What's next???

So, what’s the next screenplay going to be about?

Lord, I honestly don’t know. I have two ideas that I’m teetering between. Now that Documenting Ambler is done, I’m trying my best to determine what I want to write. Where will my mood shift? In all honesty, I have yet to finish Sin of the Opiate. But, I will do that over the Christmas/New Year period, hopefully. That screenplay writes itself (sort of)…it was always just a matter of finding time to write it.

Time, I now have in spades (or will soon have in spades).

Sin of the Opiate, I am sure, will dramatically change my mood and set me up for whatever it is I want to write next. Will I want to write a happy screenplay, complete with Hollywood stylization, or something a bit more serious? Perhaps I’ll even step towards something a tad edgier, less commercial? Whatever it is, I have to get something ready to write by the beginning of the year, because I have to keep going. This is it. This is the testing period. School will be out. If I can’t sustain myself through a steady output of writing, I’ll never have enough ammunition once I get myself past the door. That is, IF I get myself past the door. One obstacle at a time…at a time…

Two ideas – YES! I have two ideas that I am playing around with. One idea is ludicrously grand, could only be filmed by a name director, would be highly commercial, and would require a massive budget. I am of course talking about my Napoleon screenplay. Beyond the grandiosity of the idea, I ask myself – “do I really want to write this again?” Haven’t people come to expect this sort of thing from myself? Doesn’t Sin of the Opiate accomplish what this movie accomplishes, and in much more original terms?

Sure, sure – the central characters and conflicts in both movies are deeply unique. In Opiate, we have a Limehouse clinger-on who has to battle his addiction amidst the backdrop of a larger conflict. In Napoleon…well there’s only one-way you can take it, and that’s ego.

You don’t start at the beginning; you start at the beginning of the end: The Hundred Days. You base the movie around Napoleon’s return to power, when he’s ludicrously mythical to the European populace. The story begins after his exile. England and several other countries are gathered together to discuss just what to do with their corner of the world, now that old Napoleon is gone. Aristocrats plan marriages to unify bonds and bring together countries. And at the head of this return to Royalty is our villain in the story, the Iron Duke himself. Things are going splendidly. The Aristocrats will be in power again. England shall expand her power. Everyone’s pleased.

And then word breaks. Napoleon has returned.

What’s so amazing about this story is that, as Napoleon marched on the capital, tearing down the ambitions of these Aristocrats along the way, the media’s opinion of him shifted. First governed by Royalty, the press sniffed at his return, calling him a traitor and a criminal. By the time he entered the capital to take back his empire, those very same papers were hailing him as their lord and emperor.

The thing that’s also so cool about this story is that Napoleon built an army and took back Europe, NOT through specific actions…


…But through fear of what he could do.

He didn’t raise a finger, just marched. I love that. The guy was at the top of his game and he just returned from exile. Screw the Royalty. The cops fled. Freaking Napoleon was coming to town to settle some business. In a way, it’s kind of like that Mel Gibson movie, Payback, or Kill Bill…only, they still had to prove themselves. At this point, Napoleon had nothing to prove, and rightfully so. Sure, there’s conflict and danger there. Assassins and the like. And, of course, it all ends at Waterloo…

But the question that burns in my mind is “isn’t that exactly what I’d write?”

Where’s the challenge in The Hundred Days? There is no challenge. It’d be fun as hell, but would I stretch my skills? Probably not.

Now, that’s not to say that I’m a genius or that I’d turn out a perfect screenplay. Far from it. I’d still have to rewrite the heck out of it and hone it till it got somewhat snappy. The point is, between discussions on Castro with Josh, research of the British Empire, Wildlifeless and every other historical pursuit, I think I’ve got just about any film NOT set in our modern era down pat.

The second idea is a bit different. Get ready for it…


It’s a caper film. GROANS erupt everywhere. I know, I know. Of all the mundane, a-typical subjects to pick up, why a caper film? Cause, I think it would be a good study in craft. And, beyond that, I do have a couple of ideas on how I want to execute it.

First and foremost, you base the large part of the second act around the caper itself. Not the third act, as is typical in films. William Goldman laid down the formula for the caper film in one of his books, and sure enough, every caper film up to this day has been following it. So, let’s shake it up. Let’s pull an Unforgiven on the caper genre. Let’s utterly reinvent it, while at the same time retaining what makes it so great. And that is, comedy and back and forth banters. It’s the genius of the characters mingling together and succeeding, because of, or in spite of, their differences.

Our caper film will highlight that. We’ll base the second act around the heist. And we’ll play out the heist from every character’s point of view. Yes, every character in the crew will have the chance to be the protagonist for 15-20 minutes of the film. We’ll see THEIR challenges, their individual difficulties. This isn’t a caper film; it’s an episodic mini-series, centric to specific characters at a time, molded together into the arc of a larger narrative. This is Epic. Sprawling. The characters? They will have to be unique. The city of the heist? Forget France. Forget L.A., Italy…London…all that stuff. Let’s go somewhere new. Hyderabad. Moscow. Dubai. Let’s just drop the Versace for one damned minute and let this thing be what it needs to be…color.

And what do they steal? Diamonds? Cash? Art? No. No. No, NO.

They steal none of that. I can’t tell you what they steal. If I write it, and it gets made, then you can know what they steal. They steal something of faaaar greater worth. They, in essence, steal an idea.

Time shall tell which way I go on this…