Original 'Hancock' Screenplay!
You can read my thorough analysis of the script here: TONIGHT, HE COMES SCRIPT REVIEW. I actually liked the script more than I did the movie.Thanks to Sergio for the heads up on this!
What we've got here is the original 126-page script for Hancock, initially titled, Tonight, He Comes.
The film in its release form is roughly 90 minutes long. The original Vincent Ngo-written script is 126 pages. For those of you who went to film school, or know a few things about the relationship between the written word and the visual image, you'd immediately notice the discrepancy here! In short, one industry standard page of a screenplay is equivalent to 1 minute of screen time. Obviously that formular isn't entirely exact, but if you compared most completed films with their screenplays, you'd notice that, for example, a 90-page screenplay will almost always produce a 90-minute film, or thereabouts.
In Hancock's case, we've got a 126-page screenplay, but ended up with a 90-minute film, which immediately indicates that a solid 30+ minutes was gutted somewhere in the production process, and I am certainly interested in knowing what that 30-minutes contained!
Skimming the pages of the script, I immediately noticed several differences from the film I saw - notably the use of profanity. As we already know, Sony wanted to deliver a PG13-rated movie, not an R-rated rump, hence all the reshooting we heard about (You can read my post on that HERE, in which director Peter Berg was quoted as saying about a previous incarnation of the film, "Hancock has remained surprisingly sexual, violent and true in spirit to an original script that was viewed as brilliant but unmakable.").
This should be an interesting read. I plan on going through the entire script this weekend, and I'll post my thoughts on it afterwards, making comparisons between what was written and what was filmed.
Courtesy of Hollywood Elsewhere, here's a link to the PDF script (get it while it's hot): TONIGHT, HE COMES.
Thanks for the link to the Screenplay. I'm looking forward to reading your weekend analysis.
Just for your interest:
This screenplay seems to be the original spec script, that eventually (after A LOT of rewrites) turned into what we now see in the movie. It's not the shooting script.
That is to say, it actually has almost nothing to do with the movie.
Unfortunately, this doesn't make it better.
In my opinion, it lacks not only comprehensible story arcs, but also the focus on the protagonist (Who is it anyway? Hancock? Horus? Mary) and most of all "thematic clarity" (Can you say that? I'm from Germany. :-)
It definitely wasn't written as the new summer blockbuster it was forced into, but the way it WAS written (as some kind of "lowkey psychographic drama on inner turmoils") seems very strange and unconvincing to me.
If only they would have kept the highkey comedy attitude the film had in the beginning. What a great premise they had...
Thanks Philipp. I read it, and posted my thoughts on it last night. Have a look...
Thanks dear for this link. The idea of Hancock is a fun one. Will Smith is always a good choice for summer fare; he has a strong charisma and boyish charm that makes you want to like him. Really a great movie of the year by Will Smith. You can watch this movie from here, so go through the link and get it now. Download Hancock Movie Free
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Regards,
James Woods, NY
Why is page 125 missing? I didn't get the ending because of the missing page....
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Thank you! I didn't know they picked up on it until I saw your comment.