https://thecineblog.com/tags/writing/ Recent content in Writing on The CineBlog Hugo en-US Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:00:10 -0500 https://thecineblog.com/stories/safety-not-guaranteed/ Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://thecineblog.com/stories/safety-not-guaranteed/ <p>The modern studio system spends hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring established intellectual property—comic books, video games, theme park rides—desperate for a pre-existing audience. For their $750,000 independent film, Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly bypassed the studios entirely. They sourced their intellectual property for free from an internet joke.</p> <h2 id="the-meme-as-foundation">The Meme as Foundation</h2> <p><em>Safety Not Guaranteed</em> is based on a bizarre, viral 1997 classified ad asking for a partner to travel back in time. On the internet, it was a disposable punchline. But Trevorrow and Connolly performed a masterclass in reverse-engineered screenwriting. They did not treat the meme as a joke. They treated it with profound narrative sincerity.</p> https://thecineblog.com/stories/resolution/ Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://thecineblog.com/stories/resolution/ <p>The standard lifecycle of an independent film is a financial tragedy: a writer finishes a brilliant script, and then the director spends five years going bankrupt trying to find the locations to shoot it. For their $20,000 debut feature, <em>Resolution</em>, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead refused to play this game. They reversed the process. They secured a free location first—a cabin owned by Benson&rsquo;s parents—and then reverse-engineered a script specifically designed to be shot within its walls.</p>