A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea Movie Discussion

Suppose we are running a movie studio. We have money to greenlight a film, but we haven’t signed on to an actual project yet. Your job is to convince the rest of us that a particular story idea is the one we should greenlight. Here is a Web page (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. with thousands of actual movie ideas that are currently in the development stage, awaiting the backing of a big studio like ours [note that if you click the info button for a movie, you can often find additional details; also you can sort the films in different ways, play around with the site a bit to dig deep into the possible movies]. Pick one of these ideas and pitch the rest of us on it. That is, why will this movie you’ve chosen be successful? You evidence in this argument is the course content in the module. For example, does the movie fit with The Hero’s Journey? If so, how? Does it follow the USA Network formula? How? Does it fulfill some other aspects (perhaps genre specific) of the entertainment formula as the book describes? How? Notice that the reason these work as evidence is that these formulas have been shown to be successful. Audiences want and will watch content that fits these formulas. So find the content that fits and show us why it does.

Some of the pitches on that Web page are quite short. If we’re supplying the financial backing, then we’ll be able to influence the creative direction of the product (much like USA Network does). So feel free to fill out the plot if necessary in a way that helps to make your argument (so something like, “as long as X,Y, and Z happen in this movie, then it will be successful because…”)

Finally, I’ve enabled liking for these posts. Read through all of the posts that are up before you submit yours, because NO DUPLICATE movies should be pitched (again, there are thousands there to choose from). And as you’re reading, if you are legitimately persuaded that a particular movie someone has chosen is a good idea, like their post! If you post early, come back tomorrow to read through the rest and “like” the ones that work. Whoever gets the most likes will get a special bonus.