ENLARGE LOS ANGELES—Will Matthews and Jeffrey Addiss needed to end the world.
They found an accomplice at a loft party here last fall. The two screenwriters approached a theoretical physicist, Clifford Johnson, explaining that for a screenplay they wanted ideas for offing Earth in Hollywood fashion—"in a popcorn way," Mr. Matthews told him.
ENLARGE A black hole, the physicist replied, would do nicely.
That phenomenon was "much more interesting" than anything in most movies and could be explained scientifically, offered Dr. Johnson, a University of Southern California specialist in quantum fields and gravity.
It was just the kind of matchmaking that is the aim of the loft party's host, a behind-the-scenes organization that links scientists with writers who want a dose of scientific accuracy in their movies, television shows and books.
Mr. Addiss says Dr. Johnson's black hole is now the script's likely scenario. Regarding Earth, "he showed us how we can really mess it up."
Parties like this spotlight a plot twist in Hollywood: As mutants, superheroes and intergalactic warfare fill multiplexes in an age of intense audience scrutiny, filmmakers need good science more than ever.
There's a hotline for that: 844-NEED-SCI.
It connects to the Science and Entertainme nt Exchange, the loft party's host. Funded by the nonprofit National Academy of Sciences, it has more than 2,700 scientists on call.
If something is "wrong" with a script, says Rick Loverd, the Exchange's program director, it is often because the screenwriter has underestimated how science has evolved. "They're writing something that they think is futuristic, but it's not."
David S. Goyer, co-writer of the coming "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," [7]tapped the Exchange while developing "Krypton," a TV show about Superman's home planet. At an Exchange event, he met planetary scientist Kevin Hand, who helped design Krypton's solar system down to atmospheric density.
"That ripples down through the costumes, the way the characters talk," says Mr. Goyer. "Science informs the story."
Exchange members are global. When screenwriters for a monster movie had questions about the Erebus Ice Tongue glacier, the Exchange connected them with a member in nearby Antarctica.
The Exchange isn't trying to play scientific gotcha with Hollywood, says Jessica Cail, a Los Angeles psychopharmacologist who has consulted through it on projects like "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."[8]
ENLARGE Her goal isn't to make scripts worthy of peer review, she says. That would put audiences to sleep. In finding a middle ground between fantasy and realism, she says, she wants to make the science seem "plausible-ish."
Science-fiction features of the 1950s could chalk up mutant superpowers and other anomalies to atomic gobbledygook, says Jeremy Latcham, senior vice president of production and development at Marvel Studios.
"There was a long time when every movie had an electromagnetic pulse in it," he says. "For us to be cool now, we have to riff on the real stuff."
Exchange scientists aren't paid. They often sign agreements not to spill details and typically don't get into the credits.
They have consulted on more than 1,300 projects. A quantum field theorist helped screenwriters explain the quantum realm mechanics that shrank Paul Rudd in "Ant-Man."[9]
Producer Adam Fratto says he asked the Exchange whose job it was to respond to alien contact. It put him in touch with the Planetary Protection Officer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Los Angeles actress Gia Mora says she once asked an Exchange physicist how to properly incorporate a joke about NASA's Bicep2 telescope [10]into her one-woman show, "Einstein's Girl."
The Exchange's Mr. Loverd acknowledges getting the minutiae correct services "that small percentage of the population that can understand this stuff."
But writers face fans who have turned the Web into an accountability tool. And shows like "MythBusters" have popularized movie-science debunking .[11]
There are also academic critiques. The 2013 space drama "Gravity" was a hit[12], but astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson publicly raised questions: Why did satellite debris orbit east to west, and why didn't Sandra Bullock's hair float in zero-G? The movie makers, Dr. Tyson says in an email, "needed that twist of reality to intensify the story."
"The viewing public's standard for science in film is on the rise," he says, "putting producers and screenwriters 'on notice.' "
Audiences have finite "buys"—creative allowances—they will give a movie, says Marvel's Mr. Latcham. The high-tech Iron Man suit, he says, "feels attainable" because it is based on plausible science.
The Exchange organizes about 25 events yearly, from loft parties with lectures on topics like wormholes or hoverboards, to intimate salons in Hollywood mansions. "Family Guy" [13]cre ator Seth MacFarlane hosted one on evolution.
An event in Hollywood hot spot Soho House included a former FBI profiler and covered "The Science of Psychopaths."
Some soirees match screenwriters with scientists in events the Exchange calls "speed-dating," including one last month at NeueHouse Hollywood, a Sunset Boulevard space where Lucille Ball and Orson Welles once worked.
"Enter the nerds," said the Exchange's Mr. Loverd, surveying the lobby.
Scientists, including an astronomer and microgrid specialist, shuttled room-to-room for seven-minute sessions.
Discussing cyberterrorism during a panel at evening's end, Maynard Holliday, a Pentagon robotics engineer, said a cyberattack may require a "kinetic response," with ground troops.
"Movie title!" shouted someone.
Dr. Cail, the psychopharmacologist, says Marvel called last year for help designing a plausible serum to give a "S.H.I.E.L.D." character super strength. Her solution: an anabolic androgenic steroid mixed with a liver-enzyme inhibitor. Marvel says the screenwriters added "gorilla testosterone and a drop of peppermint."
Dr. Cail, who moonlights as a stuntwoman, gets an Exchange call every few months, and "I go right to the journals." She also gives tips to help actors accurately portray th e effects of drugs.
But the Exchange doesn't want to be the "correctness police," says NAS President Ralph J. Cicerone, who started it in 2008 after conversations with "Airplane!" director Jerry Zucker.
In the end, says "Krypton" screenwriter Mr. Goyer, "how accurate can you make a movie about a guy who leaps over tall buildings in a single bound?"
Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com[14]
References
- ^ CANCEL (www.wsj.com)
- ^ Biography (topics.wsj.com)
- ^ @erichschwartzel (twitter.com)
- ^< /a> Google+ (plus.google.com)
- ^ erich.schwartzel@wsj.com (www.wsj.com)
- ^ 0 COMMENTS (www.wsj.com)
- ^ "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," (blogs.wsj.com)
- ^ "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (blogs.wsj.com)
- ^ the quantum realm mechanics that shrank Paul Rudd in "Ant-Man." (www.wsj.com)
- ^< /a> NASA's Bicep2 telescope (www.wsj.com)
- ^ And shows like "MythBusters" have popularized movie-science debunking. (www.wsj.com)
- ^ The 2013 space drama "Gravity" was a hit (www.wsj.com)
- ^ "Family Guy" (blogs.wsj.com)
- ^ erich.schwartzel@wsj.com (www.wsj.com)
