The official GRAYSON SCREENPLAY

Major update to the Untamed Cinema website.

www.untamedcinema.com

Check it out. Lots of new features and distractions.

Chief amoung these, Mr. Fiorella has released his full, feature-length screenplay of GRAYSON. So if you were ever hoping for the Grayson movie - this is about as close as it gets.

All the mysteries of the trailer are revealed. It's a great read and we welcome your comments and critiques. Just please don't post spoilers.

Thanks for all your support and happy reading.

Gabe

 

SPOILERS APLENTY AHEAD

I want to go on record saying that I absolutely loved Grayson. It's still my favorite Batman-related fan film, especially after seeing the filmmaking process in the behind-the-scenes video. The project obviously had a lot of heart.

That said, I was less than thrilled with the screenplay.

I read it through, and went back to watch the Grayson trailer again to get reacquainted. I was surprised to watch it again, seeing that only somewhere between one-third and one-half of the trailer made it into the screenplay. Part of my joy of the ability to read the screenplay was getting to see how everything in the trailer, which is a LOT, would all get pieced together. And to have more than half of it not even be there, it was a bit of a letdown.

This would have been very different had the trailer not preceded the screenplay. Being just a piece of fan fiction on its own is one thing. However, the trailer does give a certain elvel of expectation, especially having been out for three years now.

The trailer also implies a different story. It seemed as though Dick Grayson returned as Robin for some time, fighting various villains before the film's climax. In the screenplay, Robin doesn't actually appear until the climax. Not coming back right away was fine. It gave a nice personal adventure to Dick Grayson and allowed for a costume-less story, not unlike Heroes today. Is it bad, not really. It was just implied that we'd see a lot more of Robin being Robin in the trailer. Also, the Selina/O'Hara relationship was practically nonexistent.

The story structure was a little weird. I really did not see any point to the story of having Dick in a coma for two years. Taking him out of the equation long enough for the investigation to "go away" was one thing, but it wouldn't have been two years. It could have easily been a few months.

The JLA stuff seemed to clutter the screenplay a lot. Yes, it's cool to see Robin interact with the League, but I think it would have been better to focus more on Dick Grayson and his personal conflicts more than trying to include the larger scope of the DCU.

Also, there's no denouement and resolution. The story just...ends. What happened with Chief O'Hara? He just kind of disappeared in the third act.

The story obviously assumes that the audience is at least vaguely familiar with the DCU and its characters (and being a fan film that's not an incorrect assumption by any means), but to just change character traits without explanation is kind of tough to do.

I know you said that there were liberties taken with a lot of characters. Some are good, but many just feel like betrayals. Gordon being the killer? Fine. But why doesn't he say anything? After two years and it being an accident? Just felt very odd. And Joker taking the credit for it just seemed VERY out of character. Especially given the relationship between Joker and Batman. Barbara was a bit strange as well. It was nice to see she's "made a recovery" but why is she so against taking Bruce's estate? There was an impetus given for why Dick no longer fought crime, but nothing for Barbara. Even if it was something small like a line like "I gave up that life when my daughter was born," just something to clearly define her reasons why. It was also weird how she seemed very opposed to the vigilante life yet returned to it as Batgirl VERY quickly at the end. Especially given her physical limitations: she had a bad back, she hadn't trained like Dick had prior to returning to the costume, so that journey into how she got back into it would have been very powerful to see, and not seeing it is a little disappointing.

Overall it seems like the screenplay is a collection of a lot of cool "what if" scenarios that show a lot of things that would be awesome to see, but it doesn't take a lot of time in explaining why things are that way. It would make for a decent action movie but for something with the depth of the DC Universe it fell a little short.

Not that it's all bad. The story is o

 

FINALLY!

I'll be reading...

EDIT: Ugh, that was disappointing. The screenplay did indeed have a weird structure, lacked any sort of falling action, and really failed to capture the DCU characters IMO. Such a shame, but it doesn't change the fact that the fanfilm itself is fantastic. I just expected a little more out of the full story.

 

Well I definitely think it would have made a decent movie. However I wished there would have been more explanation to the Batman/Superman fallout and also the Selina storyline. The script definitely took a lot of liberties, but taking comic characters and translating them into a story worth telling is hard. Grayson still sits at the top of my list of best hero films made.

I did not care much for how it ended, and Robin needed to come in sooner. Trailer definitely was a better representation. Still hope your next project goes well and love your work!