I was perusing this weekend's box office reports as the execs at lions Gate were scratching their heads over why their Conan the Barbarian remake arrived with a dismal thud when I ran across this quote over at BoxOfficeMojo:

"The Conan remake's marketing relied on the brand name and generic fantasy action instead of presenting a compelling story and strong characters."

Surely I am not alone when it comes to my general disinterest in seeing more "pre-awareness" titles coming from the Hollywood studios.  I will take a compelling story and strong characters over generic eye candy any day.  Why do you think Pixar has the track record they do?  It's not because they are really good at blowing stuff up on screen.

Of course for every Conan that flops you have a Transformers that makes a billion dollars.  So the reheating of leftovers continues.  If you don't believe me just take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B3moWiI_J4

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz............

I am not a huge blog reader, I'd much rather download a podcast and listen in as I drive around, but I recently stumbled across this little gem by The Bitter Script reader. 

http://thebitterscriptreader.blogspot.com/

As a profession script reader he has read more than his fair share of bad scripts and is more than willing to share his thought on what makes a bad script bad and a good script good.  Tons of useful information for both the amateur and the pro (or semi pro such as myself).  Check it out.