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Create A Superhero For Your Screenplay

Matrix Shooting Script® Buy it for $17.95

For the past few years, the trend in Hollywood has been to create films about superheroes—protagonists with extraordinary abilities.

Neo, the protagonist in the screenplay of The Matrix, is an ordinary man with the powers of a superhero. He moves at lightening-quick speed, dodging bullets and using spectacular martial arts techniques to fight Agent Smith, a human-like computer entity who lives in virtual reality.

Characters like Neo have become commonplace in today's films. This trend is attributable to the adaptation of comic books and graphic novels into large-scale, action-adventure films. Comic books are serialized stories, which means they are stories told in several parts. Graphic novels are best described as comic books that tell an entire story in a single edition.

Larry and Andy Wachowski, the writers and directors of The Matrix, had the entire film storyboarded like a comic book. Phil Oosterhouse, an assistant to the Wachowski brothers, says the storyboards "convinced Warner Brothers to make the film".
 

These comic book-style illustrations showcase the extraordinary abilities that make Neo a true superhero.

To create a superhero for your screenplay, ask yourself several questions:

1.) Who does your protagonist, the superhero, want to help? Does
     he want to help a woman he loves? Does he want to help
     the leader of a resistance movement? Describe the reason why
     he wants to help one or more of them. Has someone freed
     him from a type of imprisonment or improved his life in
     some way?

2.) What does your protagonist do to show that he has special abilities or powers?
     Does he fight the antagonist (the villain) physically or mentally? Does he save
     someone's life? Does he invent a new machine or device?

3.) When do we learn that the protagonist is really a superhero? Do we make this
     discovery when he saves someone's life or his own life?

4.) Where does the protagonist learn that he has special abilities? What is the
     geographic location?

5.) Why is the protagonist able to do things that make him a superhero? Did he
      inherit physical or psychological abilities? Did he undergo a trauma that gave him
      those abilities? Did someone teach him how to do extraordinary things?