I did the exact same thing with the Lottery: took all the numbers multiplied by all kinds of things and...am still waiting to win. I'm writing exactly the oposite to what the learned prof says I should be writing- no wonder I'm getting nowhere. There's no secret formula other than a great script and, I believe, a little bit of luck. All this report tells me is what KIND of movie MIGHT make it. The rest is still up to me. What I've done with a number of filmed scripts is to open 'em in Final Draft, pull 'em right and run them through the script statistics program. What I discovered opened my eyes. That info really changed my way of writing from "radio" to something that they at least have to look at. Just once... Regards Terrence
Excellent thinking. Keep in mind the crucial difference between cause-and-effect and correlation. Just because these are the kinds of movies that have made it big doesn't mean that's why they made it big. Unfortunately there's a lie nestled in this logic. Show business executives are only human, or possibly less than, and desperately grasp at any quantifiable element that might lead to a reliable reproduction of financial success. In simpler terms, they make movies and TV shows but they wish they were canning soup. So while "based on a true story" might not actually make for a better film, it doesn't matter -- if they believe it will, the film will more likely get made.
Commenting by HaloScan
