Gotta gather some other examples, as most of the ones here are more about changing a point of view in order to design a story, which is certainly a top-notch way to come up with something cool. So does gender change. I don't like to believe that hated movies are the right motivation, because you may hate a movie for so many reasons... I believe that the right kick-off is disappointment. Whenever you hear a logline from a project and raises some expectation and then the pitch disappoints you completely. A good concept ruined by a bad story, that's what motivates me the most. I have a recent story about a pitching for a short film. I've received a logline 2 days earlier and thought it had tons of potential, i went to the meeting full of ideas. And then the full plot came up and it was such a waste of concept i kept my mouth shut otherwise i'd really hurt the guys' feelings (i'm a bit rude in these situations)

"Crazy, Stupid, Love." I know a lot of people really liked this film, but the whole thing just felt so contrived... the adolescent son who's in love with the babysitter who happens to be in love with the 45-year-old Dad and then the daughter who's in love with the Dad's friend (Ryan Gosling), but we don't find out until near the end of the movie who she's in love... I felt manipulated and cheated after watching this.

Good point. In fact I posted something a few years back about remakes, how if Hwood insists on doing them, why not take mediocre movies with GREAT story concepts and remake THEM?

And yet I know a lot of people who love both the movie AND the script.

this is a great idea. but then i also think this can be applied to a lot of mediocre scripts. many times i've read a script and thought it had a lot of potential. movies that could've been great: season of the witch the brothers grim i suspect the reason alot of movies fail to deliver is due to things outside the creative sphere: studio demands, stars, quarrels and constraints

Isn't the story supposed to be that Howard Hawks was so appalled by High Noon, with Gary Cooper going all round town begging people for help, that he eventually came up with Rio Bravo where John Wayne is in a similar jam, but he and his his small team just get on with it like professionals? "A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" "That's WHAT I've got."

V3ntricity, great point. And that's something you can do with the list of spec script sales from 1991-2012 we've put together. Over 1000 loglines, most of which never got produced. Go through them and adapt into a 'new' idea. If somebody bought them along the way, probably something of value there. Raw material for generating story concepts.