Free Writing Movies For Fun And Profit! by Thomas Lennon, Robert B Garant Page B

noticed that he hadn’t read the script he was giving notes on? Thirty solid minutes . That is a real skill. Man, when this guy was in grade school, his book reports must have KICKED ASS. Even on
The Sound and the Fury,
which is REALLY BORING, and he probably just skimmed. To be able to talk for thirty minutes about something you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT—master that skill, and the world is yours! (And probably a pretty nice hybrid Lexus too!)
    They say that to this day you can still hear that studio head, roaming the halls at night, dress shoes clicking as he goes … giving notes to nobody … without even having read the coverage! MOO-HA HA HA HA!
    FREE MOVIE IDEA!
    Yours Free with the Purchase of This Book
     
    “TURBULENCE”
     
    Approximate Budget: $100 million (see cast)
    Box-Office Gross: $210 million worldwide (see cast)
    Home Video/DVD Gross: $50+ million
    Awards Potential: Best Song nomination for Randy Newman’s original song:
    “Nothing to Declare (Except my Love for You)”
    ADAM SANDLER OR KEVIN JAMES stars as BENNY, a downtrodden baggage handler at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Benny’s life has been a series of missed opportunities due to his major lack of self-confidence. He’s a lonely guy. As a hobby he collects LUGGAGE TAGS from places he’s never been, exotic airports around the world as he unloads other people’s bags. “Oooh, look! Mount Pleasant Airport, Sandwich Islands. You don’t see that one very much!” is the kind of sad dialogue that Benny will say to his cool, jaded coworker RON (Jason Schwartzman). Ron will constantly remind Benny that his life is a series of missed opportunities because of his lack of self-confidence. Benny’s popular brother GLENN (Will Ferrell cameo) is the star RELIEF PITCHER for the Chicago Cubs. The brothers can’t stand each other (Benny wanted to be a pitcher too, but it didn’t work out).
    But … Benny is a HUGE Cubs fan, so this leads to a funny scene in Act I where Benny and Ron have to alternately ROOT FOR, THEN HECKLE Glenn while he’s on the mound. Benny, torn, will scream out,
“We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher, please God throw some heat!”
This will get a laugh at the test screening of this film.
    Benny’s life will be turned UPSIDE DOWN when he and Ron stumble upon a $60 million van Gogh painting in some luggage that’s been lost. After much (funny) debate about what to do, Benny sets off to return the suitcase to its rightful owner, PENELOPE, a
surprisingly hot art historian,
played by CAMERON DIAZ.
    Turns out the painting is STOLEN from the Japanese Yakuza, who stole it from the Art Institute of Chicago. Penelope was trying to RETURN it, when her suitcase got lost, blah blah blah. Mistaken identity,blah blah blah. They get chased by the Yakuza, the FBI, hide out “on the lam”—disguising themselves (yes, fun outfit and hair color changes for her) and sharing a bed in a TERRIBLE MOTEL, which leads to some PG-13 sparks between them when we find out she sleeps in the nude: “Me too,” says Benny as he DROPS HIS TOWEL TO THE FLOOR, REVEALING A SLIGHTLY SMALLER TOWEL UNDERNEATH. (Trailer moment.)
    All the while, BENNY IS COMING OUT OF HIS SHELL, TURNING FROM LOWLY BAGGAGE HANDLER INTO COOL/ SPY–TYPE GUY. They get caught by the Yakuza (funny scene where they’re both tied up and getting threatened by the Yakuza guys through their interpreter, played by MASI OKA). Our guys escape and plot a complicated REVERSE HEIST to get the painting back into the Art Institute of Chicago that at one point incorporates Benny throwing a baseball in a PERFECT SLIDER, 66 FEET, TO DISARM AN ALARM INSIDE THE MUSEUM. Benny’s sports/living-in-the-shadows thing is vindicated. He and Penelope return the painting, and all is well. They kiss and are about to say good-bye on the steps of the museum at dawn, when Penelope tells Benny that she really is …
    … a BOUNTY HUNTER. Only not for people, for art . That’s what she does. Top