HOLLYWOOD, CA — In the realm of professional screenwriting, the magic often lies in the mastery of set-ups and pay-offs. These narrative techniques are pivotal in crafting a story that is both engaging and emotionally resonant.

Hollywood — As a screenwriter in the streaming era, I’m fascinated by the new ways the studios will be analyzing scripts. So when Anthropic released Claude, an AI assistant capable of consuming entire screenplays thanks to its 100,000 token limit, I had an idea: why not have Claude provide coverage on a classic film screenplay and see how an AI assesses the story, characters, and structure?

To put Claude to the test, I selected Ed Solomon’s amazing script for the 1997 sci-fi comedy hit Men In Black. The film went on to gross over $500 million worldwide and launch a franchise — and gave Ed absolutely none of those profits.

But forget that shit, how would Ed’s script stand up to AI script coverge scrutiny? I copied his entire 120-page screenplay from Simplyscripts.com and cut it into Claude 2, then prompted it to provide executive-style script coverage as if it were a studio reader.

So let’s see how it did —

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.