Is My Screenplay Big Enough to Be a Movie, Part 9: The Ending

This is a fundamental question screenwriters must ask themselves at all stages of a screenplay’s development and writing. Why? Because it’s a question movie studio execs will ask as one of the key determining factors whether to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to buy your script.

“Is my screenplay big enough to be a movie?”

This is a fundamental question screenwriters must ask themselves at all stages of a screenplay’s development and writing. Why? Because it’s a question movie studio execs will ask as one of the key determining factors whether to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to buy your script.

For years, movies have been known as playing on “The Big Screen,” as opposed to TV (the “small” screen). Typically movies have big budgets, big marketing campaigns, and big stars. Their running times, clocking in at an average of two hours, are big. The film industry is our nation’s second biggest export business (behind airplane manufacturing). So much about movies is about being big.

Being ‘big enough’ pertains not only to huge blockbuster action-thrillers, but also to small character-driven scripts. While the plot may be ‘small’ in scope, what happens and what those events mean to the story’s characters must have a ‘big’ enough meaning and emotional resonance with a big enough potential audience to warrant a studio’s green light.

The central question here — Is my script big enough to be a movie — is a… well… big topic. What I’ve done is put together 10 questions you can ask in relation to any of your writing projects, current and future, to test if it’s big enough to be a movie. I’ll be posting these questions over the next few weeks.

PART 9: DOES MY SCREENPLAY HAVE A BIG ENOUGH ENDING?

How frustrating that is when a movie pumps you full of hope with its compelling Beginning, surprises you with twists and turns in the Middle, then peters out with a wimpy, diffuse Ending.

Wimpy endings do not = a big movie. So here are a few things to consider when approaching your script’s Ending.

Typically, there’s no down time in Act Three. Little or no exposition. Once the Protagonist goes on the offensive leading toward the Final Struggle, the script’s ending becomes one continuous chain of events, each leading directly into the other.

Think of Act Three as a replay of the movie:

• On The Defensive recalls the Disunity state of the story’s Beginning, the Protagonist tempted to call it quits and go back to their ordinary world, leaving their goal — and their life — unfulfilled.
• On The Offensive recalls how the Protagonist moved through the story’s Middle, at first reactive (Deconstruction), but then proactive (Reconstruction) as they got more and more in touch with their core essence.
• The Final Struggle recalls all the previous tests the Protagonist has survived, presenting one last challenge to see if their ‘new’ reconstructed self has taken root or not.

Think of the story’s ending as the resolution not only of the events in the Plotline, but also the final dispensation of the Protagonist’s psychological, emotional, and spiritual issues. Whatever transpires in the Plotline, the emotional resolve in the Themeline should represent an ‘answer’ to a critical life-question about the Protagonist raised in Act One.

In Adaptation, Act Three is pretty much everything but the kitchen sink time. Of course, that’s precisely what the Robert McKee character suggested to Charlie in that bar in New York: “The last act makes the film. You can have an uninvolved, tedious movie, but wow them at the end, and you’ve got a hit.” And that’s precisely what Kaufman — the actual screenwriter of Adaptation — did in the script’s ending.

Consider some of the subplots and dynamics which get addressed in the story’s final act:

• Charlie and Donald’s fractured relationship
• Charlie’s writer’s block
• Charlie’s romantic inhibitions
• The mystery of Susan Orlea
• The mystery of Laroche

Combine all that with sex, drugs, guns, kidnapping, escape, chase, car crash, one brother’s death and a tearful goodbye, a gator attack and another death, and you’ve got a “wow” (i.e., big) ending.

The events in a story’s ending can be enormous or intimate. As long as they provide a sense of completion to the Plotline and a resolve to the emotional dynamics in the Themeline, then you have the makings of a big ending.

Next: Does my script have a big enough Protagonist metamorphosis?

Part 1: Does my screenplay have a big enough story concept?
Part 2: Does my screenplay have big enough characters?
Part 3: Does my screenplay have big enough set pieces?
Part 4: Does my screenplay have big enough conflict?
Part 5: Does my screenplay have big enough stakes?
Part 6: Does my screenplay have big enough visual style?
Part 7: Does my screenplay have big enough beginning?
Part 8: Does my screenplay have big enough middle?