Spacesharks

1. INT. THEATER · THE SPACESHARKS TRAILER

Black screen. A deep, gravelly trailer voice: SEABEAR.

SEABEAR (V.O., trailer voice): In a galaxy… where sharks have learned… to breathe space…

CUT TO: CHONKSY in a silver suit and fishbowl helmet on a planet's edge as armored space sharks swarm a starfield.

SEABEAR (V.O.): …one chonk… will not.

Reveal what's just outside the shot: a bubble machine, cardboard rocks, a crab crew member holding a shark puppet on a stick.

SEABEAR (V.O.): This summer. In space. (beat) No one can hear you eat.

The final title card comes up upside down. It stays upside down. It's in the trailer. It has 4 million views.

2. INT. SPACESHARKS BATTLE SET · DAY

CHONKSY hangs on wires in a jetpack rig. SEAVER sweats at a hand-cranked winch.

SEAVER: Structurally, I'm holding a famous person with my arms.

SNAP. One wire goes. CHONKSY swings upside down, helmet bonking a puppet shark, and keeps acting perfectly, inverted.

CHONKSY (as space hero, upside down): You'll never take the moon.

THE ORCA (V.O., walkie): KEEP ROLLING. That's art. (beat) That's also insurance fraud. But it's art.

SEAVER: (straining) I'd like to stop holding him now.

THE ORCA (V.O.): You'd like a lot of things, sweetheart.

3. INT. SET · THE SHARL'S NOTES

THE SHARL floats by the camera, flickering, reading from a script.

THE SHARL: Note. In space, sharks do not fight. They negotiate.

DIRECTOR (flounder): That's not in the script.

THE SHARL: (reading aloud, sincerely) "[CHONKSY LOOKS BRAVELY INTO THE VOID]."

DIRECTOR: That's not in the script either.

THE SHARL: It will be.

Cut to the script supervisor's binder. The page now has [CHONKSY LOOKS BRAVELY INTO THE VOID] typed on it. DORIS the crab slowly lowers her glasses.

THE SHARL: (to CHONKSY, privately) You have very good eyes for looking into voids.

CHONKSY: …Thanks?

THE SHARL: [PAUSE FOR LAUGH].

No laugh. THE SHARL writes in its tiny notebook: "Not yet."

4. INT. SET · A NEW BOOM OPERATOR

A boom mic dips directly into the middle of the shot, right above CHONKSY's fishbowl. Holding it: SEA PANDA KID, 15, permanent scowl, backpack on.

FIRST AD (a crab): Who hired you?

SEA PANDA KID: I'm FIFTEEN. Boom ops are traditionally fifteen.

FIRST AD: That's not a tradition.

SEA PANDA KID: It is now. My uncle's in the Seamossad.

FIRST AD: What does your uncle do?

SEA PANDA KID: (darkly) Things.

CUT TO: a smoothie shop. A panda in a visor makes a smoothie, badly. He drops the blender lid.

BACK TO SET.

FIRST AD: Can you keep the mic out of the shot?

SEA PANDA KID: No.

They keep him. He's the only one who knows where the boom goes, which is in frame, every time.

5. INT. COCKPIT SET

BLUE as the space captain, CHONKSY as the pilot. RED in the back eating the second control panel.

BLUE: (whisper-chanting) This is fine. Everything is fine. I'm fine. (louder) I'M FINE.

DIRECTOR: Action!

BLUE, in sheer panic, nails the scene in one take, devastating and perfect. Silence.

DIRECTOR: …What was that?

BLUE: I don't know! I'm scared!

During the take, CHONKSY added one small look, a glance at BLUE that wasn't in the script. Off-script, quietly:

BLUE: Do that again.

He does. They share a look, like two people who found the same secret door in a house.

PROP MASTER: (to RED) That was the backup panel.

RED: Bet.

6. INT. ACQUISITIONS COMMAND ROOM · NIGHT

A run on a house with four cats. CHUMPY runs the op. PLATRICK is on comms. His headset mic is on. He doesn't know.

PLATRICK (live to the whole team): Cool cool cool. Team's in position. (sigh) I'm so lonely. Cool. Cats are on the couch. Cool. Nobody's ever held my paw. Cool. Okay, move in.

On the beach: SEABEAR slowly puts a flipper over his heart. NAVY SEAL stares straight ahead.

NAVY SEAL: …Above my pay grade. Arf.

In the command room, SEAVER is weeping silently.

7. INT. THE CAT HOUSE · NIGHT

The team slips in. Four cats sit on the couch in a perfect straight line. They watch. Nobody moves.

NAVY SEAL decides to stare one down. He lasts four seconds, looks away, and breathes into a paper bag.

One cat slowly, deliberately, slides the TV remote off the cushion toward CHONKSY with one paw, as if helping. That's worse.

CHONKSY: (whisper) Don't take the remote.

SEABEAR: (whisper) Is trap?

CHONKSY: It's a gift. That's worse.

They grab the DVD crate and back out. The cats don't move, except their heads, which turn in unison.

EXT. SHORELINE: the team swims away. One cat has followed them to the waterline and sits, watching.

SEABEAR: She will be back.

CHONKSY: She's a cat.

SEABEAR: That is why.

8. INT. COMMAND ROOM · DEBRIEF

PLATRICK has his face in his paws.

CHUMPY: (kindly) Hey. We all heard. It's fine.

PLATRICK: Cool.

CHUMPY: Seaver cried.

SEAVER: Structurally, I'm fine. (his eye twitches)

CHUMPY: (to PLATRICK) For the record? Somebody will hold your paw. (beat) Not me. I'm busy. But somebody.

9. INT. SPACESHARKS SET · THE MONOLOGUE

The big speech. CHONKSY in the cockpit, the whole crew watching.

CHONKSY (as space hero): We came here to win. We came here to—

He stops. Then he says the line from his napkin book instead, quietly. It's simple, true and his own. We don't hear all of it, just enough: something about being far from home and choosing to stay anyway.

Total silence. DORIS faints, gently, onto her clipboard. SEA PANDA KID drops the boom. The bubble machine keeps bubbling.

10. INT. VIDEO VILLAGE

THE ORCA in his bathrobe, leaning into the monitors, eyes huge.

THE ORCA: CUT.

Silence.

THE ORCA: We copy here, sweetheart. Copying is safe. Copying never sent anybody to the Trench.

Beat.

THE ORCA: …Do it again. Exactly.

11. INT. THE ORCA'S OFFICE · LATER

THE ORCA sits by a small indoor pool feeding two ducks. CHONKSY sits across the desk. Through the glass door, CHUMPY waits in the lobby, eating the candy bowl one piece at a time.

THE ORCA: You know what I love about remakes?

CHONKSY: No.

THE ORCA: Somebody else already got in trouble for them.

He tosses a crumb. A duck eats it.

THE ORCA: You're the best copier we've got, kid. You know how rare that is? Most chonks can't even copy right. They add things.

He says "add" like it's a disease.

CHONKSY: It was one line.

THE ORCA: It's always one line.

Through the glass: CHUMPY has finished the candy bowl. He looks at it with guilt, then refills it from his own pockets with different candy.

One duck stands up, waddles to the edge of the pool, and leaves through the office door. THE ORCA watches it go, devastated.

THE ORCA: (quietly) …Get out.

CHONKSY gets up.

THE ORCA: Not you. (beat) Yes, you. Both of you. Everybody's leaving today.

12. INT. DAILIES ROOM · NIGHT

Dark screening room. The crew watches dailies. The improvised take comes up by accident. Nobody breathes. It's good. It's really good.

THE ORCA (O.S.): Delete it.

The SEAHORSE EDITOR hesitates, then deletes. The take vanishes.

In the back row, in the dark, CHUMPY pulls a small shell-shaped drive out of a port. He already copied it. He puts it in his pocket, next to a granola bar. He looks around. Nobody saw. He eats a different granola bar as a cover.

13. INT. THEATER · TEASER PREMIERE

A packed theater on the Current. The teaser plays. The audience mouths every line in unison.

CHUMPY: (whisper) How do they know the lines? It's a teaser. It came out today.

CHONKSY: They've seen it.

CHUMPY: How?

CHONKSY: It's every movie.

21. THE CITY WATCHING: THE STORE WINDOW

Walking home, CHONKSY passes an electronics store. Twelve TVs in the window. Twelve of his own face, in a fishbowl helmet, saying a line he didn't write.

He stops. A SMALL FISH next to him looks at the TVs, at him, at the TVs, at him.

SMALL FISH: …You look tired in person.

CHONKSY: I am.

SMALL FISH: On TV you look like you're having a great time.

CHONKSY: That's the job.

22. THE CITY WATCHING: BARBERSHOP

A PUFFERFISH in the barber's chair. The teaser plays on the wall TV. Every time a space shark appears, he inflates a little. The OCTOPUS BARBER trims faster, with four pairs of scissors.

OCTOPUS BARBER: Sir. Sir, please.

PUFFERFISH: (fully round) I'M JUST EXCITED.

14. INT. CRAFT SERVICES · C

PLATRICK: You're at twenty thousand followers.

SEABEAR: I am more upset than ever.

PLATRICK: That's why it's working.

SEABEAR: (grim resolve) Then I will never be happy again. (stirring) For the fans.

16. EXT. STUDIO ROOF · NIGHT

CHONKSY alone on the roof, looking up through the water at the wobbly stars. One constellation looks like a shark. It flickers.

17. EXT. PAY PHONE · SEAFLOOR · NIGHT

A lone pay phone booth on the dark seafloor. THE SHARL inside, receiver to its fin, glancing around.

THE SHARL: [PAUSE FOR LAUGH]. (listening) …Yes. He improvised. (listening) …I know. (listening) …I know.

It hangs up and looks straight at the camera. Flicker. Gone.

END OF EPISODE

PUNCH-UP INSERTS · EP 3

• Sc 1: Trailer tagline number two, in Seabear's voice: "This summer… sharks fuck in space." BLEEP, half a second late, after "space."
• Sc 2: The Orca on the walkie: "If he dies, recast with his cousin. They all look the same in a helmet." Seaver: "Sir, that's—" Orca: "Specist? It's budgetary."
• Sc 4: Sea Panda's résumé, a crayon drawing of himself holding a boom over the Orca's corpse. The AD: "Hired."
• Sc 5: Red, chewing the panel: "My therapist says I'm seeking texture." Blue: "Your therapist is a sponge." Red: "And he's very absorbent."
• Sc 6: Platrick's hot mic continues: "…and I think my bill is attractive? Do girls like a bill? Cool cool, no one answer that." Navy Seal, on the beach: "Girls like a bill." Everyone turns. Navy Seal: "…Above my pay grade."
• Sc 7 (speciesist landlord bit): In the Cat House the cats are clearly a gang. One cat stares at Seabear and hisses something only Seabear hears. Seabear, wounded: "She called me a dog person." Chonksy: "You're a bear." Seabear: "Is still racist."
• Sc 9 (heart, peak emptiness): After the improv, the crew is silent. Then the bubble machine sputters out. In the silence, before the Orca's CUT, there's one beat of Chonksy actually happy, and we've never seen it. Then CUT.
• Sc 11: The Orca's line about adding things: "Most chonks can't even copy right. They add things. That's how you get jazz." (He says "jazz" like it's a disease.)
• Sc 11: A duck leaves. The Orca: "(hollow) She was the funny one."
• Sc 13: At the teaser premiere, a pufferfish in the audience inflates during the shark reveal and pushes three people out of their seats. An usher hands him a "Pufferfish Section" ticket.
• Sc 15 (heart): In the parking lot, Chumpy holds the drive like a holy relic: "One day I'm gonna play this at your funeral." Chonksy: "I'm not dying." Chumpy: "Then at my funeral. I'm definitely dying. Look at me."

30. FLASH-FORWARD: THE FEDORA · before Scene 1

• Desaturated, wordless, five seconds. A tan Academy fedora lies upside down on a scorched floor. A single bubble escapes from under the brim. Cut to the trailer.

31. INT. CORAL COLA BOARDROOM · THE QUARTERLY · after Scene 11

• A glass tower. The shark sponsor runs the meeting while swimming laps around the table, because if he stops, he dies. Every line arrives from a slightly different direction. An old eel and two groupers sit. The Orca wears a suit over his bathrobe.
• Behind one-way glass is the focus group: four thousand sardines. Grouper: "We tested an 'original' concept. One sardine cried." Eel: "So they all cried." Grouper: "We refunded four thousand."
• Coral Cola comes in sealed bladders you bite open. Tagline: Taste the Surface. Nobody at the table has been to the surface.
• Shark (passing behind the Orca, close): "Copies only. If Chonk Studios ever makes something new…" (lap) "…we'll smell it." (lap) "One drop in a million." The Orca, who eats sea lions for breakfast, is the prey in this room.

40. CATS · Scene 6–7, the Cat House raid · Seinfeld/Gillis

• The raid crew enters a human house with eleven cats. Navy Seal (pinned to a wall by a tabby, perfectly calm): "Cats are just sharks that decided to be small so they could live inside." Raider: "Why would you live inside?" Navy Seal: "Control."
• A cat bats Chumpy's nose for ninety seconds while he refuses to move: "If I move, he wins." He's still there at the debrief, scratched, proud. "I won."

41. TYPO IN MY MOUTH · Scene 12, dailies · Tim Robinson

• The Orca watches the improv on the dailies monitor. Orca: "Did you change a line?" Chonksy, the best actor in the ocean, lies like an amateur: "I said it the way it's written."
• Orca: "You said 'I'm not afraid of you.' The script says 'I am afraid of you.'" Chonksy: "Typo in the script." Orca: "There's no typo." Chonksy: "Then it's a typo in my MOUTH." Orca: "Mouths don't have typos." Chonksy (escalating, committing, sweating): "Mine does. It's a condition. I've had it since the war. Ask the war!"
• The Coral Cola quarterly is in one hour. The Orca slowly closes the laptop. "We're going to say it was the sound guy." The sound guy (a shrimp) is right there. "…Fine."