full of killer traps - and not just the kind of killer traps that kids think are "killer". Like, if they screw up, they really die! There are Nazis holding their girlfriends hostage. They get shot at repeatedly. Even stranger, everybody in the area, including the parents and local news stations, know their kids are doing this and do nothing about it! Uhhhhh, what the fuck kind of world do these kids live in??? What parents allow their kids to go off and almost die every day?? If kids are being held hostage with guns, wouldn't the police go out and, oh I don't know, ARREST them? Not in The Treehouse Gang!
So anyway, we cut to 15 years later and Hawkins is working as a Verizon sales clerk. Trevor's fat. Scottie's hot. And Milo is still Milo (funny aside: Dowling suggests they use the same actor for young Milo and old Milo). They head off to their high school reunion where they meet up with the girls they used to date, get drunk, and Hawkins tries to convince them to go on one last adventure to claim the treasure they never found: The Treasure of Shipwreck Island!
The friends say "no thanks" but then Hawkins finds the secret map (the only thing preventing them from finding the island as kids). The Nazi from their youth reappears at that very instant (he must have been waiting in the bushes for a long time), and takes the map for himself! How bout that! The rest of the Treehouse Gang reluctantly signs on (They have to beat the Nazi!) and we move into our movie.
The rest of Treehouse plays out fairly predictably. The girls (now women) tag along. The Treehouse Gang keeps meeting up with Nazi Dude. They almost die. They escape. They get in arguments. Repeat.
The reason I never joined in on this adventure was because I never got over the way the kids were introduced. The Goonies worked because the kids were at that age right before you lose your innocence. When you're a child, everything has the potential to be magical. Your imagination can distort ordinary and extrodinay which makes the eccentricities and the more unbelievable elements of the story believable because you're seeing the world through their eyes. Making the guys high-school age took that opportunity away. In addition, Dowling asks you to believe in a way more ridiculous world than the Goonies ever did. So he loses on both ends. I mean where are there Indiana Jones-like caverns with a million traps and dozens of treasures here in the United States? In The Treehouse Gang there's an abundance of them, all within a 20 mile radius.
I know they've been talking about making a Goonies sequel where the kids go on another adventure and I'd be interested in seeing that. This, not so much. If there's anything positive to say about The Treehouse Gang, it's that it's better than The Adventurer's Handbook. And that they're probably rewriting the hell out of it. My guess is that they bought this one on concept alone.
[ ] trash
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned from The Treehouse Gang: You have to create believable rules for your universe no matter how fantastical that universe might be. If I'm to believe that in your world, parents allow their children to gamble with death every day, then life must not be very valuable in that world. If life isn't valuable, I'm never worried about any of your characters when they're put in danger. If their parents/local authorities don't give a shit, why should I?
Showing posts with label "spec sale". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "spec sale". Show all posts
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Steinbeck's Point-Of-View
Info: "Steinbeck's Point-of-View" is one of the biggest spec sales ever. Back in 1999, this spec sold for 4 million dollars (2 mil plus some blind script commitments). Some people believe it's one of the worst scripts ever sold. Yikes! Luckily there's only one opinion that matters - mine.
Writers: Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson
Review:
Steinbeck's Point-Of-View is about a man dying of cancer who moves back to his childhood home to start a winery days after an airplane has crashed there.
I am going to explain in detail the scene that, I believe, led to the purchase of this script. Because outside of a satisfying ending, I felt the script had some major faults. The man in question and our hero, TOM, finds out that this plane has crashed on the old vineyard where he grew up. He goes there and meets one of the mourners - a single man sitting alone, wearing a Kansas City Royals cap. The two of them have a quiet conversation. The man informs Tom that he was going to ask the girl to marry him. He even shows him the engagement ring. But the crash destroyed all of that. Now he's lost the love of his life. Uncomfortable with exchanging emotion, Tom excuses himself and leaves. A few days later he spots a newspaper that's printed pictures of all the passengers on the plane. Tom grabs the newspaper, looks closer...can't believe it. Right there on the cover...is the picture of the man in the Kansas City Royals cap.
Bam! (as John Madden would say). You've got yourself a movie. He wasn't talking to the boyfriend of the victim. He was talking to the victim. I would go so far as to venture that when this script went out, the executives who were reading the script, stopped right here and started bidding. Because the hook is so strong. Unfortunately, until we reach the somewhat satisfying ending, it doesn't seem like the writers really know what to do after that hook. It's like, "Okay, we got a hook. We got a finale...now all we have to do is come up with 90 pages of filler." But as any good writer knows, those 90 minutes are the movie. And in that sense, I think Steinbeck fails. In all fairness, the draft I was reading was the spec draft, and the script has had numerous rewrites since then. Still, if someone paid 4 million dollars for this, I'm assuming they were pretty okay with what was already on the page.
So now that Tom knows he can see dead people, his purpose becomes, a la The Sixth Sense, to help them somehow. He meets up with the woman who was going to marry the Kansas City guy (beginning a romantic storyline that never quite works - this guy is the essential component to your 4 million dollar hook - now we're supposed to believe it's okay for Tom to move in and start a little nookie-nookie??) and the two set off to help the family members of the crash victims.
The movie picks up when Tom starts regrowing the vineyard - a vast dusty field that hasn't been fertile in ages. Yet something about the crash brings the field to life, not unlike it did the victims of the crash. Through all this, Tom's cancer is getting worse, and he realizes he has to help these people before he himself dies. It's almost impossible not to compare the film to Field of Dreams - and when you're banking your story on mysticism, you walk a very fine line. 99% of the time, you get it wrong. Field of Dreams is one of like 3 films that got it right. So you're already treading in some very stormy waters. Yet somehow the script comes together in the end. It makes sense, in a weird wild sort of way, and it made up for some of the disappointments experienced earlier in the screenplay.
I've read some people attacking the "new agey-ness" of the story but I liked it. I think it's a preference thing based on your beleifs. I like to believe there are things out there that we don't understand. And even if this is the movies, it's fun to keep your mind open to new ideas.
Rumor is this will come out in 2011. Yet I have a funny feeling it's "supposed" to have been coming out in 2010, 2009, 2008, etc., etc. I'm curious to see what they've changed since the sale draft. I think if they can somehow make that romantic subplot more plausible and authentic, it's a whole different ballgame. Cause then you actually have a middle of the movie :) Either way, I'm intrigued to see how this one ends up.
Reporting from the shadows...
__________________
Writers: Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson
Review:
Steinbeck's Point-Of-View is about a man dying of cancer who moves back to his childhood home to start a winery days after an airplane has crashed there.
I am going to explain in detail the scene that, I believe, led to the purchase of this script. Because outside of a satisfying ending, I felt the script had some major faults. The man in question and our hero, TOM, finds out that this plane has crashed on the old vineyard where he grew up. He goes there and meets one of the mourners - a single man sitting alone, wearing a Kansas City Royals cap. The two of them have a quiet conversation. The man informs Tom that he was going to ask the girl to marry him. He even shows him the engagement ring. But the crash destroyed all of that. Now he's lost the love of his life. Uncomfortable with exchanging emotion, Tom excuses himself and leaves. A few days later he spots a newspaper that's printed pictures of all the passengers on the plane. Tom grabs the newspaper, looks closer...can't believe it. Right there on the cover...is the picture of the man in the Kansas City Royals cap.
Bam! (as John Madden would say). You've got yourself a movie. He wasn't talking to the boyfriend of the victim. He was talking to the victim. I would go so far as to venture that when this script went out, the executives who were reading the script, stopped right here and started bidding. Because the hook is so strong. Unfortunately, until we reach the somewhat satisfying ending, it doesn't seem like the writers really know what to do after that hook. It's like, "Okay, we got a hook. We got a finale...now all we have to do is come up with 90 pages of filler." But as any good writer knows, those 90 minutes are the movie. And in that sense, I think Steinbeck fails. In all fairness, the draft I was reading was the spec draft, and the script has had numerous rewrites since then. Still, if someone paid 4 million dollars for this, I'm assuming they were pretty okay with what was already on the page.
So now that Tom knows he can see dead people, his purpose becomes, a la The Sixth Sense, to help them somehow. He meets up with the woman who was going to marry the Kansas City guy (beginning a romantic storyline that never quite works - this guy is the essential component to your 4 million dollar hook - now we're supposed to believe it's okay for Tom to move in and start a little nookie-nookie??) and the two set off to help the family members of the crash victims.
The movie picks up when Tom starts regrowing the vineyard - a vast dusty field that hasn't been fertile in ages. Yet something about the crash brings the field to life, not unlike it did the victims of the crash. Through all this, Tom's cancer is getting worse, and he realizes he has to help these people before he himself dies. It's almost impossible not to compare the film to Field of Dreams - and when you're banking your story on mysticism, you walk a very fine line. 99% of the time, you get it wrong. Field of Dreams is one of like 3 films that got it right. So you're already treading in some very stormy waters. Yet somehow the script comes together in the end. It makes sense, in a weird wild sort of way, and it made up for some of the disappointments experienced earlier in the screenplay.
I've read some people attacking the "new agey-ness" of the story but I liked it. I think it's a preference thing based on your beleifs. I like to believe there are things out there that we don't understand. And even if this is the movies, it's fun to keep your mind open to new ideas.
Rumor is this will come out in 2011. Yet I have a funny feeling it's "supposed" to have been coming out in 2010, 2009, 2008, etc., etc. I'm curious to see what they've changed since the sale draft. I think if they can somehow make that romantic subplot more plausible and authentic, it's a whole different ballgame. Cause then you actually have a middle of the movie :) Either way, I'm intrigued to see how this one ends up.
Reporting from the shadows...
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