I was just re-reading Ender's Shadow, and I'm still amazed at how different the same story is from two different perspectives. It really adds up to a whole story that's much deeper than either of the two stories separately. So, here's a deal.

I want to take this a step further. I want to make two movies, one from the perspective of one character, or telling the story of that character, and a second telling the same story from another character's point of view. I want each of them to be a self-contained story, but for the WHOLE story to be clear ONLY if BOTH movies are watched, in any order.

I want to make this an action/suspense kind of story with some 'mystery' elements thrown in. Now, I have several ideas for how the two main characters might interact, but here's where I'm currently going with it. Mind you, this is EXTREMELY vague.

Character #1's life has been disrupted by some unknown person/force/event. In the process of investigating what's going on, she manages to get herself way in over her head, gets burned even worse, and eventually loses everything she values. She then decides that all is left is to punish those responsible, which she sets out to do. Whether she succeeds or not depends on what makes a good story. Whether she dies in the end or not depends on what makes a good story.

Character #2's job/hobby/obsession involves actively working against the force that has invaded Character #1's life. Driven by some deep-seeded desire to fulfill what she feels is her duty/purpose/sense of loyalty, she persists into the same hornet's nest Character #1 was mixed up in. She discovers, in the process, that her duty/purpose, is in direct conflict with her loyalties, and is placed eventually into a situation which demands that she make a near instantaneous, excruciating decision to betray one or the other of her obligations. She survives, but to what end, remains to be seen.

Chars 1 & 2 will be prying into the same mysteries, but neither will know each other, except for in several brief, but disturbinlgy important encounters. Their independent actions should have some direct, but unintentional/unforseeable consequences for each other. Their whole interaction should be based around the premise that if they could just team up (which maybe they do in the end) they'd 'win' their individual fights against the exact same evil. Their encounters should be a series of near-misses which we may not realize are even misses until we see both parts of the story.

This is just a brainstorm, but I'm not getting anywhere 'super-interesting' with it. I imagined a dark, 'gotham city' type atmosphere, but les cartoonish, some mildly Matrix-style action, mainly consisting of gunfights, and an ending that is victorious for our heroes, but seems almost pointless because of the terrible cost to themselves.

It seems to pay better in Hollywood, anyway.

:-)

I think I'm actually going to try to make a story of this.

And GZ, you're right that this wouldn't really work in a heavy action movie. Was thinking about it last night and realized that. Would have to be more of a suspense/thriller type of movie, but it wouldn't necessarily preclude a good action scene or two, especially involving C#2. Though that wouldn't be the focus of the movie.

Okay . . . so are there any big, bad 'issues' that might fuel this story? I have this idea of a sort of undefined 'organization' in my head as the big evil, but I don't really have any specifics yet.

How about it's an organization dedicated to killing terrorists? Think of the organization Arnie worked for in TRUE LIES, or the movie SWORDFISH. SWORDFISH was cool in that Travolta wasn't a villian, but rather an anti-hero.

Now think about how you will make this work. Suppose you cut The Fugitive into two seperate movies, one from Harrison Ford's POV and the other from Tommy Lee Jones' POV. If you saw just the HF movie, the ending (when TLJ unlocks the handcuffs) would not make sense. If you saw just the TLJ movie, the real villain's motivation (falsified drug tests) would not make sense.

I think this points out some constraints:

1) It might be impossible to make the order of viewing irelevant. No matter what you do, the order of viewing will make a difference.

For this reason, it is far more likely that any such work would be released as a single movie, since it would have the production constraints of a single movie. And there are actually a number of movies that have been done with some of these elements (using two 'personas' or 'viewpoints' so that something that is seen once {illustrating one character's POV} is seen again {from another character's POV} in such a way as to fundamentally revise the viewers understanding of what they saw in the first shot). Okay, I'll admit that actually, I'm thinking of Cramer and Newman's "magic loogey" theory of what happened the day they were spat upon by a ball player (displayed 'Zapruder-style') being revised in converstation with Seinfeld and later the ball player they had previously blamed for the spittle.

But certainly the effect has been used to more serious effect. The final scene of "The Sixth Sense", while using the same shots from earlier rather than different angles of the same action, nonetheless makes the viewer reinterpret those scenes in the light of a revised viewpoint (albeit the veiwpoint of the same character as before).

But before you could persuade anyone to let you make two movies together rather than just one (making two movies that involve many simultaneous shots of the same takes might actually be more expensive than just making two standalone movies, and the concept has the potential for alienating enough of the audience to make both movies less than wildly successful--if they are released at the same time and billed as part of the same story, many people will see it as a "scheme" to extract an extra movie fare from them, and if released at different times or not billed as being two parts of the same story, people will see one, be disconcerted or annoyed by the many tangential action/suspense sequences that are left unresolved at the end, and not see the other--leading to both movies bombing out) you need to make a wildly successful set of books out of it (think LOTR).

Now, in all Seriousness, I don't think this is going to fly with a studio unless I can do several things.

1. Show that it truly will cost less to shoot both films together than it would to create two completely separate films.

2. Show that these two films will generate proportionately MORE money than was spent on the production. (e.g. if it costs only 1.5x the cost of a normal movie, they'd better make at LEAST 1.8x or more.)

3. Show that the two films can be stylistically and narratively separated enough that the audience won't feel like they're watching the SAME FILLM with different edits.

4. Show that the payoff of watching BOTH movies is worth having paid for the two separated movies. i.e. It better be one hell of an 'AHA!' when all the pieces finally come together.

To be clear, I'm not sure all that is possible, but that's why I haven't started marketing research yet. It would be a waste of time without a script that would be at least POSSIBLE to make such a 'pair' of movies out of.

I think two directors would be REALLY interesting, especially if you used mostly the same crew/art department, etc. The theory is (and yes, this is just theory) that you'd get two artistically similar (from the art dept.'s perspective) movies that are stylistically very different. If you get two sets of editor/directors, but same producers . . . I dunno . . . it would be interesting, to say the least.

As far as ideas of how the plot might go, here was one particular illustration of how this all might work.

Movie 1- Character 2 is some sort of law-enforcement. Her partner is out doing something dangerous, knowing he's going to be chased. The good guys are waiting for a cell-phone call from him to go charging in and save his butt. But the call never comes. The first anybody knows something has gone wrong is when they hear gunshots. When they show up, the partner is dead, his cell phone is nowhere to be found and the only clue left behind is X - which leads Character 1 on a quest to find out what he learned before he died.

Self contained plot, everything works so far.

Movie 2 - Character 1 is at home one day when she gets a strange phone call. (from Character #2's partner) Without even waiting for an answer, he says his 'send in the troops' type line and hangs up. The next day she's arriving home from picking up the groceries when she sees a man (bad guy) hop into his car and leave. Not thinking anything of it, she gets out of the car, into her house and find the rest of her family has been killed . . . or something to that effect, but we don't know why. The only clue she has is the car that drove away, which leads HER into the adventure.

So . . . you see char #2, know who killed her partner and why, but not why he didn't call for help. Char #1 knows (or will find out) that this unfortunate man dialed a wrong number and got her mixed up in all this, but not who he was. Both explanations of the same event are enough to carry each film, but not the WHOLE story, which you get when you watch both.

It's gonna be tough to create enough of those type of situations without seeming gimmicky or obnoxious, but I think it'll be possible.

So . . . does that work so far? Don't worry . . . this is prolly the last of this type of post I'll do. Just wanna get on the right track. Y'all have given some GREAT suggestions that have really gotten this thing rolling for me.

Thanx.

-Nate

My main reason for this is that with a couple of books you will show that such a story can work. I just don't think it's a concept that moviemakers will believe in without some kind of track record.

Another reason for this is that with a couple of books, you are more likely to get a couple of actresses (say, Jodie Foster and Sandra Bullock?, or Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz?) (I love making up imaginary casts for books, by the way) interested in the movies because there would be two strong female roles for them to work with. (You might even get something like the Scarlett O'Hara war going if the stories are told as two books.)

Another reason is that it would be easier to publish the two books at the same time, than it would be to release the two movies at the same time. The "buzz" would work better for the books than for the movies, and that would make it easier for the movies when their time came.