Movies from the Heart—The Devil Wears Prada - 1

How can you tell if a film is a mega-hit? By the box office numbers, of course.

And The Devil Wears Prada [2006] by Aline Brosh McKenna, was just such a mega-hit; it was made for around $35 million and grossed about 10 times that worldwide.

The critics thought it was OK—very few trashed it—but audiences went to it in droves.

Yes, it came from a book, and sometimes there’s a built-in audience for films that come from books. But this book wasn’t that huge. Of course, sometimes a hit can come from casting—and this did have Meryl Streep in it—but the lead was Anne Hathaway, not that huge a star.

So what was it? It had great music, its visuals were great… terrific acting from even the players with smaller roles in the cast.

But still…

I mention all this because it often seems elusive as to why one film is more successful than another, to why one film works, and another doesn’t.

Take a look at a trailer for the film.

I’m sure you noticed several things about the trailer, but I’ll bet one was the speed at which it moved. And you might think, “Oh, that’s just great directing,” but you’d be wrong. It’s great writing. Scenes in this film—right from the scenes under the title credits at the beginning—moved at an incredibly fast pace. If you counted the number of scenes in the 2-minute or so opening to the film, you’d lose count there are SO many.

Why talk about this? Because it’s all about the writing. The writer writes those quick scenes that make the film move so quickly. How do you do that? There are a number of ways, and one is, simply, bullet points. So you’d say, after noting it was morning in New York City:

•  A HAND counts 7 almonds into a small dish.
•  A WOMAN dressed in a designer suit hails a cab.
•  FEET in Christian Louboutin heels run down a stoop.

Etc., etc., etc.

QUICK cuts from one image to another—and written in as few words as you can manage to capture the image. This is the writer’s job, but the writer doesn’t always get the credit for it!

Copyright © Diane Lake

18Aug24

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