The Promise of the Premise 

Cat! Jose Silerio scouted this past weekend’s new releases.

I couldn’t make up my mind what movie to watch over the weekend: a $200 million disaster movie that critics hated, or a low-budget movie that critics adored and happens to be written and directed by Oscar-winning brothers. While A Serious Man seemed like a winning bet for my hard-earned $11.75, I still couldn’t resist the pull of a slam-bang FX-heavy sure-to-be box office blockbuster like 2012. So, I watched both (and yes, I did pay for two tickets, even if I was tempted to just jump into the next theatre – it’s all in the timing you know).

These two movies couldn’t be more different from one another than the very men who wrote and directed them. With Roland Emmerich, we know what we’re gonna get — everyone is going to die — and that’s not a spoiler. With the Coen brothers, if there’s anything we know about them, it’s that we don’t know what we’re gonna get.

But does that necessarily make one film or director – or in both these cases, writer slash director – better than the other? Forget the critics. When you go watch a movie, don’t you pretty much already know what you’re going to get even before you buy your ticket? If the marketing people did their jobs right, then the poster alone will set you up. Throw in the A-list actor, and you already know what you’re up against. It’s not like you bring a box of tissue with you when you watch a Bruce Willis movie, right? We know what we’re getting into.

And you know what, I have this funny feeling so do Joel and Ethan Coen and Roland Emmerich.

2012 earned $65 million in its first weekend ($225 million worldwide) as compared to A Serious Man’s close to $7 million in seven weeks. But A Serious Man has an 85% rating in RottenTomatoes.com compared to 2012’s 38%.

So, which movie delivers?

They both do.

It has nothing to do with box office number and critic ratings while having everything to do with box office numbers and critic ratings. No matter how we look at it, the Coens and Roland Emmerich did what they were supposed to do. They delivered the movie that was expected of them. More importantly, they delivered it to the audience that it was meant for.

They delivered on their promise. The promise of their premise.

This is all that really matters to all of us as writers. Do we deliver on the promise of our stories? We don’t write for critics. We also don’t write with a specific box office number in mind. The only thing we should be thinking of is our audience. They’re the ones we’re writing for. Are we giving them what we said we would give them? Are we being faithful to our stories?

It’s often easy to get sidetracked as we type away in our own little bodegas. Sometimes we even wonder what the hell we’re writing. We start with one idea and then we try to merge it with another idea we heard or watched somewhere else. Then another idea emerges that yet becomes another layer for our story. Before we know it, our stories are so convoluted and confusing that the only promise we want to make is to give up writing and look for a real job like we promised mom and dad.

If you promise us the end of the world, then give us the end of the world. If you promise us a Midwestern Jewish man looking for answers as his life falls apart, then give us a Midwestern Jewish man looking for answers as his life falls apart.

There’s no need to make it harder. There’s no need to make it about a Midwestern Jewish man looking for answers as his life falls apart who learns that the ancient Mayans were right to predict that the world would end in 2012.

At the STC! lair, we always ask: What is this story truly all about? What’s at the very core of your story? That’s all we want. Nothing more.

It’s about a sheriff who wants to save his beach town from a man-eating shark. It’s about a young man who must save the universe from an evil Empire. It’s about the rise of a son as he takes over his family’s mafia empire. Everything else is gravy.

There’s beauty in simplicity.

If I ask you what your story is all about, will you be able to say it this simply? We’re allowed one premise in the stories we tell. If it goes beyond that, you start to lose your audience. Remember the elevator pitch. What’s your story in 30 seconds or less? Can you tell yourself what your story is all about? If you find yourself tripping all over your own words… well, let’s just say, that’s not a good sign.

The funny thing is both A Serious Man and 2012 are about the same thing. It’s all about survival. I have to survive as my life falls apart around me. I have to survive as my world literally blows up around me. It doesn’t get any simpler and more primal than that — Caveman Basics 101.

So, if you’re worried about what people might say about your script, if you think people won’t get it, if you think people will hate it, it probably has less to do with them than it is more on you.

Are you giving them what you said you would? Are you delivering on the promise of your premise?

That’s all they want when they walk into that movie theater. It’s not about how many little bald golden men you have in your trophy case or how many billions of studio dollars you’ve spent and earned. It’s just about giving them what you said you would.

Nothing more.