"Great Power... Great Responsibility"

Introduction

As stated in my previous post this one will be about the pilot episode, "Great Power... Great Responsibility" I wrote for a Spider-Man fan series titled "Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man" 

Premise

I said in my previous post that this series is set in the 1960s and will focus on a college-aged Peter Parker. I chose to focus on a college-aged Peter because I'm sick of every new interpretation of the character once again having him stuck in high school and with a young adult Peter I can tell more mature stories. 

Since the series is set during the 1960s and focuses on a college-aged Peter, each season will take place over a semester or year of Peter's time at Empire State University. Thus each season Peter grows older as he gets closer to graduation. Each season is a new year starting with Season 1 taking place in 1965, Season 2 in 1966, etc. Why 1965? That's the year (in real-time) that Peter graduated from Midtown High School and started attending ESU in the comics. 

For the first episode, much like my distaste for every new incarnation of the webhead being seemingly stuck in high school, I decided to skip over the origin story. In this episode there will be flashbacks to key moments in the origin namely the spider bite, letting the thief go, and catching Uncle Ben's murderer because those are key moments that not only shaped Peter Parker as a character (and of course changed his life forever) but also shape Peter's/Spider-Man's relationship with other characters in the pilot. 

Since the origin already happened in this version, what's the episode about? After reading the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man where instead of becoming a superhero right away Peter tries to make money as Spider-Man to help out his Aunt rather than himself. That was the main inspiration for this pilot. It's about a young adult trying to help his Aunt using what he's done before until he realizes his true calling as a hero. It's something unique that's not featured in many adaptations of this character. 

Plans

Now, I will go over my plans for at least the 1st season. This season is set in 1965 and concerns Peter Parker's 1st year at Empire State University where he adjusts to his double life as a young adult and fledgling superhero. I want each season to have a major villain. This season's major villain is Doctor Otto Octavius a.k.a. Doctor Octopus. In the first episode, it's revealed that not only is Octavius one of Peter's professors but that he gave a demonstration during the summer where he used a harness with mechanical arms to control a particle accelerator without the need of laboratory technicians. This demonstration was where Peter was bitten by a radioactive spider. 

At the beginning of the season, Octavius is Peter's professor and will be a mirror of Peter showing what he might have grown up to be if Uncle Ben hadn't died and will later become Doctor Octopus towards the end of the season. Since he's one of Spider-Man's greatest foes, I wanted to build him up and have the audience get to know him before his unfortunate accident. Now there will be other minor villains such as Sandman, Electro and Vulture that will but they won't be getting as much character development. 

In my previous post, I said one of the inspirations for this series was the Lee/Ditko stories which will serve as the inspiration for many of the episodes' plots and also gave me a way to make my vision of Peter Parker a bit more unique. Normally Peter Parker is portrayed as a nice guy but in the Lee/Ditko stories, but he's an outcast - a bitter, resentful outcast. Both before and after the spider bite. But he gradually grows out of it by the Lee/Romita Sr stories and becomes a better person. Peter's early bitterness is usually ignored in most adaptions which is why I want to explore that side of Peter in mine. 

Here's a few examples of Peter Parker's bitter, resentful side:

Art by Steve Ditko

Logline

A young college student with superhuman abilities wants to help his financially struggling aunt after finding himself racked with guilt over the death of his uncle but struggles to find his true calling. 

Synopsis

Recovering from the recent death of his beloved Uncle Ben, Peter Parker finds himself now strapped with a newfound sense of responsibility as he decides to use his powers as Spider-Man to help his Aunt May. One failure after another leaves him unsure of what to do he finds with his powers until he finds his true calling as a hero.

Teleplay

Here is the link to read the pdf of my Writer's Draft for this teleplay:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1McubyI7JP4ZwdBdENiJHexMqguuZfyJz/view?usp=sharing

Here is the link to read the pdf of my Writer's Rev Draft for this teleplay:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e0DAPhrU011kIK9hhsnPISCrMI94CNch/view?usp=sharing

References to the Source Material

Now I know I said that I'm skipping over the origin but I decided to include flashbacks to key moments in the origin as I mentioned above. But in these flashback scenes, I decided to reference the source material by ripping the dialogue straight from Amazing Fantasy 15. Here's what I mean:

Since this episode is heavily inspired by the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, I also included scenes and dialogue taken from there as well but I hope you find them while reading my teleplay. 

Conclusion 

Thank you for reading my blog post. If you did read my teleplay, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Feel free to leave your thoughts below

"Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man" Introduction

Introduction

This post will serve as an introduction to a series I am writing titled "Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man" which is a fan series set in the 1960s. My next post will feature and be about the pilot episode "Great Power... Great Responsibility". I will also write a post for each episode that I plan on writing. I don't know if this project will ever get off the ground, but in the meantime, I am writing this series for fun.

History

I and Spider-Man go way back. I was first introduced to the character and his world through the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy as a young boy. This got me into reading the comics and watching The Spectacular Spider-Man television series. In my teens, I saw the Marc Webb Amazing Spider-Man duology and as an adult, I've seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe take on the webhead. I've also seen countless fan films on YouTube such as "Peter's Web" and the Six Side Studios fan films starring Mark Ricci.  

As a blossoming screenwriter, I've always wanted to write a Spider-Man film or series. I've been writing Spider-Man as long as I've been writing screenplays going as far back as the days I wrote screenplays out by hand with pencil and paper. 

Inspirations

As someone who's lived and breathed the wall-crawler since childhood and seen various media based around such a character, naturally, I'm going to take bits and pieces from everything I've seen. But what are my main inspirations? 

Since this series is set in the mid to late 60s with the 1st season being set in 1965, I'm basing the episodes on the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era of the web-slinger before moving onto the Stan Lee/John Romita Sr. era. Another inspiration for this series was the fan film "Spider-Man: Cake Day" which is set in 1963.  For most of my history, I've been writing Spider-Man screenplays about a high school-aged Peter Parker in the present day where I retell the origin story. Knowing there were many other fan series and films out there just like I was writing I needed something to make it stand out. After seeing "Cake Day" I thought why not set it in the 60s and focus on a college-aged Peter like the Raimi Trilogy? The rest is history.  

Conclusion

As said earlier my next post will be about the pilot episode "Great Power... Great Responsibility" and discuss what I plan to do with the series. 

Thank you for reading my blog post. If you did read my teleplay, I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing it. Feel free to leave your thoughts below

Turn Back the Hands of Time Draft 3

Introduction

This post is about the 3rd draft of my original screenplay "Turn Back the Hands of Time". I am excited to share what has changed since the 2nd draft and any changes I'd like to incorporate into a potential 4th draft.

Changes from Draft 2

Here is a rundown of the changes from the 2nd to the 3rd draft:

• Amelia is more rebellious and sneaks out at night to go on a date with George just like in the 1st draft.
• During their date, George describes to Amelia what 1957 is like.
• The time machine changed in shape. In the previous drafts, it was shaped like a chamber. Now, it's shaped like a ship or a pod. I felt it fit better with the 1950s sci-fi aesthetic. Also, I was more inspired by the look of the time machines from "The Time Machine" (1960) and "Time After Time" (1979).
• After being inspired by George, Victor and Amelia make amends with Frank and her parents respectively with the help of George.
• I gave George two friends, Harv and Betty, in 1957. George's character arc is that he becomes less selfish and when all seems hopeless in terms of going back to 1957, he realizes how selfish he was to abandon his friends and family to go to 1927.

Changes for Draft 4

• Make the 2nd Act longer. I was planning on aiming for around 120 pages for my 3rd Draft, but it looks like I'll have to settle for 90 pages. That's not bad since I hear that some screenplays are 90-110 pages long. With some tweaks, I can make my 4th Draft 120 pages which is the length of a typical screenplay. I'd like to make the 2nd Act longer since it ended on page 55 or 56 instead of page 90 as I had hoped.
• Add in scenes of George trying to mend the relationship between Victor and Frank. This could add a lot of drama to the story, as well as, character development for George, Victor, and Frank. It would also help in making the 2nd Act longer with several scenes of George trying to fix the relationship of the two brothers only to separate them more and more. Then in the 3rd Act, the brothers finally put aside their differences and become friends again.
• I will probably remove Harv and Betty from the script since I like it better for George to be a loner before he goes back in time because it fits better with his character arc. 

 Script

The link to read the PDF version of the script is below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/143ghWAKrC8GowuSTkpkmtpFqVkPprzCl/view?usp=sharing

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my blog post. If you did read my teleplay, I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing it. Feel free to leave your thoughts below.