JONATHAN'S HOTSHEET

available screenplays

A LONG WINTER'S NIGHT
Carol has a problem and she needs a place to hide. She meets Jerry at an airport and travels with him to a small town in Newfoundland where Jerry is collecting evidence for his doctorate on lichen. Jerry is always curious about Carol's past but she will not speak of it. Her problems, however, catch up with her when two men come to town to kill her and she must escape onto the tundra while Jerry is forced to play a game of Chess where the stakes are his life and limbs. A comedy drama, Northern Exposure meets the Seventh Sign

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BLOOD & ROSES
At some point in your life you are faced with a decision; make money at a job you hate, or face up to the fact that you will never be what you had hoped to be. The story of Pat Dinizio and The Smithereens' rise from garage band to platinum album band while trying to survive at jobs they hate, and keep from going insane. The story centers around the idea of the creation of fame, and the sleazy world of the recording industry. Based on real events and tragedies. Comedy-Drama: Dumb & Dumber meets the Record Industry.

COLD
The Finnish Arctic expedition of 1902 set off at a record pace, however 500 miles out onto the ice things start to go wrong. They find an abandoned ship frozen in the ice where no ship should be. Worse, the entire crew has been killed and torn apart limb from limb. A sign written in blood in the Captain's cabin reads that the Devil has come to wreck his havoc upon those on the ice. The expedition continues north but they are separated when a huge crack forms in the ice. One member Lank, slowly drifts south on a huge sheet of ice that gets smaller every day. If that isn't enough of a problem there is something on the ice with him that wants to eat him for lunch. The THING meets Shackleton.

KILLING SAINT GERMAIN
In 1760 a man came to Europe who became known as Saint Germain. There are files about him in the British home office, there are letters about him in the French court of Louis XIV, he is a real historical figure who led the Freemasons at their meeting in 1795. However, Saint Germain was later seen in 1860 and he had not aged a day! This is the story of one William Taldridge, an American gambler, who sets out to kill Saint Germain in 1841. Based on a series of true encounters and incidents. The X FILES meets the PATRIOT, historical sci-fi.

MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN
Jim is born to be a slave. He has been manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation to the specifications of his new master Deckard. Deckard runs a large manufacturing operation in the off-world colonies where he is constantly fighting for survival. As Deckard expands his empire on the backs of tens of thousands of Replicant slaves, Jim discovers that a manufactured slave can be more human than his masters. The story works as a prequel to Blade Runner. Spartacus meets Scarface in space.

PEYOTE:
Michael Zorn is a murderer. He has just raped and killed the Sheriff's wife and daughter and now he is out to kill the Sheriff too. The Sheriff however is out trying to find and kill Zorn. While Zorn waits for the Sheriff to arrive he tries to make sense of the strange goings on in the Sheriff's small town - strange apparitions, bad advice, evil children, and a dead talking horse. It all makes sense when the Sheriff comes to town. Mulholland Drive meets The Unforgiven. A very twisted western tale.

SECOND COMING
Turmoil in the Middle East, suicide bombers strike fear into the hearts of everyone, and Christ returns to Earth to bring about the End of Days. An Israeli security officer teams up with a Palestinian bomb maker in a plot to kill Christ and avert the coming end of mankind on earth. It was done once before. Sci-fi drama.

TRENCH
In late 1917 you could get off a boat from the North Sea and walk into the start of the trench system and emerge almost 1800 miles later into the Adriatic Sea near Italy and never have stuck your head above the earth even once. The outside world is a slit of sky viewed from below. The air above the trench is a place of death and those who enter it must die or pay for their flaunting of life. The trench is both friend, and killer, and it is its own character with its own story and history. The film is not about the horror of war per se, but the horror of sleeping, eating, crapping, fighting, and dying in the Trench. It is about men who lived years of their lives in a mud slit in the ground. The Second World War is over-produced and the First World War has never been properly explored. Trench explores the horror and misery of WWI trench warfare that makes Saving Private Ryan look like it was fought in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. This is not an epic. It is a film where epic things happen in small places.

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
In an effort to understand the past the provisional government of Northern Ireland establishes a "Truth and Reconciliation Committee" to investigate the unsolved deaths of three people in a tiny town on the seashore. Everyone is very relieved to talk about the deaths, to get them off their conscience, but the problem is that everyone has a different version of what happened and who the killer is. A tale of an Irish Rashomon which will keep you guessing until the end.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE
An 1880's New York newspaper reporter is forced to leave the city for health reasons and sets out for San Francisco. Along the way he is beaten, robbed and left for broke and dead. He survives his ordeal only to get trapped in a small western town where he is mistaken for a bounty hunter and where the Sheriff is Bill Clinton, the general store is run by Bob Dole, the town Rabbi is Ari Fleischer and Peeping Tom Ashcroft the notorious bank robber is on his way to town to settle the score with our hero. A comedy western.