10 Screenwriting Tips from Rian Johnson on writing Knives Out

Netflix purchased the rights to two Knives Out sequels Knives Out 2 and Knives Out 3 from writer-director Rian Johnson in a deal worth a reported $470 million. Rian Johnson is an Oscar nominated screenwriter and director. He is known for writing and directing movies such as Brick (2005), the comedy-drama The Brothers Bloom (2008), the science-fiction thriller Looper (2012), the space opera Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), and the murder-mystery Knives Out (2019), the last of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. 1. Plot twists shouldn’t come out of nowhere but should be connected to the theme of the movie and properly set up. They need to feel like a culmination of a few things we’ve seen earlier in the film. 2. Don’t start writing dialogue until your character is completed, bursting with words and you know everything about them, especially what that character wants in every scene that they speak in. 3. When your film is dealing with complicated topics like time travel, make the film a ride to enjoy, not a puzzle to solve. Make the time travel do its job but deviate the focus on the emotion. 4. Take character tropes from older movies you loved and modernize them to fit today’s culture and you will create something unique. Think about who an “old gruff colonel” could be in our times. 5. Misdirection in your film works in a similar way a card trick works; make your audience preoccupied with something else, while you slip a card in their pocket. For example making them like a certain character to throw their scent off. 6. Reading a screenplay while watching a film is like opening a watch and seeing how the mechanics work. Get ahold of the first draft of a movie you like and analyse the writer’s voice and how they engage the reader on the page. 7. Map out the whole plot before you sit down to write, but don’t set it in stone yet because no matter how much you plan, it always changes in the actual writing process. 8. In a mystery genre, don’t make the plot twist the main point of the movie. What is more important, is the relationship that the mystery has to your protagonist’s arc and how that unveils. 9. Find your voice and follow it. It sounds cliche, yet having a unique and talented voice is the main commodity in the film industry and what everybody is looking for. 10. When you finish your first script try to get it read by as many people as you can. Forget agents, managers, producers, just get the script to anybody who would read it. You need feedback and you never know who might like it and get it to the right person. Follow us on our main Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outstanding.screenplays Follow us on our video Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outstandingscreenplays Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/outscreenplays Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/outstandingscreenplays Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/outstandingscreenplays #rianjohnson #knivesout #screenwriting #screenwriter #screenplay