Screenwriting : Anyone else find the 120-page limit restrictive? by Stefano Pavone

If someone hands me a 180 pages I think this better be great. If it is I don’t care. If I am 10 pages in and it sucks, I already hate the writer.

I only write/produce shorts: I have an assignment for you - write an Oscar worthy character driven short script in 20 pages or less. (watch The Phone Call, The Stutter, The Neighbor's Window - all are under 20 pages.)

I know the feeling, brother.

My best script started at 145 pages on the first draft. By the final draft, it only came down to 126 pages, no matter how many characters I combined, no matter how much dialogue I trimmed, etc. It was only after tightening the line-spacing and the element spacing that I just managed to make the 120 page cut-off. It suffered in white space, but readers still managed to enjoy it.

As long as you trim away as much of the fat as you can and leave nothing but the meat and the bones, readers can endure eating up a higher page count.

Spec screenwriters can believe and do whatever they want because nobody is paying them to write their screenplays. If a producer doesn’t want to read screenplays that are over 120 pages they probably won't read one that is.

Being a screenwriter is a bit like being a race car engineer; you need to have a passion for efficiency and see it as a thing of beauty. I'm in the indie scene which means ~90pp max or the movie isn't going to get many distribution offers. Distilling everything you have into something so acute is a magical thing and even better when people tell you the completed film felt like it was the fastest hour and half of their life.

Those who believe they have to write long stories, for whatever reason, have to think hard about their fit into the industry and marketplace.

write books

I mainly write scripts that are 80-95 pages long, Stefano Pavone. If I need to write a 120 plus page script, I will (I have written scripts that are over 120 pages), but I'm better at writing scripts that are 80-95 pages.

Stefano, I struggle with this too. But CJ Walley explained it very well. Maybe your screenplay needs to be a miniseries or series? I've been told that by enough professionals concerning my 120+ screenplay, that adaptation is my next project.

There are some scripts that can run into and above this range (Lord of the Rings comes to mind) but sometimes if the ideas behind a script are too diffuse and unrefined it can lead to a page count going out of control. The original Ghost In The Shell is considered one of the most complex and cerebral movies of all time, but the final movie is only 82 minutes long (including a 5 minute sequence in the middle that is just images and music) so the script, if written in English, wouldn't have been above the 90 page mark.

120 pages has been the standard for years. No problem working within that perimeter. If you want to go larger than develop the project as a limited mini-series.

Stefano Pavone it's an opportunity to work on our editorial skills, but if you feel more liberated creatively by writing long, why not go all the way and write a novel ?

Earn the right through script sales to write more than 120 pages ...

Kill your darlings.

This "imaginary" limit is related to the theater format. Most people don't want to watch a film with more than 120 mins. It is just, in most cases, boring. There are great exceptions, from Igmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" (313 mins) to Scorsese's "The Irishman" (206 mins). Both are great movies and I watched them without notice the length. The reality is that nowaday, even 120 mins is getting too long, and many are going down to 100 mins. You need to ask yourself two questions: Does my story needs more than 120 pages, or I am adding scenes that can be cut? If my story really needs more.than 120 pages, is my structure, characters, plot, dialogs, etc. Strong enough to sustain the story all this length? At the end of the day, we write to entertain the audience.

"At the end of the day, we write to entertain the audience." Exactly, Claudio Torres.

I think the time constraint can be broken. Lord of the Rings for example. I like to go to movie theaters. It's great to have a beer while watching. Just give me an intermission so I can get up for a whiz.

Stefano:

You're a free agent, you may write a 180-page screenplay if that's what you desire. However, that imaginary 120-page line of demarcation is very real for many folks in the filmmaking industry. This past week, I finished a screenplay adaptation of a novel and deleted 4 very well-written scenes so that my script would finish at 119 pages. I simply applied the Lean Manufacturing technique developed by Ford Motor Company and Toyota, which is to remove non-value added activity. When I apply that to screenwriting I remove scenes that are not critical in moving the story forward. I chose 3 scenes involving the lead character's parents, eliminated their characters entirely, and didn't miss a beat with my story. I also cut one other scene with the two main characters that I determined was not essential.

When the rubber hits the bleeding road, I'm trying to make movies, and by keeping my scripts tight by adhering to this unofficial industry standard, I find that Improve my work in most cases. And, I don't want to lose an opportunity for a script read by someone who would frown on me exceeding the 120-page limit. So for those folks that want to be the creative rebels that write more lengthy screenplays, just be aware there's a possibility you may be limiting your industry audience.

Blessings!

Uncle Phil

My vomit drafts often exceed 180 pages, getting them down to 130-140 is usually a breeze, but that last stretch to get it within 95-120 is always a struggle

Something that helps to reduce a page count when no obvious solutions come to mind is to ask how many purposes does each scene serve? If a lot of scenes only do one thing then it can become boring, but if they can simultaneously 1) Advance the plot 2) Develop a character or the relationship/dynamic between characters and 3) Entertain the audience, then they won’t feel like they’re surplus. This is also what Neil Gaiman suggests for dialogue.

Page optimization is part of rewriting. Check your action lines. It is a script, not a novel, so descriptions in action lines must be minimum. Dialogs must be lean. Scenes that do not contribute to move the story must be cut. Remove the scene and ask yourself if the story is still working, and the conflict is.still clear.

I would never even read a 800 page novel yet alone adapt one.

I did, Hector - my own novel was 500 pages long and divided into 3 parts, which made it easy to adapt into a trilogy of screenplays. :)

One of the best examples of adaptation is Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence went out to the desert and back several times during the war, but is shown as twice in the movie, and Omar Sharif's character, Sherif Ali, is actually an amalgamation of around 20 chiefs. But the 3hr 31min run time is probably because David Lean had won a few Oscars by this point. Chernobyl did something similar by having Emily Watson's character representing a whole branch of the Soviet scientific community, rather than introduce dozens of additional characters, combining and simplifying diffuse concepts into something (or someone) the audience can relate to more easily.

"Chernobyl" is my favorite limited series, Ewan Dunbar.

So Dan, I assume you're not interested in adapting James Michener's 868 page novel, all in 10 point type, Alaska.

Doug. You assumed right.

nothing wrong with a 130pg. script.

Who's the target audience? 22-screen megaplexes are all about butts in seats. Longer movies = fewer butts. That being said, Top Gun: Maverick is 2 hr 11 min. Dr. Zhivago was 3 hr 20 min. PPV and streaming have different business models. Write your story but keep in mind that long screenplays are almost always harder to sell and get made.

Hate to be the truth teller here, but ive read over 7000 scripts and id say only about 30 truly NEEDED and warranted being over 120 pages. And a few of them were Sorkin or Tarantino or Zailian scripts. If youre not writing an action war epic film, theres no reason for your script to be over 120pgs... i guarantee yours doesnt need to be.

About novels and scripts.

Please, never compare a novel to a script in terms of page length. Both are structured stories, but a novel has long descriptive paragraphs, with details about visuals, smell, sounds, and thoughts, along with figurative images, plus some dialogs, to allow the reader to immerse into a world they must create their mind. A script has action lines used to produce visual media and dialogues that directors and actors in the performance use.

So for a writer, the novel is a final product, just waiting for printing. And on self-publishing, you don't even need that.

For the writer, a script is the first step of a long process. After your final draft, you'll need to convince a producer and a director to lead the process to persuade investors or studios to put money to hire actors and a big crew, to spend months shooting, then editing, then screening in a theater or streaming platform finally.

Should it be restrictive? The only point that matters is if the story is worth watching. Most films will clock in for 1 1/2 hours. I could sit through a 2 hour film. If the length is a problem never watch a Bollywood movie (usually about 3 1/2 to 4 hours long).

My mind is reeling thinking of Danny reading 7,000 scripts!

Another angle:

Each page of a novel costs some additional paper to print. The cost difference between a 400 pages or 700 pages novel is marginal. But movies are different. Each page of your script costs a lot of money to produce (around 1,000 USD per page in a low-budget film to over 660,000 USD per page in a Hollywood blockbuster).

Each time you write over the industry-accepted 120 pages, you will need significantly more money in production, more investors, or more pressure from the producer. The difference between a 120-page good script and a 150 pages good script in the same genre is that the first one costs from 30 TUSD to 20 MUSD less than the second one.

My latest script was 131 pages initially, now it's 123. I don't think 3 extra pages are going to be that much of an issue.

I don't have trouble writing within the page limit. I do write horror and thriller and they usually come at 85-97. Maybe non-genre is harder to be under that 120?

Haven't got a feature making up 90 let alone 120, 130 pages so far...like to keep the storyline clean and simple, less tirades, more action sequences...

Yet, I see most of the, say, blacklist script entries are all over 100 pgs...