This is it! The four finalists have had their day, and now it’s your turn, dear readers, to crown a champion. I feel like I’m cueing up a juicy episode of Love Island. Will those who voted for these scripts stay loyal? Or, now that you’ve read the full five pages from each contender, will you cheat on your original pick and switch teams?
And what about the votes from the other six entries? Where will they land? I’m buzzing like I just downed three two-liters of Mountain Dew over all this suspense.
The rules are simple: cast your vote in the comments below. The winner gets a full script review on Monday! Voting closes at 10 p.m. Pacific Time this Sunday night. Links to all four scripts—and their first five pages—are below. If you’re still undecided, time to dig in and make the call.
Are we ready?!
I’m ready!
LET’S DO THIS! MEGA-SHOWDOWN FINAL VOTING STARTS NOW!
Title: SMOKESCREEN
Genre: War-action.
Logline: Shot down by the Red Baron, a Nurse with a photographic memory must navigate the perils of no-man’s land to transport critical intelligence to the Allies that will save countless lives and shorten the Great War.
Link to first five pages
Title: Hard Labor
Genre: Real-Time Action Thriller
Logline: A heavily pregnant woman is found by criminals she’s been hiding from and the shock makes her go into labor. Now she must awaken old skills to survive this night – because killers are coming…but so is the baby.
Link to first five pages
Title: The First Horseman
Genre: Thriller
Logline: At the height of World War 2, a young Japanese-American investigator must race to prevent a terrifying Japanese plot to unleash a devastating plague on the United States. Inspired by true events.
Link to first five pages
Title: QB1
Genre: Action-thriller
Logline: A star quarterback hides a twisted secret—he’s a serial killer carving up victims between games. But when a relentless detective starts connecting the dots, his perfect season—and double life—begin to unravel. American Psycho meets Any Given Sunday.
Link to first five pages
There was a tight race for that last finalist slot and it was Smokescreen that rose to the occasion. A great screenwriter once said that one of the best logline hacks you can use is to include something that already occupies real estate in the potential reader’s head. Familiarity has a shocking amount of influence over a reader. I have to admit, it happened to me with Smokescreen. I saw “Red Baron” and I immediately replied, “Ooh, I know the Red Baron!”
I then went back into my own digital databank and realized that they hadn’t made a movie about the Red Baron in forever! That was enough to get me to read the pages excitedly. And I felt like the writing was strong enough for the script to enter the showdown. So, here you go!
A quick reminder about how this contest works. This week, the top four vote-getting scripts from the Mega-Showdown last weekend will get their own featured day. Monday was QB1. Tuesday was The First Horseman. Wednesday was Hard Labor. And today is Smokescreen. I will post the first five pages of every script on their day. I want you to read those pages because, come Friday, we’re having the second half of the showdown where you will vote for your favorite of the four finalists.
To be clear, THERE IS NO VOTING TODAY. This is strictly about reading Smokescreen’s first five pages. Also, if you like what you see in the pages, you can download the entire script. Let us welcome our final finalist, Nick Philippa!
Title: SMOKESCREEN
Genre: War-action.
Logline: Shot down by the Red Baron, a Nurse with a photographic memory must navigate the perils of no-man’s land to transport critical intelligence to the Allies that will save countless lives and shorten the Great War.
Some of you said that this script had no shot because some similar movie came out recently. Well guess what? I haven’t heard of that movie. And I hear about everything. So, it can’t be that big. Remember, there’s the kiddie pool side of the industry and there’s the deep end. Just because someone makes a cheapie version of a dinosaur valley for the kiddie pool audience doesn’t mean Universal isn’t going to make Jurassic World for the deep end audience. So, fear not, Hard Labor! You could be headed for the deep end.
A quick reminder about how this contest works. This week, the top four vote-getting scripts from the Mega-Showdown last weekend will get their own featured day. Monday was QB1. Yesterday was The First Horseman. And today is Hard Labor. I will post the first five pages of every script on their day. I want you to read those pages because, come Friday, we’re having the second half of the showdown where you will vote for your favorite of the four finalists.
To be clear, THERE IS NO VOTING TODAY. This is strictly about reading Hard Labor’s first five pages. Also, if you like what you see in the pages, you can download the entire script. Let us welcome finalist number three, Mike Hurst. Mike, best of luck to you!
Title: Hard Labor
Genre: Real-Time Action Thriller
Logline: A heavily pregnant woman is found by criminals she’s been hiding from and the shock makes her go into labor. Now she must awaken old skills to survive this night – because killers are coming…but so is the baby.
We got the trailer version of this screenplay in the First Page Showdown. Now, it’s grown into an entire script. People lovvvvvved this first page. But can it survive the relentless deconstruction of every single word by the Scriptshadow audience?? You would’ve thought QB1 was an actual serial killer who was best friends with Sydney Sweeney from some of those comments. The Scriptshadow faithful does not hold back, that’s for sure.
A quick reminder about how this contest works. This week, the top four vote-getting scripts from the Mega-Showdown last weekend will get their own featured day. Yesterday was QB1. Today is The First Horseman. I will post the first five pages of every script on their day. I want you to read those pages because, come Friday, we’re having the second half of the showdown where you will vote for your favorite of the four finalists.
To be clear, THERE IS NO VOTING TODAY. This is strictly about reading The First Horseman’s first five pages. Also, if you like what you see in the pages, you can download the entire script. So, everybody give a big returning welcome to our first page lothario, Finn Morgan, and his script, The First Horseman!
Hey! I don’t hear you clapping!
Title: The First Horseman
Genre: Thriller
Logline: At the height of World War 2, a young Japanese-American investigator must race to prevent a terrifying Japanese plot to unleash a devastating plague on the United States. Inspired by true events.
It turns out you guys love yourselves some American Psycho! Between this and the success of the Headhunter script, it seems there’s an appetite for another one of these movies. Maybe QB1 will be that movie.
Let me explain the rules of the contest. This week, the top four vote-getting scripts from the Mega-Showdown last weekend, will get their own featured day. Today is QB1. I will post the first five pages of every script on their day. I want you to read those pages because, come Friday, we’re having the second half of the showdown where you will vote for your favorite of the four finalists.
To be clear, THERE IS NO VOTING TODAY. This is strictly about reading QB1’s first five pages. Also, if you like what you see in the pages, you can download the entire script. So, everybody give a big warm welcome to our first finalist, Bill Lawrence, and his script, QB1!
Title: QB1
Genre: Action-thriller
Logline: A star quarterback hides a twisted secret—he’s a serial killer carving up victims between games. But when a relentless detective starts connecting the dots, his perfect season—and double life—begin to unravel. American Psycho meets Any Given Sunday.
