Final Draft Blog

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'Black Bag': How to Write a Spy Movie that Sells

March 28, 2025

International intrigue. Secret agencies. Clandestine operations. Who doesn’t love a spy movie? From big action blockbusters like the Mission: Impossible and the Bourne Identity series, to smaller scale arthouse films like The Imitation Game and even ...

Write On: Paul William Davies - Creator and Showrunner of 'The Residence'

March 27, 2025

“I didn’t really set out to make Cordelia (Uzo Aduba) quirky. I just wanted to make her distinctive. I just really thought about who I wanted her to be and how I thought [birdwatching] would be an interesting way for her to approach her job. And the ...

How 'Severance' Changed a Writer’s Career

March 26, 2025

Dan Erickson is currently one of the hottest TV writers in the business. He created, co-writes, co-produces and serves as showrunner for the popular and acclaimed Apple TV+ series Severance (starring Adam Scott and executive produced and primarily di...

‘Novocaine’: How to write an Action Movie with a Twist

March 21, 2025

It’s hard to write an original action movie. How different can car chases really be? And hasn’t a fight in a restaurant kitchen been done countless times already? Action movies can be a lot of fun, but creating a truly good story with action can be r...

Write On: Peter Katz - Manager & Producer, Story Driven

March 19, 2025

“Sameness is terrible. Your goal is to cut through it. If you have a unique perspective, you’re going to take vampires or anything that everybody thinks they know and do it in a way that’s really exciting and gets people really pumped up about it. Th...

The A24 Brand: What ‘Opus’ Teaches Us About Today’s Indie Films

March 19, 2025

About 30 years ago, something changed in Hollywood. Big blockbuster movies by top-notch filmmakers were no longer the clear-cut favorites to win Academy Awards. Small films were breaking through the surface and gaining appeal among a wide audience. S...

Lessons for Screenwriters from SXSW

March 18, 2025

The South by Southwest Conference & Festival, held annually in Austin, TX, crackles with a creative energy no other film festival can match, offering screenwriters lessons from its wildly diverse slate. While studios were certainly present at the...

How ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Premiere Surprised Fans

March 17, 2025

The premiere episode of the fourth and final season of The Righteous Gemstones has a lot of people talking. The episode, titled simply “Prelude,” doesn’t feature any of the series’ regular cast. It also takes place during the Civil War, and not durin...

‘Mickey 17’ and writing unique Science Fiction

March 14, 2025

In the first few scenes of Mickey 17, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) through voice over explains the wild and strange reality of the world the audience is about to experience for the next 2+ hours. He shares how he became an “Expendable,” someone w...