Sometimes, Everyone Just Has The Same Idea

There are times when I read a lot of similar projects, though often they are in reaction to something being successful; when Quentin Tarantino was hitting big, everyone was writing, or dusting off, their Tarantino-esque screenplays.

But there has been a recent trend that has sort of hit me out of the blue, because I don't know where it's coming from.

In the last few months, I have read no fewer than 4 projects that are modern-day King Arthur stories. 4.

One was Meg Cabot's just-released novel Avalon High. The others were screenplays.

Similar elements abounded. All of the characters skew fairly young, except for the Merlin figure. Generally, the main character was unaware he was Arthur (or Lancelot), only to find out along the way that this is so. The main character was usually a meek man, who realizes that he needs to seize the responsibility that has suddenly been thrust upon him, to defeat villains whose evil plots seemed a bit muddled.

Everyone seemed to have similar names to the characters that they represented; the female lead was usually Gwen or Gwyneth. No one, in any of these tales, asked their parents why they gave them these names.

Excalibur usually popped up along the way; so did something called Avalon, whether it be a school or a corporation, and there is usually a big round table somewhere (and yes, one was in a pizza place).

Some of the stories deal with Gwen cheating with Lance. Sword fights and horseback riding usually come into play.

The general idea has a lot of potential, though none of these projects really fulfilled it. There may be a small opening for a really good modern day Arthur script to sneak in and be the one that actually makes the story work.

But just be aware, if you are writing a script like this, there may be a lot of modern-day-Arthur burnout going on among execs, while some of these (or some other project I haven't even read) are liable to catch someone's fancy and block the genre for the near future.