Pitch Your Movie: Joel’s “Jagged Alliance”
Today, Joel Burman from the blog Deny Everything is pitching his movie in continuation of our month long blogathon (Check the schedule) following the Hollywood Fantasy Draft we conducted recently. Please share your thoughts and any insights you have in the comments and don’t forget to rate the pitch at the bottom!
Previous Pitches:
- Andrew Robinson’s “Untitled Joss Whedon Project“
- Anna’s “Truth and Lies”
- Novroz’s “Sunset Mystery“
- Kai’s “The Time Jumper“
- Peter’s “Untitled Hallstrӧm Project“
- Marc’s “Once Upon a Time in Z-West“
- Ruth’s “Hearts Want“
- Castor’s “Hλlf Life“
- Heather “Ambassador 51“
- Travis’ “Facedown Angels“
- Andrew K. “Putting it Together“
- Next: Corey on Sunday
I have been participating in a Hollywood fantasy draft at Anomalous Material and now we are pairing up our fictional casts and directors with an idea for a script. My idea is a computer game adaptation of a really underrated turn-based rpg strategy game, Jagged Alliance. It has been released several times but I’m going for a adaptation of the original game (1994). Here’s the intro:
Zerkalo presents in cooperation with Jerry Bruckheimer films:
A Jon Turtletaub film
Written and Produced by Joel Burman
Log-line: Whenever there’s injustice in the world someone must be there and take out the trash!
Genre: Ensemble action a la The Expendables and The A-Team.
The Plot
Jagged Alliance takes place on the fictional south Atlantic island of Metavira, a former nuclear testing site. The nuclear tests altered some trees on the island, and several years later it was discovered by a scientist, Brenda Richards (Julie Benz), that those trees, known as Fallow trees, produce unique sap that prove to be a medical marvel.
Her sister and co-partner, Lucy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), realized how profitable this sap would be and managed to convince Jack Richards (Patrick Stewart), the leader of the scientific mission and Brenda and Lucy’s father, that it would be beneficial to have two independent science teams, and consequently established a new base on the other side of the island. Lucy immediately began to recruit people and gradually took over the island by force.
When the film begins, Jack has traveled to the US to assemble a team of mercenaries to liberate Metavira. He tries to get Mike (Tim Robbins) who is the top ranking guy on A.I.M’s rooster as team leader but he is not available and suggest Gus Tarballs.
The Team
Gus Tarballs (Stephen Lang) – Team Leader and Heavy Weapons Expert
Dr. Cynthia Fox (Amy Adams) – Doctor
Rudy “Lynx” Roberts (Jason Isaacs) – Stealth and Night Ops.
Louisa “Buzz” Garneau (Lena Olin) – Sniper
Speck (Wayne Knight) – Mechanic and Explosives Expert
When the team is assembled it becomes clear that Jack has made a mistake picking Lynx and Buzz since they have a history together as former lovers but now are on each others NO-list. Gus manages to get them on board and there is also some drama about Cynthia being more distracting than useful due to her looks, as usual Gus solves it and they go to Metavira.
When arriving on their helicopter is shot down while the main town is being scorched by Lucinda’s troops who are led by Magic (Sam Worthington). The group is cornered directly after fleeing from the burning helicopter wreck. The sequence ends with Lucy kidnaping Brenda and Magic killing off Gus in a hand to hand fight.
This is of course the all time low for the group who have lost their direction without Gus and Lynx and Buzz getting on each others throats again. When its at its worst Cynthia and Speck are able to get the group together through the help of an orphan child and they decide to go after Lucinda. Buzz and Lynx still not on being on speaking terms. Jack stays behind with his grandchildren.
I won’t go into more details on the plot but it will be built on boss battles, character development and of course Lynx and Buzz hooking up again. We even get a cameo appearance by Mike (Tim Robbins) who avenges Gus.
The Characters
Dr. Cynthia Fox - Cynthia is a great doctor and social person who often is judged by her stunning appearance. She is not trained for combat but is the one who develops the most throughout the film and defeats Lucinda.
Lynx: Lynx is a master of stealth operations. He will be prominent when sneaking around and taking out guards in the final assault on Lucindas mansion. The chemistry with him and Buzz is important factor.
Buzz: Buzz is an extremely aggressive character and will play a key role in the final assault on the mansion by picking of guards with her sniper rifle when covering Lynx.
Speck:Speck is the MacGyver of the group being able to pick locks, modify weapons and set up explosives and booby traps.
Gus Tarballs - Gus is the most experienced of all the mercenaries and it will be obvious that he is the single most important member of the team since he is the one who can unite them as a group. There fore I really want to set him up as the main character in the beginning so we get some shock value when he is killed off early.
Lucy: Lucy is the main baddie of the film and being shown as a really violent person. It will be planted before the hostile takeover showing her kicking her sparring partner out of the ring when exercising through some Kick-Boxing.
Earl “Magic” Walker:Magic is the closest hence man to Lucy and he is a ruthless killer who doesn’t mind using cheapshots or attacking weaker opponents.
Mike: Mike is the most expensive and skilled mercenary on A.I.Ms rooster and when he finds out that Gus has been killed on Metavira he heads there to kill Magic.
16 Comments
Thanxs for the work in inserting the images Castor!
No problem!
Hi Joel! Hey, I like your logline. What a cast, Wayne Knight as an explosive expert, ha! And Sam Worthington together again with Stephen Lang. After Avatar, it’s hard to see Lang as other than tough mercenary type of role. I do hope this is more the A-Team than Expendables though
Thanks Ruth! I appreciate it! Wayne is so underrated and he can totally do more serious roles than he gets to do currently (thought he was great in the Punisher).
Hate to say that I haven’t seen neither Expendables or the A-team. I’ll have to look into both of them.
If this is anything like The A-Team (which I loved, leave me alone), then hells yeah.
Wasn’t I supposed to be next?
If you want to post yours tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind waiting until Monday to do mine. If that’s ok with Castor, of course.
No, that’s fine. I was just wondering.
Oh sorry Ripley, I thought the email you sent me said you gave up on it lol. I will post what you sent me momentarily
Let me think how to put into words what my mind is trying to compute…
This is mainstream mass consumer entertainment. Obviously. And that’s cool. You’re not trying to sell it other than what it is, and that’s commendable. Though it’s not particularly MY cup of tea, the idea behind the film is far more compelling than most generic summer action flicks, which appeals to my tastes a bit more.
But that’s neither here nor there. I think you’ve done an excellent job casting the film and have picked a unique and strong source of material. I can see this playing to the extend of THE LOSERS or RED – neither of which I’ve seen, but they both have an alternative feel to them… if THE A-TEAM is general rock & roll, THE LOSERS would be grunge or some sort of hard rock post-grunge album… that’s a weird way to describe it, but it’s the sense I get from it haha.
Though it’s not necessarily for me, I’m sure it’ll hit its intended audiences really well and might even have potential as a big cult classic!
This guy: Aw thanks!!! I’m glad you like the cast!
I struggled through the draft without knowing which version of the game I would choose and cast it quite blindly. Altering my characters after the story way to late. Thats why for instance Sam Worthington and SMG are cast as the villains.
I dribbled with these things on publiciation day.
What has driven me to think of doing movie adaptations of these games is for several of the reasons you bring up and also because they have a vast diversity in characters making it easy to do a bunch of sequels and spinning it off as a TV-series MacGuyver style!!
This guy: Aw thanks!!! I’m glad you like the cast!
I struggled through the draft without knowing which version of the game I would choose and cast it quite blindly. Altering my characters after the story way to late. Thats why for instance Sam Worthington and SMG are cast as the villains.
I dribbled with these things on publiciation day.
What has driven me to think of doing movie adaptations of these games is for several of the reasons you bring up and also because they have a vast diversity in characters making it easy to do a bunch of sequels and spinning it off as a TV-series MacGuyver style!!
Hmmm also noticed that I was way to exhausted when sending this to castor. Everywhere in the pitch where Lucinda is mentioned is of course Lucy (Lucinda was the character name when thinking of having Lena Olin as the villain).
Ahhah you really went for the fluffy summer blockbuster factor here. The cast is really out there but interesting nonetheless. Love it that you are planning to kill off a main character (Gus) early, movies should do that much more often. I am not sure about Amy Adams as Cynthia though, she doesn’t really strike as someone who could play a doctor AND an action hero lol
Thanks Castor! I am not certain about Amy as Cynthia either. After choosing which one of the games I would do I tried to fit her in as good as I could. For a while I was doing the odd choice (that probably would work the best) having her as the weapons freak with a ton of guns, unfortunately that didin’t work with the rest of my cast.
Killing of Gus was also a last minute choice to get the story to work but it would be a great choice because he is a very popular merc.
Hey you gotta give me some kudos for Jon Turtletaub now when you know the story and the cast???
Reminds me of the old 80s action movies. Pretty sure Bruckheimer would have a ball with this one. Just make it better than The Expendables.
Good job, Joel.
Thanks Richard! Its totally that feeling I want the film to have and you are right about Bruckheimer. I’d love to have him on board on tihs. I am gonna revise the pitch and remove the fantasy draft elements before putting it up on “Deny Everything”
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