274 | Derek Kolstad (John Wick, Nobody): How to Craft Character and Action on the Page

In this episode, JOHN WICK creator Derek Kolstad joins us to break down how he crafts character-driven action on the page. Derek shares how he thinks about tone, rhythm, and world-building, why action is an extension of the hero’s journey, and the psychological tricks he uses to survive rewrites.

We also dig into his collaborations with actors like Keanu Reeves and Bob Odenkirk, his approach to adapting IP, and the creative habits that keep him excited to write "fade in."

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Lorien: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Screenwriting Life. I'm Lorien McKenna.

Meg: And I'm Meg LeFauve. Today we are joined by Derek Kolstad, who's best known as the creator of the John Wick franchise and the writer of its first three films. His feature work includes Universal's hit action film Nobody, and its sequel Nobody 2.

Derek also wrote and produced the upcoming feature Normal starring Bob Odenkirk, which premiered this year at Tiff as part of the Midnight Madness Slate, and was acquired for distribution by Magnolia Pictures.

Lorien: In television, Derek EPed Netflix's upcoming animated series Splinter Cell Death Watch, based on the hit video game franchise, and served as co EP of Marvel's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

In addition to his film and TV work, Colstad recently authored the comic book Planet Death, which overnight became the bestselling independent comic in more than three decades. Welcome to the show, Derek.

Derek: Pleasure.

Meg: We're so excited to have you here. Can't wait to talk about everything, Derek. But first, we're gonna do what our weeks were or what we like to call adventures in screenwriting.

Lorien. Why don't you go first?

Lorien: So daylight savings really messed me up this week. Monday felt like I was underwater in a tunnel underground. I couldn't quite get my bearings, I couldn't quite figure out how to get organized, so I felt really behind all week which means I have to work this weekend and that's okay 'cause at least I'll have long stretches of time.

But I did have a really fun call right before this. Talking about a project that I've been working on for a very long time and actually getting a little traction for the first time. 

Meg: Woohoo.

Lorien: And moving into an animation test, which I'm really excited about. It's really fun to actually be doing something rather than planning to do it or how I'm gonna do it. It's like, oh, I'm, I'm in the doing. And, you know, the doing begets more doing. So hopefully this is a good sign. Derek, how was your week?

Derek: It was rough. But, and it's just rough because I had a lot of people reaching out to me looking for work and there isn't any. There are no open writing assignments.

There are no rooms that I could suggest. And even getting two resumes for internships, it's kind of throwing a football into the void, right? But for myself, I delivered two treatments to a manager. Second week is done production on Painter with Amanda, Amber Midthunder and Walton Goggins in Serbia right now.

Garrett Warren directing, and I delivered a script on Friday, one on Monday, and I have two that are overdue.

Meg: Oh my goodness.

Derek: That's pretty much the week.

Lorien: So you're a little bit busy.

Meg: How do you do that? 

Derek: Honestly, the first thing I'd say is I fucking love what I do. I love the writing element.

But once you get past that first step you finally find, you know, we're writers, we build the kitchen, we put in the equipment, we put together the menu and buy everything. And then when you open up the restaurant, it's just you. And then success. There's 50 fucking chefs in there. And so once you get all those chefs in there, it's a bit tough.

But that's, that's the gig, you know.

Lorien: So you said you like the first part? Is that the pitching or writing the script or the world, what is the first part for you?

Derek: I go for long walks and, and long hikes. And I do a lot of stuff in my head, listen to music and I actually really like to do one of two things when it's just you know, when it's speculative.

I like to either write a treatment and then reach out to an actor and say, Hey, you wanna do this thing? And then it snowballs, you know? Or I like to just go fade in and no outline and just go. It's my favorite. But I would say that when you spec script that way, you're gonna delete more pages than you're gonna write.

You know, so it's a different muscle you're flexing. Those are my favorites. The job is the second step, which is rewrite. And you're not a screenwriter unless you can rewrite and it takes a, it took me a long time to really learn how to do that, and I'm still learning because every project, every talent pool, every studio, every buyer, every outlet, every distribution network, every international, you know, sales team wants something different.

And then honestly, the hardest thing for me is the last draft, the polish, because you don't wanna open that fucking file. You know, it's kinda like when you're in, in high school, taking that class that you studied really hard for knowing full well, you're just gonna barely pass it and you have to open the file to do it.

It's not gonna be a lot of work, but just opening the file is still very hard for me. You know?

Meg: That's amazing. I am also in a rewrite and I'm at that stage of “Is this better or just different?” Like, I don’t know.

Derek: Oh, it's the worst.

Meg: Does it make it look better? I mean, it feels like it's, 'cause it's fun to write, like, but that's not necessarily a good barometer because it's fun to write 'cause I get to just go in and I have a writing partner, so that's very helpful because they can be like, I think this is just different. It's not actually better.

And I'm in that part, in the first act where your character knows so much coming into the movie and you're like, and the world, and how the hell do you do all this exposition? And still make me love them and care, oh my God, all those, all those balls in the air of that first 10 pages.

But I love the moment, like you said, Derek, when you're like, fuck it, I'm just gonna write a scene right now and go in and I'm not gonna worry about the tone of the genre and I'm not gonna worry about all that stuff. I'm just gonna have a great time and do it. The other thing that's happening, you know, being a parent and writer and an artist.

Often people come to us and they're like, how do we balance this? And Lorien's always like “you don't, you manage it and you just deal with it.” But I realized today as I woke up at three o'clock in the morning with my son having the stomach flu, I had big plans today, big plans for my writing, which I will now be doing on the weekend.

You know what it does teach you when you're a parent is how to pivot. As a writer, you have to know how to pivot because you thought you were going down this road and now the notes you're getting from the studio, you're realizing something and you've gotta pivot. You have to pivot into, “oh, okay. We were all on a different page. You want that? Okay.”

Like. Pivot, pivot. Pivot. You might have to pivot in a scene or pivot 'cause of the actor or pivot. So there is a, everybody kind of thinks about parenting and being an artist as something that's a burden, and because you don't have time, which is true, but it is also creating a muscle that you need as a writer.

All of course the amazing character lava life stuff that's gonna be going in your work from that experience of you know, yelling at your kid when you shouldn't 'cause it's not his fault.

Lorien: I've never done that. Meg never, never. How, how old's your kid? I have a 13-year-old.

Meg: My kid that is, he's sick, his special needs, so he doesn't really understand the illness.

Yeah, he's, he's saying, when is it done? And I'm like, well, maybe tomorrow. No. And I'm like, what? 

Derek: We've all asked that though.

Meg: When is it done?

Derek: I have, I have 8-year-old twins. Girl, boy.

Meg: Oh my gosh. Amazing. That's such a great pocket right there. That age old. 

Lorien: Yeah. So fun. I remember it fondly in the rear view mirror.

Meg: We love you so much.

Derek: Yeah, I'm getting a, I'm getting a trailer for my 13 year olds every day though. You know, like, oh, I get a, it's at least like a peek behind the wizards curtain.

Lorien: Oh yeah. Around eight or nine they start to turn and you're like, what is this? Yeah. It's fun though. It's a fun journey. I have a question for you, Derek, about what you were talking about Meg, like, exposition and introducing a character and that act one, right? That part that's so hard to crack. And I was rewatching John Wick, still mad about the puppy, by the way. I'm sure you haven't heard that ever. 

Derek: Never 

Lorien: It's emotionally really devastating. And so I was rewatching it. 

Meg: Genius. Genius.

Lorien: Genius and genius. Genius. I mean, just like the, the, the way you introduce the character and the way you're showing the world. As you go along with him.

Meg: Yeah. You're not burdened with, I'm gonna tell you who John Wick is. You're just letting the everybody else's reactions about him.

Lorien: And then you get to the, you get to the continental, and it just keeps getting more and more and that's the world building comes after the character introduction and after the problem.

And I mean, basically it's genius and you know, thank you. But it seems really hard to do, to trust yourself and the audience. That they're gonna be patient enough to go on that journey with you.

Derek: Well, it's funny I love talking to writers because there's this unspoken notion of we both get each other but don't because we're all very different.

But we get it, you know? And I was not, I, I've been writing since the age of 8, 9, 10, you know. I remember watching Lethal Weapon when I was like 12 and for the first time catching the screenwriter, you know, Shane Black, going, oh wait, that's a job. You know? And that's what I wanted to do. I know writers who out the gate their voice, but it took me a while.

Because I think one of the greatest blessings and curses of loving movies is that sometimes your voice gets lost in your own little fandom. And it took me a while to find it. And I think for me it was that notion of Lee Marvin walking through LAX at the beginning of Point Blank over the opening credits and going, holy shit. This is a great white, right?

It's, it's watching Once Upon A Time in the West and there's no talking for the first, like 12 minutes of the intro, but it was unsettling in the best of ways because it was the visual and the sound. Right. And I think to me too is as the career goes on, I, a couple of years ago, I had a long meeting with Jet Lee and we're doing something together and, we just kind of geeked out over how action is an extension of the hero's journey. In other words, saying, you don't need to say what the hero is or you know, have the exposition be said by said hero. Just watch him. And we've all seen movies that within the 40-45 seconds you're like, I'm in.

I don't care where it goes. I am just rooting for this guy to get it to the end, you know? And so with John Wick, it was, you know, Sonia and my wife is the, the first line of defense, and then it was Josh Adler, who's my manager and a friend and family by now. And then you get the production company and then you get Keanu for three or four months every weekend night for four or five hours till late.

And then you get the directors, and then you get on set and then you're, you're shooting, you know, honestly. It was a whirlwind. And yet at the same time, to your point, you found yourself kind of massaging a new muscle going, oh, there, it is, you know, so my biggest takeaway from, you know, in, in regards to what you just said was, you know.

The audience is smart.

Meg: What's interesting though, I mean, you did set the tone of the movie immediately, right? In all of your movies, in all of your movies, that opening scene is, this is where the world you're going into, this is the tone. You may not know exactly what's happened or who he is or, right.

But don't you, how tonally, and you have such a specific tone in a lot of your films. And they are unique in it and of themselves. A lot of emerging writers get confused about tone and versus genre versus, and you are a master of tone. For you, do you just approach it as something you think about, do you not think about it, it's just story based? Or how do you approach tone or genre?

Derek: I write what I love to watch, you know, everything I write is, and I've said this way too many times in my life, is a love letter to being in the video station back in Madison, Wisconsin and looking at the wall of, you know, those tape boxes and going, I hope that one day I can be up here. You know, that kind of thing.

And when you look at the Roger Moore Bond movies, which are the ones that I grew up with, you begin with his, in essence, the last action sequence of a movie that doesn't exist. And it's fun. The tone is set and then you, you instantly go into those. Now they're, they're quite odd music videos, right? And then you're off to the race and usually the next shot is, Hey, here's the bad guy he's gonna take over the world.

Right? And I think the other thing too is I grew up watching a lot of westerns 'cause my dad and grandparents liked westerns and those set the tone instantly, like, absolutely. Like just lock stock and two smoking barrels in the first 30 seconds, you know? And then a lot of the noirish stuff, the sixties and seventies, especially the British things you knew immediately what the tone was.

And usually there was a brutality involved there. Right. But I also loved the Cohen brothers having an element of humor and an element of humanity, you know? Because for instance, I like action. You know, I like the operatic violence. I like the grounded plus 10%. I'm not a big horror kill guy.

I'm kind of like, I follow the eighties design if you get one. You know? But I think tone is, you know, when you sit down and you look at something. I comp everything because I fucking love movies, man. I reference Ronan way too much with De Niro, right? Frankenheimer, or Sneakers or I love Silverado, right?

Or Pale Rider or Three Days of the Condor. And as I say, all those movies, no matter what I write, you kind of know what the tone's gonna be. I know that there are some writers out there that can tonally go anywhere. But I had an interviewer once ask me, he's like, well, nobody seems a lot like John Wick.

I was like, good, you know, this is what I do well.

Lorien: Right. You have the person who's out of the life.

Derek: Yeah. Like, and that's what a Western is. It's a sub genre. You know,

Lorien: We will be right back. Welcome back to the show. When you say you comp everything for tone, practically speaking, is it in your head? Is it in a mood board? Like what are you doing?

Derek: I did this movie fourth quarter last year. We set up with Magnolia and it's coming out next year called Normal. And that was Ben Wheatley, Bob Owen Kirk starring myself, writing, producing along with Bob and Mark Profisario.

And my shorthand with Ben was we'd be, we'd be looking at a scene and he look at me and goes, “Remember that scene? Long Kiss goodnight, where you know, she's waiting in the Union station with Sam Jackson, the guy.” I was like, yeah. And then, by the way, it had nothing to do with the scene, but tonally that's what we were discussing is that look, feel, and appeal.

And I'd also say that the reason I bring up Sneakers a lot is I'm a huge fan of silent movies, and in fact, every Sunday night the kids and I and Sonya will watch Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, and, you know, we just, I just introduced 'em to Charlie Chase and like, it's amazing to learn tone in those movies because I gotta tell the kids like, Hey, this one's a drama.

It's gonna have a little bit of comedy in there, but like, I'm pretty sure this is not gonna end well. Right. But it's a masterclass in tone because all you have is that one card that comes up and it's always written in such a, it's not a complete sentence, they're always kind of weird, you know? 

So when I say a comp and tone, it's that it's. The scene in Sneakers where at the very beginning Robert Redford is breaking into the bank and he brings out a lock pick sack, and he's approaching the door and there's a keypad, you know, and he's like, huh. And he asks through his ear peers, so, how do I do this?

Uhhuh Uhhuh, Uhhuh. And he kicks in the door.

Lorien:  It's character. Yeah.

Derek: Everything about that told me the tone in the movie you know, action is an extension of the hero's journey. And what I'm getting into and you're just, I remember at the time watching that with my family in the theater, just chuckling going, I know what I'm in for.

You know?

Meg: That's so great. Now while we're on the craft, we would be remiss if we didn't talk about action sequences on the page. Of course, we see them up on the screen and how amazing they are. And you said they're an extension of the hero's journey, meaning it still is moving their character. 

But on the page, is there any insights you have to the read of that action sequence? Especially for our emerging writers who are just dipping their toes in here.

Lorien: Or for me, for, I wrote, I have a pilot that's action. So I went to my kids' karate class and I filmed things and routines that they were doing to try to figure out the best way to document so that a reader would like see it, but get the tone and the character of it. But it was still hard.

Derek: But everyone, everyone writes in screenwriting especially differently. I read a lot as a kid, you know, everything. But I loved Alice McClain and like the Destroyer series and Tom Clancy and you know, the old man from uncle, you know, novelizations and stuff.

And if you read those, they describe action because that's what you're getting into in those dime store paperback, yellow page novels that kind of smell like an expensive cheese at a certain point. But that's where I learned it from. And also when I write just even descriptions, it's just making sure that it's an entertaining read.

Like you're reading a short story. Now there's nothing wrong against a screenplay that reads like a computer manual, you know, or a programming guide. But like, to me, it's easier to write in prose because that's what I loved reading when I was a kid, you know? And then when it comes to actually building out the action.

It depends on where it is. If it's speculative, I'll tend to write it out more. But if it's a larger scene, it's like, here's the setting, here's the characters. If it's a gunfight and it's one versus like seven I go into more detail just to make sure that numerically in your mind's eye, you're seeing it all.

But if it's like a car chase sequence where it's gonna be mayhem. Or if it's gonna be that last fight between the two, the big bad and the hero. I always like to do the first couple of moves, turns, crashes, what have you. And then I do a lot of stuff formatting and italicize and bold and underline so that when you get to the page, you're just like, oh, I gotta focus now.

And in your mind's eye, you just, you feel the macro of it all. It's like, to me, my favorite heroes are like John McClain from Die Hard or even, you know, ramble from the first couple of movies where he almost dies, getting to where he needs to be. Because really a hero to me is someone who has empathy and will, you know?

He's not the best. He or she's gonna get there, right? And then put an exclamation point on the last kill or, or how the action ends, or, you know, this, this or that. But I would also say, just to make sure that you don't have 11 pages of an action sequence, because first of all, when I write a first draft, it's usually a hundred twenty one, a hundred twenty four pages, but it has all the parentheticals and connective tissue. And I make sure that there are wide spaces so that Sonia, when she goes through on her iPad, there's room for the notes. And then once all of our notes are done, I come back and the second draft usually is 105.

And then ideally the final draft that goes in is gonna be sub 100, like 99 is the sweet spot. And if you can fit all of that in there and it's a cohesive three act structure and you're still enjoying what you're doing, then I did it right.

Meg: And Sonya, just so we all are clear, is your wife correct? Yes. And she, yes.

I think we read a quote that she's your first line of defense. Can you talk about that collaboration and, and what she does for you?

Derek: For years we lovingly referred to her as the script bitch because she's, she's tough, right? And yet over the years, what I think is really interesting, as I've, as I've found my voice the notes tend to have to do far more with grammar, spelling, nuance, and subtext, and not the broad strokes, just because we've been doing this for a while.

When we got married, I was 30, she was 23. And as we're figuring out what we're gonna do with our lives, you know, I was like, I, as I was making a little on the side, I wanted to do the writing.

And she's like, you do the writing. But we would at least, I think once a month or once a quarter, be like, okay, can I keep doing this? You know, can I keep, can we keep doing this? And, you know, she was the one who had the, she was the breadwinner and said, yeah, keep doing it. You know, and in fact, when John Wick was sold and we got that first like that sole writer credit bonus the first thing she said was.

Awesome. Can I quit my job? And I was like, yes.

You know, let's try something, you know, let's try something different. And, but we also came from the background of you save, you invest, you give, you live beneath your means, you know? So even with that first check, it was pay off credit card debt, pay off mom and dad, right?

And then put the rest in the bank because you never know. It's such a speculative industry. But when I think of Sonya and when I think of Josh Adler's circle. When I give them something and they give me notes, when I do that pass, it gets better. It doesn't get different, you know, and, and again, not to cut on, like, I know what that process is like, but with them it gets better.

Lorien: You're lucky. You've got these brilliant people who you trust to work with you in that way. That's amazing. But also it's faith in yourself that you'll take the notes and make it better, not just different.

Derek: The only note, and I, and I've said this before. We'll have small little fights, not fights. It's a screenplay.

No one. Don't you get hurt? 

Lorien: Married people don't have fights. No.

Derek: Not at all. She was reading the first draft of John Wick and hit page 11, and I just heard her from the other room go, “Nope, nope, nope.” And big X for the page. And it was the one thing that she'll admit. All right,

Lorien: Well I think everyone had that reaction while watching it.

Oh yeah, nope. No, no. And then you see the trail and you're like, no, the puppy lives, that's fine. And then it doesn't, and it's awful.

Derek: Couple years ago I showed Naya and Harry, those are my twins, the trailer for John Wick, you know, and it was the green bad one. And they're very quiet in the middle of the trailer, and Naya says.

Why is he killing all of those people? And I said, because they killed his dog. And my 7-year-old went “good.”

Lorien: Yep.

Meg: It's the golden rule. You can kill as many people as you want, but you cannot kill a dog. But I love the genius of it that you know, before I saw John Wick, I had heard that new myth of it's all about a dog.

And then of course you watch it and you're like, no it isn't. There's literally five minutes of his wife dying and the dog is the wife. And that's what's so genius. 'cause if you had just made it the wife. We kind of feel like we'd seen it and just the genius of letting that transfer happen and the transfer happens a bit in Nobody too, in terms of the bracelet for the daughter.

Right. That kind of gets him out the door, and I love that such a seemingly small thing in, in terms of a bracelet, but it's standing in for so much more character and the character drive and you know, so many of your characters have that wolf. Quote, unquote normal guy, fight inside of them.

And how that thing unlocks them, unlocks the wolf, so to speak.

Derek: But I, and I think too, that there's a fine line between what a revenge movie is and what a justice movie is. I think most of us love the movies where, dude, he would've done it anyway just for justice sake, you know, because the difference between John Wick and Hutch from Nobody is, I think, you know, especially when we see where we went with that character. Hutch wanted an excuse, you know, to go back to it.

There's a, you know, Bob and I always talked about an addiction, and one of the things I always talk about is when you watch a movie there, you hear about who the character was. You watch who he is, and in essence, who he's going to be, be it at the end of the first movie or the 11th movie, you know.

And the thing with John was always, and there were a lot of directors that wouldn't, you know, big names that were circling that thing, saying it can't be his dog. It has to be his whole family. Right? And to me, you know, I, I just looked at it as like, here's a guy that found something. He found love, he found redemption. He found salvation, you know, and he escaped.

And this dog is, you know, an extension of his wife. It's an innocent thing. It symbolizes what he has earned when he even probably thought he shouldn't have earned this. And then when it was taken away, I don't think he wanted to get back his life. He's like, because you had, because you took this from me, justice.

It's not revenge, just it has to be what's right. You know, even though if it's kind of fucked up.

Meg: But what I love about what you're saying, 'cause the other thing we're always talking to emerging writers or myself is the difference between a situation and a story and the situation of killing your whole family.

It feels situational. Meaning, I'm not saying it couldn't have been part of a story, but it's kind of an outside in executive or like, let's kill his whole family and then we'll all be mad versus the character. You just talked so much about character and the complexity of his character and where he is going and where he’s been, and that that dog is not a justice situation.

It's a movement of this guy and unleashing him into the justice. And it is a lot like Nobody, but I love that bus scene where he's like, please get on this bus. Like he so desperately wants to let this go.

Derek: I fought because voiceover is tough for me. I think you should either not use it or use it, the whole movie.

And Bob was the one, he was like, no, no, I think we need it here. And I lost that and the movie won. And I still love that scene. And I also love that he's thrown off the bus and gets back on.

Lorien: Yes.

Derek: And Daniel Bernhardt, who's the actor with the fucked up teeth on that one. He's our good luck charm. You know, he was in two, he was in the first John Wick, he's a painter right over in Serbia. And when you think about that scene too, is, yes, they had trained for months and Bob had trained for years to get in shape, but they shot that whole sequence in one night.

Meg: So they really are as tired as they look.

Derek: Oh yeah. Well they are, but the reason it works so well is Bob, his energy and Daniel, his energy because you know, I was coming from somewhere else. It was my first night visiting the set. I had to go back because I was just so tired. But Bob was like, he would finish a scene and he'd be like, ‘yeah!’ Like that energy. You're just like, we're in it now. Like 12 hours of this. And your star isn't going back to his trailer. He's like, ‘fucking hell, let's do it again. How awesome is this?’ You know?

Meg: I love that so much.

Lorien: I have a question going back into the conversation. We all know, or should be aware of, how step deals work when you're writing a feature, right? You get 10% at commencement of you know, the fee for the writing of the feature, you get, the money comes in in sections when you sell a movie on spec. Do you get one check?

Derek: No, because you know, you have a couple of things. One because of the WGA, the last time they'll take 10% of that and say, that's step two. Congratulations. You know? And usually, usually everything I do is, in TV it's two steps, and sometimes three. In film, it tends to be three, you know, where it's, delivery, rewrite, polish. Even though rewrite and polish might be page one writes, you know, like, you know, the, the idea of what they might be is elusive. 

And again, too, you know, I have something right now that has multiple parties involved and people are like, ‘Ooh, bidding war.’ It's like, ‘ah, no, you just have multiple parties involved.’ And you know, when I talk to young writers, it's like, ‘don't look at the contract. Because if you look at that sole writer credit you're a very rich man,’ you know, or a woman. But the first number is the only real one, you know? And even then. You see that first number and it's 10% to an agent, 10% to a manager, 5% to a lawyer. I have a money manager, 5% there, and then 1.5% to WGA. And then you're talking third. 

Meg: And then your taxes.

Lorien: Taxes. 

Derek: Then your taxes, right. 

Lorien: So you're getting less than half of what that amount is, easily. 

Derek: Yeah. I remember talking to a director and he, he is a big director and he said, for every million dollars I pocket $333,000. And first of all, I'm like, ‘for every million?’ Like we're talking, ‘you're doing okay there, man.’ You know? But honestly too, it's like I want it made, you know, we all have friends, and I'm sure you do, that have maybe been doing this longer professionally they mak enough to survive, if not have a good living, but they've never seen anything produced. And, that's not my goal. You know, I want to say, ‘Hey mom, check out that thing.’

Meg: Yeah. Now, when you do get it produced, if you're working, are you ever, as the writer working directly with the actors, I think you said earlier, working with Keanu, and how is that for you as a writer? Do you have to set any boundaries? Have you ever had to say no

Derek: Again, I think I've been blessed with the, like, Keanu Reeves and Bob Odenkirk and Sebastian Stan and Walton Goggins and Amber Midthunder, and I could keep going. But the people I've been working with recently, I've been blessed. Because, what they recognize is let's say ‘no,’ I draft off the idea, you know, usually if the note isn't a section, it means the section isn't working for them. They don't really care that their suggestion is discarded or accepted. It's like, I, there's something about this section, you know. 

By the time I usually have the hook in the cheek with an actor, it isn't that, they're like, I wanna ‘rip out the spine, the heart and change the brain.’ It's usually ‘No, I'm in, but, you know, it'd be cool if–’ And so to me, I don't really care about the surface stuff. And I, and I'm not a showrunner. I, partner with them. I'd rather just go create new stuff, 'cause that's a different creature. And it's a creature of respect, but it's not, it's not me.

Like same thing with directors. I don't wanna direct, producing and writing is cool. But also what I love about working with an actor is, how many times does an actor attach themselves to a screenplay that never gets made? When I do the dance with an actor. They're gonna be hard pressed to walk away if you know, what they have worked with me is on the page and we're getting closer to that starting line. Right?

And you know, to me too, not every movie needs to be a sequel, but, I love the idea that a lot of the actors I work with now, I say to them like, look, ‘I'm just gonna take WGA minimum times two because the paperwork, it's weird from a producing standpoint, and instead of doing it for this number, let's do it for a third of that, because that's all we need.’ 

You know, it's you and I on the ground and people, they love that, you know, there's no empty suits walking on set. It's all on you, right? And the last thing I'd say to this though is I absolutely adore my working relationship with Bob. He comes from improv and standup, and I come from action. And what we kind of realized is, it's the same thing.

Like a good action sequence is between three and five minutes long, a good routine, like an improv sequence, three to five minutes long. And we give productions heart attacks on the first day or so, until they realize what's going on, where Bob shows up to write, to do his scenes, hands me his pages with all of his notes.

I have 8 to 12 minutes to do a quick pass on the scenes, and I don't verbatim his notes, but I, we know each other well enough now that I completely understand what's going on, and now everyone is having a heart attack. Then I turn over the pages and what they realize is it's all in the dialogue.

The scene isn't physically longer or shorter from a psychological appeal. And by day two or three they didn't care that they were getting, you know, that the shooting pages two minutes before the scene. 'Cause they just saw how we worked together. Kinda like what you were talking about. And nobody, the voiceover that was Bob, and Bob was right.

Then other times I may be right on the day, he may be right on the day. But then you get to post and you realize it's not working. Because I remember even on normal, Ben, we're in week two and he texted me and he goes, we're about 15% darker. And I was like, ‘oh, I know what that means.’ And so you go through a screenplay and you take out a couple of quips here and there, or like the jokes that would've worked 15% less, you know? And then he called me later and he is like, perfect.

Lorien: He says it's 15% darker. Where were you in production at that point that you could make those changes?

Derek: So like week two. Oh, okay. 

Lorien: So you could go back into the script. Okay.

Derek: And, and it, wasn't a matter of, and by the way, it, it was, it wasn't a matter and it was a matter of any, everything and nothing. It's just, you know, when they're seeing the dailies. And what I love about Ben and Garrett does the same thing. A lot of 'em people are doing this. They have an onset editor that as you visit the set, it's like you wanna see the movie and they, they are, they're cutting the selection with you know, temporary music, sound effects, all that kind of stuff.

So you're gonna feel the movie. As this thing's coming together, it's realizing, hey, ‘that character who we cast that's known for a little bit of humor, he actually played it better as darker. And then it's like, oh, okay, so that line he has later that's a little bit would've fit that other guy in the script. It's just that kind of thing. 

Ben said to me at one point, he is like, ‘it's a lot of people out there that think that you can write a screenplay and just sell it to the masses for millions of dollars, right?’ When in reality, it's a roadmap, it's a suggestion. It's an architectural design that has to be a living document to get a movie made.

Lorien: So when you're writing and you are aware of this, but you're still doing all the things you need to tell the story and the character, are you writing it to be read?

Derek: Yes, exactly. I mean, when you think of, you walk into any office and I mean now it's all, you know, I'm, I'm gonna say this, like, you know, I'm 130 years old, but like you, the stack of screenplays, right?

Lorien: Brad's, all held together with Brad's. 

Derek: Dude. Exactly. But people are reading screenplays. You wanna stand out as a screenplay, well written. You know, because there are screenplays out there where it's like: Jim walks into the bar, dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. Jim walks outta the bar trips, you know, or whatever, and you're like, well, it, it's excellent because of the dialogue, right? But I actually like 8 to 12 minutes of silence. And if you're gonna get the reader in, you kind of have to be entertaining in the written word.

Lorien: What does that look like on the page? Right? So you don't just have like, wall. So you said you use like bold italic spacing when you're doing action>

Derek: Go back and read anything written by Stephen King, any of his shorts. 'Cause that's what he does so well. And, and what I mean by that is a lot of times, and him as well, you can go into a character's mind, right? That's really, you shouldn't do that in a screenplay, but you can actually kind of go to the reader, ‘she's lost, you know, she's scared. But you know what? She's he's gonna walk through that door because that's who she is.’

However you want to say that in the action. And again, it's to your point of going to, I think it's a karate class, or watching the old westerns, or watching a martial arts movie, or watching a horror movie, especially a horror movie, and going, what does this look like on a page for the genre? I'm, I'm selecting, you know.

Meg: I have a question about getting notes. Studios are the buyers sometimes. But even before talking to you, they'll, I dunno if this happens to you, maybe this doesn't, you know, they'll send you the 10 pages of notes once there was different dialogue colored. So I knew that it was coming from all different people and you could see that some poor person had to cut and paste them all together. If you could speak to the executives who are giving you notes, what would be your piece of advice to them about giving notes,

Derek: You know, most, most all the projects I have are with producers and the executives, and usually it's the producer who brought me in, or there's the producer I know and by the time the notes get to me, they are what you just said. T They got the studio notes, they have their internal notes. They have notes from the Zoom, and then they'll compile them all, you know, and then what I do is, I’ll ask for it in Pages or a Word document, and I'll go through it and I'll just respond to each note going, I think I'm gonna do it this way.

I see what you're saying here, but how about this? I might be pitching massive things, but it's in a line or two. And what's nice about that is then we'll go on a Xoom again and they can see what I'm thinking. And if there's pushback, and at that point, there rarely is because dude, we're all trying to get this, the thing made. And, and rarely at this stage of the game do I get a, a note that's egregious or onerous. 

And again, the producers I, I'm working with as both a, just a producer, as a writer-producer, or just a, as a writer, we, we have the shorthand now so that by the time they get to me, if there's a big problem, we'll talk about it. But it's kind of like, it, rarely is a big problem. Now sometimes I still hit big problems and usually it's like, ‘what a great concept. Shit. What's the second act?’ It sounds really broad, but like it's one of the biggest problems with movies of going, what a great concept. I see act one in act three, and then you're like, yeah, but the movies act two,

Lorien: Plot narrative, spine, that little thing.

Derek: But remember like the joke, we have, like Josh and I joke that the last polish is making sure the plot works. Because everything leading up to that point is, does the tone, the action, the world build? Do you like these characters? Do you believe it? You know, and then you get to the end, you're like, oh yeah, does the plot make sense? Because a lot of times there are movies you watch and you're like, if you pay really close attention to that plot, right? It's stupid as shit. Right? But you don't care 'cause you love the characters, you know? Right.

Lorien: I love that. Meg and I work with a lot of emerging writers, and the want always become, we say, what does your band character want? And it's always a need or a lesson or the theme rather than the plot. And then they get hung up on the plot relating to the. The lesson, the need. It can't just be like, I need to find the baseball glove for this very compelling reason. Like the plot itself.

Derek: It's the reason behind the want too. The story I tell people all the time is, is go watch Point Blank with Lee Marvin, and there's this great line where I think he's after $68,000 and they, and that he goes to the guy, he goes, ‘I want my $68,000.’ And he says, ‘I'll pay you 68,000 bucks to go away.’ And then Lee says, ‘No, no, I want my $68,000.’ And in that moment you're like, ‘oh, it ain't about the money.’ You know? Right. You're like, oh, this guy is, this guy's a great white. I want to eat that. Man, you, it's the reason.

Lorien: Yeah. It's the reason why.

Derek: Yep.

Lorien: Right. Like you killed my puppy.

Derek: Yeah. Or even, even going to like the kitty cat bracelet, he was looking for an excuse, you know?

Lorien: Yes, yes.

Derek: And even when you look back at movies where they're like, ah, that's just a McGuffin. It's like, yeah, but sometimes the McGuffin is the most important fucking thing.

Meg: So you have such a clear voice. When you're adapting existing IP, Splinter Cell, Helsing, how do you balance your own voice with that voice of that Ip?

Derek: It has to be a duet, I mean. I think those, and I, and again, like I, I think it's a duet between my voice and the voice, the IP. And I think those are the ones that work best. I mean, even look at how much my kids loved, you know, so Mario Brothers or Minecraft, like the, the creative, the writer, the director, the, it's an ensemble. It's a symphony. 

And when I meet with authors, especially, 'cause the problem with video games, not the problem the challenge they face is usually that there isn't enough there for an adaptation. The problem with the book is there's too much, you know, and I used to say it was easier to go, not enough than too much, but really it's project by project.

But I'll, I'll talk with the author and just say, look, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna rip the spine outta your book. I'm gonna keep the brain. I keep the heart and I gotta rebuild the body to actually be able to swim in a movie or a series, you know? And a hundred percent of the time after we have that conversation, we're just, we're just both cackling together going, let's bring this thing to a different kind of life.

It's like when people say, oh, the book's better than the movie. It's like, yeah, okay. But have you read or watched The Hunt For October? They're very different and both fucking amazing. So, and then, you know, there are other books that the movie was better and vice versa, but like, to be honest, come on man. We love Bond. We love Lord of the Rings, Assassin.

Lorien: Oh. Jason Bourne.

Derek: Jason Bourne. But there have been times where people have talked to me about adaptations. The last thing I'd say, where they step aside, you know, for the, the voice, the IP, and I, I still think it's a dance. Like I, I think that you have to, not saying you have to make it your own, but. You're working alongside a silent partner who's much smarter than you and isn't saying anything, and in the best possible situation, people go see Lord of the Rings, and they're like, I should go read that book. You know?

Lorien: Well, if you do, you might see my name in it.

Derek: Boom.

Lorien: There you go. For the fandom, what if you're asked to adapt a book or you're interested in adapting a book that has no spine? Only has heart and, you know, brains and fingernails, but no spine. Like what is it when you're reading a property to consider adopting that? You're like, yes, I'm the only one who can do this. Your voices are in duet and will be good.

Derek: Yeah. When I, when I say spine, it's the story, right? It's the plot, right. And back to Lord of the Rings. I honestly think that was a tough one, you know? Because there is a lot of sitting around a fireplace. Singing songs and telling poetry. 

Lorien: Like book two, it's like, where are they? They're just wandering around.

Derek: Yeah, I know. But I think a lot of times too if I've been involved in projects that didn't get to the, the start out, the starting gate for production because usually the studio says, we wanna go back to the book, you know, which is a bit of a cheat.

We sometimes, we all know what that means, and sometimes we don't. Right? But usually because I'm, I'm working a lot of times not in tandem with the author. Most, I'd say most of the authors I worked with are like, ‘no, no, no. Go do your thing. We loved what you did over here, and I read this script and you know, go do your thing.’

Meg: Do you, I, I'm gonna think the answer to this is gonna be no, but I'm curious. Does your well ever run dry, either in terms of a new project or when you're in the middle of a project and you get lost or you're something like, I don't know, does that ever happen to you?

Derek: Well, you know, when it comes to just general spec ideas that well overflows, you know. Like those two treatments I wrote this week. They were just, I shouldn't have done them because I had other work to do, but I really needed to get 'em on my head, you know, and there's nothing like just sitting in that chair behind me with an air purifier next to my head and just fucking sprinting going, you know, laughing to yourself, seeing the movie come alive.

Right. I think the hardest part is, the will, at a certain point because, you know, we all have projects that, years, you know, because they go away, they come back, or a step takes a year and it's not, it's not like you and I are working on every day. It's that you're waiting six months to a year for notes from some giant name.

And the hardest thing for me is, you know, the joke I have with Josh is how's you know. How's that script coming? I fucking hate it. It means we're almost done, you know? And it's true. I mean, I, and, and again, it's a loving kind of fucking hate, right? 

Lorien: Of course.

Derek: It's tough, man. And there are times where I avoid things for, all the way up to the end. And it, by the way, it's not, you know, it's not, I'm putting it off. I just don't want to do it, and then I open it up and I put on the blinders and I work for six hours and I'm done. But the hardest part was to open up that fucking file.

Meg: Do you? You open the file. I find that helps me too. Just open it. Look at something, look at the character. Do you do anything else to get yourself inside that thing that you're feeling so reluctant to?

Derek: It's all weird psychological stuff, I think, for all of us. But if there is a section that I need to focus on, I'll just cut and paste the section into a new file folder or a new into a new file and say it's this script, this section. Right. And it just feels like I look at the page count of 7 to 15 pages instead of like 104 or whatever it is. It's these weird little psychological things for me. Right. 

And then I also, I'll reward myself with being able to write something new. But that, that's just for me. So going, ‘Hey, if I do these five sections, I get to write, fade in. If I do these five sections, I get to write two pages of a new treatment.’ I love, I love writing, you know, but no one loves rewriting.

Lorien: I like rewriting. Here's, so here's the caveat though. I can't open that document sometimes, right? Like, but once I get into it, I have something to work with. So I feel like, okay, and then it gets all messy and then I panic and cry a little bit. But it's easier for me to start with something if I have a clear idea of what I'm doing. 

Meg: There's a lot of caveats there. There's a lot of caveats there, Lorien. 

Lorien: Okay. I hate it. I hate rewriting. I was trying to be bold and optimistic about part of the process. And it's a lie. It's a lie.

Derek: It's not just me though too.So like, so when we did the, you know, to get it the next step for Shield of Sparrows, it's tough. 'cause it's a big book. A lot of characters. 

Lorien: Yes, it is.

Derek: –and what I had done was– 

Lorien: –and I can't wait by the way.

Derek: Oh, thanks.

Lorien: This is one of my favorite genres, so I'm super excited.

Derek:  I'm very, very proud of this one. But when I, when I did the treatment for myself, it was going, this is the kind, we all sit around going, see the movie, that kind of thing. And then as I get frustrated, it's, it's looking at, Josh and looking at Sonja and talking to them and just really kind of drafting off, because of the trio, one will have a little bit more interest or energy and it just becomes a little bit of a snowball effect. So, I'm never alone in that process. I'm never, I'm always alone in the writing process. But I'm not alone in the, ‘Hey, this is how I think you should come at it.’ 

Meg: I, that's why I love having a writing partner. All right, so we are coming to the end. So we are gonna ask you, we have a craft question for you that we ask a lot of our guests. For you, what are the elements of a good scene?

Derek: You know, I use the phrase way too much, but I think, it's the same thing for every good story and every element of every good story is to be unique, yet familiar, familiar, yet unique. And we all can see in, a story, in a video game or a movie or television show or anything when the people making it care about it, you know? 

We've all seen some of the best action sequences ever. Then you don't go and rewatch him on YouTube or later because the movie just didn't work. Like there was no heart and soul. And so even though, you know, hammering this nail home, action is an extension of the hero's journey. It's not that every line in your screen play should matter, but it should it should matter to you. 

And so to me, what makes a great scene is that I cared enough to write the best scene I could.

Meg: And rewrite the scene.

Derek: Yeah.

Lorien: Which apparently I don't love. So I mean, epiphanies abound everywhere. Then at the end, we ask all our guests the same three questions. And the first question is, what brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing?

Derek: The most joy is being alone in here anytime of day, and turning off the phone, turning off the wifi. Turning off everything, and just opening up a brand new file and writing fade in. 

Meg: That does sound warm. 

Lorien: And it sounds great when you pitch it in practicality, it scares the shit outta me every single time.

Meg: Love it. I love it. Okay, second question. What pisses you off about writing?

Derek: You know, I got two answers. The first is, with humor. What's funny to me isn't funny to you or might be caught not, not be caught by you. Right. That's why hard, hard comedy I don't do, and I respect the hell outta the people who do that. So the perception of the readers is still that thing that pisses me off for the like, ‘oh, I hated this element.’ You're like, no, you know, it's the communication of going like, I thought I communicated that right. You know, that's one. 

The other thing is. I don't think it's an age thing. I'm not gonna say it's that, but when you, when you can figure out the complex things, but not the fucking simple ones, right. When you, you know. You know how you can, you can go like, oh, let's change the plot around. And, you know, by doing a word search that you have to do, page 11, 74, oh wait, 51 and 92. You just know that you can do all that. And then you have one scene and they're like, make this character a little bit smarmier, and you're like, how? Like it should be just one description. That is the thing that pisses me off. 

Lorien: One line of dialogue. 

Meg: So true. So true. 

Lorien: Oh God. So our last question is so far, what's your proudest Hollywood moment?

Derek: Oh, I'm not gonna cry, but I'm gonna cry. So my Grandpa Wick, who died last year earlier, earlier this year I named the character after him. He's nothing like John Wick. I just loved the guy so much. And when John Wick opened and, you know, again, it had a pretty good run for a little action movie.

It wasn't until secondary, tertiary that it took off. We were in our little condo in Pasadena. And my mom sent me a little video he did with local news and they asked him about him and he in essence said I've always known that Derek loved movies and he's always wanted to do this, and I'm just so happy and proud that.

Meg: Aw. Aw. That, that's amazing. 

Lorien: That makes me emotional too. What an amazing, beautiful thing.

Derek: Yeah.

Lorien: That's lovely.

Derek:Although this is the funny part. Oh, okay. Okay. He never saw it because it was, it was R R-rated and he told me the reason he doesn't watch R-rated movies is that the last R-rated movie he took it that he went to with my grandmother was The Piano.

Lorien: Oh.

Derek: Lot of Harvey in that one, you know?

Lorien: Yeah. Yeah. I love that, makes, somehow makes the story even better. It's awesome.

Meg: It's just awesome. Yes, it's even better. He didn't see it. It's even better. Derek, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. 

Lorien: Really enjoyed it. Yeah.

Derek: Pleasure guys.