All (theatrically released) Films are Miracles

Since I’m writing this just as my first short film shoot comes to an end, I wanted to focus on how rare it is for any film to get made at all. Regardless of how good or bad a film is, it remains special simply because it exists.

Before worrying about scripts or funding or demographics, someone must first come up with an idea. Not just any idea, a good idea that has the potential for either critical acclaim, cult creation, or box office greatness. This idea must then be turned into a story, or narrative. Most of the major, big-budget films made today are based on a previously successful source material. In 2015, the top ten grossing films of the year were all based on a book, comic, or another movie (i.e. a sequel). This means if the goal is a blockbuster, then that original idea is probably a novel, not a script. On the other end, many independent films start from an original screenplay or idea. Of the top ten grossing independent films of 2015, four of them were nominated for an Academy Award, and one even won Best Picture (Spotlight, 2015). So this idea should have mass appeal, or it should be award-worthy.

Let’s say that idea is pretty good, and it goes straight into a screenplay. This is where good ideas go to die (or at the very least, sit in purgatory). Last winter, I interned for a distribution company in Los Angeles, CA. My main task was to read scripts — they never ran out of scripts for me to read, summarize, and judge. This is pretty much the task of every intern for every company (big or small) in the entertainment industry. Interns are the first barrier a script or idea needs to get past in order to be made. Based on my work that winter, I know for a fact that not every script is read thoroughly, or even at all. Sometimes fellow interns would read the title and decide based on that! There are honestly millions of scripts, screenplays, and specs being submitted to companies in Los Angeles alone. I read around 50 or so just over a 10-week internship. Out of that group, I only recommended that 5 scripts be seen by my boss. Therefore from my own experience, only 10% of scripts make it past an intern’s desk.

If the script does get past the intern’s desk it goes straight into rewrites at a major studio, or it goes to a producer at a smaller production company. Rewrites can last forever at a studio, as schedules change, big-name actors drop in and out, and directors change the story. The script can end up completely different from the original script that was submitted. A great example of a movie like this is Con Air (1997). Sometimes a film goes into funding purgatory and struggles to get its feet off the ground.

After the funding and the rewrites, the film finally makes it to the shooting. Usually by this stage things are moving along, but at other times, things get out of hand. FIlms go over budget, get canceled, actors get injured, or directors change in the middle. Sometimes this means the end of the film. During the year that Francis Ford Coppola took to shoot Apocalypse Now (1979), no one had high expectations for the film’s end. Many times he ran out of funding or had to stop production. But, in the end they finished it.
Many people thought it was a miracle Apocalypse Now was ever finished, let alone the critically-acclaimed, Academy Award-winning film it ended up being. So the next time you leave a movie theater wondering how a movie that terrible was ever made in the first place, just remember that the film is a miracle. It made it to the screen so you could have the chance to watch it. It beat the odds, got past an intern’s desk, got funding, got produced, edited, and distributed. It’s gone through so much, so at least be nice when you give it a bad review.