Available Feature Screenplays
Battle at Buck Creek
(period Western, 103 pages)
In the 1880s, the new mayor of an isolated Old West town must team up with a free-spirited school teacher to battle a murderous gang that has seized many hostages and the local telegraph office and will kill the hostages one by one until the state governor frees the gang leader's brother from prison. (High Noon meets Air Force One, on a modest budget.)
SYNOPSIS
In the dusty community of Buck Creek, the townspeople are holding a street dance celebrating their isolated settlement's 10th anniversary and the election of their new mayor, WILL HANSON. But not everyone is happy. In Buck Creek's telegraph office, free-spirited school teacher ANNA BAIN is pestering the telegraph operator, NASH GRAHAM, trying to convince him to let her send a message. She has been studying Morse code, she tells him. Angrily, Nash throws her out and takes an incoming message of congratulation for the new mayor from his father, the governor, JEB HANSON. But when Nash leaves to deliver the message, Anna slips back into the telegraph office and receives an urgent message from another tiny community. A dozen riders who don't look friendly may be riding toward Buck Creek. Anna gives the message to Nash when he returns. Angry, he tears it up without reading it and throws her out again. As Will prepares to make his inaugural speech and the governor's telegram is read to the crowd, several RIDERS who seem to be trail-weary cowboys ease into town. They are barely noticed as they gather at the local saloon. Actually, they are members of the BO BARRETT GANG. When Will was a young sheriff in another town, he helped put Bo Barrett's brother into prison. Now Barrett and his men have arrived with a murderous plan. They will seize Buck Creek's only link to the outside world, the telegraph office, and take many hostages, including Will. Then they will notify the governor that they have his son, and they will kill one Buck Creek citizen per hour until Bo Barrett's brother is released from prison and sends a message verifying he is free. Buck Creek is so isolated that the nearest army post is a two-day ride, so the townspeople will not be able get help. Barrett's plan is set into motion with bloody results, but Will Hanson, Anna Bain and the previous mayor, JOHN RIDEOUT, manage to escape and hide in the town. There is an immediate chemistry between the mayor and librarian, but no time to act on it. Bo Barrett hangs his first hostage, the town's PREACHER, to show he means business, and the town's UNDERTAKER is his next victim. Outgunned, Will, Anna and John can only watch helplessly from their hiding place, until Anna convinces Will that she can work a telegraph. They try but fail to regain control of the telegraph office. John Rideout is wounded. Anna remembers that her older brother, ANDY, a Lieutenant in the 7th Cavalry, sometimes trains new recruits about 10 miles outside Buck Creek, with strict orders to stay away from the town. He taught her Morse code. If she can climb a nearby hill with a mirror, she may be able to flash a message to him. It's a desperate gamble, but Will distracts most of Barrett's men by challenging Bo to a showdown. Anna escapes the town. Will, however, is captured and will be the next hanging victim unless the governor responds. As Anna climbs the hill with a big mirror, she is spotted by two of Barrett's men. They chase her. She fights them off , knocking out one and killing the other with part of the shattered mirror. Now she has just enough mirror left to flash a plea for help. One of the raw troopers being trained by her brother sees the flashes. Andy reads the message, and he and SERGEANT HARRIS lead their green cavalrymen on a desperate gallop toward Buck Creek. They charge into town with bugle blaring and swords flashing and do battle with Barrett's men just as Will is being hanged. Anna runs into the battle and helps save Will. Barrett escapes the melee, but Will soon chases him down. They fight to the death, and Will is the survivor. After the day's many dead are buried, a happier time soon dawns. A high-noon wedding is held in Buck Creek. The mayor marries the school teacher, and they march beneath an archway of flashing cavalry sabers as they leave for their honeymoon.
Wiley & Smart
(medium-low budget cop-buddy action-drama, 94 pages)
A trouble-prone young deputy sheriff must overcome his rookie mistakes in time to help a veteran New Mexico sheriff battle three terrorists and save a group of international leaders.
SYNOPSIS
Desperate for new deputies in a low-paying, rural county, Sheriff Wiley Wilson hires a young rookie who recently has quit a New England police department's traffic division and ended up broke in Dalton City, New Mexico, an out-of-the-way county seat about two hours away from Albuquerque. Deputy Sheriff Jason Davis quickly is dubbed "Deputy Dumbass" after he screws up a traffic stop and a domestic disturbance call, and then accidentally destroys important evidence at a murder scene. With his job on the line, he is reduced to guarding traffic cones during a new murder investigation. But Jason discovers a clue that he thinks may tie the two murders together and to a much bigger conspiracy. Wiley is not convinced and decides to fire Jason. However, Wiley's wife, Maggie, reminds the sheriff that he once made a few youthful mistakes. She convinces Wiley to give Jason the chance to pursue his leads. Jason follows his clues and soon finds himself battling three terrorists at a remote site, just as they launch a small, but potentially devastating cruise missile that they have smuggled into New Mexico from the Port of Houston, using a shipping container loaded onto an 18-wheel truck. Their target is a well-guarded public gathering of international leaders, where Wiley, on horseback, is helping provide security for the crowd that will witness the public signing of an important anti-terrorism agreement. Through individual heroics, timely assistance from Navajo Nation police officers, and one lawman's ultimate sacrifice, Jason defeats the terrorists, just as they fire their deadly missile. And Wiley finds a desperate way to save the crowd and international dignitaries from certain death, at the last second.
Home Business, Home School
(low-budget PG family comedy, 120 pages)
Peter and June Trencher hope that running a home business and home-schooling their three children will bring them new happiness. But their family togetherness soon is tested when the neighborhood snoop decides the Trenchers' new lifestyle somehow is tied to organized crime and triggers a police investigation.
SYNOPSIS
Peter Trencher and his family are incurable nightowls with day jobs and unpleasantly early starting times at public school. They keep oversleeping and racing off late to work and class. Their loudly screeching tires are a constant source of anger to their across-the-street neighbor, Agnes Seymore, the volunteer crime watch captain for their suburban block. Agnes, late sixties, is convinced she knows exactly how life should work in her Oakmont Avenue neighborhood. She has been the crime watch captain for more than 20 years--plenty of time to: (1) create her own brand of law and order; (2) hone her skills at spying on her neighbors; and (3) develop suspicions of anything that moves on her street. In Agnes' eyes, Peter and June Trencher and their three children (Brad, almost 16, and 10-year-old fraternal twins, Jason and Jacqui) have become a growing threat to the peace, tranquility and predictable working order of "her" street. When the Trenchers ignore her ad hoc violation notices (such as "Auditory Assault with a Motor Vehicle"), Agnes declares them a public nuisance and starts "special surveillance." She reports her every suspicion and opinion to police detective Jack Bristol. Bristol thinks Agnes is crazy, but he also humors her. Early in his police career, just when he was about to be fired as a rookie patrolman, a crime-watch tip from Agnes helped him catch two burglars in the act of ransacking the police chief's house. Bristol became a hero and received a promotion, instead of losing his job. He still has a soft spot for Agnes, despite ongoing disapproval from his truant officer girl friend, Wanda Siatica. After the Trenchers suddenly stop leaving late for work and school--indeed, almost never leaving home at all--Agnes' suspicions run wild. What she doesn't know is that the Trenchers have quit their jobs and pulled their children out of public school. They have decided to start a home business and also home-school their kids. At first, everything goes well. The Trenchers are happily engaged in organizing their business and enjoying the novelty of home schooling. Brad, however, barely lifts a finger to help and resists any new changes. He has been saving found coins and spare change almost all of his life, and his only goals are to buy a car on his 16th birthday and start dating. Realities soon set in for the Trenchers. Peter has no real plan for business success and is making no money, while June is encountering increasing surliness from her children, who now miss being around other kids. At the same time, Agnes' suspicions and spying activities continue to expand. She misinterprets some of the Trenchers' actions and concludes they are somehow involved in organized crime. Her sense of alarm finally convinces Jack Bristol and Wanda Siatica to investigate. The two cops confront the Trenchers just as Peter's business is collapsing and just as June is nearing the conclusion that home schooling has been a failure. Peter begs for his old job back and gets re-hired, but he is given a dead-end position as punishment for leaving. June goes back to her public school, but now is a food-service worker in the cafeteria. And their kids return to their classrooms, only to be harassed and quickly bored. Peter quits--again. June quits--again. And the kids are pulled out of public school--again. Facing imminent financial disaster, the Trenchers come up with a desperate new plan. Using their absolute last resources, Brad's car savings (over his strenuous objections), they rent an empty building and create a small private school that combines home schooling and the presence of more kids. The school immediately flounders until Brad rises above his anger and creates a marketing ploy that causes television news crews to rush to interview Peter and June. The publicity quickly brings a crowd of parents to enroll their children. The Trenchers' school is saved, Peter and June are happy, and the Trencher children get the best of both worlds: the flexibility of home schooling amid crowds of other kids. Because she is so good at watching everything, Agnes Seymore is hired as the new school's playground monitor. Jack Bristol and Wanda Siatica announce their plans to get married and bring their kids to the school, too. And Brad gets what he has desired. He becomes the school's driving instructor and gets to cruise around with carloads of teenage girls.
Eyes of the Tiger
(medium to high-budget action-thriller, 113 pages)
A scientist trying to save Siberian tigers from extinction in the wild must rescue his wife, a nature photographer, after she is kidnapped by tiger poachers with ties to the Russian Mafia and his own animal conservation center.
SYNOPSIS
Fewer than 400 Siberian tigers are still alive in the snowy forests of Far Eastern Russia. And a billion people want them made into rugs and drugs. In a cruel twist of the laws of supply and demand, each endangered tiger now is worth many thousands of dollars to poachers.
DR. DANIEL TATE is trying to help save Siberia's few remaining tigers. But it is a dangerous and mostly thankless task. He must count the tigers that are still alive in an isolated nature preserve, then tranquilize them, check their health, and tag them with radio tracking collars.
What Daniel doesn't know is that his boss, ALEX ORLOV, has been using their Los Angeles-based International Tiger Preservation Center as cover for a bizarre poaching scheme. Donated tigers are being killed in American zoos and nature parks, and their deaths are being attributed to "natural" causes. Then the animals are being given fake burials, and their carcasses and furs are being sold on the international medical and souvenier black market.
When Dan's nature-photographer wife, SUSAN, discovers Alex's poaching operation and is kidnapped in Siberia, Dan sets out to rescue her--and gets help from an unexpected source. The tiger preserve's newest and somewhat inept game warden, VIKTOR VINOGRADOV, actually is a special agent from the FSB, Russia's successor to the Soviet-era KGB. Viktor has been trailing the poaching ring and gathering evidence.
To save Dan's wife, the two men must battle both the Russian Mafia and Alex's violent poachers. And they have to avoid being killed by the threatened animals they are trying to save.
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Many A-list Hollywood actors are animal-rights activists or supporters of animal rights and environmental causes. Eyes of the Tiger likely would appeal to some of them.
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