Final Draft Blog

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How Sundance’s Hala Made Minhal Baig an Honest Storyteller

February 5, 2019

Minhal Baig is the writer and director of Hala, a movie which, up until its Sundance premiere, she kept secret from her mother.

The Sunlit Night Screenwriter on the Challenges of Book-to-Screen Adaptation

February 2, 2019

Rebecca Dinerstein, author of The Sunlit Night, never expected her novel to get published. She never envisioned the book would be made into a movie, and she certainly never thought she would be the one to write the adapted screenplay. “Every phase of...

All the Write Moves: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

January 14, 2019

Given the sheer number of Spider-Man movies that have been released since Tobey Maguire gave Kirsten Dunst that upside-down kiss back in 2002, it’s reasonable to wonder whether there’s anything left to say about the iconic Marvel Comics character. Th...

All the Write Moves: Mary Poppins Returns

December 24, 2018

When the beloved Disney musical Mary Poppins was released in 1964, ideas of what constituted movie magic were very different than they are now. Not only was Mary Poppins made nearly 20 years before the first CGI movie scenes, but audiences didn’t liv...

Jane Anderson on her 15-Year Journey to Adapt 'The Wife'

August 24, 2018

Jane Anderson waited 15 years to see The Wife on the big screen and patience has paid off: The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017 and was released in New York and Los Angeles on August 17. Now, it is rolling out across ...

Five Things Screenwriters Can Learn From "IT"

September 17, 2017

Based on Stephen King’s classic bestseller, IT has broken numerous box-office records and has been praised by critics and fans; many of which have cited the film as one of the best movie adaptations of a King novel. Written by Chase Palmer, Cary Fuku...

John Romano Talks Adapting Philip Roth and the Evolution of Dramatic Storytelling

November 23, 2016

Final Draft: You adapted Philip Roth. That’s got to be a daunting challenge I would imagine. John Romano: It was! Daunting is the word! It was specifically daunting because I used to teach English and American Literature at Columbia for a while and I...

Breaking History Part II: Finding Faults in Historical Figures

August 18, 2016

In our previous post on this topic, "Breaking History: How to Achieve Truth in Historical Storytelling" we covered one of the most common mistakes made in historical scripts: an unwillingness to change the details of an event to create a strong sense...

Shake Up Your Research Routine

August 16, 2016

It’s no secret that research can give your script a leg up. Maybe two legs. Potentially an arm too. Research into your subject matter can flesh out your story making it feel even more realistic and grounded. Your script’s world will seem fuller, your...