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DARKNESS CALLS ME

DARKNESS CALLS ME
By Lee Matthias

GENRE: Thriller, Mystery
LOGLINE:

After graduating from Wharton with an MBA and joining Hollywood at the dawn of the 1990s “spec script” boom, a genius with no scruples and a penchant for winning embarks on his greatest scheme, only to find he’s not the only “shark in the tank”.

SYNOPSIS:

To Brennan Hale, a fresh new MBA from the wrong side of Philly, the world is one big game board upon which he intends to win. Graduating Wharton’s Business School by hook and crook, he sets his sights on Hollywood and joins Hamilton-Harris, a prestigious “boutique” talent agency. Within a few years he’s living large. With his finger on the pulse of the world, he’s become known all over town for his ability to pick winners: everything he touches succeeds. But, for Hale, the game is becoming boring, and he knows just what to do about it.

Moving up to a top Creative Executive position at the premier studio in Hollywood, Millenium-Global (MGS), he generates hit after hit, establishing his reputation, now, as the greatest producer since the moguls of the film industry’s Golden Age. When he latches onto a remarkable script by a new writer and sets out on his greatest scam, a new Creative Exec, a young woman, joins the studio with a reputation of her own. They meet. He takes her measure. And as they move from being colleagues to competitors to lovers, he manipulates his studio’s acquisition of a new “spec” script toward the largest pay-out ever made.

Then, as he locks his plan down… the sharks come to feed. #

Note: This is a black comedy with thriller overtones. With a nod to Michael Tolkin's and Robert Altman's film, THE PLAYER, it's set in the Hollywood of the late 1980s - early 1990s, during the "spec script boom" that saw writers such as Joe Eszterhas, Shane Black, and Quentin Tarantino emerge and/or rise. It's based in equal parts on my experiences as a Writers Guild Signatory literary agent, and a case the arresting FBI agent claimed was the "single cleverest scam he'd ever seen in 25 years on the job". I'm aware that Hollywood mostly avoids doing films about itself. I wrote DARKNESS CALLS ME anyway. I wanted to find out what happened. The scene has changed significantly since the period of the story. While my other scripts listed here are in the 120 page or less range, DARKNESS CALLS ME runs 138 pages. So, a little too long, according to conventional wisdom. It is what it is. And the rules of screenwriting are of the thumb variety only. If it's too long for someone, so be it. Also, for plot and "spoiler" reasons, I have deliberately kept the synopsis vague.

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