Second impressions of Hitman

Shortly after I ranted about people having no faith in the Hitman movie, I came across the Hitman script…

Upon reading this script, I recalled a seminar I attended for the producer Steven Haft. He said, basically, that a studio can say yes to only one script per month. [Re: a Terry Gilliam panel I went to - "Hollywood's job is to say no to people all day."]
And they only read your script if you’ve followed every protocol down to the letter – font, size, margin, spacing, placement, treatment, comes with a cookie, and the script is over and under the required page count. (Too short and it’s no good, too long and you can’t sell it to many theater screens.)
Say you got the script to look and feel like everyone else’s, now it has to be ‘good.’ And ‘good’ is subjective, so what I mean by ‘good’ is marketable.
Now that it’s marketable, you’re fighting against the other scripts that hit the same office. If this cubicle jockey is in the mood to read yours, you stand a fighting 2% chance.
Say he reads it and likes it, he now wants you to revise it. But not just you, 5 other people. Once all 6 of you have revised it, it gets graded again.
Say it passes, excellent. You’re in the running for a greenlighted screenwriting credit!
Say a producer says “ok, we’ll make it,” now you’ve got a credit! Now, depending on how many awards you’ve gotten in the past (and I am not making this up), it determines how much money you get.

I won a student filmmaker award for the Vermilion Chicken, which I posted a few days ago, so I’d make a bit more than a lesser nobody. However, that award is a Kodak Student Filmmakers Award and not a festival award, which would yield more. The more cred your award and pull can flaunt, the more dollar bills you get for your script. I’d make about $1000 for my script if it got through all of those phases and the script supervisors? More because the studio hired them. Now you get the picture on why your script wasn’t read and you’re stuck in LA as a waitress, driving in the middle lane of traffic so your perfect cheekbones can be seen.

What does all this have to do with the Hitman script?
Simple. Skip Woods, the douchebag who brought us Swordfish, wrote the script and he has more pull than most. That being the case, his goddawful script beat out all the prospected-hundreds of others, some of which were probably by people who actually played a game in the series.

Without spoiling anything because I don’t want to be sued, I’ll just say that I am greatly disappointed in this sty reaking of boiled ass, this 127-page piece of drek, this impure tome. The characters who aren’t Agent 47 are unlikable, the characters who ARE Agent 47 aren’t accurately portrayed. The setting and pacing and order of the scenes are a garbled mess. If I had to compare the plot to anything it would be to a set of unhappy children, playing with micro machines, behind a blurry time-stained window somewhere their parents can’t get to. In other words, I don’t know why I pained myself to last all 127 pages because I knew it was all going to suck 10 pages in.

Well, maybe I shouldn’t hate on Skip Woods so much. I mean, he only directed the first movie he wrote and produced which implies that he was once like you and I – trying to get out there, make a movie, make a name for himself. He did that in ‘98 and got the award he needed to have more pull, then I guess kept trying until Swordfish was picked up in ‘01… but that still doesn’t excuse anything. The only thing I liked about the script was the bondage, but you don’t need a lot of that to make me happy. Maybe Xavier Gens has a plan to rescue the movie since one of the scenes in the trailer (the only one I wanted to see, ironically enough) isn’t even in the damn script, but I doubt it. I mean, the religious nonsense that soaks the trailer with pretty piety also is not in the script. Either someone is to blame or Hollywood just doesn’t work… oh wait.

Hey, guys, on a related note, I agree with the philosophy that pirates can help bring justice to the gross sales of a movie. And by that, I don’t mean pirates helped Sicko make more money (which I believe it did), I mean if we stop paying to see our favorite games turn into what THIS is going to be, they might stop ruining things at such an alarming rate or at least hire better people for the job. And, you know, even if they don’t… at least they didn’t get your $11.

First impressions of Hitman

I really thought that the recently upped Hitman trailer would’ve changed some minds, but apparently internet folk can only get dumber. So, because my mind feels like hot apple soda and stale doritos after reading some forums, I figured I’d preach the word:

• The trailer features Ave Maria, which was also featured in Hitman: Blood Money. It’s NOT original from the game. You know what, it was also in Cowboy Bebop so I suppose Jesper Kyd stole it from Yoko Kanno, right?
• The guns are wrong, the guns are wrong, who gives a shit about the design of the guns being perfect? Be happy they didn’t mess up the Hitman logo that plays every 3 seconds in between all the religious shit!
• I agree that Vin Diesel wouldn’t be good for the role but I think you retards hate him for the sake of doing so. Statham, however, would NOT be the perfect 47. He’s too cool, too loud, has a mean swagger, means motherfucking business. 47’s top priority under getting the job done is to not be seen.
• Have you seen Timothy Olyphant act? Ok, you did. Was it good? Oh, it was? Then stop bitching… But you insist he’s got a baby face? Well, stop whining, because I think he looks good. I mean, if you wanted a guy to really look the part, then why didn’t you protest in favor of Mark-Paul Gosselaar? Think about it.

Really, people.

Well, now that I’ve learned you something, it’s time for me to jump in the pool. Here’s what I think sucks about the trailer. First of all, the aforementioned religious shit. There’s no reason I can think of to make Hitman something to relate to on a spiritual level unless Fox thought they’d catch flack for hosting a badass 2002 movie in 2008 if they didn’t put a little Changing Lanes in there. But Changing Lanes sucked. Imho, the church stuff is undercooked Wellington on an otherwise stylish and well-done plate, especially if you’ve played all but the first game (even though I haven’t met a single person who has). Second of all, I see some sexy times in there. Naughty, naughty, what’s that doing in my Hitman movie? 47 better -_- through the whole thing, that’s all I gotta say. However, that won’t happen. You know it, I know it, he’ll get into the objective. That raises a concern: will Olyphant be able to suppress his emotions and play a straight 47 even during and after his silverballers get polished… or will that not be a concern at all if the script introduces a caring Agent 47? …which is a concern…

There I go, reading too much into things. I’m gonna go get the script to Hitman, though, so I can figure out if I nailed it or not. Spoliers? Bah! If I’m reading it all from start to finish, it’s like I’m looking forward to watching a movie based on something I read. Really, people.