Can anyone really be that lucky or unlucky in life? Can you create your own luck or is it random? Why can’t we all just have good luck in perpetuity and be happy?
Long time animation screenwriter and Kiel Murray (Cars, Raya And The Last Dragon) pondered these philosophical questions when she spoke to us about The Land Of Luck, the magical place where luck is created, in an appropriately titled film called Luck.
Adapted from an earlier draft by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, Kiel Murray set out to tackle the arduous task of containing the intangible concept of luck into a feature film. First, she needed an angle to find her way into the story.”When you dive more deeply into luck, it becomes more interesting as it leads you to love,” Murray opined.
Luck tells the story of Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) who enters the Land Of Luck with a ‘lucky’ black cat called Bob (Simon Pegg) to find a ‘lucky’ button when she’s down on her luck. Therein, she discovers the true nature of her luck.
Similar to the final version, the original draft of Luck featured a world where luck is generated and a female character who was unlucky in love. “Tonally, it was a bit a different. The previous iteration was more of a human battle with agents of luck.” She chose to temper the tone to a more philosophical one.
Murray went to work to strengthen the themes and characters in the story. “Once we delved deeper into the world of outgrowing the foster care system, it became a deeper and richer place.”
Kiel Murray
A gigantic esoteric idea like luck needs to be distilled and reduced to its essence to become a satisfying film. “I also try to figure out where the emotion will come from and why I care in every scene,” she declared. “I had to nail Sam’s drive for an emotional reason.” In this case, it was to bring luck to Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), Sam’s best friend and roommate via the lucky button she lost during a ‘bathroom accident.’ This had to be clearly set up in the first act because Hazel doesn’t participate in Sam’s journey into the Land of Luck.
Building The Land Of Luck
Although motifs such as a four-leaf clover and a button, Kiel and crew thoroughly researched the global symbols associated with luck. “We populated the world with global references to give Luck a more magical quality,” she said.
Murray researched leprechauns and the alleged luck of the Irish. “It turns out that leprechauns weren’t specific to Ireland and many countries have their own version of it which represented the same thing.” Be they fairies or other small creatures carrying a pot of gold, they are used in stories representative their respective culture.
Building out a complex, fantastical world from scratch is a tricky business. “It had to make sense and feel simple and not get too much in the way of the story,” said Kiel. Despite the deceptive simplicity of the world, team Luck layered it with metaphors such as luck being similar a coin with two sides – one bringing good luck and the other bad luck. It’s the only place where you travel downwards to an upwards destination.
“We talked about balance and the need for both sides of luck which found itself in the story.” The filmmakers created a place where not every rule needed explaining. “We were careful in deciding what needed to be in there without giving too much exposition.”
They also had to set the rules and parameters of an artificially-constructed world with no real-life equivalent. “It all came together when we came up with the idea of ‘Random,‘” Murray continued. Random separated luck into things Sam could have caused and things that were truly random – aka real luck. “There isn’t some entity that specifically sends her good or bad luck because she deserves or the other.” Instead, Random are lucky crystals that are randomly created via a machine called the Randomizer. Think of it as a random number generator when creating a password.
The early iterations of Luck placed Sam in an orphanage, but it was the idea of actual bad luck in certain circumstances you can’t control that resonated with Kiel Murray. It was more than an unlucky event such as locking yourself out of your apartment. She met with social workers and professionals in the foster care system who could authentically shape Sam’s life. “This made it easy to write Sam as an irascible, never-give-up character because that’s how many foster kids were.” Many foster kids accepted and dealt with their life situations with grace. Murray was also impressed by their generosity despite their limited resources. “They wanted success and happiness for their friends more than for themselves. I wanted to capture that with Sam.”
Babe The Dragon (Jane Fonda), Bob (Simon Pegg), and Sam (Eva Noblezada). Photo courtesy of Skydance/Apple TV
Sam undertakes her journey to find the lucky button with Bob and Babe the dragon (Jane Fonda) the CEO of Land Of Luck. Although Bob is selfish and deceitful, he does become Sam’s ‘forever family.’ This is the antithesis of Sam. Babe is a tall dragon grieving over her lost love Jeff the unicorn (Flula Borg). Babe longs for persistent good luck, but the Randomizer had other ideas. Bad luck is necessary for us to grow. Bad luck ironically leads Sam and Babe to some great things.
If we only had good luck we wouldn’t know the difference
Once Sam’s character was decided as a positive force despite her persistently unlucky circumstances, Murray decided to give her more flaws to enrich her character. By the end of the film, Sam realizes that bad luck isn’t the real problem. It’s her and her perception of luck.
Like most good screenplays, they must contain something personal to the screenwriter. In Kiel Murray’s case, it was the tall women being intimidating sentiment expressed by Babe.
For Murray, her main impetus to write movies is “to feel moved as well as be entertained. I want to feel something that sticks with me afterwards,” she concluded.
