CONFIDENTIAL TITLE: CHASER DATE: FEBRUARY 12, 2018 AUTHOR: DANIEL ROEMER & MARK SEBASTIAN JORDAN GENRE: COMEDY/ROMANTIC COMEDY/WHAT IF? ERA: PRESENT READER: ANGELA VILLALOBOS OPINION: NEEDS WORK

THE GIST

CHASER is an interesting concept that gets lost in its own idea. The script moves too fast to keep up with, the dialogue falls flat and so much of the action takes place on a computer screen that as a reader, the visuals are difficult to imagine. Although the idea is cute, the humor is a little childish (there are four masturbation jokes just by page 12) and the action moves so fast that there is little room for rest or character development.

THE PLOT

I’m not going to lie, this script is so complex that I had trouble keeping up with it. It seems to revolve around a film editor named EDI (35) who is obsessed with a gorgeous actress named ANABEL whose film he is editing. Edi wants nothing more than to ask Anabel on a date and he finally gets up the courage after a mysterious and magical IT assistant named HAL promises him that he can help him get the girl. Essentially HAL installs some kind of magic software on Edi’s computer which lets him edit his own story as he is living it. He is able to fast forward in life to the point that after a first date, Edi and Anabel are now engaged and planning a wedding. There is a subplot of Anabel having to go home to Ohio at one point and face her former high school rival, FRAN. Everything quickly starts to spiral out of control as Edi learns the rules to his new power. In the end it is revealed that Hal is nothing more than a twerpy 12-year-old who is trying to get revenge against his controlling mother, AYA (Anabel’s yoga teacher.)

THE ISSUES

The problems with this script are all fundamental as the idea is good, the characters are diverse and the bones are all there. But the script ultimately lacks in heart and meat. The magic in this script is all over the place. The rules are very unclear, the characters continually talk the plot, and again, the action moves so fast it is nearly impossible to figure out exactly what is going on. The main character is a person who spends too much time on the internet which would be fine if it didn’t feel like the writers are the type of people who spend too much time on the internet. There is very little life in the script and there is too much technology speak to the point that it is distracting. The humor is dull and essentially revolves around how confusing the script is. It is nice that it seems as though the writer knows how confusing the script is and makes jokes off of that, but it didn’t result in my laughing out loud or silently giggling to myself. Ultimately it wasn’t very memorable as there is no scene I can point to and say, “I really loved the ______ scene.” It all kind of blends together in a hazy cloud of tech-speak and as a reader, it was hard to make heads or tails of the action.

THE READER’S RECOMMENDATION

The script is similar to the movie “Click” except this film involves editing equipment instead of a remote. Again, it’s a cute idea, but it ultimately suffers from poor pacing and confusing techno-speak. Professionally speaking, I would have to recommend that the script go through a strong rewrite that slows down the action and focuses more on the character development before it goes forward to filming. The overall idea is too interesting to let the finished product suffer from rushed execution. It just moves too fast. Given the fact that it is a love story at the end of the day, it would benefit from taking a deep breath. The stages of love here are not properly represented and in doing so it makes the message of the film a little meaningless.

CONFIDENTIAL

SCRIPT #2

READER: ANGELA VILLALOBOS OPINION: SOFT RECOMMEND

THE GIST

Script #2 tells the true story of Emma Edmonds, a Canadian born woman who moves to Boston in 1859 to escape a controlling father and an arranged marriage. Unable to find employment as a woman, Emma cuts her hair and poses as a man. This all takes place during the first rumblings of the Civil War. Inspired by abolitionists and eager to make change, Emma, under her cross gendered disguise as Franklin Thompson, enlists in the military.

THE PLOT

The story opens with a young Emma Edmonds as she goes on a ride with her brother in the Canadian wilderness. It is clear from the beginning that she has a very close relationship with her brother. He is soon taken in by an illness and passes away under Emma’s care. Determined to get her out of the house and into a marriage, Emma’s controlling and rough father arranges for her to marry a man in the town whom Emma has no interest in. Emma decides to sell her beloved horse, Skylar, and move to Boston to start a new life for herself. After arriving in Boston, Emma has trouble finding employment. She soon gets the idea to cut her hair and pose as a man in order to get a job as a Bible salesman. Soon the newspapers and town abolitionists start preaching about the horror of slavery and the beginning of the Civil War erupts. Emma, inspired by her friends and her moral compass to rid the country of slavery, enlists in the military under the guise of her male alter-ego Franklin Thompson. Although small, Franklin is enlisted to work as a nurse during the war. He and his fellow soldiers fight through several battles and deal with the horrors of injured soldiers at the hospital. One of the highlights of the script is a scene where Franklin confronts a Confederate housewife named Nellie in order to take rations from her for the wounded soldiers. Nellie is afraid of him and after giving Franklin butter and flour, she sloppily fires a shotgun at him, missing. Franklin takes her in as a prisoner, but since Nellie considers herself useless (her husband and house servants having served to her every whim all her life) Franklin takes her to the hospital and makes her work as a nurse. Similar to the story of Mulan, Emma as Franklin takes a liking to one of her ranking officers and after the war is won, she and Cameron Poe, one of her commanders, fall in love and decide to get married. It is a pretty straight forward Civil War battle story.

THE ISSUES

Whoever wrote Script #2 should be hired to rewrite the dialogue of Script #1. It is another interesting and timely true story that features a strong female lead. Emma is strong-willed and determined, she is not willing to sacrifice her moral compass of destroying slavery and liberating the oppressed for anything. The issues here are that the script lacks a layer of cool that would make it a bit different from any other similar type story. This is all too familiar to the story of Mulan, which many adults and millennials know from the cartoon and the up-coming Disney live-action remake. The lead male character in Script #2 is named Cameron Poe, which is interesting considering this is the name of Nicolas Cage’s character in the film “Con-Air”. I

CONFIDENTIAL

couldn’t find any research that leads me to believe this is or was a real person who existed in the Civil War. Again, it is an interesting and timely story, it just suffers from a lack of memorability. Nothing in it really stood out to me other than the scene between Frank and Nellie.

THE READER’S RECOMMENDATION

This script, as it is written, would serve to do well if produced for any kind of streaming service such as Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu. It is definitely more of a streaming service-type script than a cinematic one. It has the possibility to be cinematic, but the dialogue would need a stronger rewrite and certain scenes could be cut while others could be extended with stronger conflict between the characters. That’s the biggest problem this script suffers from – a lack of conflict. There is little tension or drama around the fact that Emma is a woman posing as a man. She just does what she does while she is incognito. It is interesting, but forces no emotion or feeling from the reader. As is, I would only recommend this film for production if it is distributed by a streaming service. Comparable projects could include “Free State of Jones,” “Jane Got a Gun,” “Mulan” and “12 Years a Slave.”

CONFIDENTIAL

FROZEN RIVER WINTER'S BONE MONSTER THE HELP REVOLUTIONARY

ROAD THE BLIND SIDE WALK THE LINE STEPMOM

MILLION DOLLAR BABY

ERIN BROCKOVICH

2,511,476 18,337,722 34,469,210 169,708,112 22,911,480 255,959,475 119,519,402 91,137,662 100,492,203 125,595,205 157,842 200,362 4,554,719 6,845,373 5,117,981 9,127,125 18,148,984 - 10,149,214 - 65,341 1,000,594 2,527,127 9,283,741 2,437,956 13,562,921 13,104,511 - 7,065,808 -

- 502,980 1,171,230 302,077 229,937 1,086,537 471,289 - - - 2,734,659 20,041,658 42,722,286 186,139,303 30,697,354 279,736,058 151,302,379 91,137,662 117,707,225 125,595,205

- 283,671 2,420,657 1,015,299 5,299,954 7,275,796 14,686,953 - 5,359,855 11,880,010 - 43,063 - - 2,263,937 - 1,956,148 - 2,799,566 -

1,260,104 336,269 1,963,105 4,450,322 8,657,060 - 2,074,086 - 22,136,162 - 267,882 531,358 3,276,112 1,568,200 4,339,980 - 596,329 - 9,843,810 - 722,067 396,154 1,600,514 5,032,425 5,580,919 2,529,601 1,185,249 - 16,049,334 - 138,584 23,477 1,082,580 3,743,364 2,464,865 717,509 5,944,934 - 4,775,929 - 25,850 16,573 341,232 2,421,629 1,739,934 - 1,593,675 - 3,568,302 - 82,410 - 489,200 49,765 1,073,743 - 227,347 - 2,919,307 -

- - 183,367 291,785 610,150 712,584 219,877 - 1,612,229 - - 12,071 - 77,862 24,359 47,982 263,265 - 141,267 -

2,496,897 1,642,636 11,356,767 18,650,651 32,054,901 11,283,472 28,747,863 0 69,205,761 11,880,010- - 459,214 61,159 1,183,130 - 120,285 - 211,339 - - - - - 132,555 - 121,867 - 8,682 - - - 289,753 246,625 786,220 - 122,715 - 799,870 - - - - 28,171 225,225 - 162,629 - 238,882 - - - - - 79,345 - 29,866 - 67,742 - - - 31,067 20,158 200,539 - 134,803 - 216,732 - - - - 62,842 179,561 95,404 117,663 - - - - - 19,799 39,705 23,605 - 9,883 - 41,279 -

0 0 799,833 458,660 2,810,180 95,404 819,711 0 1,584,526 07,610 - - 131,239 279,404 196,544 207,706 - 300,575 - 8,011 - 61,364 48,742 490,183 - 86,372 - 639,185 -

- - - 557,694 359,830 568,626 145,916 - - - 15,621 0 61,364 737,675 1,129,417 765,170 439,994 0 939,760 0

74,384 524,565 1,690,109 860,847 993,848 4,105,623 780,505 - 4,061,795 - 49,510 - - 764,723 881,573 3,004,286 720,467 - 2,100,000 - 2,632 46,212 365,197 515,682 458,665 480,995 99,265 - 1,877,542 -

- - - 387,257 224,445 355,921 88,170 - - - 39,501 - - 170,307 119,589 530,207 89,631 - - - 40,580 - - 272,651 92,519 382,314 59,316 - - - 206,607 570,777 2,055,306 2,971,467 2,879,618 8,859,346 1,904,563 0 8,039,337 0

- 436,473 - 1,274,323 4,107,964 - 1,034,907 - 11,254,733 - - - - 976,256 284,229 2,165,985 1,289,310 - 5,045,832 - - 75,472 - - 313,699 503,586 336,206 - 302,363 - - - - 161,008 381,015 92,795 129,300 - 326,246 - - - 12,200 38,014 72,909 - 56,862 - 132,800 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 81,546 140,332 279,274 137,861 - 85,329 - - - - - 19,900 126,112 86,999 - - - - - - - - - 20,993 - - - - - - - 143,574 - 120,084 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 511,945 12,200 2,531,147 5,463,622 3,167,752 3,212,522 - 17,147,303 -

2,902,807 6,873,453 25,909,374 41,900,000 52,314,541 53,248,834 66,919,481 68,573,131 116,271,443 130,676,0815,453,784 22,767,016 57,007,756 211,488,903 75,035,092 303,907,202 186,427,032 91,137,662 214,623,912 137,475,215

Writer:Cast: Genre:

SOUTH AFRICA

Exp. Budget:

TITLE: Director: US:

USA / CANADA UK AUSTRALIA & N.Z.

TERRITORY

FRANCE

TOTAL ENGLISH SPEAKINGGERMANY

CZECH REPUBLIC

SWITZERLAND

SPAINSCANDINAVIABENELUX

POLAND

EX-YUGOBULGARIATOTAL EASTERN EUROPE

HUNGARY

ITALY

ICELANDTOTAL EUROPECISBALTICS

GREECEPORTUGAL

PHILIPPINESMALAYSIAINDIA

JAPANKOREA

MIDDLE EAST

BRAZIL

ROMANIA

TAIWAN

COLOMBIATOTAL LATIN AMERICA

VENEZUELAPERU/BOL/ECUADOR

TOTAL WORLDWIDETOTAL INTL B.O.

THAILAND

VIETNAM

SINGAPORE

CHINA

SIMILAR FILM COMPARISON TITLES - DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL BREAKDOWN

TOTAL ASIA

HONG KONG

INDONESIA

TURKEYISRAELTOTAL MIDDLE EASTMEXICO

ARG/PAR/URUG/CHILE

11/16/2020 1:45 PM TITLE Data retrieved from BoxOfficeMojo.Com