Need Feedback on Screenplay Idea

Victor Frost

I'm taking Media Writing this semester which involves writing a short screenplay as my final project. A couple of weeks ago, the professor gave us a mad-libs style form to fill out so we can get our basic premise. Got that done, but this week we have to turn in a treatment for it, so I'd like some feedback from people I can trust to be assholes to me if my ideas suck.

Here is the premise I made with all the relevant TVTropes links added in:

"Metamen" is a movie-about-movies about John James (Gonna change that), a deadpan snarker who, after being endowed with the ability to see/break/travel around the fourth wall, has to help his friends' "band of heroes" survive their quest. But when it appears theBig Bad Villain has become genre savvy, he has to try to teach his co-horts to act optimally instead of playing their types. This seems impossible because Damian Drake, the real villian, the big bad's second in command, and the man pulling the strings, is training his henchmen to be smarter than your average mook, changing the playing field. The hero gets even more desperate when his advice stops being accurate and the band of heroes go back to their old ways as a result, leaving him behind, and eventually getting captured. But it finally all turns around when he realizes that he is the real hero of story and that the villain was wrong-genre savvy all along. He then gives in to the genre and uses the tropes he hates the most as his proverbial sword and shield to defeat Damian.

There's the general premise. If you couldn't tell, it's a spoof action movie of sorts with a ton of meta humor. What do you guys think?

EDIT: After reading though it again, I realize there is something I should make clear: John is not a troper, he's just genre-savvy and has the extra-bit of common sense that comes with that. So if the hero want's to barge in through the front door, he'll say, "Okay, well, why don't we hold on that for a second and think about trying it THIS OBVIOUS AND MUCH BETTER WAY. You know, the way that WONT likely be a trap."

WindUpBird

As someone who writes sketches and screenplays, I like the meta humor. In execution, though, meta humor can get irritating and turn into a film that does nothing but be like, "EH! EH! See what we did there?" Be really, really careful. Also, most people outside of literary and acting circles won't understand your humor; the concept is really high reference and seems more geared towards people with a tacit understanding of film theory and critique than anything else, which could hurt you in the end.

There's a reason the fourth wall is rarely broken: It's really, really, really difficult to do well. That said, I'd at least read a spec script based on this concept; to someone with my interests, it's a fun thought exercise.

Sail

Yeah, basically. It's really ambitious, so expect to meet some frustration when it doesn't come our right on the first try.

WindUpBird

Also, making fourth wall breaks a mechanism for plot advancement is going to annihilate the flow of the film. You're going to need to find a way around that, I think.

Victor Frost

Hm. I was hoping I could make him have the 4th wall abilities of Deadpool and Pinkie Pie, but you have a point. Maybe I should just give him Medium Awareness instead of all the traits.

Although, the fourth wall breaks aren't what advance the plot, it's more the genre savvy-ness that comes along with it.

DevilUknow

This sounds like Synecdote, New York if Synecdote, New York was about Dead Pool making an Autobiographic and it's mostly about Rob Leifeld.