Table of contents

...

• This guy is pretty entertaining to watch. He very frequently has interesting insights into screenwriting, and states his opinions with flair / enthusiasm.
• 2012.04.22 - YouTube - Max Landis talking about screen-writing and Hollywood at Dubai Comic Con
  • He says a bunch of really interesting things about screenwriting.
• 2012.04.29 - YouTube - Max Landis talks about Chronicle and more!
  • 9:30 - He says being famous has (regrettably) changed how he can enjoy ComicCon, because now he gets upset if people don't recognize him.
  • 11:10 - His advice for success: be excited about what you're doing.
  2016 - Reddit - Max Landis script Megathread
• 2013.07.21 - YouTube - Death And Return Of Superman Pitch by Max Landis
• 2015.04.09 - YouTube - Max Landis on What Makes A Good Script In 2 Minutes
  • This is packed with advice.
• 2015.11.24 - YouTube - RedLetterMedia - A Conversation with Max Landis
  • They talk about his 'Ultra' movie, which didn't well in theaters.
  • Comments:
    • Mr Numbers

      It's very frustrating reading the comments here, because Max isn't being defensive, he's literally... this is honestly what it's like being a movie screenwriter on the inside these days. Spec. movie scripts don't get made anymore, they hardly ever get optioned or picked up, and that means that no one can get credited for original works, new writers don't get public or industry exposure...

      Which is why there's been such a radical shift to television.

      I'm about to do exactly what Landis did above. I'm going to rant. Now's your time to TL;DR.

      Okay, so, I'm just going to say this: I had the unique pleasure of meeting the director and producers of Iron Sky recently, that movie about moon Nazis. Supposed to be this big deal for me, I'd won some screenwriting awards and this was my chance to powernetwork with some of the biggest creative players in Australia (Which is honestly like saying the sunniest beach in Alaska). They didn't understand their movie is camp. They genuinely thought it was a brilliant idea well executed. There was no intended irony behind it.

      That's what it takes for a movie like Chronicle to be made these days.

      You have to find people that ignorant, then find people to work for them that are that talented, and then somehow trust them to handle a budget of millions of dollars. And then you hope that what comes out is the next Back to the Future and not the next Waterworld, or that you get something closer to Sharknado than Ghost Shark. And then hope that your outsourced marketing company doesn't screw you over.

      That's just it too! Waterworld. Christ. The movie for decades now mocked for its ridiculously overinflated budget. Adjusted for inflation, it's about 175 million dollars budget. Transformers: Age of Extinction cost closer to 350 million. One is a famous cautionary tale. The other is a Summer blockbuster noticable only because it came and went. Because of everything Max just said in the video above.

      Your best bet is to get serialized for Marvel, who have figured out the formula for this, somehow. Or, even better still, get picked up for television. West Wing, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, so many shows have proven that movies aren't the most pure medium anymore, and directors and writers have so much more freedom there. Where quality matters more than marketing, because it's done over a long enough time period for word of mouth to be your biggest draw.

      But you're fucked if you want to be up on the big screen.

      /End rant

      • The big thing I took away from this rant is his final comment on TV being done over a longer time period than movies. Mass-market movies are created to be shown in thousands of theaters (which is expensive to do) and only for a limited amount of time, and it seems like the "garbage" we're seeing put into theaters nowadays may be a reflection of that format. I always think about how, in very competitive games like Starcraft and CS, players eventually tend to settle on certain "dominant" strategies (to use the game theory term). It looks like releasing garbage may be something of a dominant strategy in filmmaking right now.
• 2016 - Reddit - Max Landis script Megathread

Character traits

• Guy repeats himself. Not just repeating a single word, though, but also repeating a few sentences over and over again. I saw this when talking with a taxi driver on the phone. He kept repeating an exchange he had with an install shop, using the same inflection in his voice every time.
• Group of guys all use the same phrase. I saw this with taxi drivers, where they'd all say "Hello Nathan! How are you?" with the same inflection in their voice, and they'd all say "I have ALL the receipts".