Taylor Carmichael Charlotte

Okay, your animation is awesome and your story is definitely coming into focus. I understand now that the major issue I was having with your emotional beats was in regard to the deadliness of cooties. So many humorous scenes weren't working for me because I wasn't accepting that cooties actually kills people. The birth scene? Wasn't working. The sex education class? Wasn't working. The first touch? Wasn't working. So that is a key variable for you guys. Are the people in your audience understanding, in the first act, that people die from cooties?

You might even consider "Cooties Will Kill You" as a title.

I'm still having trouble with Eden's mom and everybody's wardrobe and the football references and the failure to ground this story in a realistic future society. I still have complaints! But in terms of your emotional beats, I can't emphasize enough how critical it is that your audience believes that cooties is a real disease. When I watched the second version, I knew going in that cooties is deadly. And all the humorous scenes that did not work for me the first time, were now LOL funny. It just made a huge difference to me in terms of enjoying the movie.

The birth scene is hilarious. I was so glad you could tweak this with a line of dialog. It totally works for me now. As far as believability, you went from "impossible" to "implausible, but I will accept it."

The sex education class is cracking me up, too.

To be honest I'm not sure if these scenes are working for me now because of the re-edit, or because I had advance knowledge that cooties is deadly. You probably need fresh eyes on this version to find out if it's working. What I can definitely say, though, is that the deadliness of cooties is really key to this movie.

I have a new thing to complain about, by the way. The cutaways to the guy in the dark alley aren't working at all. The animation is really dark and I can't see anything. I don't know who this guy is. He's the father dentist, right? But as a set-up, it’s not working. Right now these scenes are taking me out of the movie.

I think part of the problem is that in the next scene you have this bit of dialog: "Mr. Poe will not be returning because of his drinking problem." So I'm going, is that Mr. Poe in the dark alley? Drunk off his ass? He's so drunk we're not even allowed to look at him? (You might be able to fix this issue just by relocating the scene).

Emotionally the early scenes are working a lot better for me now. You have a really sweet, wistful vibe, particularly in the dating-at-the-wall sequence. Did you add music in this version? I'm really liking your musical choices. It's a terrific job of scoring.

The dramatic parts still aren't working. Plausibility issues. Why is the President of this society interviewing little kids? Why is he talking to a classroom and showing them sex education tapes?

I like the crazy dentist scene, but it needs some work. Right now he has no arc with Dagger at all. No resolution, nothing. The dentist helps Eden in the third act. I feel like you should either drop this character or tie him into Dagger’s story in a stronger way. Dagger’s got fatherhood issues and intimacy issues, but instead of resolving his relationship with his dad, that plot point is just abandoned. Like he was, so that’s ironic. But it’s not really working.

Once Dagger fires Eden, the humor kinda goes out the window. I feel like he's firing her because he's upset about his dad. And then he tries to make amends by bringing a baby home. So now he's ready to be a dad, unlike his father who abandoned him. But he's not ready to be a dad. His whole point in bringing a baby home was to give Eden something to do. Once she leaves, he dumps the baby on the gay couple.

None of this is funny, and the fatherhood drama isn't explored or resolved.

The baby scene itself is far more awkward than funny. And now I'm worried about the baby. Isn’t she giving cooties to the baby? Dagger’s making a joke about it. “Don’t give cooties to the baby.” But she is, right?

I feel like the humor should be escalating as we go to the climax. Instead it seems to be disappearing, as the dramatic elements take over. And the drama’s still not working at all for me, so that second half is disappointing. There seems to be relationship drama and death drama and society-falling-apart drama and my-father-abandoned-me drama. There are way too many dramatic storylines.

There still seems to be this huge ambivalence about whether cooties kills people or not. I do not get a vibe from Danger that he feels like he is going to die in a couple of weeks. Or that he’s afraid the baby is going to die once he gives Eden the baby. Their relationship squabble makes no sense, really, if both are convinced they are going to die.

If he’s convinced that cooties doesn’t hurt anybody, wouldn’t he be preaching the new gospel to everybody? “They’ve been lying to us! Women are awesome! You should touch a woman!”

Right now cooties doesn’t seem deadly at all. Is Danger dying or does he have a cold? His symptoms are like a cold. How come Eden doesn’t have any symptoms? Is she dying too? Is their baby dying?

Monsters, Inc. is another movie to watch for ideas on how people will react to contamination. The monsters in that movie live in a brainwashing society that has them all convinced kids are poison. And all the humor works even as we in the audience know that kids are not poison. But we see that conflict played out on the screen. There's a fear of touching and contamination.

Maybe Danger should freak out when Eden shows up? Isn't he afraid of her? Why isn't he afraid of her?

I like your writing a lot. Your opening page is amazing. I love that dream sequence.

It crossed my mind to make Lucius the hero, the new kid. He’s such an annoying suck-up in the original, I didn’t go down that path. You’ve done a complete revamp of his character. You’ve given him tattoos and a cool backstory. You’ve made him a convincing warrior. And he’s very interesting and human in this story. And I like the sparks he has with Chizza. You have a great romance going here.

I really admire how you’ve humanized the African warriors who die so quickly in the original. It’s really cool how all the screenwriters are taking different characters and playing around with them.

The strongest part of this screenplay are your characters. Almost across the board they are awesome. I love all their names in particular. I really like the bored evil of Septimius. I love the bit where Flavius (in the Quintus role) celebrates his death and how he’s going to be Caesar, while a zombie is rising up behind him. Funny. Awesome.

You’ve done an impressive amount of research on Rome. For instance this is the only screenplay I’ve seen that uses the term “Imperators.”

I like your slaveowner, Scarius. Although I think his introduction to us is a weak scene. His dialog is too on the nose. “As lanista of the school, I must always search for new blood.” Is he talking to Flavius or is he talking to the audience? It feels like he’s introducing himself to us. I mean, Flavius already knows who he is, right?

My big criticism in your first act is pacing. All these pages are interesting and fun to read. But you’re not delivering on that title. Your audience is expecting action. Where is it? Your first act goes on and on. We have gladiator training sequences, and the set-up for a love story, and the set-up for the zombies. But we don’t get to the fight with the Africans until page 28 (page 7 in the original). You’ve added 21 pages to the first act! Ouch. And the zombie makes his appearance on page 34.

I didn’t buy the Dacian-Attilius confrontation on page 32. “I meant no disrespect.” No disrespect? He tried to kill him in the arena! Dacian swung his sword at his throat and he would have died if he had not ducked. It’s such a bizarre thing to say. Attilius should laugh and say, “No disrespect? You tried to kill me!” And then Dacian could say that he knew Attilius would duck because he’s such a great warrior. Or something like that. If they are to be allies now you have to sell this scene. Right now I’m not buying it.

I love the Attilius-Dacian drinking scene on page 34-36. What a great backstory for Attilius. Fantastic scene.

You not only took out the elephant chase scene, you have zombies eat the elephants. Man!

Your dead naked zombie gladiators on page 48 are freaking me out. A bunch of legless, armless, dead naked guys, trying to grab me and drag me into a headless, armless, dead naked guy orgy! Oh no. Help! Dude, I cannot believe you replaced dead naked beautiful whore zombies with these guys. What a horrible, horrible choice.

Yea, rhinos!

Between the rhinos and the flood scene, and then the Circus Maximus scene, this is heading for $100 million budget, easy. After your war scene and your elephant attack, I dunno, $150 million? I think this might be the costliest screenplay I have read yet.

That’s a sadistic kill on page 70. Now it’s like Escape From New York. Except it’s Escape From Ancient Rome. Rome is turned into a giant prison.

“Care to share your thoughts, old man?” Weird way for a slave to talk to the guy who bought him. Are they equals now? When did that happen? Neither Dacian nor Scarius seem aware of any change in their relationship. He frees him a couple of pages later. So just change that line.

Dude, you got a zombie in a catapult! I did that. And you got zombie elephant! I did that too. Man. And we uploaded on the same day. Looks like you beat me by a few hours.

More elephant shenanigans in the third act! Need a lot of money to shoot this. Is this a zombie elephant or just an ordinary elephant?

Not a big fan of the shaman-talk-to-the-spirit-and-suck-up-the-bad-ju-ju-to-make-the-zombies-go-away scene in the cave. I don’t like that at all! When it actually happens, it’s pretty cool. It totally reminds me of X-Men and Jean Gray.

Why do they not kill Zombie-Septimus on page 94?

Oh you killed my amazon babe you bastard!

No, wait, you cured her. Cripes! The damn cure strikes again.

Transylvania?! Okay, that’s just too goofy. Vampires vs. Gladiators, here we come.

I feel like you have tonal shifts throughout the screenplay. It starts off like an Oscar drama. It’s Roots meets Spartacus. Then it’s Dawn of the Dead in Rome. It’s definitely dark there for a while in the 2nd act. And then by the third act, I got a huge comic book action vibe. Definitely big action sequences at the end.

What an expensive movie! Have you gone beyond the horror market? Can we afford to shoot this? I don’t know. Your drama in the first act is so good. You have a lot of amazing set pieces. I think your tone might be too dark in places. You’re still probably a couple of rewrites away. But right now it’s a fun, enjoyable read. Kudos.

You’ve added a Roman witch doctor, Macrianus, and given him a deformed leg and a near-albino complexion. Cool! I got a Rasputin vibe from him. Macrianus is in cahoots with the Roman general, Sceparnio. I like the names of both of these characters. And I like the palace intrigue. Sceparnio has picked up some Ichor from Africa, which is the fluid of the gods. And it raises the dead. But he also brought back a corpse. Which bites Cassius and turns him into a zombie. This set-up is too long, I think, but the actual idea is very nice.

I think we could use some exposition from Macrianus as to his plan. Is he going to kill Caesar? Who is going to become Caesar? How does the power to raise the dead help in a plot to overthrow Caesar? A little more detail here would have been helpful.

I hate, hate, hate, the name Fabius. I guess because it reminds me of Fabio? I don’t know. It’s a horrible name. You’ve made him a bit more human, less warrior-like. Everybody thinks he should be bigger, I like that bit. You hint at his backstory at the party scene. “I’ve met Macrianus before.”

I very much like the confrontation between Fabius and Macrianus at the party.

We don’t see Cassius become a zombie? That doesn’t work at all. He gets bit on page 7, he’s in pain. And then on page 34, he’s a zombie? Need at least a page or two showing the transformation.

Still not sure of Macrianus’ plan. Does he want a zombie army to overthrow the Roman army? Or does he want a zombie outbreak? Why does he put the zombie into the arena? As soon as he does that, Caesar knows that Macrianus is working with zombies, right? He lets the secret out of the bag. Is Macrianus ready to let the secret out of the bag? His plan seems vague to me right now.

Is Quintus good? Is he part of the conspiracy? Is he just dumb?

Wouldn’t Caesar freak out when he realizes the Macrianus has turned his general into a zombie? Wouldn’t he have him arrested for treason or something?

“Four zombie soldiers enter the arena.” I feel like we need a co-conspirator. Who let the Zombie soldiers into the arena? Who is working with Macrianus?

I think you’ve got a pacing issue. “Behold, the demon of Rome!” is on page 40 in your version, page 27 in the original. You’ve added 13 pages to the first act. Need to cut, cut, cut.

Quintus on page 50: “How could I imagine such a thing as a zombie existed?” But he announced the zombie before the crowd.

Need an introduction to Drusis? Unless I missed it.

Quintus appears to be part of the conspiracy on page 73? I think we should find this out a lot sooner. Suspense is better than surprise. Establish Quintus as a bad guy in the first act, conspiring with Macrianus.

Here’s one thought. What if you combine the characters of Sceparnio and Valerius? Instead of killing him in the first act, you could surprise us by having him be the guy in charge of the garrison. Then the group thinks they are safe, but we know he’s part of the conspiracy.

I feel like the backstory speech from Fabius is clunky on pages 76-79.

“A wonderful what?” I like that.

“If I could read that tablet, I might recognize the toxins in the description and I may be able to formulate the antidote.” This cracks me up.

Octavius has his throat ripped on page 43, and he’s dead. Even if he’s cured, how is he alive?

You kept most of the action scenes, although you lost the cool sewer scene with the zombie rats. Added some cool violent scenes. I like adding the African warriors, and there was some funny scenes as they learned bad words in English. And Macrianus is a fun bad guy. I feel like there are some pacing issues. You need to lose some pages, particularly in the first half. And the cure’s really not working for me at all. Overall this is an interesting rewrite. Good work.

You kept all the cool scenes from the original, with the exception of the fight in the Senate. You added a new character, a kid, which totally reminded me of Newt from Aliens. I think this was a highly effective way of humanizing Titus, giving him a father vibe. (Like Newt gave Ripley a mother vibe). You might even consider making the kid younger. I think you missed an opportunity by not putting the kid is danger, real danger. Obviously you can’t hurt the kid, but cutting him off from the others, putting him in a scary, threatening place, that’s a very strong thing to do. See Aliens, see Jaws.

I like the humanization of the witch doctor, making him a grandfather. You like him right away. But then there’s a problem in that you dislike the Romans right away. The vibe I get from your opening is that the kid is our protagonist. And the Romans are our bad guys. That’s a bit of a problem as we need to pull for the Romans!

What you might consider is to connect Titus with the kid right from the beginning. For instance, what if we cut to Titus dreaming of himself when he is a boy, and we see a similar scene? He’s a kid, Roman soldiers, he’s kidnapped, he’s a slave? Just a tiny brief 1 or 2 page dream right before he preps for battle. So we know that Titus is a good guy.

I like having Titus at the docks, at a slave auction, keeping him involved in the story. Interesting choice.

You definitely have a pacing issue right now. You’re adding scenes but you’re not cutting any scenes. So the palace party is on page 27 on yours (page 14 in the original). Titus meets the Zombie on page 43 in yours (28 in the original). I had a big problem with the talking dinner scene (pages 54-59). Five pages of talking heads, right after the zombie outbreak? It really kills your forward momentum. Elephant chase is on page 60 in yours (page 37 in the original). So basically it’s taking you an hour to do what the original did in 37 minutes. Got to figure out ways to cut, cut, cut and get us out of the Colosseum quicker.

Interesting call to keep Victor alive, and then kill him!

Whorehouse is a little awkward with the kid. Naked whore zombies, awkward with the kid.

Moved the flaming zombies to after the whorehouse. That works. Rats in the house, I like that, too. You kept almost every single action set piece from the original. And it’s a definite improvement in the third act.

Overall I like it, good work. My one concern would be the pacing in the first half. The pacing in the original is frickin’ brilliant. Adding exposition and more scenes hurts. And that 5-page dinner scene in the Colosseum is not working. Overall, though, this is a quality rewrite. Good job.

It’s like the Beach Boys, except it’s not Fun, Fun, Fun. It’s Death, Death, Death. Until Death takes the T-Bird away. I had no trouble at all with the voiceover, and your writing is really strong. But man oh man your first act is so depressing. It’s plague, plague, more plague, black death, dead bodies, corpses, still more plague, suicide, “I want to die,” more death, more dead bodies. death, death, death, just a tremendous amount of death, sickness and decay. Yuck. What a date movie! Did I mention flies and lesions and sickness and cadavers? I think you have a whole pile of dead bodies? And they’re all so blasé about the walking dead. They’re like, “oh, that corpse is walking, boy that’s depressing, look at that dead person walk.” Where’s the fear? Where’s the excitement? That whole first act, I’m like this: “No popcorn. No thanks. I’m okay. I don’t want any popcorn.” Titus is suicidal and depressed and he just wants the zombie to kill him. Cripes! And this is our hero?

On top of this, the zombie bites Titus and he’s immune. Huh? He can’t turn into a zombie? Now this totally reminds me of The Spirit. You know, when the guy who can’t die fights the guy who can’t die. And my butt is falling asleep. Isn’t it a problem that Titus is immune to the zombies? Now it’s like Zombies vs. Superman. It’s Zombies vs. All-Powerful Being Who Cannot Die Unless He Kills Himself Because He’s So Frickin’ Depressed.

Other than that, I got a real kick out of your story. At least the first half of it. I loved Nero. Got a real decadent vibe off of him. And I loved the conspiring people under Nero. It was definitely an interesting take on the story. But it was also kinda weird how nobody in Rome was freaked out by the zombies. Like there was a zombie plague killing everybody, and the people don't care. They're laughing and having fun while other people are being eaten.

What makes this story interesting, and weird, is how little fear there is. In every story I’ve seen so far, people freak out from the zombies. And they’re scared. Your Romans are so blasé about it. It’s a unique take on it. Really decadent and interesting. But kind of a weird vibe, too. Graphic, gory, decadent, violent, blasé, and apathetic. I think you captured ancient Rome! Not much fun, though.

Interesting!

You're a good writer. I'd like to see you take a crack at Zombies in 1776 or something like that. That would be fun. I wanna see zombies in wigs now.

I like the idea of a Black Watch. Roman secret agents trying to thwart the evil witchcraft of the day. Cool! I like that pitch. But of course that's a different movie. You could definitely write a version of that for $20-$30 million, probably.

For me, this isn't really Zombies vs. Gladiators. You ground your story in reality. You're following the A.S. notes. You spend your first act setting up our hero. You make him seem like a real person, in a real environment. You've given him depth. And your zombie curse is authentic. I like the bit on the ship. Good stuff. But we're spending pages and pages creating an authentic world, and the upshot is that you fail to get the Zombie into the arena to fight a Gladiator in front of 50,000 people.

It's what I call a missed opportunity! What's so frickin' cool in the original is that scene. A zombie is in a cage and then the doors open and the Gladiator has to fight him. I like that scene more than anything. More than elephants. It's iconic. It's why we're here. It's Zombies vs. Gladiators. I feel strongly that we have to have that scene.

But to have that scene you need a lot of set-up to explain why Caesar is putting a frickin' zombie in the arena. You skip all that. You don't even have a Caesar. No Caesar!

And you went with a dog chase instead of an elephant chase.

Your version is pretty much like every zombie film I have ever seen. Zombie outbreak, grab a weapon, fight 'em. So your gladiators grab weapons, and they are in an arena, but it's not the same thing at all. Nobody's cheering. And nobody put the zombie in there on purpose. It's even more like an outbreak movie than the original.

Your screenplay is more credible than the original, but you've lost that feeling of incredible, if that makes sense. It's "Zombies in Ancient Rome" instead of "Zombies vs. Gladiators." I guess that's the danger in a page 1 rewrite. You follow the notes but you lost a really cool, iconic scene. You've added a cool action scene (zombie lion!), but you've lost all the cool action sequences from the original. I wouldn't even call this an action movie. It's a horror movie/historical drama.

And I don't know how much money you've actually saved. What would this cost? $60 million? $80 million? Colosseum ain't cheap. This still would be the most expensive zombie movie ever made. You've added some dramatic elements, but you've really cut back on action set pieces.

I was confused on one major plot point. How do the zombies get to Rome? That one bit guy escapes, but he's in Ostia, right? And all the rest are in quarantine. And yet the zombies are in Rome. How did they get there? And why was the bad guy so sure the zombies would be in Rome?

Anyway, nice work. Definitely an interesting take on it.