Waiting to Inhale: A Conversation with ‘Breathe’ Screenwriter Doug Simon

In Breathe, the new futuristic thriller where depleted oxygen levels have rendered the planet unhabitable, only the Houston family is able to survive in this scorched earth setting. That’s because patriarch Darius (Common) invented an oxygen generator for the underground bunker he shares with wife Maya (Jennifer Hudson), and daughter Zora (Quvenzhané Wallis), who perpetually butt heads living in such closed quarters for so long. 

Sure, they occasionally venture outside to clean the solar panels, but not before ritually donning face masks hooked up to O₂ tanks. But when their home is suddenly infiltrated by a band of fellow survivalists hell-bent on stealing the life-sustaining technology for themselves, chaos ensues.

Script Magazine spoke to Breathe screenwriter Doug Simon about creating this compelling tale.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

How did you come up with the idea for this script?

Until Breathe, I mostly wrote crime thrillers, mysteries, or dark comedies, but nothing really in the sci-fi space. And I was about to start another crime thriller when a friend suggested that I try a genre I hadn’t done yet. So, I went back to my notebook and looked at ideas I had over the years and found this kernel for the story of Breathe, about a planet devoid of breathable air, where if you went outside you had to wear something like an astronaut’s spacesuit. But I also thought this could be a home invasion story, and that was really the genesis of the script. 

But it really didn’t take shape until I drilled down on Jennifer's and Quvenzhané's characters, because I realized that this was a story about a mother and daughter with a complicated relationship, and through this journey, they were going to learn to trust each other again. I also thought about people I knew, including people in my family, because if the end of the world ever happened, I’m sure we’d all band together for a while, but after years in captivity, we’d probably fall back into old patterns where normal bickering would happen and old resentments would pop up. So, I thought this would be an interesting place to start a movie--between a mother and her daughter.

The opening scene features simple title cards that say: “OXYGEN LEVELS ON EARTH: UNINHABITABLE,” and “PLANTLIFE: NONEXISTENT,” without ever specifying the causation. Tell me about minimizing the exposition.

As far as those title cards go, that was something that [director] Stefon Bristol and the editor added in the edit. But when I was writing the script, I always wanted it to be some sort of unspecified environmental disaster. Personally, my mind goes to global warming, but I don’t know if it was necessary to drill down on how we got there, because all that really matters is that you’re there, with the suggestion that it could have been avoided. I also took a page out of the Cormac McCarthy novel The Road, where they don’t get into exactly what happened that made the [post-apocalyptic] world that way. You just focus on the father and son’s journey and clear the room of any back story.

How did you describe the gear the characters wore, to paint a picture of their masks and the tubes supplying the O₂ they breathed?

Originally in the script, I described an entire suit that the characters had to wear - almost like the suggestion that the father, who’s a scientist, made some kind of makeshift astronaut spacesuit—but lightweight. But Stefon wanted the characters to be wearing clothes that they’d wear in their normal life because clothes help you understand a character, so he shed the idea of a full space suit and thought, 'What if we just had some sort of mask over their heads that the tube could hook into?' I totally understood where he was coming from. Also, spacesuits can be hot, and I think Stefon wanted to make the actors feel comfortable.

The film referenced technologies such as an oxygen generator and a water reclaimer. How did you make these fictitious scientific advancements feel authentic?

As far as the oxygen generator goes, that was an idea I found on YouTube. It doesn’t exist yet, however, there’s truth in what they’re trying to do. I think it may have been a NASA experiment where they were trying to separate the different chemical elements on Mars and just keep the oxygen and direct it to whatever shelter will eventually exist once we go to Mars to give the inhabitants breathable air. In the video, the piece of equipment they’re experimenting with is a pretty small box and I sent that image to Stefon, who liked what he saw and ran with it.

There were also very nuanced details, like when Darius gave his daughter a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X to read. Was that book title specified in the script?

Again, that was Stefon. Because the original script took place in upstate New York in more of a rural setting, but when Stefon read it, he liked a lot of the plot elements, but he said, 'To make this my own, I want this to be a family in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.' And in the original script, Darius gives Zora a book of poems, but Stefon wanted it to be The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which worked out because we ended up quoting Malcolm X at the end, so that was a nice moment of collaboration.

Was the title always Breathe from the beginning?

When I was working on the script before I showed it to anyone, I actually called it “O₂”. But Breathe seemed more appropriate, so I made a last-minute title change right before I sent it out.

Finally, tell me about your reaction to the dusty, washed-out color palate on screen.

It was really cool! It reminded me of a Western, with people coming into an old West town. In the script, the environment was described as this hazy reddish-orange hue during the daytime, because for some reason that color adds to the tension. You can feel the heat.

Breathe will be in Theaters, On Digital, and On Demand April 26, 2024.

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