SCREENPLAY SAMPLES
Currently available spec scripts:
MENDOZ THE JEW
1782: When the boxing coach to the Prince of Wales spots a Jewish boy dominating in a street fight against a bigger man, one of the great boxing rivalries in history is born as young Daniel Mendoza becomes first the protege and then bitter adversary of Gentleman Richard Humphreys, rising to be the first Jewish boxing champion of England, an underdog who fights as “Mendoza the Jew," but is known as “The Lion of Israel” to his people.
THE BELOVED
Historical Epic: The Biblical story of King David, killer of Goliath, lover of women, adored leader of men, doomed betrayer of friends and family, and first warlord king of a united Israel.
In progress
THE GLASS VENUS
Thriller: A young artist comes to Venice, Italy for an international art festival, and is drawn into a web of human trafficking and murder.
In progress
STAY
Romantic Comedy: a relationship-shy young woman, who runs a dog adoption business in Silver Lake, falls in love with a single dad--whom she discovers is the adoptive father of the baby son she'd left at a hospital years before when she was a runaway teenager.
Available, never optioned or sold
MY ALEXANDER
Drama: a repressed young man working for his father goes to Italy on business and falls for a spontaneous, beautiful young artist, and her five year old son. When she becomes mortally ill, he learns what it means to love, and to become a father.
Previously Optioned by director James Goldstone and Vestron Pictures; producer Lance Hool and Silver Lion Pictures; producer-director Sondra Locke and Caritas Prods; and Omniquest Entertainment
WORLD ON FIRE
Period adventure: based on the true story of a Jewish boy from a Polish village who rebelled against anti-semitism, and over the course of the Second World War fought his way across Europe, Japan, China and India to reach Palestine. Along the way, his dream of learning how to fly comes true when the Nazi sent by Germany to help Japan build its airforce mistakes the young man for a long-lost cousin, and becomes his surrogate father and teacher.
Available, never optioned or sold
COLTER'S HELL
Period action/adventure based on the true story of the first mountain man: A hunter for the Lewis and Clark Expedition goes back alone into the Rocky Mountains, becomes a Crow warrior, discovers Yellowstone, and survives a "Most Dangerous Game" pursuit by hundreds of Blackfoot warriors—all while trying to cope with having helped open the way for the white invasion of the Native lands he's come to love.
Available, never optioned or sold
GIOVANNI AND LUSANNA
Period drama: based on a true story: in Renaissance Florence, a beautiful woman from the common class falls in love with and marries a young aristocrat--and then must fight for him, their child and her own dignity when his family forces him to abandon her and marry into his own class.
Available. Previously optioned by OmniQuest Entertainment, and later by Wee Dram Productions
DORIAN
Horror: a gothic retelling of the "Picture of Dorian Gray" set in the contemporary world of New York fashion.
Available. Previously Optioned by producer Andrea Newman; producer Jim Steele; and producer Rona Ilanit
OFF THE REZ
Drama: a troubled Native American boy and a white Outward Bound teacher return to the boy's Arapahoe Reservation and prevent a race war with the local white town.
Available. Previously Optioned by McClellan Associates
PAINTED EGGS (AKA EVERYONE SAYS HELLO)
(Based on my produced play).
Drama/comedy: a widowed Ukrainian American immigrant decides to mail order a bride from the old country because her photo resembles his dead wife. When she comes over, however, she falls in love with his son, a disenchanted, footloose young man.
Available, never optioned or sold
RICK'S PLACE
Drama: a teenager from Santa Monica comes of age when his family moves to a small Wyoming town.
Available, never optioned or sold
EMERALD EYES
Erotic thriller: A cop with a troubled marriage and a teenaged daughter searches for the killer of a porn magnate. Clues lead toward a troubled televangelist—until the cop discovers the killer may be the porn magnate's own daughter, a top porn star with whom the cop has become involved.
Available, never optioned or sold
A GATHERING OF STONES
Drama: an army doctor, captured by and escaping from the Viet Cong, takes fifteen years and journeys across the South Pacific in order to rediscover his sense of self and face his long-lost family back in the States.
Available, never optioned or sold
Other Co-written Feature Scripts:
CHRISTMAS IS FOR SECOND CHANCES (CO-WRITTEN WITH WILLIAM MISSOURI DOWNS)
When Loretta, a young TV director, is guilted into going home for Christmas for the first time in years, she meets the man of her dreams…never realizing that it’s the chubby kid who had a crush on her in high school…
REAPERS
Peter Costas, a wrongfully discharged Air Force Predator pilot, joins forces with Oz, a former Coast Guard Captain and now a modern buccaneer, who has a vendetta against powerful Latin American drug lord Hector Cabrera. Together with Oz's team of rogue ex-military hotshots, they battle Cabrera on the high seas as he's about to make the Mother of all drug runs.
TORCH (CO-WRITTEN WITH ED HOROWITZ):
Action: a streetfighter living in little Tokyo has to rescue the woman he loves, an upperclass art dealer.
Available. Previously Optioned by Blueline Prods
FOOLS IN LOVE (CO-WRITTEN WITH ED HOROWITZ):
Erotic comedy-anthology: men who fail with women and why.
Available. Previously Optioned by D.R. productions
THE BOND (CO-WRITTEN WITH GREG KLEIN):
Horror: a young violinist discovers a dark secret in her past when her fiance is possessed by the spirit of a Gypsy demon.
Available, never optioned or sold
THE PIED PIPER, aka WHISTLER'S MOUTH (CO-WRITTEN WITH GREG KLEIN):
Family film: The Pied Piper of Hamelin comes to a modern town, only to be foiled by a young boy.
Available, never optioned or sold
THE BRONZE VENUS (CO-WRITTEN WITH MICHAEL BENKO)
Action/romance: glamorous female art detective from Italy hooks up with a Boston cop to search for a stolen masterpiece.
Available, never optioned or sold
THE SURVIVALIST (CO-WRITTEN WITH MICHAEL BENKO)
Action: group of white supremacists kidnap a black businessman and take him into the wilderness for "hunting" practice, without realizing they've trespassed into the home of a reclusive, battle-traumatized veteran now living alone as a survivalist.
Available, never optioned or sold