John and Craig descend into development hell to look at films that almost but never quite existed. Using both widely-publicized and little-known examples, they examine common patterns that keep movies frozen in script form.
We also follow up on solar storms, writer education and genres people should see at least one of. We then answer listener questions on writing empathetically, late-career stamina, non-English dialogue, multi-part movies, and the Scriptnotes theme itself.
In our bonus segment for premium members, if John and Craig were never paid to write in the screenplay format again, would they still do it?
Links:
- Preorder the Scriptnotes Book!
- Birdigo on Steam
- Aurora by David Koepp
- Pale Flower
- Deep Red
- Suspiria
- Hands on a Hard Body
- American Movie
- Wonderland
- Hands on a Hardbody the musical
- Cure
- Pulse
- Moft magnetic wallet stand
- Total Party Skill podcast
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
- Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
- Craig Mazin on Instagram
- John August on Bluesky and Instagram
- Outro by Steve Pietrowski (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 8-19-25: The transcript for this episode can be found here.