AVENGERS INFINITY WAR: THE DEATH OF DEATH (SPOILERS APLENTY!)

SPOILER ALERT: SPOILERS IN THIS ARTICLE - SEE THE MOVIES FIRST!

When I was a kid I saw SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE. The film was made in 1979 and was the first big budget superhero movie. No movie star wanted to put on a superhero costume as they believed it would make them look silly. How times change. The then relatively unknown Christopher Reeve was cast as Clark Kent/Superman and Margot Kidder played Lois Lane.

The film was a top-shelf production. Marlon Brando was paid a fortune to play Superman's father, Jor-El. The script was written by Mario Puzo (Oscar-winning writer of The Godfather and Godfather Part 2) and Newman & Benton.

At the end of the film, Superman is presented with a dilemma. He must choose between stopping two missiles heading in opposite directions. He's unable to stop both and, as a result, Lois Lane dies from the effects of an Earthquake.

Lois Lane dead? Quite an emotional moment.

But wait! Superman flies super fast around Earth and the planet goes backward and... time goes backward. Superman is then able to save Lois Lane and the film ends.

"What a cheat! Total ripoff ending," I thought as a kid. I'd felt manipulated by the storytellers that they gave Superman a do-over. Did the rest of the universe reverse time or just Earth? How did that cause severe damage to the planet? Wouldn't the other missile he stopped blow up because now that version of events wouldn't have taken place?

None of it made sense. As an audience member, I'd been manipulated and was ticked off.

In the 1930s and 1940s there were superhero serials (cheaply made films shown in theaters before the feature films) with Captain Marvel and Batman. I had some VHS copies of these and occasionally they'd do a complete cheat. They'd show the hero going off the cliff. In the following episode, the hero would jump out of the car. "What a cheat!"

We enjoy tension at the movies. Tension is the feeling generated from hope and fear. We hope that our hero will succeed, defeat the antagonist, and stay alive. We fear that she will not.

There must be REAL STAKES for the story to work. A big problem for Superman was always he was so strong - basically a god on Earth - that he wasn't that interesting of a character. No fear of defeat = no tension. Kryptonite originated on the radio show version of Superman and was a brilliant way to make Superman capable of facing defeat.

When we got the 'reverse time = win' finish it meant nobody ever really dies in Superman. There's no way to defeat him if he gets to try again.

Flashforward to ELEKTRA in 2005. ELEKTRA had died in the film DAREDEVIL. The unfairly maligned 2003 DAREDEVIL had told the story of the romance between the film's hero and Elektra and she'd been killed at the end. The 2005 film opens with Elektra being brought back to life.

"Huh?!" If she can die and not die, why do I care to watch the rest of the film? She could die again and... so what? Could be brought back to life. No stakes = no tension.

Now we have AVENGERS INFINITY WAR.

Yes, the film will make over a billion dollars. Likely the follow up will as well. But it's bad storytelling.

At the end of the film, a number of Marvel characters "die" -- are turned to dust by Thanatos, the antagonist. There's a line setting up the sequel where Dr. Strange says, "Now we enter the endgame." So the next film will involve a reversing of time and bring these characters back to life -- a "do over" if you will.

There was genuine emotion in the audience when I saw the film. Shocked gasps and crying as audience members believed this really was the last ride for their beloved heroes. However, just like Lois Lane and Elektra death won't mean a real death and they'll be back for further adventures. We'll just feel a little cheated as the audience.

Let me know your thoughts on these films.

STORY VS. BACKSTORY: ANALYSIS OF THE SPACE BETWEEN US

When to begin your story? What is the story you want to tell vs. what's backstory? Backstory is what happens before our screenplay begins. I saw the film THE SPACE BETWEEN US last night and it illustrates the pitfall many writers fall into.

THE SPACE BETWEEN US is about a 16-year-old boy, Gardner Elliot. He's our protagonist. His backstory is his mother didn't tell NASA she was pregnant when she led a mission to colonize Mars. Gardner was born on Mars and has never been to Earth. NASA kept it a secret. His mother died in childbirth and he's never met his father.

What's Gardner's goal? The protagonist's goal is to get to Earth, meet up with a love interest he's met on the internet (a girl named Tulsa) and find his father. What's the obstacle? He might die as his organs aren't used to Earth's atmosphere and NASA wants to hold him for observation. So he escapes, finds Tulsa, and seeks out his father.

When does the film begin?

The movie opens with ... 20 minutes of backstory. Gary Oldman plans a scientist behind the mission. We meed Gardner's mother and they travel to Mars. We find out in flight that she's lied to NASA. Gardner is born. The mother dies. It takes twenty minutes into the film before the story starts.

All of this information, though extremely relevant to the story, is backstory. Our protagonist, Gardner, doesn't even show up until these twenty minutes have gone by.

How should it have been handled?

Handling exposition and setting up a story properly is one of the great challenges facing a writer. We could have opened with Gardner, gotten to know him, and through dialogue, images (a photograph), old video, etc. found out who he is and how he got there.

There are some scientific issues with the film. NASA spent a trillion dollars on a mission to Mars, but not the $20 to do a pregnancy test? Gardner does a real-time chat session with Tulsa. The speed of light distance to Mars from Earth is three minutes. So that was impossible. But these are minor issues compared to the glaring error of opening with twenty minutes of backstory.

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Why start my story on this day?

2. Who is my real protagonist? If they aren't in the film the first few minutes, you've got a problem.

3. If I cut out this scene or this sequence of scenes, do I still tell my story? (Story = protagonist seeking a goal against obstacles faces a crisis and in the resolution either succeeds or fails.)

If you can cut it out and work it in while your story is actually taking place, do so.

MasterClasses on Comedy, Screenwriting, TV Writing, Filmmaking, etc. etc.

About a month or so ago I purchased an all-access pass to MasterClass. I'd taken the James Paterson (best-selling thriller novelist) course last year. It was $90 and informative.

When I found out I could take the dozen classes on my wish list for one fee, I signed up.

Steve Martin's course on comedy discusses creating a stand-up act ... Ron Howard discusses filmmaking and breaks down shooting a scene ... Marin Scorsese discusses filmmaking with stories from his great films ... Werner Herzog (filmmaking) ... Hans Zimmer (film scoring) ... Oh, Oscar-winner Aaron Sorkin has a series on screenwriting. Emmy-winning Shonda Rhimes discusses creating a TV series, breaking down a TV episode, showrunning.

Judd Apatow has an upcoming course on comedy writing. Spike Lee has one coming soon on filmmaking.

The annual pass is the way to go.

You get EVERYTHING (even series on cooking, chess, tennis, and basketball) from top pros in each field. Great way to learn.

DISCLOSURE: I liked it so much I became a paid affiliate for MasterClass and I can support this blog if a few sales result from the following link. Thanks for looking:

MasterClass All-Access Pass

ZAZ from the Past

Sketch comedy from the team behind KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, AIRPLANE!, and POLICE SQUAD.

At some point in the early '60s Billy Wilder decided to adapt the play L'ora della fantasia by Anna Bonacci (previously filmed in Italy in 1952 as Wife for A Night) for the Hollywood screen. He'd recently had a smash hit with Some Like It Hot, also an Americanized version of a Eurofarce.

Wilder's original casting choices were Frank Sinatra as the libidinous singer, Marilyn Monroe as the pretend-wife, and Jack Lemmon as the self-cuckolding husband.

Monroe tragically died, and Wilder then offered the role to Jayne Mansfield. The latter's underappreciated comic abilities made her probably the ideal choice. But Mansfield became pregnant (with the future actress Mariska Hargitay) and Wilder either could not or would not reschedule production around her condition. He eventually cast Kim Novak, who is adequate.

I don't know why Sinatra wasn't in it. At one point he was to have played the Curtis role in Some Like It Hot, but Wilder (his off screen friend) allegedly felt Sinatra ("Ole One-Take") might cause difficulties on the set. Perhaps that was Wilder's reasoning on the new project.

In any event Sinatra's absence meant that his Rat Pack buddy Dean Martin would inherit the greatest role of his career.

The most mysterious absence is Jack Lemmon. Wilder's favorite actor, he claimed that he had a conflicting commitment. Which seems odd, as Lemmon had only one film released in 1964 (The mediocre Good Neighbor Sam) and you'd think he'd drop everything to work with Wilder (equally curious, while Lemmon isn't in it, his real life wife Felicia Farr is).

At this point Wilder went outside his casting comfort zone -- all the way to England, He gave the role of the husband to Peter Sellers, former BBC radio comic and master mimic who in the last five years had become Britain's most successful film comedian. Sellers was currently riding high with the triumph of his life, Dr. Strangelove. He'd been offered Hollywood roles before, but held out for the best possible project. Kiss Me, Stupid (as Wilder had titled the new film) seemed to be what he had been waiting for.

Unfortunately Sellers and Wilder did not get along. Stanley Kubrick had allowed Sellers to improvise on Strangelove; indeed some of the film's most memorable moments were his on-set additions.

Wilder did not cotton to improvisation. He even stationed co-writer Iz Diamond on the set to make sure the actors included every last comma in their dialogue.

Peter Sellers worked on the film for about five weeks when he suffered a near-fatal heart attack. Wilder hated working with Sellers ("I  don't believe Peter Sellers had a heart attack -- because in order to have a heart attack, you have to have a heart") and jumped at the chance to replace him.

For a few days it was rumored in the trades that Tony Randall would replace Sellers. There were others in Hollywood at the time that might have been considered -- Tony Curtis, Dick Van Dyke (or my own half-serious suggestion: Jerry Lewis?!?) -- but Wilder unfortunately chose Ray Walston. He's too old, and he just isn't a lead. As co-star Cliff Osmond himself said regarding the Sellers footage, "Walston was okay, but Sellers was a genius".

It's too bad. Kiss Me, Stupid has two great performances by Dean Martin and Cliff Osmond (who else but Wilder would have cast this behemoth in a comedy?) and is very nearly a great film. Supposedly the Sellers footage no longer exists -- but who knows? Maybe someday we'll get to see it. Stranger things have happened.

Peter Sellers as Orville Spooner in Kiss Me, Stupid:

With Cliff Osmond:

Trying to talk things out with Billy Wilder:

With Felicia Farr as Mrs. Spooner:

Jack Lemmon visits wife Felicia Farr on the set as Peter Sellers looks on:

Sellers between shots with then-wife Britt Ekland: