Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 343rd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Cate Blanchett’s Cannes Jury Awards Shoplifters, Spike Lee.

The Winners of Cannes 2018 and Where to Find Them.

Critics’ Picks: The 20 Best Films of Cannes 2018.

Todd McCarthy: Despite Doubts and Doldrums, Cannes Comes Through.

#MeToo Hits Cannes Closing Ceremony With a Fury.

Asia Argento Delivers Searing Speech at Cannes: Festival Was Weinstein’s “Hunting Ground”.

Harvey Weinstein Timeline: The Fall of the Movie Mogul.

Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs Reveal the Class of 2018.

Major Studios Released a Historically Low Amount of LGBTQ-Inclusive Films in 2017.

MoviePass Parent’s Stock Slides Again on Cash Shortage Fears.

MoviePass Rival Sinemia Debuts Card-Free Feature.

George Lucas Contributed This Moment in ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’.

The ‘Star Wars’ Prequels Almost Changed Han Solo’s Origin in ‘Solo’.

Inside ‘Solo’: A ‘Star Wars’ Story’s Bumpy Ride to the Big Screen.

How Disney’s ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Marketing Battled Franchise Saturation.

Box-Office Preview: ‘Solo’ Headed for Lowest Opening of Disney ‘Star Wars’ Movies.

James Mangold is Making a Boba Fett Movie.

How ‘A Quiet Place’ Defied All Odds to Become a Blockbuster.

Universal Wins James Bond International Distribution.

Chinese Streaming Giant iQIYI Opens First Conventional Movie Theater.

Is Costume Drama the Next Genre for Scrutiny by China’s Censors?

‘Sesame Street’ Creators Sue STX Entertainment Over Marketing for ‘The Happytime Murders’.

WGA & Luc Besson’s Seaside Productions Reach $1 Million Residuals Settlement.

100 Days That Changed Hollywood: The Writers Strike, 10 Years Later.

How Two Writers Fell in Love on the 2007 Writers Strike Picket Line.

How a Wannabe Screenwriter’s Self-Promotion Backfired.

‘The Dark Knight’: Patton Oswalt Shares His Personal Origin Story Theory For Heath Ledger’s Joker.

Kenneth Branagh Helps Mark Five Years of Warner Bros. Creative Talent Initiative.

Fantasy Science Pt. 1: Wormholes In DEJA VU, STARGATE & Real Life.

Fantasy Science Pt. 2: The Turing Test & EX MACHINA.

Fantasy Science Pt. 3: Multiple Universes In (Science) Fiction.

Fall TV 2018: The Full Broadcast Schedule.

TV Facts on Pacts: Who’s Scored Overall Deals.

New 2017–18 TV Shows Are Mostly White and Male.

Critics Pick the New Fall Shows They Want to Succeed.

TV’s Arms Race for Talent Is Blowing Up Traditional Studio Deals.

‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Boss on 30-Hour Cancellation, Revival, Planning the End.

NBC Is Launching a Podcast Network for Select Shows.

The Best ‘Westworld’ Fan Theories, Mid-Season Edition.

The Evolution of the Mystery Box.

Maggie Gyllenhaal Is Getting Tired Of the Sex Scenes in ‘The Deuce’.

Damon Lindelof pens emotional five-page letter detailing his vision for HBO’s Watchmen.

Damon Lindelof’s ‘Watchmen’ HBO Series Will Not Be an Adaptation or a Sequel.

‘Wild Wild Country’ and the Booming Business of Cults on TV.

Report: ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Series Will Focus On Young Aragorn.

‘The Expanse’: 5 Reasons Why Amazon Needs to Save the Sci-Fi Drama.

Coming to Netflix: The Obamas Sign Deal to Produce Shows.

Michael Douglas, David Simon, Ava DuVernay, ‘Sherlock’ Producer Behind New Dramas For Atrium TV.

Number of Female Writers in British Film and TV at ‘Abjectly Low Levels’.

Broadway Hits Record $1.65 Billion Season Powered by Bruce Springsteen.

BuzzFeed Studios Signs With WME.

Vevo Is Killing Off Its Mobile Apps, Website to Refocus on YouTube.

Watch: Lady Bird Analysis — The Meaning of Love.

Watch: Deconstructing Pixar’s Underrated Masterpiece: Coco | Beat by Beat.

Josh Greenfeld, ‘Harry and Tonto’ Screenwriter, Dies at 90.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

Go from FADE IN to FADE OUT in my upcoming online writing workshop.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one rule about a first draft and it’s this: “Get the damn thing done!”

Easy to say. Hard to do.

That’s why I created the Pages I: Writing the First Draft workshop, a structured online environment — 10 weeks, 10 lectures, 10 writing assignments — to empower a writer to get from FADE IN to FADE OUT.

The Writing the First Draft workshop consists of:

• Weekly due dates to compel you to knock out script pages
• Lectures to help steer you through the writing process
• Feedback and support from a community of fellow writers
• Weekly analysis of pages from a pro screenwriter and educator (me!)
• Teleconferences to drill down in your story and the craft of screenwriting

I have found the approach we use in the workshop, breaking down each weekly assignment to 10 pages or so makes the writing much more manageable. That in combination with several other factors make the success rate in my writing workshops — writers actually completing their scripts — quite high.

Some testimonials from writers who have participated in the workshop:

“Having read almost every screenwriting book out there, none can hold a penny to Scott’s approach of story driven by character, which can not only have you confident in your writing abilities, but can also solve the worst case of writers block (as it did for me).” — Aarthi Jayaraman

“A great experience. I didn’t just get a 99 page first draft out of it, I got all the notes, comments and ideas to start my second draft.” — Michael Waters

“I would highly recommend the Pages I course. I was hesitant to spend the money, but Scott Myers is a fantastic instructor: knowledgeable, encouraging, genuine, funny, and generous. The class set up and size is optimal. And although, personally, I was unsure how much I would get from the peer feedback — I found that incredibly rewarding as well.” — Stacey Fernengel

Consider enrolling in the upcoming Pages I workshop. Instructor: Yours truly. It begins next Monday, June 11.

Go here to learn more.

Let me end with some writer quotes about first drafts:

“First drafts are for learning what your story is about.”
 — Bernard Malamud

“The first draft is nothing more than a starting point, so be wrong as fast as you can.”
 — Andrew Stanton

“Then comes the great leap which is the first draft, I call it ‘the muscle draft,’ where you just muscle it out. You don’t worry about what you’re missing, you just get through it, get to the end.”
 — Darren Aronofsky

“Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. That first draft is just spaghetti on the wall.”
 — Dennis Lehane

“The first draft, the first structure is really important… Do it fast, don’t get stuck.”
 — Oliver Stone

“No matter what you write, good or bad, it’s an improvement to a blank page.”
 — Chris Sparling

“Sometimes you’re swinging your way through a first draft like a blind miner with a pick-axe. That’s OK. Get it done, nothing else matters.”
–Justin Marks

If you can write 1 1/2 pages per day, you can end up with draft of your original feature length screenplay and make this summer a productive one!

What if you’ve started a draft, but never completed it? Or have a draft, but feel like you should start from scratch? This workshop is constructed to help those writers as well.

This is the only time I will be offering the Pages I: Writing the First Draft workshop in 2018, so I encourage you to enroll now.

This summer, I have space for a few private script workshops, one-on-one writing courses with me as your mentor. If you are interested, email me.

Don’t forget Prep: From Concept to Outline, the popular online story prep workshop I created in 2010 and have led over 30 sessions with outstanding results for the writers who have participated in it. I’m only offering two sessions this summer: One starting May 28, the other July 9. For information, go here.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with and support you in knocking out that first draft!