comment #1

Anonymous says ...

There are actually 10:

1. The audience is fickle.

2. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.

3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.

4. Know where you’re going.

5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.

7. A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.

8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.

9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.

10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that’s it. Don’t hang around.

comment #2

Nick says ...

I wonder if his family are hiding unproduced scripts. Maybe the real question is, would they get produced?

comment #3

Anonymous says ...

So is it safe to say Superman fails 9 of the 10?

comment #4

Marc Wallace says ...

Yeah, Superman and most American films fail 9 out of 10 times. Meanwhile, there probably is no writing/directing career in international movie history that comapres with Wilder's. And Woody Allen all but made that same point at a Directors Guild screening of "Match Point" in NYC last year when someone tried to compliment his oeuvre. He immediately deferred to Wilder as the master of all genres. Take that, Michael Bay.

comment #5

Marc Wallace says ...

Yeah, Superman and most American films fail 9 out of 10 times. Meanwhile, there probably is no writing/directing career in international movie history that comapres with Wilder's. And Woody Allen all but made that same point at a Directors Guild screening of "Match Point" in NYC last year when someone tried to compliment his oeuvre. He immediately deferred to Wilder as the master of all genres. Take that, Michael Bay.