With the success, both financially and critically, of Logan, the newest entry in the X-Men film series and the reportedly last to feature Hugh Jackman as the title character and Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, many people are claiming that its R rating is the reason for it being among the best comic book … More The Lesson Learned from Logan
Who would’ve thought the most exciting moment of the Academy Awards show in years would be a mix-up with the card announcing a winner? So concluded the 2017 Oscars when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway presented Best Picture to the wrong movie (through no fault of their own, it turns out). I imagine if I … More So the Oscars…
I don’t remember a time in my life when Star Trek wasn’t a part of me. It’s not that I ever set out to be a Trekkie, or that it ever consumed me as an obsession—it was just there, like the air I breathed. September 8 was the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, which premiered … More Growing Up With Star Trek
For several years, I had teamed up with Lee Shapiro to co-write screenplays with him. We wrote three together and each of us also had our own individual ones. We took many trips from Central Florida to Los Angeles to meet with various studios and production companies to pitch our scripts and met virtually every … More Fun at Sony
Warner Bros. Animation released Batman: The Killing Joke for two days in theaters prior to it hitting home video, scoring $3.8 million in that limited release. This is the first animated Batman film since Batman: Mask of the Phantasm in 1993 to hit the big screen, but it wasn’t without controversy. It made history by … More Killing Story Structure with the Killing Joke
When I was eleven, my friends and I made a Super-8 knock-off of Star Wars that we creatively entitled “Galactic Wars”. It had a “cantina” scene, aliens made with papier-mâché masks, spaceships, and a light saber duel that looked surprisingly good. We entered it into a film contest hosted by CineMagic magazine and received honorable … More Fan Films and Copyright
As I’m working on the novel adaptation of my screenplay Maelstrom, I’m finding that I need to do a lot more research than I did for the script. Movies are pretty straightforward—the only thing you can write in the screenplay is what shows up on screen and is heard on the soundtrack. It’s pointless to … More How Much Research Is Too Much?
The biggest trend in film these days is the desire to build “cinematic universes”. What does that mean exactly? Simply put, it’s where a number of stand-alone movies are somehow linked together and take place in the same existence, so a character in one movie can appear in another that would otherwise be unrelated, or … More Cinematic Universes
Anyone who knows me can attest that I am a huge fan of Stephen King’s writing. I have virtually all of his books in hard cover, including a few duplicates. He is by and far my favorite author, and I have read many of his books repeatedly. Most of the world knows him as … More The Creative Mind of Stephen King
One bit of advice that is often given to writers is to “grab the audience” right away with a “hook”. That’s great, but what does it mean? Essentially, it’s saying to give your reader something interesting right from the start—do not bore your audience. This doesn’t mean that you have to start in the middle … More The All-Important Opening
Stephen Wise 
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