The X-Files/American Psycho Screenplay

Hey Sup Forums, it's finally here. A while ago, I started talking about how I was writing a spec-screenplay for The X-Files. I mentioned it was a crossover with American Psycho. This is not fan-fiction, it's at least not supposed to be. The reason I wrote what I wrote was because it was all in good fun and just an excercise in screenwriting. It was a big help to work with something that I am familiar with and to really get my creative juices flowing. That being said, I have no plans to film this.

This is the first draft so there is plenty of room for imporvement. If you don't like it, I understand. This is my first fully written screenplay so it is fully understandable if you see plenty of issues with it. I know, it was difficult.

Anyway, here is the link, enjoy:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B9me9LnddN9jRW9VRW9XWURma1U/view

Other urls found in this thread:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B9me9LnddN9jRW9VRW9XWURma1U/view
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>this is not fan fiction

Stopped reading after the third misused semicolon

Can you please elaborate? I want to get better.

bump

Write something original that isn't a takeoff or spinoff or crossover with an already established franchise you hack piece of shit. Fuck, I hate people like you.

>’floral-aldehyde’
>It smells good, but it stinks.
Is this supposed to smell like "formaldehyd" then?
So does it smell good or does it stink?

>twelve doors and two floors above me
Confusing, "12 doors to the west..." as an ex. would make more sense

>Nothing paranormal has ever occurred in this man’s life
Goes from X-Files to Coast to Coast

>does it smell good or does it stink
Jesus Christ.

That was the best line in the entire stupid script you knuckle-dragging mouth-breather.

No offense, but this is pretty terrible. I had to stop reading because of cringey it is.

Good thing I stopped reading it soon after that, then

FYI, /fmg/ operatives are here trying to suppress discussion

no your teleplay just sucks dick

Can you guys please be more specific? How am I supposed to make it better? I am literally autistic.

That wasn't me. Just tell me what you didn't like.

>That being said, I have no plans to film this.
If this is a spec script why are the sequences numbered?

You are writing dialogue for characters everyone on here knows about, so it is hard to imagine them saying allot of these things. it would probably be easier for just to make new people up, even if they were based on xfiles and USA madman characters

I don't have to follow your orders.

Are they not numbered? I thought you had to number scenes no matter what.
Makes sense. That's why I think I should stick to original screenplays.

First of all, I commend you for working on this and then having the guts to post it online.

Secondly, it is "detailed" and lengthy, but its not that good. The reasons are it spends too much time expositing on characters that are well known to some, and this exposition is done in a way that is tiresome -- almost novelistic -- in a screenplay. The characters appear like mouthpieces for the author rather than characters.

Finally, the character reactions, as presented, are corny, on par with TV movies of the 1980s.

It's hard to say how to make this work better because it has extensive flaws. You'd be better off writing something that's original that's authentic, honest and drawn from personal experience but unflinching.

Okay thanks for the input.

Parts of this aren't bad, but there are some glaring errors, mainly in Bateman's character.

I see what you're trying to do with him, but your Bateman reads like a caricature of Bateman rather than the real deal. Example:Bateman would likely mistake the identity of the man who got killed for someone else. Example:Bateman would recite the exact brands everyone involved was wearing. Example:Bateman would not be scared of this man's death, maybe curious, maybe surprised or bemused. You need to get Bateman's vanity and superficialness across less heavy handedly.

Makes sense. This really helps.

Your first two complaints about Bateman are more about the narrative and perspective than the character, the only real qualm is that he would never be scared because psychopaths don't know what fear is.

I don't understand how it isn't fanfic when it's fanfic.

drive.google.com/file/d/0B9me9LnddN9jRW9VRW9XWURma1U/view

jeez, this is fucking dogshit. and you people constantly shit on stuckmann for those two pages he wrote. this is just as bad, if not worse.

Whatever, both of these things demonstrate his character. Bateman is delusional, therefore it fits that he would mistake the identity of this man and this may be exposed in a conversation with Mulder and Scully. Bateman is a murderous vain psychopath, therefore he would likely become fixated on what the detectives were wearing rather than the fact that a man had died before his eyes. Also op, drop the whole 'did Bateman kill anyone' thing, it doesn't fit and it doesn't serve any purpose.

More to the point, he's writing a screenplay about a crossover scenario between Bateman and the X-Files, not a book from Bateman's perspective because that would be fanfiction.

Practically, if we look at the screenplay as a show that viewers will watch, there is no interesting way to convey these parts of Bateman's character and there is no real reason to. If you're going for humor then having Bateman remark on an alien's sense of fashion might be funny, but anything else comes across more gimmicky than characterizing.

>If you're going for humor then having Bateman remark on an alien's sense of fashion might be funny, but anything else comes across more gimmicky than characterizing.
OP here that sounds interesting. I'll have to put something like that in.

He seems to have multiple sections of inner monologue, if he wants to keep those (as there are in the fucking film), then I'm suggesting he fill them with something better.

What would you suggest I change? More commenting on the people around him, less "le 2deep4u" stuff like at the end of the movie?

I want to maybe add more of those monologues but I really want to keep it under an hour.

I guess I really do have to cut some isolated scenes.

actually, OP could reveal the nature of the plot gradually -- the lengthy exposition at the beginning is tiresome, and it would be more interesting to just throw the "viewer" in to the events with scully and mulder interviewing an unseen person of interest -- in the person's home -- and the shots slowly reveal a familiar white apartment -- and the screenwriter could build up the tension by starting the scene with relatively boring questions that lead up to a progressively odd and disturbing number of responses by the person of interest, and add on to that with awkward pauses and then shots of the face of mulder looking more and more alarmed and perhaps even fearful on the scale of "this person is probably a serial killer and we may be at some risk right now"

and then bateman's face is finally shown

Don't add more, you have more than enough. All I would say is that you're starting off at full speed with him, basically at the start of this he's already breaking down, that doesn't make sense. So yes, early on more analytical and critical.

Okay this is really interesting and I just might have to completely re-write the screenplay after reading this.

The biggest problem though is I'm not interested in directing and it's the director's job to determine how visuals are revealed/shown. I'm really not sure how I'd communicate that stuff in written form.

bury it

consider this a mercy

this is actually dreadful even if its high school writing, the style just drags me out of whatever narrative you're trying to push.

>high school writing
I'm not in high school I'm just below amateur.