Screenplays Under 90 Pages

 I ran into this problem during winter, when I was writing my first Christmas horror film: the scripts I write now-a-days tend to be grossly under 90 pages (which is the industry standard).

Theoretically, one page of your script should equal one minute of screen time.

And supposedly Hollywood is very enamored with scripts that fit neatly into their 90-minute echelon (which is odd, seeing as nearly every movie I've seen in the last 10 years has been 2+ hours long, minimum).

But for a beginning (unknown and unrepresented) screenwriter, your script better be 90 pages (no more, no less) or it will get thrown in the trash, unread... or so I've heard. 

Once you're established (or a nepo-baby), you can step outside the lines all the want, but before your foot is in the door, you need top stay within the lines.

Now, I've always had a problem with this theory (and that is what it is!), since a montage in a script can only take up a page, but can up to 3-5 minutes (sometimes 5-10 minutes) of screen time.

Or a battle scene in a Transformers movie can take up only a page or two of a script, but can be a 10-15 minute ordeal onscreen.

Now, the script I wrote before my Christmas horror film, the comedy Muscles & Wine, actually ran significantly over 90 pages. Muscles & Wine is actually 117 pages (minus the title page and a little page of (hopefully) humorous explanation from me)... nearly two hours if you subscribe to the one-page-a-minute theory. Of course, with Muscles & Wine I had a lot of plot, character development and jokes to cover. It was my first comedy and I wanted to put everything and the kitchen sink in, while (hopefully) still keeping the jokes and comedic timing in sync with the narrative.

Whereas my Christmas horror film is only 61 pages (excluding title page). My forever critic, editor and workshop partner Tim has some ideas as to how I can lengthen the narrative, but really I see it as something of an experimental horror film that will most likely get made (if it ever does get made) as original content for some streaming service.

But here are some recent examples of screenplays (and the resulting films) that break the standard of 90-minute movies.

Shadow in the Cloud, the script is 73 pages long, including title page; the movie is 83 minutes long. Problematic as the writer of this film may be, I still love this movie for many reasons (and the fact that IMDB and the credits of the my German 4K mediabook tell me that the director Roseanne Liang re-wrote the script). However, I have read the initial draft of the script and it is very unconventional in its writing. Of course, when you're a nepo-baby who was gifted a film career at birth due to your last name, you can write unconventional scripts that are under 90 pages. 

I don't know how long Andrew Lobel's screenplay is for his horror film Immaculate (which I recently re-watched, as I dozed during the middle in theaters), but the film is only 88 minutes (with credits!). Of course, that script had trouble getting made until Sydney Sweeney acquired her current star power and helped champion it (by being a producer).

All this is to say that the current script I am writing (my 3rd werewolf script) sits at 71 pages and I am nearly done fleshing out my 3-act outline. At best, I can hope for 80+ pages. Which is odd, as this was an "epic" idea I had in my head 2 years ago (when I first started the script) and I fully thought it would be 90-100 pages.

Now, I am hoping that this will endear producers to my script. It will most likely result in a shorter movie (obviously). That means more showtimes at the theater and more ticket sales. It also means audiences won't be bogged down with a narrative with too much fat on it. 

I am also banking on the fact that one of my other (more marketable) scripts, like Personal Demons, will get made before this one and in that time I can either workshop with Tim ways to lengthen it out (organically, so it does not come across as running time padding), or leave it as is and producers, studios and audiences will be more forgiving if I have a successful track record already established.

No matter what, this worries me, but only slightly.

I already know that my next two big scripts (Personal Demons 3 and a cyber-gothic horror script called State of the Art) will be well over 100 pages.

But between now and then I have a serial killer horror screenplay (called Grotesque... or Gruesome, depending what mood I am in) and an vaguely supernatural aquatic monster script (called Depths) that may or may not make it to 90 pages.

No matter what, I hope this is not a trend developing. 

I'm not as worried about it effecting the marketability of my scripts as I am my inability to tell a narrative within the mutually agreed upon standard. I've now been writing screenplays for 20 years (since early 2004 when I purchased a bootleg copy of Final Draft off eBay from a shyster in the UK... my mother, a few months later, bought me the official software off Amazon... and I have purchased the upgrade editions every few years since). I have always managed to come in at 90 pages or more... and sometimes just barely at 90.

But, really, I just don't want to waste pages on scenes and material that don't serve the story. If my story only needs 70-80 pages to play out, so be it. I'm a little annoyed (okay, very annoyed) that there is this agreed-upon standard that we all have to fall in line with.

Regardless, I am tired tonight.

Tomorrow, hopefully I will find my muse and finish my 3rd werewolf script at close to, or right at 90 pages. 

We shall see.