Game Night (2018)

Max and Annie's weekly game night gets kicked up a notch when Max's brother Brooks arranges a murder mystery party -- complete with fake thugs and federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it's all supposed to be part of the game. As the competitors set out to solve the case, they start to learn that neither the game nor Brooks are what they seem to be. The friends soon find themselves in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn over the course of one chaotic night. (Via TMDB ↗)

(d) John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

(w) Mark Perez

mystery · comedy · crime

TMDB ↗ IMDb ↗

☰Read the script: Game Night (2018) —(w) Mark Perez

AI ✦Overview

DZ-116 analyzes how Game Night’s screenplay uses whitespace, capitalization, and paragraph length to telegraph visual gags and geography on the page.

Featured In

DZ-116: Writing Physical Comedy

How do you make extended technical scenes funny on the page?

AI✦Analyzes the screenplay’s use of whitespace, capitalization, and paragraph length to telegraph visual gags and geography on the page, demonstrating how writers signal physical comedy before actors and directors realize it.✦

⏱ 1h 35m

Words · Structure · Genre | 26 FEB 2025

Listen if you're writing physical comedy and have no idea how to make it work on the page

▶ More Info

Mel joins Chas to tackle physical comedy. We limited our homework selection to extended scenes (as opposed to moments and sight gags) in live action projects and – with the help of our Patreons – selected early sequences from BRINGING UP BABY, the pilot for HAPPY ENDINGS and that wonderful food poisoning scene in BRIDESMAIDS… →

Films: Bridesmaids (2011) , Bringing Up Baby (1938) , Game Night (2018) , Happy Endings (2011)

Shows: Happy Endings 1x01

Words: Big Print , Whitespace , Dialogue

Structure: Setups & Payoffs , Narrative Velocity , Narrative POV

Genre: Visual Language , Genre Conventions

"By doing all the gifts and setting that up, I am seeing those gags and I'm laughing at them as he uses and abuses each of these wedding gifts one after another."

— chas | DZ-116: Writing Physical Comedy

Shot Zero Deep Dives

The Game of the Scene - GAME NIGHT by Shot Zero

A sense of play!

Read on Substack