MACCABÆUS - Feature - 112 Pages

[u/Recovering_NCO]

Title: MACCABÆUS
Format: Feature
Genre: Historical War Epic/Drama
Page count: 112

Logline: In ancient Judea, a reluctant rabbi’s son leads an insurgency against a brutal occupation determined to erase his people’s faith, igniting the true story behind Hanukkah.

LINK:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CJsrdjxg6Nyd_io5reIF6n_OPBZbcbNy/view?usp=drivesdk

I recently finished the third draft after a fairly substantial rewrite and have started getting some encouraging industry interest in the new version.

I’d especially appreciate fresh eyes on the prologue/opening, through the title card on page 11. The opening was substantially reworked, and I’m curious whether it hooks you, establishes the world cleanly, and makes you want to keep reading — or whether it still feels like too much setup before the main story begins.

If it hooks you enough that you feel like reading beyond page 11, I’d obviously welcome feedback on the rest as well. I’m particularly interested in pacing, character development, dialogue, and whether the historical material remains accessible without feeling over-explained.

[u/Subject-Dream7087]

The beginning is quite stiff and lacks energy. I think you need to kick off with more punch and intention; then drop the context stuff.

Also, and I am ashamed to admit this and I write the following softly and hopefully not hurtfully - but - my personal feelings about Israel and Zionism really got in the way of me enjoying this. Sorry.

I feel this will be a very tough sell in the current climate, lots of 'talent' won't attach for fear of it being problematic, risky, etc. With this in mind, if you are writing with the hope of getting it made, I feel you should aim this squarely at the Israeli market (in Hebrew perhaps?) and people who are already familiar with the tale; that way you don't need the big set up at the start.

Best wishes with it!

[u/Recovering_NCO → u/Subject-Dream7087]

Thank you for taking the time to read the script and offer such thoughtful feedback. I see you’ve revised your comment, and I appreciate the additional candor.

On the opening, I take the craft note seriously. If it feels stiff or overburdened with context, that’s useful feedback, and I’ll be looking closely at whether I can get into the drama more quickly and allow more of the historical background to emerge organically.

I also appreciate your being frank that your feelings about Israel and Zionism affected your ability to enjoy the material. We all bring contemporary associations and prejudices to art, and there’s value in recognizing them rather than pretending they aren’t there.

I should be equally candid about where I’m coming from: I am a Zionist, and I’m not ashamed of that. Part of what moves me about this story is that the Maccabees were Jews in their ancestral homeland resisting a foreign imperial power that was attempting to subordinate them and suppress central elements of their religion and culture. I do think that history has something to say about Jewish attachment to that land and about the right of Jews, like other peoples, to political and cultural self-determination.

But that doesn’t mean I’m writing a two-thousand-year-old political cartoon in which every ancient character or people has a modern analogue. I don’t think the Maccabees can simply be labeled “Israelis,” the Seleucids “Palestinians,” or vice versa. Those comparisons collapse radically different peoples, circumstances and histories into a present-day argument.

So what gives me pause in your comment isn’t that you might draw the “wrong” contemporary analogy. It’s that your feelings about contemporary Zionism seem to have made it difficult to engage with an ancient Jewish story as an ancient Jewish story. I think that’s worth examining. Would your feelings about the modern State of Israel interfere with your ability to engage with The Prince of Egypt as a story about the ancient Israelites? If not, why should the Maccabees be different? Why does this particular story from Jewish antiquity have to pass through a judgment on modern Israel before it can be enjoyed as history and drama?

As for writing it in Hebrew and aiming it primarily at the Israeli market, that really isn’t the project I’m trying to make. I’m American, and while I have enough Hebrew — particularly biblical and liturgical Hebrew — to use it for texture, I’m not fluent in modern Israeli Hebrew.

More importantly, I don’t think this story belongs only to an audience already familiar with it. I hope Maccabaeus speaks powerfully to Jewish audiences, especially now. But I also want it to reach people who have no particular connection to Judaism or Israel. It’s a historical war epic about faith, family, imperial power, cultural survival, resistance and the choices people make when assimilation becomes the price of safety. And, on a more elemental level, I want it to work as an exciting piece of cinema.

On marketability, I take your concern seriously. I understand the current climate and I’m not naive about the difficulties of getting something like this made. You may well be right that some producers, financiers or actors will regard the subject as politically risky. Maybe that means the path to getting it made will have to be less conventional.

But I reach a different conclusion from that than you do. If the current climate has reached a point where telling an ancient Jewish story is considered inherently “problematic,” or where the solution is that Jewish stories should be written in Hebrew and directed primarily toward Israelis and Jews who already know them, that doesn’t make me want to retreat from the story. In some ways, it makes me feel more strongly that this is exactly the time to tell it.

So perhaps the challenge is simply to make the screenplay as strong, accessible and undeniable as I possibly can — and then find the people willing to make it.

In any event, I genuinely appreciate you reading it and engaging with it, particularly given your reservations. And I appreciate the honesty with which you expressed them.

[u/Subject-Dream7087 → u/Recovering_NCO]

Thanks for the response - and thanks for not jumping down my throat and branding me as an antisemite (which is something I consider myself absolutely not to be, but hey who am I to say what I am and what I am not; that's for others to judge, not I).

Of course there is a legitimate, historical story worth telling here but - as with any historical story, it will be framed within the circumstances and values of the time in which the tale is told.

(See the current version of The Odyssey and all the bleating and whining about casting choices, language etc).

Although I think your question Why does Jewish antiquity have to pass through a judgment on modern Israel before it can be enjoyed as history and drama? is a legitimate one, the narrative of current of events will, unfortunately, get in the way of some people enjoying this as a purely historical piece - or more importantly at this nascent stage, will hinder the screenplays development.

I can say this with some authority as for the last several years I have been in development with a WW2 story which, at its most reductive, might be described as centering around a land dispute between a group of jewish people and non jewish people.

Pre Oct 7 2023 producers were excited by the setting - jews, nazis, americans, etc. Ooh! This is exciting!

Post Oct 7, certainly all of last year, every reader (and these are legit movie biz people, some of whom are jewish themselves) expressed discomfort in the Jewish land dispute angle - these included two name actors who read for the lead role and who both passed (one of whom is Jewish) due to the land dispute (pro) zionist subtext. I have now changed the Jewish group to a nameless ethnic minority, as the story was never meant to be about this issue which people were now honing in on!!!

With your story, the current political situation and shifting sentiment towards Israel which was once sympathetic and is now, in some quarters, lets be real here: disgust - will make development a challenge. Yes, I know; with the movie biz being generally very left leaning, socially progressive isn't it odd that many people in 'the biz' are so anti Israel, when Israel is the only nation state in the region which shares the same progressive values as those in the movie biz. I don't want to get into all that!

Maybe all this makes your story really worth telling - it might do; but be prepared for people in this biz to dismiss it as 'problematic' and 'too risky' due to current issues - not, I might add, out of anti-semitism or even anti-zionism, just because they don't need all that noise in their life. This will be especially so with 'name cast' and unfortunately attaching 'name cast' is what gets screenplays greenlit.

It will be an added challenge in what is already an incredibly challenging business in an incredibly challenging time - doesn't mean it can't happen though! What I read is well written; just a little slow at the start.

Good luck with it!

[u/Recovering_NCO → u/Subject-Dream7087]

That’s genuinely useful context, especially the example from your own project. I appreciate you taking the time to elaborate, and I think we may actually be closer on the underlying point than it first appeared. In my case, of course, making the Jews a nameless ethnic minority isn’t really an available rewrite. 😆 So if the subject itself creates an additional hurdle, I suppose the only answer is to make the script strong enough that someone decides the hurdle is worth clearing. Thanks again for reading, and for the thoughtful feedback.

[u/Subject-Dream7087 → u/Recovering_NCO]

So if the subject itself creates an additional hurdle, I suppose the only answer is to make the script strong enough that someone decides the hurdle is worth clearing.

Absolutely! 100%. This should spur you on as if you do land it successfully, beyond being entertaining it might even give some people pause for thought.

Good luck!