Wanted: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Aug 5th, 2008 | Movie Rating: 
Angelina is an avid supporter of the War on Captain Crunch.
FADE IN:
INT. OFFICE
JAMES MCAVOY adds numbers using EXCEL and whines incessantly in voiceover.
JAMES MCAVOY (V.O.)
Hi. My name is James McAvoy. I’m a boring loser who has a full-time job, which apparently is beneath me even though everyone else has to do it without being a whiny little bitch.
(pause)
Oh look, here comes my obnoxious, cuckolding best friend. He epitomizes the exact type of macho idiot that enjoys movies like this one, so the fact that he’s portrayed as an asshole is something of an embarrassing irony.
CHRIS PRATT
Hey man! I just drank Red Bull out of your girlfriend’s vagina, it was awesome! So what’s going on with you?
JAMES MCAVOY
Nothing much. I was just searching for my own name in Google and getting no results.
CHRIS PRATT
No results at all? Like not even for any of the other thousands of people with the same name as you? “Johnny McSkidmarks” gives me three hits, and I just made that up.
JAMES MCAVOY
Yeah, I’m like a black hole of failure. I sure hope that it turns out I’m actually the heir to an ancient society that needs me so that I can leave this well-paying, white-collar, air-conditioned office job that most people would kill to have.
For the rest of the movie, FIGHT CLUB happens, but with BULLETS.
INT. CONVENIENCE STORE
JAMES purchases some anti-anxiety medication when suddenly he is approached by ANGELINA JOLIE’S LIPS.
ANGELINA JOLIE’S LIPS
James, it just so happens that your father was a member of a secret organization, which we will now make you a part of, just as soon as we have a poorly directed gunfight with Thomas Kretschmann, the guy who killed your dad.
JAMES MCAVOY
I want nothing to do with any of this.
(pause)
I’m ready now, when do I start killing people?
They shoot GUNS and discharge STYLE. Various amounts of BRAIN are splattered all over the camera lens.
JAMES MCAVOY
Holy shit, this movie is gratuitously violent. Did someone just take the screenplay to a porno and replace the words “cock” with “gun” and “semen” with “blood”?
ANGELINA JOLIE’S LIPS
Don’t be an idiot. There’s no way this movie had as much of a screenplay as your average porn.
They narrowly escape THOMAS KRETSCHMANN. ANGELIA JOLIE’S LIPS try to take JAMES to the SECRET SOCIETY HIDEOUT, but all of the studio’s sets are being used by better movies so they settle on an old TEXTILE MILL SET instead.
INT. TEXTILE MILL
JAMES meets MORGAN FREEMAN.
MORGAN FREEMAN
Let’s make this quick, I’ve got 20 minutes before I have to get back to the Dark Knight set.
JAMES MCAVOY
So, you’re a secret society of supervillians based on famous DC Comics rogues and you need me to help you in your nefarious plot to keep the world in a state of chaos and war?
MORGAN FREEMAN
What? No, you’re thinking of the comic book. We just kept the title and two character names from that best-selling piece of shit. We’re assassins that take lives in order to save thousands more.
JAMES MCAVOY
How do you decide who kill?
MORGAN FREEMAN
We have a Loom of Fate. It’s an actual Loom. And it encodes the names of our targets in binary when it stitches fabric. Seriously. This is actually in the movie.
JAMES MCAVOY
What the hell do you do when two people have the same name? And is every target in NY, or is that just luck?
MORGAN FREEMAN
Look, I gotta run. The deal is, you have the ability to accelerate your heart rate so that you can rape the laws of physics, curve bullets, jump 400 feet out of windows, flip cars, and even shoot the wings off of flies.
JAMES MCAVOY
Shoot the wings off of flies? Are action movies just running out of ways to outdo each other? Where else is there to go after shooting the wings off of flies? What’s the next preposterous action movie going to have, people shooting bullets into each other’s bullets?
MORGAN FREEMAN
Hey, good idea! You can do that with the heart rate thing too.
JAMES MCAVOY
Christ, at least Neo’s excuse was that he was inside the Matrix.
ANGELINA JOLIE’S LIPS
We’re now going to train you to be an assassin by treating you like shit and beating the living snot out of you for no clear reason.
She DOES. Once the SECRET SOCIETY finishes beating JAMES within an inch of his life, he realizes they are his TRUE FRIENDS. They go ASSASSINATE random PEOPLE using SPECIAL EFFECTS.
JAMES MCAVOY
Cool! My increased heart rate has let me travel back in time to 1999 when stylized slow motion gunfights could pass for entertainment!
ANGELINA JOLIE’S LIPS
The Loom of Fate says it’s time for you to kill Thomas Kretschmann.
JAMES MCAVOY
Alright! Did I get any advice on ideal murder weapons from the Scarf of Doom?
ANGELINA and JAMES travel to find THOMAS on a TRAIN. They BATTLE and eventually JAMES shoots THOMAS.
THOMAS KRETSCHMANN
Everything they told you was a lie. I’m your father.
JAMES MCAVOY
Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that like a billion scenes ago?
THOMAS KRETSCHMANN
Because I only got paid for two speaking lines. Urk!
(dies)
JAMES travels back to the TEXTILE MILL to confront MORGAN FREEMAN.
JAMES MCAVOY
Thomas Darth Vadered me. Is he really my father?
MORGAN FREEMAN
Sure, I can make you a suit that lets you turn your head. Wait, what movie is this? Shit, I’m still in this thing? Somebody shoot this motherfucker!
JAMES MCAVOY
How sad is it that the most entertaining part of this movie is hearing wise old grandpa Morgan Freeman say the word ‘fuck’?
ANGELINA JOLIE’S LIPS
Hey, don’t forget about me showing my naked ass gratuitously.
They have a SHOOTOUT but MORGAN doesn’t die, so they have another SHOOTOUT where he DOES.
JAMES MCAVOY (V.O.)
…and that’s the story of how I brutally slaughtered a shitload of people, which prevented me from being a pussy like you. What the fuck have you done lately?
AUDIENCE
Um, you mean besides wasting 8 bucks watching Fight Club and The Matrix have a miscarriage together? Nothing, I guess.
END
@Chantelle: the movie is okay. It’s largely made for retarded people (in the same way that 300 was) but there are one or two good scenes, and the Spybreak Textile Run at the end is its one well-directed action sequence. Overall, it’s better than both Hancock and that damn X-Files movie.
For Friday, those are tough decisions. I’d actually suggest seeing Wall-E.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:45 amABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT SCRIPT, ROD!! LOVED The Dark Knight references! One of the best ever!!
August 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pmSo, having a heart attack = having superpowers?
August 7th, 2008 at 6:46 pmThat’s what I got from the movie.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:08 pmI wonder what amazing and whacky misadventures my loss of hearing in one ear will lead to.
Jumper:Dumper Juno:Boo-no (get it?) Live Free or Die Hard: Leave Free or Die Bored
August 8th, 2008 at 1:12 amMr. Hilton! Please don’t bash The Dark Knight in your next script. I beg of you. It will give me severe butt hurt!
August 8th, 2008 at 3:26 pmIt occurs to me that if you were ‘That Good’ that you could not only shoot bullets out of the air, but you could do so by flinging your arms in wide arcs while timing the pulling of the trigger so perfectly during that arc to accomplish the ’shoot the other bullet out of the air’.. you could just as easily calmly level your pistol, take aim using the conveniently provided aiming-sights atop the weapon, and take the majority of the contents within said weapon and deposit them entirely within your opponent’s face.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:22 pm@Ryan Ferneau:
One of the reasons why I’m considering renting Jumper, though seriously thinking of giving this movie a miss entirely.
Jumper: We can Teleport. Fucking Teleport! Any place on the globe, A topless Beach, the middle of a Bank Vault, your mother’s Bedroom! Anywhere! What you got sucka?
Wanted: Well, I can give myself heart-palpitations for no clear reason and shoot people while flailing my arms like a douche.
Jumper: Wow, way lame dude.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:26 pmThe whiny bitch in Wanted is 100x more tolerable than the whiny bitch in Jumper.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:30 pmMan, so much of what makes Rods scripts awesome were just combined in this one - references, audience comments, the quick joke like in the “License to Wed” one, pointing out the stupid ass plot holes, etc.
Only criticism I can add is that the little pop up bubble thing that comes off the picture when you mouse over it should say “Flaunted” and not “Taunted” - but that’s just me not trying to sound like a total kiss ass.
Also, I love reading these but a little voice in the back of my head always says “HEY! Don’t read this yet, you haven’t seen the movie!” - then you read it and think “Oh thank God that fate did not bring this movie in contact with me.”
I mean…shooting the wings off flies because of an increased heart rate?
August 9th, 2008 at 1:18 pm