This week features a series from Uncle Jam on the most common scripts he encountered during his time as a Hollywood reader, as well as the lessons we can take away from them.
The Script
We’re in a small city in the Rust Belt. A red leaning town with an opioid problem.
Our protagonist works a nine to five day job, but at night, he does amateur MMA fights. He wins a match, collects his meager winnings, and heads home in his rusty pickup truck. He’s a little crusty. He’s angry and prideful, having been raised by an alcoholic father or something like that. But when he returns to his small rundown house, he’s greeted by his loving wife and, in most cases, his young blond son. If the writer wants to earn a few sympathy points, the son will have some sort of disability. (It’s never a daughter, for whatever reason.) His wife has a job a therapist would say reminds the writer of his mother. A nurse or a teacher or something like that. They’re barely scraping by, but they have each other, and they manage.
Circumstances conspire. Their house is about to be foreclosed on or the alcoholic father the protagonist hasn’t reconciled with needs an expensive medical procedure his insurance won’t cover. If the son has a disability, the procedure’s for him. They need money. Now. Luckily, the guys at the local gym tell him about a pro-level MMA competition with a high cash prize. His wife doesn’t like it, but he goes to see if he can qualify anyway.
All the other fighters are much bigger than him, including the wealthy local MMA champion who’s a massive roided up prick. Though he qualifies by the skin of his teeth, an old wise pro sees a spark in him and agrees to train him.
Their training doesn’t go well at first, but slowly, they begin to see eye to eye. Once they do, we get a training montage. After the montage, the music softens, and we get a quiet scene where the coach gives him a vague metaphor that doubles as the message of the movie. “It’s just you and your demons in the ring.” Something like that.
The first fight goes well. Finally, there’s a source of joy in our protagonist’s life that doesn’t have to do with his family. He’s doing what he loves, and it turns out he’s good at it. The second fight happens. It’s a little harder, but our protagonist prevails. Everything’s good for a few seconds, but then there’s an escalation in whatever led our protagonist to the tournament in the first place. The bank puts an eviction notice on the house or there’s a turn for the worst in the health of his father or son.
This causes our protagonist to lash out. He alienates his coach and his wife, usually in the form of an argument where whatever tensions he has with both come bubbling to the surface. But after some time to reflect, he returns to his coach practically sobbing. He shouts further intended-to-be-subtext. “Fighting’s all I got!” “I’ve been fighting all my life!” The coach tells him that he needs to solve his real problem. Reconcile with your dad and all that. Then they train even harder, with a renewed sense of purpose.
Now it’s time for the championship fight. It’s our protagonist versus the asshole MMA champion we met earlier, and all the prize money’s on the line. We see a bunch of familiar faces either in the crowd or at home in front of the TV. His gym buddies. His co-workers. Maybe his father. But sadly, not his family. The bell rings and our protagonist will get a punch or two in before getting his ass handed to him for a few rounds. However, he looks into the crowd, and finally, his family has showed up! With a new spark, he picks himself up and wins the fight. The crowd goes wild, his wife inexplicably forgives him, they kiss, and he’s earned his status as his son’s role model. The end.
The Trend
MMA was one of the bigger script trends I saw during my reader gigs. (Why Warrior wasn’t enough, I don’t know.) It’s not that MMA scripts are inherently bad. I gave a “consider” to more than a few. The problem is laziness. Take the above paragraphs and swap out the word “MMA” with “boxing.” Sound familiar?
There seems to be this philosophy that as long as you change the details, you can keep this formula and trick the reader into thinking that you didn’t just write another boxing movie. As someone who’s read dozens of boxing scripts pretending to be MMA scripts, let me assure you that you can’t.
I want to emphasize this point because I’ve read a lot of MMA scripts with bizarre variations, all designed to trick the reader into thinking that the writer is doing something “new.” I’ve read post-apocalyptic MMA scripts. I’ve read science fiction MMA scripts. One time, I even read an MMA script set in a medieval fantasy world. Sometimes the writer calls it something other than “MMA,” but even then, the script usually goes incredibly far out of its way to make sure you know what it’s going for. Most of the time, they still fight in an octagon. Even with the ridiculousness of the details, these scripts don’t stand out because they still repeat the same basic story steps. Breaking free of the formula means more than just changing the circumstances. It doesn’t matter where or when your MMA story takes place. As long as you’re repeating the blueprint, you’re never going to stand out. Or at least not in the way you want to.