2024 · Feature · Horror
The Substance
Screenplay by Coralie Fargeat.
Create a free account or sign in to read The Substance in The PreList. Use a computer; on a phone, we’ll email a link that keeps your place.
A way into the pages
Look for sequences carried by action rather than speech. Consider how repetition and small changes communicate escalation on the page.
The shape of this draft
Measured with engine 1.5 from the draft held in our 428-feature research release. Comparisons use the eligible sample for each measure. They describe this selected corpus; they are not targets or quality scores.
Pages
146
Held-PDF pages, including covers and front matter; not numbered story pages or film running time.
The dot is this draft. The shaded middle half of the corpus spans 106–131; the median line is 117. n = 428.
Explore the pages benchmarkScenes
247
Scenes identified from the headings in this draft.
The dot is this draft. The shaded middle half of the corpus spans 93–162; the median line is 124. n = 401.
Explore the scenes benchmarkLocations
114
Distinct normalised locations, not shooting locations or sets.
The dot is this draft. The shaded middle half of the corpus spans 45–84; the median line is 62. n = 401.
Explore the locations benchmarkSpeaking characters
Withheld
Distinct speaking cues after normalisation, not cast size.
This measurement did not pass the release’s extraction checks. It is excluded from the comparison.
Explore the speaking characters benchmarkSources and limitations
These measurements describe one available screenplay draft, which may differ from the finished film. Automatic extraction can misread formatting even when a measurement passes our checks. The screenplay itself is available through the account-based reader.
Credits were reviewed on 20 September 2026 separately from the frozen measurements. Source-book and story credits are not treated as screenplay credits.
Use this research
The PreList Industry Intelligence (2026). The Substance (2024): screenplay measurements. https://www.theprelist.io/scripts/the-substance-2024. Measurements: anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-09-v5. Credits and reading guide: screenplay-directory-2026-09-v2.
Licensed CC BY 4.0 (measurements only; screenplay and artwork excluded): reuse the figures, charts and dataset with attribution and a link back to this page. Snapshot anatomy-of-a-produced-screenplay-2026-09-v5; every number above traces to it.