Writing ‘John Henry’, the not-quite-a-superhero Hollywood blockbuster

Damon Lindelof crafts a fictional Hollywood blockbuster based on the life of John Henry. Then he adds in the expected ;notes; from the studio, and crafts a perfectly believable script.

Pitch us a summer blockbuster based on something very, very unblockbustery, a simple American tall tale. Let’s say, the ballad of folk hero John Henry: the nineteenth-century ex-slave who raced a steam-tunneler through a mountain, won, and perished, the first martyr in the great war twixt Man and Machine. Lindelof, not missing a beat, tongue firmly in cheek but mind fully engaged, dives in—no notes, no pauses, barely stopping for breath. Then he goes even further, giving us anticipated revisions as the notes come in, as the blockbuster hormones surge, as Story Gravity takes hold.

Which explains every recent summer blockbuster and the sad state of risk-taking in Hollywood.