In this How Would This Be a Movie case study, John interviews screenwriter William Nicholson (Les Misérables, Gladiator) on the challenges he faced with his script for Thirteen Lives, a film that follows the attempted rescue of a Thai soccer team trapped in a cave in 2018. They cover issues of life rights, competing projects, narrative point of view and cultural sensitivity.

Before that, John and Craig discuss end-of-year news in Hollywood, the recent changes to HBO Max, and what that means for creators and audiences in the new year.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we discuss our aspirations and resolutions for 2023.

Links:

• William Nicholson on IMdB
• Watch the conversation between John and William here
• Thank you to the Writers Guild Foundation for organizing the event!
• Use Promo Code ONION for two months free in our annual Scriptnotes premium membership
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Welcome to Digital Nomadland by Kyle Jeffers for Wired
• Fleischman Is In Trouble on Hulu
• Andor
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Michael Lane (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at [email protected]

You can download the episode here.