Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 351st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Comic-Con 2018: 2018 schedule, guests, exclusives, and everything else you need to know.

Comic-Con 2018: The Complete TV Lineup.

Comic-Con 2018 Parties: Entertainment Weekly Bash to Feature ‘Westworld,’ ‘Game of Thrones’.

Comic-Con 2018 Schedule Day 2: ‘Walking Dead,’ ‘Halloween,’ ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Top Hot List.

Comic-Con 2018: Watch All of the TV Trailers.

How to watch San Diego Comic Con 2018.

The Best of Comic-Con: The Coolest and Most Important Moments in Hall H History.

Disney’s battle plan? Just look around Comic-Con.

Disney Animation’s First VR Film, ‘Cycles,’ Set to Premiere.

Comcast Drops Out of Bidding War With Disney for 21st Century Fox Assets to Focus on Sky.

I Work at Fox and I’m Terrified By the Disney Future (Guest Column).

Disruption, Consolidation, Uncertainty: Welcome to Hollywood’s Age of Anxiety.

The “Tough Year” Ahead: Why Top Hollywood Execs Are So Spooked.

After Months-Long Death Rattles, the Weinstein Company Is Officially Kaput.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mister Rogers: Hollywood’s Newest Breakout Stars.

Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” Is Rated R Because the MPAA Cares More About Dirty Words Than Onscreen Violence.

Hollywood tackles abortion as the fight gears up in Washington.

The Legal Battle to Bring Buck Rogers to the Big Screen.

Legal Fight Over Aaron Sorkin’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Adaptation Reaches “Emergency”.

The amount of Thai cave rescue movies in the works is ridiculous.

China’s First $100M Film Pulled From Cinemas After Disastrous Opening Weekend.

Hungary Raises Production Incentive From 25% to 30%.

Study: Men Who Dominate Movie Reviewing Shortchange Women Directors.

Nicolas Winding Refn Declares ‘Cinema Is Dead,’ Thinks Arguing About Netflix Is ‘So 2000’ and Pointless.

Wes Anderson Heads to the Art World to Curate New Museum Exhibition in Europe.

Lost Stanley Kubrick screenplay, Burning Secret, is found 60 years on.

The Complicated Legacy of ‘The Dark Knight’.

The Last Temptation of Skywalker: The “Blasphemy” of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Illuminates a Martin Scorsese Masterpiece.

Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie? Bruce Willis finally has an answer.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Why the Trump Era’s Movie Villains Are “Morally Woke”.

The Romantic Comedy Ideology.

IMDbPro App Adds Tracking Feature for Talent, Projects.

Global Broadcasters Score Big With Live World Cup Final Ratings.

ABC Expects Primetime Volume Gains in TV’s Upfront Market.

Disney Wraps Upfront Ad Sales as ESPN Lands Double-Digit Revenue Increases.

‘This Is Us,’ ‘Westworld,’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy Strength Comes From Ensembles.

Vince Gilligan Renews Sony TV Overall Deal.

What ‘The Twilight Zone’ Teaches Us About Storytelling.

NBCU Relaunches Craftsy Network as Bluprint, a How-To Subscription-Video Service.

TV’s New Favorite Thing Is the Surprise Release.

‘Brady Bunch’ House for Sale for Nearly $1.9M.

Donald Glover’s ‘This Is America’ Lands Seven MTV Video Music Award Nominations, Including Video of the Year.

Netflix Falls Short of Q2 Subscriber Expectations Worldwide, Stock Dives.

Netflix to Launch Comedy Radio Channel on SiriusXM.

How everything–everything–changed for Netflix this week.

Streaming Video Subscriptions Top Traditional Pay TV in U.K. for First Time.

Google Announces Plan to Lay Massive Subsea Cable From Virginia to France.

Google Fined a Record $5 Billion by European Antitrust Officials.

Second Annual Pokémon Go Fest Draws Over 21,000 Attendees.

Worldwide Mobile Game Spending Grew to $26.6 Billion in First Half of 2018.

Listen: 3rd & Fairfax: The WGAW Podcast (Episode 105 — Seth Meyers).

Shinobu Hashimoto, Screenwriter on Kurosawa’s ‘The Seven Samurai’ and ‘Rashomon,’ Dies at 100.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

In the Core content of The Quest, we work with eight screenwriting principles, and the very first one is this: Plot = Structure.

On Monday, August 27, I will be starting a new cycle of Core classes, eight of them in all, beginning with Core I: Plot.

I have reduced the price of the Core classes to make them available to as many people as possible! Details below!

In this 1-week online course, you will learn the importance of Plot = Structure as well as:

• Key theoretical concepts from Aristotle, Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung
• The reality of Hollywood and the “Whammo” theory
• The External World and Internal World of a screenplay universe
• Metamorphosis: Screenplay structure grounded in character
• Analysis of movies including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Silence of the Lambs, Shakespeare in Love, The Verdict, The Sixth Sense, Up, and others

And much more.

The course consists of four components:

• Lectures: There are six lectures written by me, each posting Monday through Saturday.
• Logline Workshop: This optional writing exercise offer you the opportunity to workshop one of your own loglines.
• Teleconference: We will have a Skype teleconference call to discuss course material.
• Forums: The online course site has 24/7 forums where you may post questions and we engage in conversation about the craft.

For those of you who have not taken an online class, the interface is extremely easy. Plus online classes can be an amazing experience. Most of the activities you can do on your own time — download and read lectures, review and respond to forum discussions, upload loglines and track comments. In addition, I’ve been teaching online for over a decade and it never ceases to amaze me how much of a community emerges in such an environment.

If you’re new to screenwriting, have intermediate experience, or you’ve read it all, but want to learn the basics of what I teach in The Quest — character based screenwriting — here is your chance to learn the foundation of screenplay structure that goes beyond formula.

I only teach my Core classes once a year and the 2018 cycle begins next month. Everything you need to know about screenwriting theory in this unique curriculum based on eight principles: Plot, Concept, Character, Style, Dialogue, Scene, Theme, Time.

CORE I: PLOT — A one-week class which begins with the principle Plot = Structure and explores the inner workings of the Screenplay Universe: Plotline and Themeline. Start date: August 27.

CORE II: CONCEPT — A one-week class which begins with the principle Concept = Hook and examines multiple strategies to generate, develop and assess story ideas. Start date: September 10.

CORE III: CHARACTER — A one-week class which begins with the principle Character = Function and delves into archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, and Trickster. Start date: September 24.

CORE IV: STYLE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Style = Voice and surfaces keys to developing a distinctive writer’s personality on the page. Start date: October 8.

CORE V: DIALOGUE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Dialogue = Purpose and probes a variety of ways to write effective, entertaining dialogue. Start date: October 22.

CORE VI: SCENE — A one-week class which begins with the principle Scene = Point and provides six essential questions to ask when crafting and writing any scene. Start date: November 5.

CORE VII: THEME — A one-week class which begins with the principle Theme = Meaning and gives writers a concrete take on theme which can elevate the depth of any story. Start date: November 19.

CORE VIII: TIME — A one-week class which begins with the principle Time = Present and studies Present, Present-Past, Present-Future and time management in writing. Start date: December 3.

These eight Core classes represent decades of my work on the front lines of the entertainment business as a writer and producer, and engaging the craft as a teacher as well, over time pulling together a coherent, comprehensive, and cohesive approach to screenwriting theory.

This is not about secret systems or magic formulas, rather the Core content presents a story-crafting process that starts with characters, works with characters, and ends with characters. That process of engaging you with your story universe through your characters and getting you in touch with these living, breathing individuals informs every step of your creative process, leading you to story structure, themes, conflict, subplots, and all the rest. As I say, Character Based Screenwriting.

I provide feedback and am actively involved in our online chats. That includes a 90 minute teleconference for each Core class.

This cycle, I am offering a special sale price. Normally the Core classes are $95 each. In 2018, each is on sale for $79!

A popular option is the Core Package which gives you exclusive access to the content in all eight Craft classes which you can go through on your own time and at your own pace, plus automatic enrollment in each 1-week online course — all for nearly 50% off the normal price of each individual class. If you sign up now, you can have immediate access to all of the Core content.

“I’m a huge fan of Scott’s classes, and I signed up for his Core Package, which I cannot speak highly enough about. If anyone wants to take a serious look at improving their writing, there is more than enough material to keep you busy for a few… dare I say, lifetimes? He’s the best. No bones about it.”

~ Heather Farlinger

To learn about any of the Core classes, click here.

I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!