[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] Part 2 - Captain America Civil War: How to Build the Superhero Movie By Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="Part 2 - Captain America Civil War: How to Build the Superhero Movie" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"]   In the last installment of this podcast, we discussed the engine that drives a superhero movie, and the challenges for writers of action and superhero spec scripts, of juggling the need to build that kind of engine, with the goal of organically introducing a new superhero into the world in a way that allows the audience to fall in love with them.   That begins with not only looking at the character’s superpowers, but also at their weaknesses. And it also means a real personal exploration of the beliefs in you that those superheroes represent: the way you, as a writer look at the world.   And of course, the same concept applies to character driven dramas, indie films, biopics, and true-life story adaptations as well. So often, we fall so deeply in love with our own characters that we’re not willing to look at their weaknesses.  We allow them to find themselves so quickly that we have no room to develop the structure of their story. We turn them into superheroes, and then can’t figure out why it’s so hard to construct a powerful structure for their change.   Oftentimes this is because we see a bit of ourselves in our main characters, and rather than looking deeply at ourselves, and our problems, as people who need to change, we instead inadvertently turn our characters into the infallible heroes we wish we could be. Rather than shaping their own stories through their flawed and painful choices, they become victims of circumstances, just like we often feel ourselves to be, puppeted around by the external maneuverings of our plot rather than the visceral emotional needs that drive them. Rather than driving the story, they end up being driven by it.   To write a movie that turns an unknown character into someone that feels like a real hero, you need to write a character that people are going to connect to on a primal, visceral, personal level. You have to create a structure that uncovers their flaws.  And you need to take that character on a journey that changes them, and hopefully that changes the audience that connects to them, forever.   To give shape to that journey, and make it more than just a bunch of plot wrangling and external manipulation, you need to think about theme. You need to think about truth: what this is really about. You need to be writing from your soul because you need to connect to other people’s souls. You need to make them fall in love with your character and you need to do it in a way that's going to deliver a specific genre experience, the genre experience that you want to see on screen.   You have to think about the feeling the movie delivers, the feeling that draws you to the story. What’s the specific nature and tone of your story, and how is that reflected in the action sequences? An action sequence in Deadpool should feel different than one in Spiderman or Batman. And the action sequences in your movie should feel so inextricably linked to character and theme that they couldn’t be switched out to any other movie.   If you think of Captain America: Civil War, there is a kick-ass action sequence every couple of pages. And you’ll need to deliver that too, feeding the main thing the audience is coming from in a way that delivers both spectacle and structure, outdoing yourself with each salvo, and building towards a climactic explosion like the culmination of a big fireworks show on the 4th of July.   And finally, you’ll need to deliver the engine, Your own unique formula,