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Beautiful Exile
(With The Mark Gordon Company)
Writer: Tristine Skyler
Based on the book by Carl Rollyson of the same name, Beautiful Exile tells the story of novelist, essayist and journalist, Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998), a war correspondent during some of the most momentous conflicts of the 20th century, from the Spanish Civil War and World War II to Vietnam, the Six-Day War in the Middle East and various conflicts in Central America. As a correspondent for Collier's Weekly, she reported on the Spanish Civil War, along with her future husband, Ernest Hemingway. From Spain, she moved to Germany, chronicling Hitler's consolidation of power and the onset of World War II. She reported from virtually every theater of the Second World War, - Czechoslovakia, Finland, Britain, Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong - and even snuck aboard a hospital ship to witness the D-Day landings in Normandy. |
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The Credenza
(With Lawrence Bender Productions) - Writer: Matt Brown
In February 1782, King Louis XVI declared: "Everyone would like me to take a mistress but I have no intention of doing so." Thus began the first reign in the history of France without a Royal Mistress, and its effects were calamitous. Fueled by satirists' caricatures of the impotent monarch, King Louis XVI became a national embarrassment. Refusing to take a mistress not only confirmed his suspected impotency, but it provided constant ammunition against Marie Antoinette for allegations of lovers-- for if not the King, who then? It is with mounting pressure upon King Louis to take a Royal Mistress that we begin our story. THE CREDENZA is a whimsical romantic comedy about a food taster in King Louis XVI's court. When his former master's beautiful daughter becomes the Royal Mistress at Versailles, the young peasant cook who loves her becomes the King's food taster and risks his life at every meal to win her heart. |
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Cut Throat City
(With Ithaka Entertainment) –
Writer: Paul Cuschieri/ Director: Aaron Courseault
Cut Throat City is a post-Hurricane Katrina heist film set in New Orleans. Story begins in the grimy, decimated Lower Ninth Ward, one of the most devastated areas after the hurricane, and then hits the road, dealing with the tragedy of the government's response to Katrina along the way. |
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Early Retirement
Writers: Mike Culbert and Mike Pellettieri
A fish out of water comedy about two recent college grads who, hating the work and responsibility of the real world, figure out a scheme to take an “early retirement” by living for free in a retirement home taking the identity of geriatric men. |
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Fire on the Mountain
(With Underground Films) - Writer: Don Handfield
Based on the book by John Maclean, Fire on the Mountain tells the story of the catastrophic South Canyon fire of 1994, which burned for ten days, at the ultimate cost of $4.5 million and the lives of fourteen firefighters. The story weaves together a tense narrative of action, starring ballsy cowboy smokejumpers, frustrated federal middle managers, seasoned "hotshots" flown in like commandos, pissed-off tanker pilots, and well-intentioned but spin-wary politicians. Maclean's well-sketched personalities bring the action on the ground convincingly to life--and knowing up front that many of his main characters won't survive South Canyon makes this tragic tale that much more compelling. |
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Fleming
Writer: Matt Brown
Based on Andrew Lycett's book, Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, we will tell the story of Ian Fleming's exploits before he became a famous author. In 1939, Fleming was a newly minted, 31-year-old lieutenant in Britain's Naval Intelligence Division, assigned to collect information on enemy shipping. But when war arrived, his group was brought into "covert activities outside its normal province." And Fleming--himself a gin-drinking bon vivant who just months earlier had been known primarily as a failed stockbroker--suddenly found himself coordinating clandestine operations against the Axis forces. Fleming's most enduring wartime legacy was an outfit called Assault Unit 30, a commando unit that specialized in capturing enemy documents, equipment, and ciphers in forward areas before they could be destroyed. Fleming's "Red Indians," as he called them, were responsible for several extraordinary missions, including capturing an entire German radar station in 1944--with its 300-man garrison. Some say the group served as the basis for the novel and movie The Dirty Dozen. |
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The Genius Factory
With Tollin/Robbins Productions
Based on the book by David Plotz of the same name, The Genius Factory tells the story of the most radical human-breeding experiment in American history: the Nobel Prize sperm bank. It opened to notorious fanfare in 1980, and for two decades, women flocked to the bank from all over the country to choose a sperm donor from its roster of Nobel-laureate scientists, mathematical prodigies, successful businessmen, and star athletes. But the bank quietly closed its doors in 1999 - Robert Graham, its eccentric millionaire founder dead, its confidential records sealed, and the fate of its children and donors unknown. |
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Life of a King
With Tollin/Robbins Productions) - Writers: Jake Goldberger, David Scott, and Dan Wetzel
In the tradition of Academy Award nominated films Lean on Me and Music of the Heart, Life of a King is the true story of one man's sacrifice to give the African-American inner city kids of Washington D.C. something he never had - a future. After being in prison for twenty years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club in 1991 to get kids off the streets and working towards something they never dreamed of- going to college. This is his inspirational, heroic, and moving story. |
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Lovelace
With Untitled Entertainment and Blumhouse Productions) - Writer: Merritt Johnson
Linda Lovelace, the world's first porn superstar as the personification of the extreme and conflicting attitudes about sex, sexuality and pornography in America, told from Linda's perspective as she becomes, rejects then ultimately accepts and embraces the conflicting icons she embodies: the porn star and the anti-porn, feminist activist. |
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The Bad Guys Won
(With Underground Films)
Based on the book by Sports Illustrated and Newsday columnist Jeff Pearlman, The Bad Guys Won! is the story of a season of brawling, boozing, bimbo-chasing, and championship baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the rowdiest team ever to put on a New York uniform--and maybe the best. |
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The Man Who Knew Infinity
(With Pressman Films) - Writer/Director: Matt Brown
Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor Indian Brahmin with no formal education, was a self-educated mathematical prodigy who is considered to be one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. His story is remarkable not only for the professional accomplishments in a life cut all too short, but for how he was able to bridge the vast cultural gap between East and West through his work with G.H. Hardy, a brilliant and eccentric don at Trinity College in England. |
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The Passion Of Danny Burke
Writers: Charlie Shanian & Shari Simpson
Based on the novel The Beginning of Calamities by Tom House, The Passion of Danny Burke turns a school play into a heartfelt coming-of-age vehicle set in suburban Long Island in 1973. Danny Burke is an imaginative, painfully shy 11-year-old who goes to Catholic school and takes his religion seriously, so much so that he writes a play called The Passion and Resurrection of Christ. Danny's nervous young teacher, Liz Kaigh, seizes on the play as a way to rally her students. But the most popular kids in Danny's class disdain the production, leaving a collection of misfits to form the lackluster cast. Rehearsals are plagued by disasters: the narrator has a lisp ("Leaving Jeruthalem, Jethuth and Hith dithiples thoon reached the Garden of... Geth-themane"); the girl who's supposed to play Mary Magdalene is pulled from the play at the last minute by her mother, who won't let her daughter play a prostitute; and awkward, uncharismatic Danny, initially denied the part of Christ, plots and manipulates his way into the role, forgetting that he has horrific stage fright. The story comes to a crescendo with the disastrous performance of the play, which involves a memorable act of audacity on Danny's part. |
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The Pride of Bismarck
(With Saturn Films) - Writer: Paul Cuschieri
Set during the Depression era, project is based on the true story of the 1935 Bismarck Churchills, one of the first and perhaps least-known interracial baseball teams and their eccentric owner Neil Churchill. The team was made up with a number of future Hall of Fame players including Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe and Satchel Paige and beat a team of Major League All-Stars. |
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Senior Thesis
Writer: Winfield Han
A hilarious, free-wheeling and eye-opening journey where Josh, a sheltered college senior spends one wild night in Los Angeles with the free spirited Lindsey, desperately trying to recover his stolen laptop with his senior thesis on it, before his carefully planned out future goes up in smoke. |
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Singles Table
Writer: Peter Scott
A romantic comedy about a guy and a girl who both hate going to weddings and being stuck at the singles table, until they start bringing each other as dates. Spencer is a successful commitment-phobic lawyer who spends every Saturday of his life at a wedding. He has arrived at the age when every one of his friends has coupled up and is taking the plunge into marriage. Each week he is stuck at the table of freaks - the gay uncle, the convict cousin, and worst of all, the desperate bridesmaid - until he meets Wendy. Wendy is his female counterpart, charming, alluring, and over it. They have an instant connection and decide to alleviate the burden of the singles table by attending the forthcoming weddings as dates. This is the story of two cynical commitment-phobic people ultimately overcoming fears and loneliness by taking a risk and giving themselves to each other. |
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VOLTRON: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE
(With The Mark Gordon Co. and New Regency)
Writer: Justin Marks
Based on the popular 1980s Japanese animated TV series, comic books, and toy line, Voltron is a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico. Five ragtag survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders. |
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Wonderful
(With Tollin/Robbins Productions) – Writer: Sid Quashie/ Director: Sunu Gonera
Based on the true story of George Weah, a European soccer star originally hailing from the African nation of Liberia, who in the peak of his career returned home to his war-torn country and used his clout and money to help poverty-stricken children in Liberia. |
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