Final Draft Blog

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Read interviews with the pros, catch up with industry news, and listen to Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast by Final Draft.

Write On with 'Willy's Wonderland' Screenwriter G.O. Parsons

February 19, 2021

G.O. Parsons has written one of the wildest rides of the year with Wally’s Wonderland, a B-movie homage that pits Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage against a horde of demonic animatronics. “I went into writing Willy's Wonderland with the intention, t...

‘Crestone’ is the Cross-Section of Poetry and Rap and Isolation and Freedom

February 19, 2021

Filmmaker Marnie Hertzler’s documentary Crestone led her to follow some high school friends to the remote town of about 100 people. Her anti-consumerist high school cronies set out to live a utopian life to focus on music — mainly their SoundCloud ra...

Writer-Director Castille Landon On Her Film 'Fear of Rain'

February 19, 2021

This past week, I was lucky enough to speak with filmmaker Castille Landon about her horror feature, Fear of Rain. Landon, best known for her acting work in films such as Sex Ed and Apple of My Eye, makes her writer-director debut with this project. ...

Mona Fastvold’s 'The World to Come' Explores Forbidden Love in 1850s Rural America

February 19, 2021

Mona Fastvold has several writing credits under her belt as well as a film titled The Sleepwalker that she both wrote and directed. She never planned on directing a film she hadn’t written though.

5 Screenwriting Takeaways from 'Judas and the Black Messiah'

February 19, 2021

Is this a biopic or a cat-and-mouse film? In a way, it’s both. And that’s because Judas and the Black Messiah has two origins. On Final Draft’s Write On Podcast, writer Will Berson discusses the origins of his screenplay and how it looked at the FBI’...

‘Bliss’ Asks Its Audience to Contemplate Much More Than The Idea of Happiness

February 18, 2021

The tagline of writer-director Mike Cahill’s new genre bending sci-fi action romance for Amazon sounds simple enough: “Chase something real.” But Cahill in fact gets his audience to deeply question: What is real, and what’s worth chasing? This might ...

History of TV: ‘Empire’ State of Mind

February 18, 2021

Everything about Fox’s Empire feels at once familiar and totally, brazenly new. The musical drama aired from 2015 to just last year, but in light of 2020 being so... 2020, it already feels like the show ended a lifetime ago. Empire’s popularity snowb...

Interview With 'Wrong Turn' Director Mike P. Nelson

February 17, 2021

It was such a pleasure chatting with Mike P. Nelson, the director behind the Wrong Turn reboot and seventh instalment in writer Alan McElroy's horror-thriller franchise. We discussed the writing process, pitching to Warner Brothers, and his love for ...

5 Screenwriting Takeaways: Historical-Horror Film Shadow in the Cloud

February 17, 2021

Shadow in the Cloud is both a World War II film and a horror film. There is a lot in this compelling movie that shows screenwriters how this hyphenated-genre movie by writers Max Landis and Roseanne Liang can guide them toward a budget-conscious and ...