Seven Story Map by Daniel Calvisi Act Four Screenplays SEVEN Serial Killer Thriller Written by Andrew Kevin Walker Directed by David Fincher Running Time: 121 minutes BASIC STORY MAP PROTAGONIST: DETECTIVE WILLIAM SOMERSET, jaded cop, one week from retirement Skill: Intellectual Misbehavior: Even-tempered and contemplative (thus clashing with his hot-headed partner, David Mills) EXTERNAL GOAL: To catch the killer INTERNAL GOAL: To retire and move away MAIN DRAMATIC CONFLICT: John Doe and Mills THEME: Is the world worth saving? CENTRAL DRAMATIC QUESTION: Can Somerset and Mills work together to catch John Doe? THE ENDING: Mills kills John Doe, thus completing the cycle of seven deadly sins, and Somerset decides to remain on the job. ARC: Somerset goes from a jaded cop close to retirement to a mentor for a younger detective to a commitment to remain in the city and help solve crimes. LOGLINE: Two detectives hunt a brutal serial killer who has based his murders on the seven deadly sins. Seven Story Map by Daniel Calvisi Act Four Screenplays FULL STORY MAP STORY ENGINES ACT 1: Somerset struggles to retire in peace, but is sucked in by the emergence of a serial killer who is inspired to kill by the Seven Deadly Sins. ACT 2A: Somerset and Mills follow clues to find the killer before his next murder. ACT 2B: They battle John Doe, but he escapes. They find his latest victim, the most grisly murder yet, and Somerset quits the case. ACT 3: Somerset must contain Mills and protect him from John Doe. THE BEAT SHEET (note: this is not a complete scene list) ACT ONE 1 - OPENING: DET. SOMERSET (Morgan Freeman) meets DET. MILLS (Brad Pitt), his replacement, at a crime scene. Somerset is calm and orderly and Mills is a hothead with a chip on his shoulder. Somerset asks why Mills would transfer to a city like this, and Mills says he "wants to do some good." 3 - Setup: Somerset sleeps to the tick of a metronome (his device to bring order to a chaotic world). 9 - INCITING INCIDENT: Morbidly obese man is found dead. Somerset treats Mills like a rookie, enraging Mills. 14 - Obese man was essentially killed by being forced to eat himself to death, probably by a man who put a gun to the victim's head. Somerset thinks the murder is the start of something bad and he requests that Mills be taken off the case as he's not ready. Mills objects and they are split up. 16 - Somerset is given the obese man murder, while Mills gets a new case... 18 - STRONG MOVEMENT FORWARD: Mills investigates the crime scene of Defense Attorney Eli Gould, killed in his office. On the floor is the word "Greed" written in blood. 23 - Somerset returns to the obese man crime scene and finds the word "Gluttony" written on the wall behind the refrigerator, with a note that he recognizes as a quotation from Milton's Paradise Lost. Somerset was correct: this is a pattern of murder. A serial killer is loose. Seven Story Map by Daniel Calvisi Act Four Screenplays 25 - Somerset explains the seven deadly sins to Mills and the CAPTAIN: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Wrath, Pride, Lust. TICKING TIME CLOCK: Stop the killer before he finishes all seven murders. Somerset bows out of the investigation. Mills takes the case. 27 - END OF ACT ONE TURN: Somerset visits the library, after hours, and finds connections to Dante's The Divine Comedy, the Seven Deadly Sins, levels of hell, etc. He makes copies of his research. 29 - DECISION: Somerset drops an envelope with his research on Mills' desk, breaking his promise that he would not be involved in the case. 30 - Somerset gives his desk to Mills. ACT TWO-A 33 - Dinner with Mills' wife, TRACY (Gwyneth Paltrow), who gets the detectives to see each other as normal people. 39 - FIRST TRIAL: Mills and Somerset work together on the case. They find picture of Eli Gould's wife. 43 - FIRST CASUALTY: Eli Gould's wife, devastated, looks at the crime scene photos and breaks down. Just as the detectives are about to leave, she notices that a painting in Eli's office is upside down. Mills and Somerset return to the crime scene. 45 - COMBAT: They find the killer's first major clue: fingerprints spell out "Help Me" on the wall behind the painting. 52-54 - MIDPOINT (EXTERNAL): The fingerprints come back from the lab; they belong to a known felon named Victor. The SWAT Team storms Victor's apartment, finding his skeletal corpse in bed, labeled "Sloth." Photos left behind by the killer confirm Victor was starved for exactly one year. The killer has escalated in his twisted pathology. Victor wakes up, barely alive; he is the killer's first victim found alive, but he is a vegetable so he can't communicate. Seven Story Map by Daniel Calvisi Act Four Screenplays 54 - Setup: A photographer takes a photo of Mills—Mills flies into a rage and chases him off. Somerset rebukes Mills for letting his emotions get the better of him. 57 - MIDPOINT (INTERNAL): Somerset meets with a distraught Tracy Mills. She is pregnant and unsure if she wants to bring a baby into the world in such a terrible city. 60 - Somerset tells Tracy his story about his ex- girlfriend getting pregnant and how he wore her down until she decided to get rid of it. Although he knows it was the right decision, he regrets it every day. He tells her that if she doesn't plan to keep it, not to tell David. But if she does, she should spoil that kid every day of his life. ACT TWO-B 67 -The detectives get information from a source about library activity on "The Divine Comedy" and the other books that Somerset found in his research. The books were checked out by a "Jonathan Doe." They go to his apartment. 68 - JOHN DOE fires on them! A dangerous chase ensues. 74 - John Doe (face still unseen) gets the drop on Mills, puts his gun to Mills' head but spares his life and flees. 75 - DOW/AOP: In spite of Somerset's warnings, Mills kicks in the door of John Doe's apartment. They explore Doe's private lair, getting closer to him than ever. 80 - Payoff: They find the photo of Mills, taken by John Doe, who was posing as the photographer. 82 - John Doe calls, taunts Mills on the phone. They find a photo of a blonde woman, looks like a hooker, and the address of a fetish shop. 84 - At "Wild Bill's Leather Shop," Mills and Somerset talk to the owner, who was paid by John Doe to create a special item. Seven Story Map by Daniel Calvisi Act Four Screenplays 85 - Lust- The new victim is a prostitute, the blonde woman, found hacked to death in a seedy brothel. Her "client" is screaming, completely traumatized. 87 - END OF ACT TWO TURN: In the interrogation room back at the precinct, the client confesses, saying that Doe put a gun in his mouth and forced him to kill the prostitute by wearing a strap-on harness with a razor sharp machete attached to it. This is Mills and Somerset's first contact with a witness who has experienced John Doe's maniacal plan and lived to tell about it. 89 - Somerset is disgusted with this case and this city; "A place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was a virtue." He's ready to give up. 90 - Mills is still optimistic, argues with Somerset that this is a case of mental illness on the part of the killer, not a society that pushed him to these crimes. (Nature or nurture?) MILLS I don't think you're quitting because you believe these things you say. I think you want to believe them, because you're quitting. 91 - DECISION: They split, at odds. Somerset quits. 92 - Payoff: Somerset can't sleep. Troubled, he breaks his metronome and throws his knife at a dart board. ACT THREE 93 - Pride: John Doe's next murder victim is a model found dead in her bed, with a phone glued to one hand and a bottle of sleeping pills in the other. Her nose has been cut off, "to spite her face." She had Seven Story Map by Daniel Calvisi Act Four Screenplays two choices: live with a deformed face or take the pills to kill herself. She chose the latter. 94 - Somerset rejoins the force, but only until the John Doe case is closed. 95 - JOHN DOE arrives, covered in blood, and turns himself in. They realize that he's been slicing his fingertips with a razor so he leaves no fingerprints. 96 - John Doe's lawyer offers a deal—in exchange for a full confession, John Doe will take Mills and Somerset to the location of the two remaining bodies. Somerset and Mills agree to escort the unarmed Doe to the unknown location. 100 - TRUE POINT OF NO RETURN: Somerset and Mills drive John Doe in their car as a police helicopter tracks them from above. 106 - Doe explains his motivations as Mills and Somerset play good cop, bad cop. Doe sought to turn the sin against the sinner. His victims were not innocents—the obese man was disgusting, the lawyer a liar who defended rapists and murderers, Victor was a drug dealing pedophile, and the prostitute was "a disease spreading whore." 109 - Doe taunts Mills, getting in his head. "You're only alive because I spared you." 113 - They reach the destination and it is desolate, empty.