How to Write a Commercial Success ?

Star Wars, E.T., Titanic, The Intouchables, Avatar and A Little Something Extra were all predicted to fail - or at best to attract only modest audiences - and yet they became enormous successes.

Meanwhile, Megalopolis, Waterworld and The Marvels were all expected to be guaranteed hits, and yet they were not.

And Fight Club, Blade Runner and The Big Lebowski needed time before they truly found their audience, and their success.

Spoiler: of course, no one can really predict these things ;)

Cinema is an industry of prototypes. You cannot predict the success of a film that has never existed before.

Especially since several years often pass between the writing of a screenplay and a film’s release, while trends and the cultural mood evolve far more quickly. But although a film’s success cannot be predicted, it is possible to give it the best possible chance.

You should not try to write in order to please people by imagining the kind of film producers might want to finance or audiences might want to see. The market constantly reshapes itself. Audiences are not waiting for this or that type of film. They are hoping for a good film. Full stop.

You must write from what genuinely moves and interests you, because you are almost certainly not the only person affected or fascinated by those things. Audiences respond to emotion, singular perspectives and clear intentions. Your personal point of view is the bridge between you and your audience. And you need sensitivity, curiosity and empathy for the world you live in.

If you are writing from personal experience, make sure you gain enough distance from it - a great deal of distance - in order to make the story universal. You are not the protagonist, nor even a secondary character, in the story you are telling: you are its screenwriter (and certainly not lying on a therapist’s couch).

You must not write for yourself but for others, which means striving for clarity. Not simplicity, but readability. And one should never assume that “popular” means “stupid”.

Your characters must feel as real to you as the flesh-and-blood people in your life. You must know and understand them - without necessarily absolving them - better than anyone else. They inhabit you as much as you inhabit them. Every single one of them.

Of course, you must carry the writing through to the end, but not beyond it, at the risk of draining the screenplay of life until it becomes incomprehensible to anyone who is not inside your head.

You must also accept that a good screenplay may never be produced, while a bad one may end up on screen. There are great producers just as there are great directors, and the opposite is equally true.

And remember that some “small” films are genuine cinematic jewels. Success does not always correlate with quality. Nor does failure.

“Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.” William Goldman

Déborah Braun / 90pages

Script doctor

SERVICES