Nick Morgan

@willstetson If using AI makes you an artist then assembling Ikea furniture makes me a carpenter.

@MasterTainment I have 4 kids, and when people ask me about it I say that having kids is a lot of work and you should only have them if you think it's work you'd mostly enjoy. If not, then don't have kids, which is a totally valid choice.

This is literally me. (No shade to parents at all.)

I'm a Hollywood Writer. It's Not Over for Us hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-n…

@andreaberting FB spent years suggesting I connect with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage since we have some mutuals

I love working in entertainment because what do you MEAN I may know Ann Dowd

@HwoodScrptReadr @GareRick Logically

@GareRick @nick_morgan84 Logical logic is my favorite kind

Everyone is dunking on this movie and here's why. Sure, "a rom-com version of THE PURGE" sounds like a decent pitch. But "a world where premarital sex is outlawed except for one night every year" suggests some kind of evangelical Christian dystopia a la THE HANDMAID'S TALE – not NYC in the 2020s. It also raises the obvious question: why can't they just get married and fuck? Boom – problem solved. The idea is to put your protagonists in a situation they can't get out of with real consequences if they don't. Maybe the movie turns out to be great. My point is that you need to make your logline bulletproof – and this one is full of holes. Take the 2011 movie IN TIME which imagines a world where time is currency. Everybody has some kind of device on their wrists that measures how long they have to live and I'm bored just explaining it. It requires too much setup. Even then, we don't quite get it. Now compare that to one of Andrew Niccol's earlier films, 1997's GATTACA. Here we have a world where the wealthy can have designer babies who are considered genetically superior to everyone else and consequently they get the best jobs. I get that. It's weirdly plausible – even more so now than when it was written. What these films have in common is an imagined future, but one is a sci-fi classic and the other was instantly forgotten. In GATTACA, we can see how we can end up in a society like that because it's an extrapolation from where we are now. And everything in the film reflects this down to its overall look and vibe. In ONE NIGHT ONLY, the writer had a vague idea and just kinda stopped there. You want to make sure that your concept does not involve too many "steps." We should have a clear sense of how the plot naturally flows from your premise. And it's this feeling of anticipation that makes for a great logline. We're already thinking where the story can go. Most scripts fail at the conceptual level. But it's not always easy to see what's worth writing and what isn't. You can save yourself a lot of time and effort by stress-testing your concept before you fall in love with it. Because if you don't, you're just going to get your heart broken later on.

@HwoodScrptReadr Also, wouldn't most people just get married in their late teens/early 20s instead of waiting around all year for loophole night?

@HwoodScrptReadr Where The Purge conceptually works is it says, "Here's a world with regular laws you're familiar with but for one night there are no laws." This film is saying, "Here's an extra, weird law but for one night it goes away for some reason".

@wolfiecomedy Bam's fall in this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen youtube.com/watch?v=rMS4ES…

following back all jackass twt today

@SIaybix youtube.com/watch?v=Q_-9gW…

Too many Spider-Man fans live and die by the Raimi Trilogy. You’d think it was the source material the way it gets treated as GOSPEL for Peter Parker characterization. The guy is a genius scientist. If him inventing things bothers you, you might not like Spider-Man. Sorry.

@normalmadeline I had a major parasocial relationship with this crew. Still watch Claire's channel

One of those things you just kind of had to be there for

@Toribabieegirl He won multiple days on this old daytime game show

Tell us one thing about ur Dad.

What is the best monster movie/creature feature you’ve seen that wasn’t about a zombie, vampire, or werewolf?

@TomAandTom1 I just have no stomach for horror flicks that amount to being nothing more than nihilistic snuff films

Horror films work completely differently when you actually care about the protagonists They're actually EFFECTIVE, instead of FX gag reels w diminishing returns

@storyandplot I've gotten three reads from this first batch of cold queries I recently sent out and I'm grateful for every single one of them (even if they don't finish it haha)

No one owes you a read. If they do agree to read your screenplay, they don't owe it to you to finish. Your concept has to make them want to start, and your screenwriting has to earn the rest. The burden is on you. Not them. So embrace it.

@theewinterwitch This is what I wish THE ETERNALS had been - a period piece that established them as a team fighting bad guys. Then use the sequel to tear down that status quo, the way WINTER SOLDIER did

This is lowkey one of marvels best movies and I never see anyone talking about it

@VK_HM That does sound fun. But if they've got to go with someone younger, gotta vouch for Diego Calva - I think he'd kill it

My one take is they should probably try to get Banderas or something. If you’re gonna do a crossover with Zorro get a Zorro people went to see in the theatres

@SirJeremyLondon Also the OG Col. Nathan Jessep in the Broadway production of A FEW GOOD MEN

He also played my dad in The Lemon Grove and my General in Gods and Generals 😉 Best actor I’ve ever worked with

@HwoodScrptReadr It's not a perfect comparison, but this is how the marketing/advertising world works. I've been able to make a living as a writer for years in advertising - sure, it's been hawking everything from internet to toilet paper, but it's mostly been steady and it's improved my craft

The spec market is broken and it has been for a long time. Maybe I shouldn't say this because I'm putting myself out of a job but fuck it. For years and years Hollywood has been taking the "monkeys with typewriters" approach – and I apologize in advance for calling anyone a simian. The strategy sounds good on paper. Make everyone work for free in the hopes that you'll strike gold. But it hasn't worked out that way, has it? Writing takes time. Especially when you're first starting out. Everyone's first script is shit. Who has time to write all day? Trust fund kids, mostly. Why are there so many movies and TV shows about rich people? It's not the only reason why, but it is A reason. The rest of us have day jobs. And was we get older and want a family there are even fewer hours in the day for writing. So what's the solution? Here's a radical proposal: Back in the olden days you had writers on staff. In some ways that was a bad deal because you didn't own your own material. But if a studio buys your spec you don't own it anymore then either. What that system offered was a salary. A steady paycheck is almost a prerequisite for writers to do their best work. It's really hard to be at your most creative when most of your time and energy goes toward worrying how to pay the bills. This could be an opportunity to foster young talent. It's not that different from the long-lost days of development deals and first looks. That was a cash cow for independent producers – and a select few writers who were also producers – that has largely if not totally gone away. Let's making writing a middle class job again. What we have now is a handful of writers at the top who are making the big bucks and everyone else who's making both diddly and squat. It's simply not an efficient allocation of resources. It might result in smaller paydays but it would benefit more people than it will harm. Yes, I know all of this sounds hopelessly naive and will almost certainly never happen, but throwing it out there anyway. Tell me I'm wrong in the comments.

@AliceFromQueens There's a shift that happened with the first Scary Movie where parodies went from pastiche dialed up to 100 to just explicitly commenting on tropes

Great parodies, like this, aren't great because of a concept. They're great bc they nail the genre's details so precisely & channel its spirit so sympathetically you feel the parodist must actually love the genre. If a parody hit can't pass for a real hit, it isn't great.

@metaplexmovies I feel like a big problem with a lot of oners is they're not dramatically motivated - they're for the audience, not the story. They're very aware of themselves which makes me aware of them which totally takes me out of the moment.

can't think of another film technique that went from being pretty much beloved by film fans only to become so overused and poorly made that I usually resent their inclusion quite the same way as the modern application of "oners"

@bkrewind Classic Hollywood was a mix - Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, & Barbara Stanwyck had rough starts, but Jimmy Stewart, Lauren Bacall, & Gene Kelly came from pretty solid middle-class backgrounds, while Katharine Hepburn & Joan Fontaine were straight-up wealthy and well-connected

it's amazing how many stars in classic hollywood came from abject poverty or the middle of nowhere and clawed their way up from nothing. you almost never see that today and i think we are suffering for it. i wanna see that grit on my screen.