I already posted on the two most important words in the story concept process. Well, “what if” strikes again:
DreamWorks has picked up “The Defenders,” a family adventure project conceived by “Heroes” actor Masi Oka to be produced by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. D.J. Caruso is in negotiations to direct, and Gary Whitta is on board to write the script.The story centers on a group of mostly teenagers from around the world who are involved in a multiplayer video game, each unaware of who they really are behind the cover of their consoles and avatars. They are forced to come together for a real adventure, becoming inadvertent heroes in the process.
Oka, who will exec produce, came up with idea while playing MMORPGs — massively multiplayer online role-playing games, in that world’s parlance.
“You can be whoever you want to be,” he said. “The question came to me: What if you had to live up to the person you created in the virtual world?“
Great moment of inspiration. And not surprisingly: “DreamWorks will develop a video game simultaneously with the feature.”
I think it would be PRETTY COOL to try to live up to some of the characters I've created in a "virtual world." I've written some pretty cool characters in my time, and I'd LOVE the chance to mimic them…
Back in the 90s I wrote a two high schooler get zapped into a "Lord of the Rings" style land, and experience an adventure of their own: one gets with the heros, the other is duped to joing the bad guys. An epic fantasy story that sounds in the league of what Dreamworks is cooking up. Hope their story turns out as cool as mine did.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
PS Back to the rom-com I'm 1st drafting. With a lot of time on my hands now I'm going to try to do complete 1st draft in 5-7 days. (Usually it takes me at least a month) From the Cyberhouse chat thing-a-ma-bob, I got first hand experience how fast you can type Scott. So what's the fastest you've ever kicked a COMPLETE first draft?
I divide the process into two parts: Prep-Writing (brainstorming, character development, plot, outline) and Page-Writing (the actual writing of the script). So it's disingenuous to say that someone wrote a script in 3 days or whatever because you have to include all the prep time.
Even at that, I can't answer your question. Normally my first drafts take 6-8 weeks. I do remember one time going away for a long weekend to Lake Arrowhead, locking myself away, and knocking out over 60 pages of a first draft of a script.