On: The 2005 screenwriting book that’s taken over Hollywood

[zhemao]

If you look at the actual beat sheet.

http://www.slate.com/content/slate/sidebars/2013/07/the_save...

They all seem pretty general. I'm pretty sure you could stick to the structure without being very formulaic.

And yes, I'm pretty sure most movies had a structure very similar to this one even before the book came along.