A FEW OF THE SCREENPLAYS AVAILABLE FROM

WRITERS LITERARY AGENCY

UNITED STATES – email – JOHN TAYLOR

UNITED STATES WRITERS

LOGLINE: Twenty years after the death of his mother the Governor of Wyoming must decide whether or not to commute the death penalty sentenced on his father.

Twenty years have past since the brutal rape and murder of Jacqueline Webbingham. Not finding the killer has has built up two decades of venomous hostility in her son, Trey, the man seated as Wyoming’s governor who refuses clemency to any hardened criminal. He needs to find the murderer and send the degenerate straight to hell. Finally, a suspect is in custody.

The trial shatters his expectations and shocks the people of Cheyenne when testimony reveals that Stanford Webbingham, Trey’s father is the real murderer.

If the evidence proves to be true, will he still enforce the death penalty? With the power of life or death in his hands, can he authorize a lethal injection and kill his own father? Will the relationship with his lover, Sara Cummings, the assistant prosecutor who presents to the people a sure case for capital punishment survive corkscrewing twists and turns?

Can Trey live with himself while another dose of toxic rage spirals downward until it impales the area of his heart where his mother still lives? Will solving the mystery bring closure? Or more death?

'Esther'

. . .

Esther is a frumpy,

fiftyish, psychopathic spinster

who suffers from paranoia, romantic delusions and

bizarre hallucinations of her abusive

dead mother.

When the Vogels,

an attractive couple with two charming children,

move into a seemingly delightful little neighborhood,

they soon find that living next door to Esther

can be murder.

Comments

A screenplay of similar genre to "Misery" and "Psycho",

ESTHER will appeal to peoples' fascination

for the deviant mind.

. .

KILLER DILLER

Log Line:

Two lovers suspect each other of murder and each secretly contrive a screwball scheme to prove the other's innocence--or guilt.

Synopsis:

John Diller, a former private dick, has been cooling his heels in the slammer 3 long years for manslaughtering the rich husband of his ex-squeeze, Skyla Puck. When Diller goes up for a parole hearing, sexy Skyla doesn't protest his release. Instead she appears on Sam Pecky's in-your-face, trash-talk TV show and offers a million dollar bounty to anybody that “bleeps” him if he gets out. That's the bad news. The good news is Diller gets paroled. Now all Diller has to do is dodge a pack of maniac bounty hunters, prove his innocence, and stay alive long enough to get his hands around Skyla's irresistible throat!

DOUBLE TAKE - Romantic Comedy

By Katherine Atwell Herbert

Log Line

A successful woman with a life-long weight problem is seduced and coerced into trying a new miracle diet that releases the "thin person inside" her. Unfortunately, the thin twin has a deliciously malicious mind of her own causing the two personalities--good and evil--to eventually clash as their comic adventures grow more and more dastardly.

Note: Kate is also the author of two books including: "Writing Scripts Hollywood Will Love" and "Selling Scripts To Hollywood." She has worked for DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, Fox Broadcasting, IRS Films, Carolco, Multimedia, Viacom-Showtime, and Lightstorm. Kate is available for writing assignments.

Synopsis

A lite fat-free comedy with a full bodied, meaty message about the single biggest obsession of American women today: weight loss.

When Dennie, an overweight professional woman in Kansas City, is seduced and coerced into the ultimate "quick-fix" weight loss scam she unexpectedly releases, Denise, the thin person trapped inside her--and she's got attitude and an agenda. At first supportive, Dennie's all for it when Denise avenges the slights Dennie's suffered for her chubbiness. Soon, however Dennie becomes fearful as Denise becomes more and more vicious. She realizes that Denise is going too far in her schemes and she must regain control of her life--even if it means gaining some weight. Luckily, she gets help from a Food and Drug agent who is on to the phony diet scheme.

Knowing they have to find the foreign "doctor" that lured Dennie into his diet racket so they can get the formula to eliminate Denise, whose presence is getting stronger and stronger, they track him down in Las Vegas. At the airport they almost get caught by the pursuing Denise, but escape by hiding in the middle of a crowd of midgets who have come to town for a convention of little people. Outwitting Denise for the moment, the pair find the doctor's office and draw back the curtain on his sham. But Denise catches up to them. She and Dennie get into a knockdown drag-out that's really a battle between the forces of fat verses thin. Dennie learns not only to accept herself as she is, even if it isn't America's glamorous ideal, but she also learns that you shouldn't wish too hard for what you want because you might just get it.

YESTERDAY’S FEAR – Screenplay/novel Psychological Thriller

Two young boys find an escaped psycho in a basement fruit cellar. Many years later one becomes the coroner and the other the Director of Psychology where the young psycho has been doing very strange things, or is he? Now we may know "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane."

UNNATURAL ALLIES – Screenplay/novel - Arizona Action Adventure

Ted Johnson is having visions of a serial killer seeking ancient Anasazi ruins on the Navajo Indian reservation. Ted’s visions come from the eagle that helps him find the crazed orthopedic killer doctor before he can destroy the ruins leading to the Rainbow Bridge to eternity.

LOOKING FOR KEVIN COSTNER - Screenplay - Drama

Jeffrey Madison, a screenwriter, is going through a mid-life crisis. His wife travels to San Francisco to help her gay sister and wrestle with her own sexuality. Jeffrey, alone and in despair, goes to the Phoenix open. He meets a young assistant producer and comes very close to having an affair that could ruin his marriage.

EDITORIAL INFLUENCE – Screenplay - Psychological Thriller

Logline: A book editor becomes the protagonist in a killers work in progress

Jonathan Weber, a psychologist and writer, supports his new writing career with an editorial service. Richard, a psychotic computer genius, employs Jonathan to edit his in process novel about a serial killer. Jonathan becomes the main focus and protagonist of Richard’s hi-tech psychotic endeavors.

The Memory of Stephen Talbot - Synopsis

Meet the Talbot family; Sarah, Keith, Katie and Stephen. A typical suburban family of four. Stephen is the oldest; 14, strong and good-looking, well liked by his peers and a source of pride to his parents. Katie inspires everyone with her sweet-nature and fun-loving ways. They are a happy, well-adjusted family that's suddenly torn apart by tragedy, questioning their own faith and desperately searching for meaning in the
darkness of their consuming loss; all the while, engulfed by the realities of life.

Sarah and Keith have just arrived home from the hospital after Stephen has passed away, losing his sudden battle against leukemia. They arrive home in a severe state of shock, denial and depression.

We witness a family as they start to cope with the reality of losing their son. We see their memories unfold like the pages of a photo album; as they reflect back, on the many special moments Stephen brought to their lives and others. Through a series of flashbacks, we enjoy Stephen's sincerity, generosity and special gifts of compassion and love, that are his legacy.

We join Stephen as he presents a very special, one-of-a-kind anniversary gift to his parents. We watch his first dance and see a very special dance with his mother; a dance she will never forget. We share memories with other acquaintances of Stephen and realize how he touched each of their lives. We get a sense of what a vibrant and exceptional boy Stephen is and just how much love he generously gives.

Throughout the story, others' share their memories with Keith and Sarah. In one case, we hear how Stephen became more then a patient, but became a friend to his doctor, Kathy Edelman, and helped restore her faith, giving her hope and a reason to continue her mission.

As the final moments count down, Sarah becomes more depressed; unable to cope with the reality of losing her son, unable to even enter the funeral parlor. She desperately seeks escape. Walking by herself lost in every sense, remembering every detail of the night her son bid farewell to this world; Sarah is briefly reunited with Stephen. Their special moment together flows like a dance, as Stephen leads his mother back, her faith restored.

As this day winds down and our story comes to an end, Stephen leaves behind one more, very special gift to his family. A sign that life goes on and that hope is never lost. He shows us that life truly is a dance and that love is eternal, and that each one of us is given a special lifetime to discover this, The Theme Behind The Story.

THE EMBASSY - Action

Steve and Alyssa, assistants to the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, thought their biggest problem was their relationship. While Steve tries to hang on to his wild, carefree days as a bachelor, Alyssa prods the relationship, and Steve, forward. The issue takes a back seat however, when militants attack the U.S. embassy. Embassy Marine guard detachments repel a brutal nighttime attack, which leaves the embassy crumbling from rocket attacks and its people under siege behind its stone walls. In the course of the battle, Steve gets his first real taste of combat, and the fear makes him question, for the first time, where his life's priorities lie. As dawn approaches, the embassy personnel all pitch together to deal with food and water shortages even while a military buildup continues just beyond the embassy gates.

While the White House cautiously assesses their options, the Ambassador draws upon the combined talents of Martin, his right-hand man and Steve's National Guard compatriot, Steve and the Marine and intelligence personnel to prepare a reaction plan to future anticipated attacks As the militants move tanks and other heavy equipment into position, being overrun is all but assured. . In response, the Ambassador reluctantly authorizes a desperate plan. While on lookout on the embassy roof, Steve and Alyssa share a picnic lunch and a heart-to-heart as Steve looks beyond to see the advancing enemy force. As the tanks close upon the embassy perimeter, the embassy triggers a jury-rigged underground hydrogen gas bomb that devastates the grounds beyond the embassy gates. The resulting sinkhole swallows whole tanks and buildings, leaving the surrounding neighborhood looking like a war zone. While it temporarily saves the embassy personnel, the blast destroys any chance of a political resolution.

In the aftermath of the repelled attack, their defenses weakened even further and political options all but dead, Steve draws on all his courage to propose a risky escape plan to the Ambassador and marriage to Alyssa. With the help of information gathered by the embassy intelligence staff, and with the tactical assistance of Marine special forces inserted into the militant population during the embassy attacks, Steve and Martin don their pilot's caps one last time to assist in a daring raid on the airport to acquire helicopter transports.

The embassy is narrowly evacuated as the compound walls come crashing down, only to end in a final game of cat and mouse between opposing helicopter forces in the mountains along the Indian-Pakistani border.

THE HUMANE PETITION - Free Willie meets the World Court

Steve Case is disillusioned with his politically successful law career. Then ex-fiancée Lissa Fortino, a noted International lawyer for Greenpeace International, approaches him with a case. Greenpeace is filing a petition with the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands to save the Arctic Circle from commercial development that would wipe out its cetacean population. Professionally intrigued, and personally interested in the chance to re-ignite his past romance with Lissa, Steve accepts.

In Greenland, Dr. Levin Roberts and Lissa have perfected a means to undeniably prove the existence of cetacean intelligence. Siren, a twenty-five foot whale, is the subject they must transport to the World Court in proof of their case.

The Petition places Steve in constant jeopardy as it draws deadly concern from the world's governments. These same governments, having already attempted to kill Lissa Fortino before she could finish the petition, will stop at nothing to protect commercial drilling interests in one hundred billion dollars in energy reserves waiting beneath the Arctic Circle.

Tasked with arguing the petition, Steve works to overcome his own misgivings about Lissa's case strategy and the court's reluctance to hear the case. As he strives to push the case to a successful conclusion, he must choose between adhering to Lissa's strategy and potentially losing the case or abiding by his own legal instincts at the risk of losing her.

Meanwhile, Lissa and Dr. Roberts must overcome treacherous attempts to prevent them from reaching the courthouse with Siren. A confrontation in the North Atlantic forces the team to find a new way to transport Siren to the courthouse. In the midst of this journey, Lissa confronts her personal motives in calling Steve to undertake the case.

On the day of trial, Steve, Lissa and Roberts must contend with government factions desperate to prevent the final hearing before the court. Conspirators within Greenpeace target Steve while Lissa, Roberts and Siren come under ground and air attack in their journey to the courthouse. The team gathers at the Peace Palace, home of the World Court, for the final hearing and Steve's reunion with Lissa.

ADVENTURE CHALLENGE - Action Adventure

Logline: Celeste has left Alex and Team BC to join Team Celeron, the best adventure racing team in the world. To win Celeste Back, Alex and his teammates must win the biggest race ever, The Adventure Challenge.

Synopsis: Alex and Burt, of Team BC, lose the talented and beautiful Celeste to team Celeron, the best team in the world. At the same time they gain Danielle, Team Celeron’s castoff.

Danielle is an experienced and determined competitor. With Danielle’s help, Team BC rises to world class standards and competes directly against Team Celeron in the Adventure Challenge. Alex and Burt have to learn to respect Danielle as their equal, and the three of them must learn to work as a team. When the race comes down to Team BC versus Team Celeron, Danielle and Celeste manage to negotiate a compromise that allows both teams to tie for first. Celeste, alienated from Team Celeron, returns to Alex.

Note: Adventure racing is cross-country endurance racing that may involve mountaineering, mountain biking, kayaking, white water rafting, and other skills. A typical adventure race will last several days and cover hundreds of miles. The Adventure Challenge, a fictional event, is set in the Canadian Rockies amid some of the most spectacular scenery imaginable.

SON OF PSYCHO - Comedy

Logline: Marion Crane, a beautiful embezzler from the big city, finds true love and happiness with Randy Bates, a reclusive young man whose hobby is animatronics.

Synopsis: Marion Crane learns that her boss Rod Sterling has been swindling money from his employees. When an opportunity presents itself, Marion takes back all the money Sterling has stolen (and a little more) and flees toward Canada. Lost in a snowstorm, Marion finds refuge at the Bates mansion.

Randy Bates is enthralled by Marion. First, however, they both have to deal with Randy’s guardian, Evel Butler. Sterling comes looking for Marion. Butler kills Sterling and kidnaps Marion. Randy finally has to defy Evel Butler. In their final conflict, Randy discovers the secret Butler has hidden for thirty years: “Randy, I am your father.” Marilyn and Randy together kill Butler and live happily ever after.

THE DIAMOND CONSPIRACY

Log Line: A former marksman and truck driver teams with a detective to free his kidnapped daughter and capture diamond thieves.

Synopsis:

Mike Flynn, a truck driver and world class marksman, is traumatized when he sees two girls disappear under tons of concrete during an earthquake in San Francisco.

Years later, unable to drive a rig, Mike struggles to survive. He lands a job as a courier with the encouragement of his daughter. Several jewelry heists have taken place resulting in the death of several jewelry representatives and Mike is nearly beaten to death attempting to make a delivery at a jewelry store.

Mike recognizes one of the robbers, before he is knocked out, but cannot remember from where. Mike's daughter, an insurance investigator, helps him remember and Mike decides to try to locate the man himself.

Mike visits an old friend that owns a gun shop and practices shooting before setting out on his quest. While Mike is on the target range, his daughter is kidnapped.

Mike goes to the gang leader's home, but his daughter has been taken to a secluded ranch. While Mike searches for his daughter, the gang leader calls him and threatens to kill his daughter if he does not stop implicating him in the robbery.

Mike teams up with a police detective that is smitten with his daughter and they set off on an exciting and action filled chase to free his daughter and capture the jewel thieves in an explosive conclusion.

CAHOOTS

In 1883 California, two quirky rail hands put their own lives on the line when they rescue a family of Chinese women fleeing from massacre.

* * *

When La Ling, her mother Ruby Shoo, and her little girl Ah Joy, stumble into his caboose pleading shelter, Haggis MacDuff, habitual womanizer, now enchanted by the strangely beautiful La Ling, falls in love for the first time.

His fear of his own massacre for this rescue nearly as great as that of trains, Ketch O’Reilly, rigid and sour from the loss of his wife and infant to a train crash, begins to blossom under the rapt adoration of six-year-old Ah Joy.

Wary of discovery, the men focus their wits on buggering survival and getting the women back to China. Disguised as men, the women keep to the locked rail yard and grow a garden, the men selling the food to the saloon -- where Ruby spots Big Shot, who led the village attack, killed their men, and raped a woman, taking her to the auction of women in San Francisco Chinatown. Terrified, Ruby tells no one.

La Ling returns Haggis’ passion, promising to stay with him forever. And as the food fails to bring enough money, she tells Haggis she must work as the saloon’s prostitute to earn for Ruby’s and Ah Joy’s passage. Beside himself, Haggis struggles hard to rise above his own feelings.

One day, Big Shot sees the rail yard gate ajar and spots Ah Joy’s Chinese face without her boy’s cap. The next morning Ah Joy and Big Shot are gone.

On his telegraph, Ketch hears that Big Shot has been seen with railroad buddies on a train headed for San Francisco, accompanied by a small boy.

The four steal the boss’s fancy parlor car and engine, a wagon and mule for Ketch, and head for Chinatown dressed in the boss’s rich clothes. They park in the waterfront fog and go in search of Ah Joy. They find her imprisoned in the auction house where they see buyers with Big Shot and his pals. They free Ah Joy and are seen. Ketch clobbers the auctioneer -- Ruby grabbing his cash, and La Ling his gun. She blasts Big Shot between the eyes.

Haggis throws money to distract the buyers, and they flee to the waterfront where Ruby spots a China ship and buys passage with the slave money. She agonizes at leaving La Ling and the men, but grabs Ah Joy from Ketch. La Ling weeps, and Haggis knows she must go, too.

Devastated by the reality of their success, the men watch helplessly as the women hurry along the pier and disappear into the fog.

SECRET ROSES - Psychodrama

when a woman escapes her abusive husband, the last thing she’s looking for is another man. Especially a perfect stranger. Or is he?

When her dad dies, gifted artist Bennett Owen flees from her husband, Richard, telling him she’s just going to help her mother. But she’s determined to have her precious freedom and a real home. Husband Richard wary she’ll reveal his true colors and destroy his pharmaceutical empire, hires someone in her town to get close to her, keep him informed of her every move..

As Bennett recreates herself in a living masterpiece, that Sam Hawkins, gorgeous stranger in town, won’t leave her along -- persists in helping. And in spite of herself, she falls hard for this generous guy. When Richard insists she return, she refuses.

Now Richard’s hireling gets the go-ahead to kill her, and Bennett finds herself faced with the do-or-die terror of a lifetime.

An American Werewolf in Kosovo

ZACK RAMIREZ, an African-American/Chicano pilot of the Navy Air Force, embarks on a secret mission over Kosovo and is shot down. Barely alive, he is rescued by a mysterious band of Gypsies. They have no choice but to turn him into a werewolf, in order to save his life.

They give Zack a history lesson about genocide in Europe and teach him to use his powers to help the innocent victims of hate groups. Zack finds kinship and romance in the tribe. Together they fight the Serbian killing machine. Later, Zack finds that he himself was an intended victim of ethnic cleansing by his self-hating, Hispanic Admiral, who despises Zack’s attitude

RED THUNDER

Rookie defensive end, COCHISE MACK, an African-American/Apache powerhouse, dominates the NFL and fights his way to a Superbowl. Flanking him is the craziest bunch of guys who ever put on uniforms.

On the way to the championship, he battles to end the use of the name WASHINGTON REDSKINS and galvanizes his city to fight against this overt degradation.

Bone crunching scenes of the gridiron are mixed with scenes of historic and political significance. This adds to the depth of the piece and helps make it an enthralling classic.

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