Script Magazine

This year the Golden Globes added a Best Podcast category, Netflix inked exclusive video deals with Spotify and iHeart, and Hulu licensed its first standalone podcast show. The industry has, with considerable enthusiasm and some sense of urgency, decided that podcasts are television now. William Stuart, producer of The Rock, has a blunter take on what's actually happening. "This is where the studios are casting their net for new IP with a known audience," he says.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). Courtesy of Columbia Pictures There is a moment in Spider-Man: Brand New Day where the city itself seems to breathe around Peter Parker, and I felt something I had not quite felt in a live-action Spider-Man film since Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2: the sensation that this character genuinely belongs to his neighborhood, not to the multiverse, not to a government agency, not to an Avengers assembly, but to the streets and rooftops and fire escapes of New York City.

Happy 40th Anniversary to the Queen. The Xenomorph Queen of Aliens, that is. The James Cameron-created alien beehive queen debuted in July of 1986, seven years after Ridley Scott directed the first Alien, created and penned by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. A society fresh off their introduction to a galaxy far, far away where humanoid aliens seemed friendly enough, Shusett and O’Bannon’s view of outer space was far darker.

Tim Wilkime. Photo by Rosalind O'Connor There is a moment every Saturday night, somewhere between the cold open and the first commercial break, when a pre-tape rolls on Saturday Night Live and the live studio audience encounters something they were not entirely prepared for. The collective exhale of a room hitting a perfectly timed visual gag. The disbelieving laugh that follows a sketch that has, up to that very second, been playing it completely straight.

Dialogue in your script matters. And yet, based on the two hundred or so scripts I’ve read so far this year, it’s an aspect of writing that is woefully misunderstood, disrespected and under-utilized. I shall now attempt to convince you why dialogue is crucially important, and offer some suggestions on how you can improve your skills immediately. First step – understand what dialogue ISN’T. It isn’t used to blurt out in literal detail what a character is thinking. No: ‘I’m hungry’.

The Odyssey (2026). Courtesy of Universal Pictures There is a version of The Odyssey that only Christopher Nolan could make, and for stretches of its nearly three-hour runtime, that version is genuinely astonishing. The Trojan sequence that opens the film has a cinder-and-salt-spray tactility that no amount of digital polish from other studios has managed to replicate.

The Hallmark Channel prides itself on feel good movies that signify nostalgia, family, and love, familial and romantic. While the channel has been around since the early 2000s, the product of The Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment’s The Odyssey Channel, the brand has been around for over a century. The wholesome and family-friendly network provides cozy escapism as a solution to a chaotic world. What is a “cozy” show or movie?

The Capture (2026). Photo by Laurence Cendrowicz/Universal International Studios A Russian black-ops agent moves through London’s Heathrow Airport, clicking and swiping on what looks like a smartphone while his eyes clock the security cameras.

As a screenwriting instructor and mentor, the very first thing I always discuss with my students and mentees is the psychology of screenwriting. I urge them to be fearless in digging deep to understand the root of their insecurities and how that self-awareness will (ideally) inspire the stories, themes and characters they write.

What’s more important, an original voice or an idea? I’m going to cheat and answer “both,” because if one of those qualities is missing, you’re screwed. Don’t get me wrong, having a stellar idea is critical, but you need more than that. Much more. And, yes, you need more than a great voice, too, like complex characters to attract talent, and a low-budget script. However, today, we’re focusing on voice because I have some serious concerns about the future of writing.