The First Ten Pages or Bust?

There's a great scene in the movie BOWFINGER where Jerry Renfro, the fictional agent played by Robert Downey Jr., is at a swank Hollywood restaurant taking a meeting about a script. He reads the first page of a script then flips to the last and says looks good, bring me so-and-so the actor and you have a movie! It takes him less than 30 seconds to assess the script as being a whiz-bang project.

I think the reason the scene is so funny is that it's so easy to recognize the kernel of truth to it. In a similar vein, Randy and I once had a producer heap high praise on our screenplay about Whitey Bulger saying, "Hey, I made it to page 50!"

The rule of thumb is that the first 10 pages make or break a screenplay: a screenplay must be popping within those first pages or else it won't hold the reader's attention. Unlike the more languorous medium of the novel, the screenplay is, for the most part, read by decidedly "non-literary" types with a specific eye toward translating it onto the silver screen.

Personally, I've gone to movies that get off to a slow start and enjoyed them and I've read screenplays that get off to a slow start and enjoyed them as well. As a literary sort myself, I'm inclined to give the writer more of the benefit of the doubt. However, if I'm honest, I have to admit that the great books, movies, plays, and screenplays I've experienced get off to a strong start. They come roaring out of the gate!

So, is it first 10 pages or bust? Not exactly... But, it behooves us as writers to get those first pages right because that's where the vast majority of folks make their decision on whether this is a movie that will have them on the edge of their seats or merely be an expensive outing.