I officially completed my first draft of Wonderland on Tuesday. What's a first draft? Simple, it's the first version of the screenplay that wouldn't lead me to crawl into a hole if someone discovered it.
The screenplay clocked in at 99 pages -- right in range for a family comedy. I know it's not perfect. I've still got a ton of work ahead of me, especially in upping the action and jazzing up the gags. But I think the structure is there and I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out. Thank you, Blake Snyder.
On Wednesday, I emailed it off to Scott Mullen for the first feedback on the screenplay itself. Scott is a Hollywood script reader who used to write the Alligators in a Helicopter blog. He offers some of the best notes around and for just $60, with a lightning fast 3-4 day turnaround.
If you'd like to try him out, and I highly recommend it, you can email him here.
Other good news is that the new musical "Wonderland" (an updated take on the Alice tale) is tanking on Broadway. Besides the fact that the utterly vapid Frank Wildhorn wrote the music, I dislike the show because they beat to the punch with the title.
Yeah, I know, you can't copyright a title, but if a title gets associated with a successful work of art, whether book, play or movie, you're pretty much forced to come up with another idea or risk getting your story confused with the earlier one.
Not that I insist on staying with "Wonderland" as a title. I've considered expanding it, to something like "Escaping Wonderland" or "Lost in Wonderland." But those additions don't really capture what's going on in my film.
And besides, I love the simplicity of that one world title, evoking as it does not just the imaginary land that Alice falls into, but the whole idea of childhood innocence and awe, as in "a land of wonder."
Until I think of something different, it's staying.
Oh, and here's my updated logline:
WONDERLAND
A Family Comedy Thriller
By Todd Wallinger
Four impulsive preteens sneak into an amusement park after closing only to discover that someone is sabotaging the rides.
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