3 Storytelling Lessons from One of Hollywood’s Biggest Flops
Last week, I was scrolling through TV channels (a habit that I have all but lost thanks to the never ending content source of social media) and landed on an HBO movie. I clicked for “More Info” on my remote, found that the film was titled The Big Year, and noticed that it featured a star studded cast including Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, Rashida Jones, and Jim Parsons. “A comedy. Great!” I thought to myself.
As Jack Black’s character, Brad, was introduced, I couldn’t help but wonder why I had never heard of the movie before. With such a well regarded cast, I was certain I would have heard of it by now. One quick Wikipedia search and I had my answer: The movie had been a total flop. The budget was $41 million, yet it was reported that the movie made just $7.4 million at the box office.
Why did this happen and what can we learn about storytelling from this movie’s mistakes?
Before I answer these questions, let me catch you up to speed. The Big Year, a self described comedy film, follows three seasoned bird watchers (yes, bird watchers) who set out to accomplish a big year, a competition among birders to identify as many species as possible by sight or sound within a single calendar year in the United States. Brad Harris, played by Jack Black, is a 36 year old computer programmer from Baltimore who lives with his parents following a failed marriage, an aborted a career at Dell, and having dropped out of grad school. Brad is a skilled birder and becomes the main narrative voice throughout the movie. Stu Preissler, played by Steve Martin, is the CEO of a corporation based in New York City whose retirement has been thwarted by complications in a merger deal with a competitor. Kenny Bostick, played by Owen Wilson, is a roofing contractor who holds the record for a big year at 732 birds. The movie portrays various interactions between theses three characters as they compete to discover as many birds as possible. Brad and Stu become friends, while Bostick turns to tricks and traps to fool his competition. Ultimately, the movie highlights an important message: We all have seemingly random or arbitrary obsessions that can either destroy us and our relationships with others or cultivate them and make us better. (I’ll spare you any further details about the plot in case you hope to watch the movie, which I would actually recommend).
Now, to my problems with the plot and three key takeaways for you as a storyteller.
First, from the moment the film began, I was left without a reason to care about the story. When the concept of a big year was introduced, my immediate reaction was, “Okay, but why would people want to do that?” The screenwriter’s response was to sidestep the question entirely and have Brad openly concede to his boss that there were no monetary incentives nor widespread praise. There was already a massive gap between the mass public’s knowledge and the idea of competitive birding. This is not an inherent problem to all stories like these. In fact, I think stories about niche topics present a unique opportunity to introduce a broad audience to a matter that they likely never cared about (one such example is McFarland, USA). That said, what makes those stories great is that they place unfamiliar concepts in familiar terms so that we can all empathize with the characters. In The Big Year, I think the writers jumped the gun by getting too deep into the weeds, too fast. This problem persisted throughout the rest of the film, so much so that, every time the characters got frustrated about missing a bird, my knee jerk reaction was, “Why do I care?”
The takeaway: Give your audience a reason to care about your story as soon as possible (and periodically remind them about it).
Second, the storyline jumps between the three main characters (Brad, Stu, and Kenny) so frequently that it left me with a bit of whiplash trying to remember each character’s unique storyline. For example, toward the hour mark of the film, the focus cuts between Kenny’s fiancé pleading with him to stop his big year, Stu arriving at his companies headquarters to arrange a deal, and Brad talking with his unsupportive father at home. Each scene would last for a few heated exchanges between characters before cutting to the other scenes. It felt like a bad EDM remix where the DJ would gradually increase the BPM toward a drop, only to cut to another song right before the beat actually drops. I can empathize with the screenwriter’s intentions to demonstrate how each character was experiencing intense backlash for trying to accomplish a big year, but I felt like the story cut too abruptly, just before I could sink into the complexity of each character’s conflict. Honestly, I would have preferred the movie if the writers had prioritized one of the three main characters’ storylines instead of squeezing the three storylines into an hour and a half movie.
The takeaway: Commit to a central storyline. Everything else is peripheral and should serve that central storyline.
Third, to add insult to injury, the story isn’t much of a comedy. I’d classify it as more of a light hearted drama. This wouldn’t be much of a problem if it weren’t for the fact that the entire film was advertised as a comedy and that the lead stars are all well known comedians. It made the film feel like quite a let down.
The takeaway: Don’t catfish your audience.
As I mentioned previously, the movie was not all bad, and I would recommend you watch it. Watching the movie was a rare occasion to analyze a half-baked plot for a Hollywood film, and I deeply enjoyed fantasizing about what could have been improved with my family.
If you end up watching The Big Year and wish to discuss it further with me, I am relatively accessible on direct message via Instagram or you can feel free to drop me a comment here on Medium.
Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my podcast for more!
