The "Dr. Strange 2" FX team did some last-minute scrambling when they saw someone else did this effect first.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

The Abridged Script

Everything Everywhere All At Once
An Abridged Reading

Too tired to read? Have this script read to you with an Abridged Reading, courtesy of Movie Snark.

FADE IN:

INT. LAUNDROMAT

MICHELLE YEOH is upstairs staring at ENDLESS PILES OF RECEIPTS trying to figure out the logical spaghetti labyrinth that is her TAXES, not realizing that upcoming events are going to make this look like a WORD FIND on a KID'S PLACEMAT MENU. Eventually she gives up and heads downstairs to the business area proper, where her husband KE HUY QUAN is putting up decorations.

KE HUY QUAN

Hi Michelle, don't worry, I’ve got almost everything ready for the New Year’s party tonight.

MICHELLE YEOH

That’s great as long as you didn’t stick googly eyes on everything, I hate them so much!!

KE HUY QUAN

Well I like them, they’re short and round.

(winks)

MICHELLE YEOH

I still don't get why you think our laundromat business should be based on being, ugh, NICE to people.

(spits)

Hey, dryer five, your cycle ended a minute ago! Maybe take your shitheap of shit clothes and fuck the fuck off?

(pours red wine, blueberry juice into dryer)

Also we’re having a party later, here's an invite!

MICHELLE'S daughter STEPHANIE HSU arrives along with her girlfriend TALLIE MEDEL.

STEPHANIE HSU

Mom can we FINALLY tell your cranky traditional uptight Dad that I'm gay? I know he's old and old-fashioned and cranky and old but C'MON y'know? After all it's James Hong, just tell him Tallie has green eyes or something.

JAMES HONG

(oldly)

Hmph? What?

MICHELLE YEOH

It's nothing Dad, Stephanie is here with her... GOOD FRIEND, that's it.

(smiles)

(to self)

Hm, Steph seems upset. Gotta salvage the situation...

(aloud)

Stephanie, you are so fat, you thought the name of this film was a diet plan.

(to self)

AW YEAH ACE PARENTING STRIKES AGAIN

(victory dance)

During all this nobody notices KE HUY doing super advanced physical gymnastics all over the laundromat just SLIGHTLY more advanced than MICHELLE'S mental ones.

INT. IRS BUILDING

MICHELLE, JAMES, and KE HUY arrive at the building for their tax audit. In the elevator, however, KE HUY's demeanor totally changes!

KE HUY QUANTUM

Listen carefully, there's not much time. I'm an alternate version of me who's leapt into my body! I need you to wear these funky earbuds and follow some directions I'm hastily scribbling on this random, surely insignificant piece of paper!

(scrawls furiously)

MICHELLE YEOH

Wow that’s some awesomely neat, legible handwriting for something slapped down in five seconds.

KE HUY QUANTUM

One of my alternate selves is a speed-calligrapher! Just trust me!

KE HUY becomes regular KE HUY QUAN again, and the family go to the desk of auditor JAMIE LEE CURTIS.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I have some serious issues with these tax deductions you're claiming, I mean, a karaoke machine? Googly eyes? $500 to make a custom set of armor for Simu Liu? And I’m pretty sure this “Invisible Woman costume, 1993” thing is some kind of copyright infringement.

(sighs)

How many times do I have to tell you, the IRS only accepts legitimate business expenses, not in-jokes about previous roles! Are you even listening?

MICHELLE demonstrates she's paying attention by reading the note from KE HUY QUANTUM, which tells her to put in the EARBUDS and SWAP HER SHOES and DO THE HOKEY POKEY and generally strain any credulity that the other characters don't notice all this. Suddenly she finds herself transported into the JANITOR'S CLOSET, and existing both IN THE CLOSET and OUT OF THE CLOSET at the same time like some sort of AWKWARD-TEEN COMING-OUT TV MOVIE.

KE HUY QUANTUM

You made it! Okay, there's a lot to explain, and half of that is me insisting there's a lot to explain. You've just jumped into an alternate timeline, or multiverse, where you walked over here instead of going to Jamie Lee's desk.

MICHELLE YEOH

Wow that's a lot to wrap my brain around. At least we've started small...

KE HUY QUANTUM

Indeed! Oh also everyone in this multiverse is possessed by evil and wants us dead, did I mention that part hahaha

(neck snapped by multiverse-Jamie Lee)

MICHELLE YEOH

A timeline where the IRS... is EVIL?!? Okay just slow the fuck down a minute.

(killed)

MICHELLE snaps back to her usual timeline and still disoriented, PUNCHES REGULAR JAMIE LEE! Security guards respond!

KE HUY QUANTUM

Luckily it's still me in this body. Let's put the rapid-fire narrative exposition on hold a while, in fact everyone can take a quick mental time-out while I do a martial arts demonstration on these hapless guards.

(clobbers guards in various Jackie-Chan-esque ways)

EVIL LEE CURTIS

Har har, I'm possessed again! And with this circle stapled to my head I'm more than a match for you!

KE HUY QUANTUM

Shit she's right. Michelle, you must access the alternate-you that knows martial arts! Ziggy says the way to do that is tell Jamie you love her!

MICHELLE YEOH

That seems random... surely it's harder to find a multiverse where I DON'T know martial arts? But here goes: Jamie, I loved you in Beverly Hills Chihuahua!

KE HUY QUANTUM

(checking instruments)

Ziggy's not buying that.

MICHELLE YEOH

Um... Jamie, I loved you in Halloween!!

KEY HUY QUANTUM

I'm getting wildly different results depending on context...

MICHELLE YEOH

Okay fine... Jamie, I loved you in the Abridged Script of Everything Everywhere All At Once!!

KE HUY QUANTUM

HOLY FUCK MAXIMUM META-REFERENCE UNLOCKED!! GO MICHELLE!

MICHELLE uses her AWESOME MARTIAL ARTS POWERS to defeat EVIL LEE CURTIS! However unlike the nonstop WTF atmosphere of the movie, this eventually WEARS OFF and she and KE HUY get grabbed by SECURITY.

INT. IRS BASEMENT

While in custody downstairs, KE HUY does some more explaining.

KE HUY QUANTUM

Please understand, an evil supervillain is destroying all the alternate universes, and you must stop her with our multiverse-hopping technology! Only our verse-jumping tech can save us!

MICHELLE YEOH

Where did this force of pure evil come from?

KE HUY QUANTUM

Well, remember the verse-jumping tech that will save us? It made our version of your daughter experience EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE and turned her evil. But please understand, we NEEDED to develop our verse-jumping tech, to defeat the threat we created with our verse-jumping tech!!

Right on cue, SUPER EVIL STEPHANIE HSU appears while making EVERY FASHION STATEMENT EVER MADE ALL AT ONCE.

STEPHANEVIL HSU

Oh goodie, some hapless guards I can murder in comically gruesome ways. Hope you're taking notes, Wanda Maximoff!

(shreds guard)

(explodes guard)

(turns guard into cryptocurrency market, waits)

MICHELLE attempts to connect with her kickass-self, but instead links to a world where everyone has HOTDOGS for HANDS, WHAAAA?!?

MICHELLE YEOH

You’d think this would be a quick one-time gag. But oh nooooo, not in THIS multiverse, we gotta do entire subplots about every throwaway idea. Brace yourself for WAY more hotdog-hands than you ever thought possible, you're gonna think Joey Chestnut threw up on your eyeballs.

STEPHANEVIL HSU

Mwah ha, I've been murdering other multiverse versions of you, but there's something different this time. Sort of like if you were the first version the audience met, so I have to delay killing you for some reason.

Thanks to the delay MICHELLE is rescued by (rolls on random shit table) QUANTUM JAMES HONG in his ROCKET CHAIR, and our heroes are able to regroup.

INT. ELSEWHERE IN THE IRS BASEMENT

QUANTUM JAMES HONG and KE HUY QUANTUM reveal they lead a whole group of multiverse-hoppers that have leapt into pretty much everyone we've met so far, even the laundromat customer who now uses her TINY DOG ON A LEASH as a WEAPON which is too upsetting to mention ever again.

QUANTUM JAMES HONG

Listen Michelle, the only way to save this multiverse is if you murder YOUR version of Stephanie. That way Stephanevil won't have access to this plane.

MICHELLE YEOH

You're leading off with "hello there, please murder your own child"? Fuck that.

QUANTUM JAMES HONG

In that case, our backup plan is to kill YOU instead, even though it won't stop Stephanevil per se and her stated goal is to kill you. But at least we'll feel like we did SOMETHING.

MICHELLE YEOH

Then I guess it's time to extend our own record for Most Fights Set Inside an IRS Building! Since our multiverse powers are directly proportional to how bizarrely we access them, I'm inventing a whole universe with a raccoon version of Ratatouille!

KE HUY QUANTUM

Be careful Michelle or you might accidentally spawn a whole new subplot -- oh, too late. Well, there's another casual sidebar joke we gotta stretch into a whole narrative arc.

QUANTUM SECURITY GUARD

Ha ha, you'll never defeat all of us! And to maximize OUR powers we're gonna jam comically oversized stuff up our butt!

MICHELLE YEOH

Sheesh, that's kind of a basic joke even by this website's standards. What are you actually doing?

QUANTUM SECURITY GUARD

No that is literally how the movie goes. Jamie Lee has statuettes that are literally butt-plugs and I'm gonna jump onto one butt-first. Then other people are gonna wedge other shit in their butts. Then this fight's gonna go on for A WHILE. Hope this movie didn't have any Oscar aspirations.

Everyone launches into a huge CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN BUTTPLUG fight and eventually STEPHANEVIL returns, once more killing KE HUY!

KE HUY QUANTUM

Not to worry! Ziggy will find another timeline where--wait, why am I seeing a screen that says "Key Huy Quantum never returned home"? What kind of bullshit is

(dead)

STEPHANEVIL HSU

HAHAHA yes, I tracked down their verse-jumping HQ and killed Ke Huy Quantum directly! It's too bad our endless multiverse chase had to end, that shit never gets old.

SAM RAIMI

Sure hope not!

MICHELLE digs down and prepares for her ultimate showdown with STEPHANEVIL -- but OVERLOADS on multiverses, and DIES!!! WHAAAAAAT?!?

END CREDITS WHAAAAAAAT?!?!???

INT. THEATRE OF PEOPLE WHO WERE WATCHING PREVIOUS SCENE AS A MOVIE IN THEIR UNIVERSE, WHAAAAAAOKAY YOU GET THE IDEA

MICHELLE tries to acclimatize to this new reality of being an international movie star, which should be a fucking CAKEWALK but she's still in character as someone who's NOT THAT, so instead of a cakewalk it's more of a SOUFFLE SHUFFLE and oh dammit now there's another whole subplot about a world knee-deep in souffle, sorry everyone.

MICHELLE YEOH

So many possible timelines and multiverses! Apparently my hotdog-hand self is in a serious relationship with Jamie Lee! There's even a universe where I got to make a good Bond movie, holy shit.

MICHELLE hops into a universe where instead of punching JAMIE LEE, everyone just headed home. She learns the seemingly insignificant piece of paper is in fact DIVORCE PAPERS!

KE HUY QUAN

I didn't really want a divorce, though. I just thought if someone scribbled a note on the back, we could have a wacky misunderstanding about it. We never have wacky misunderstandings anymore! I miss those days.

They return to the LAUNDROMAT where the BIG NEW YEAR'S PARTY is happening. Everyone is there including JAMES HONG and STEPHANEVIL and TALLIE MEDEL and wait a minute

STEPHANEVIL HSU

Yep it's evil me again! I've decided to take you to my central evil base and share my evil plans with you, so no, this isn't the multiverse where you make a good Bond movie.

INT. STARKLY DECORATED BLACK-AND-WHITE PALATIAL MAUSOLEUM WHICH IS EITHER STEPHANEVIL'S BASE OR NHL SUPERSTAR CONNOR MCDAVID'S HOUSE, SERIOUSLY GOOGLE IT

STEPHANEVIL shows MICHELLE around her lair, leading to a HUGE ROUND EXISTENTIAL VOID THING.

STEPHANEVIL HSU

As I've been destroying multiverses I've also been making a literal Everything Bagel, because I hadn't heard anyone make that joke in a while. Staring into it lets you see EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, and demonstrates how everything is meaningless since no choices really matter!

MICHELLE YEOH

I guess if no choices matter I might as well finish this protein bar I got from Spidey-Tom...

STEPHANEVIL HSU

OH MY GOD, I already destroyed the multiverse where anyone remembers previous abridged scripts! Just stare into the Infinity, I mean Everything Bagel, and join me in my nihilistic journey to self-annihilation. What better mother-daughter bonding activity than destroying all life everywhere and then ourselves, amirite?

MICHELLE looks at the BAGEL and sees the pointlessness of choices if all possible realities exist anyway. She begins willfully FUCKING UP every timeline possible!

MICHELLE YEOH

Fuck you hotdog-hands Jamie Lee!

(puts ketchup on Jamie Lee's hands like some kind of monster)

Fuck you Raccoon-touille!

(puts double-reinforced locks on garbage bins)

Fuck you souffle world!

(I mean that's a callback to earlier in THIS script, that's still ok right?)

Hahaha this is fun.

However in MOVIE STAR WORLD she finds herself having a moving conversation with KE HUY.

KE HUY QUAN

Maybe all realities do exist, but that means the one we choose is that much more special. Even this reality, where you're rich and famous and have no worries at all, is special. But for me, even the multiverse that only has Tomorrow Never Dies is special, since it has you in it.

(smiles heartwarmingly)

MICHELLE realizes there is still meaning and goodness! She verse-jumps to a reality where her and STEPHANEVIL are both ROCKS.

EXT. ROCKVERSE

MICHELLEROCK and STEPHANEVILROCK converse in subtitles, and basically everyone in the entire movie gets to take a well-earned CRAFT SERVICES BREAK while this plays out.

MICHELLEROCK

This is gonna be another one of those quick gags drawn out into a subplot?

STEPHANEVILROCK

Not a whole subplot no, just a veeery long isolated scene. You want truncated emotional moments and clipped-off character arcs, I think Thor 4 opens in a few months. But here, we take time to properly explore the deeper psychological ramifications of-

MICHELLEROCK

I put googly eyes on my rock!

STEPHANEVILROCK

Um okay I think everyone's back we can resume now.

INT. IRS BUILDING - REGULAR BORING UNIVERSE

We return to the dull timeline but STEPHANEVIL teleports the EVERYTHING BAGEL there so it can devour EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE!

MICHELLE YEOH

Oh crap! However I see now that I can't defeat Stephanevil with regular fighting. I must instead fight with kindness, using punches of love and swift kicks of compassion!

(puts googly eye on her forehead)

With my precision strikes I shall connect everyone to their happiest multiverse!

MICHELLE links SECURITY GUARD to a universe where [insert your favourite TV show that was cancelled unfairly] was GIVEN ENOUGH SEASONS TO RESOLVE SATISFYINGLY, then links EVIL LEE CURTIS to a universe where the HALLOWEEN franchise stopped with [insert the HALLOWEEN movie of your choice], and the other multiverse minions to a universe where [a shitty thing of your choice did not happen in favour of a positive thing]!

QUANTUM JAMES HONG

I'm sorry I tried killing you Michelle, I was wrong. Now how do we defeat Stephanevil?

MICHELLE YEOH

Defeat?! We must save her! Which we will do by not saving her. But letting her know we WANTED to! But then not.

STEPHANIE HSU

(blinks)

...you're right, I don't want to obliterate anything after all! I love you Mom.

MICHELLE YEOH

AW YEAH ACE PARENTING STRIKES AGAIN

(victory dance)

EXT. EPILOGUE ONLY HERE JUST THIS ONCE

Everyone goes to the LAUNDROMAT PARTY and celebrates the happy resolution of the movie.

MICHELLE YEOH

It's wonderful to all be here together with newfound appreciation of each other. Everything's worked out great for everyone!

STEPHANIE HSU

I guess. Except for all those other versions of you I murdered, plus those security guards, and Ke Huy Quantum, and a whoooole bunch of other people, ha ha ha

MICHELLE YEOH

Eh don’t worry, this isn’t the multiverse where anyone gives a shit.

END

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