An excerpt from my script review for The Invisible Man (2020) which will be available 04/20/26:
1.) Marketability of the Idea
To be clear, I’ve never read the novel by H.G. Wells.
I’ve also never seen the 1933 Claude Rains black and white film either.
Is this newer incarnation a reboot? My guess would be no, but it’s still playing into the fact of being a psychological thriller (if not horror), of a man who can turn invisible and cause a raucous for the rest of the cast.
Are they going crazy, or is this shit really happening?
Now, it is interesting to note that the 1897 novel is now in the public domain, so we’re free to use and adapt things like this in spec scripts.
And this is another one of those places to mine ideas…taking horror/thriller classics and researching if they’re free to be adapted and inspired by.
Just from Wells himself, you can currently adapt The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and War of the Worlds, not to mention a few other lesser titles I’m not familiar with.
And maybe that’s a better angle, discovering some of the less popular works from famous authors like this, and seeing what nuggets of spec script ideas lie within.
Don’t forget you can also check out other sci-fi writers like Jules Verne or HP Lovecraft, the latter someone I always wanted to look more into, but just never got around to it.
Definitely worth exploring…
The Invisible Man (2020) Box Office Stats
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