Hi Sebastian – thank you so much for your kind words.
The article is now 16 years old, and I have to say that my analysis today would look very different.
I don’t think at the time I fully understood the 8-sequence method.
Only yesterday I mentioned the film to my son, so I think it is time to revisit it.
Expect an updated article soon!
Cheers,
Karel

I read those mean comments and just have to respond. I have been a working screenwriter for twelve years now, and I really like your analysis. I made one myself for a project I’m working on right now, and it matches yours almost 1:1. And it doesn’t matter whether the first sequence is a flash forward or not. Screen time is screen time. Thanks for your effort and don’t let those kids troll you.

Best
Sebastian

Hi Gary,

A few clarifications:

I never read the script. This is actually a breakdown of the film. I’m not sure how close it follows the script.

At the time, I was responding to the Variety review. Meanwhile, the audience has decided that the film worked. If the budget was indeed only $25m, it must have gone into profit at an accumulated worldwide B.O. gross of $93m.

This very crude breakdown is 10 years old, and is definitely up for a review. Most likely I’ll have a different take on it. Gilroy’s Nightcrawler is one of my all-time favourite scripts.

Also, this is not ‘my theory’. The terminology was borrowed from Campbell/Vogler.

Thanks for your note, Michael.
Are you interested in a constructive discussion about this?

I demur. It dramatizes another aspect of Michael’s failed life. He’s failed professionally (to make partner), in business (the restaurant went belly up) and his personal life has gone to hell in a hand basket (wife divorced, got the kid, etc.)

In terms of his personal life, he and his corporate adversary Karen share a secret symmetry in the sense of their hollowed out personal lives. They made a Faustian bargain with the corporate world for the sake of their careers. In Act 1, it’s been a the bargain that has paid off for Karen. Not so for Michael.

And the connection with his irritated cop brother does lead somewhere. It’s who he needs to get into Arthur’s apartment, to get sprung from jail, to get his revenge on Karen (and redeem himself).

Thank you Paul, you’re spot on. I need to rework this one (and some of the others published here before).

(For another example of a flash forward teaser see the pilot episode of Breaking Bad. Same plotting technique.)

After the explosion, the the story commences in the ordinary world (4 days earlier) and moves forward chronologically.

Subtract about 15 minutes from all the time stamps after the teaser, and l the plot beats unfold like a conventional plot.