Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 344th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Box Office: ’Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Struggling to Hit $100M in U.S., Crashes Overseas.

‘Solo’ Box Office Means ‘Star Wars’ May Flee the Summer for the Foreseeable Future.

How the Kasdans Settled the Biggest Debate in ‘Star Wars’ History With ‘Solo’.

He’s Tried to Leave ‘Star Wars’ Before. Will This Be It?

‘Solo: A Star Wars’ Screenwriters Discuss Why They Included The Shocking [Spoiler] Cameo.

‘Solo’ Just Made ‘The Force Awakens’ A Whole Lot Creepier.

Woody Harrelson Is Not the Typical ‘Star Wars’ Mentor.

Emilia Clarke Says Ron Howard ‘Saved’ ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’.

‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’: Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Original Film Was Going to Be ‘Gritty’ and Would Not ‘Just Service Fans’.

‘Solo’ Theater Projection Problems Leave Fans In The Dark, Enrage Industry Veterans.

Post-‘Solo’ Stumble, We Handicap the Summer Box Office for Other Unwelcome Surprises.

Every new Star Wars movie coming until 2021 and beyond — from Episode 9 to Rian Johnson’s unknown trilogy.

Study: The Number of Women Screenwriters in the UK Has Barely Changed in 10 Years.

MoviePass Parent Company to Launch MoviePass Films, Will Now Produce Original Movies.

Four Major Questions Facing Comcast’s Bid for Fox.

We’re Very Near the End of Civilization As We Know It…

Ridley Scott Says Quality Original TV Programming Is “A Big Problem” For The Film Industry.

26 Women Behind The Making of ‘Coco’.

‘Incredibles 2’ Lands Lucrative Late June China Release Date.

‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ is the Motivational Movie You Didn’t Know You Needed.

Mark Duplass’ 9 Secrets to Launching a Career in Indie Film.

Hiro Murai Has Mastered the Art of the Gut Punch.

How Steven Spielberg Subverts The Kuleshov Effect.

“I’m Not Afraid to Call People an Idiot”: Nikki Finke Is Ready to Take on the Midterm Media Scrum.

How Reese Witherspoon is flipping the script26 Women Behind The Making of Coco on Hollywood.

Why the Theater is Still the Best Place to See a Movie.

The Cosmic Fetus of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Hasn’t Aged a Day.

How ‘Big’ Beat the Odds to Become One of the Most Beloved Movies of the ’80s.

Best Summer Ever: Which Summer Blockbuster Season Reigns Supreme?

“Suddenly It’s Over”: How ‘Roseanne’s’ Stunning Demise Felt in the Writers Room.

‘Roseanne’ Cancellation Aftermath: Who Gets Paid?

Ava DuVernay, Shonda Rhimes, More React to ABC Canceling ‘Roseanne’.

Is Television Ready for Angry Women?

The Boys of Arrested Development: The cast’s disastrous New York Times interview proved the very thing it was meant to hide.

Advice to Male TV Writers Who Didn’t Get Staffed: Don’t Blame #MeToo.

The Anatomy of a Great TV Pilot.

The Definitive Summer TV Survival Guide.

Why a ‘Good’ Title Must Be Memorable, Especially in a Crowded Marketplace.

Why Comedies Make the Best Binge-Watches.

The Firefly Crew Returns in a Brand New Book Series.

“Mean Girls” Breaks Broadway Record, Teams Up with Young Women’s Leadership Network.

Two Theories on How K-Pop Made It to №1 in America.

‘Pokemon Go’ Reaches 800 Million Downloads.

Smartphone Use Hits Record High.

Announced: The 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winners.

Watch: A Video Essay Guide to ‘Citizen Kane’.

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 started 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!