Original Screenplays
THE DARKHORSE CONFEDERATION
Historical Southern gothic drama
Greenlight Coverage score: 94th percentile, Strong Consider. Available for option.
A roguish drifter returns to 1859 Mississippi, forges an unlikely partnership with runaway slaves to build a thriving plantation, but must outwit a corrupt, deeply troubled aristocratic family while navigating love, war, and the crumbling Confederacy.
With complex roles for men and women, black and white, all sympathetic anti-heroes and anti-villains, this intense historical adventure debunks the entire antebellum genre, propelled by gut-wrenching dramatic scenes, a labyrinthine plot, romance, and darkly ironic humor, leading to a wild, lump-in-the-throat conclusion.
The script is based on The Lies That Bind, the first novel in Ed Protzel’s historical DarkHorse Trilogy. The rights for the sequels, including a 2021 America Fiction Award finalist, are also available.
REMEMBERING PLANET EARTH
Futuristic political thriller
In the near future, the Earth has become a popular tourist destination for Alien civilizations. Two upper-echelon cultural tour guides serving advanced, wealthy Alien “Special Guests”—a disillusioned writer and the U.S. President’s idealistic daughter—uncover our planet’s truly unique main “native” attraction.
Why would advanced Aliens vacation on backward little Earth? What uniquely man-made spectacular can’t they see anywhere else in the entire civilized universe? And why is it being kept so secret?
Available for option; novel in process.
In Process
THE ANTIQUITIES DEALER
Sci-fi Suspense Thriller
Log Line: A gallery owner, seduced by his former lover into a conspiracy to clone Jesus Christ, must outwit a gauntlet of fanatical religious masterminds.
Pitch: A Hitchcock-esque everyman gets swept up in a Da Vinci Code-like quixotic quest.
Blurb: In St. Louis, a risk-averse Jewish gallery owner is seduced by his enigmatic former lover into a quest to recover the last nail from the Crucifixion to clone Jesus Christ. Soon the couple are dodging a gauntlet of gruesome murders from St. Louis to Israel and back. Who among the Christian, Jewish and Muslim extremists is responsible? Can the pair locate the nail, escape the killer, and solve the murders? Will humankind’s future be changed forever? And can their love affair possibly endure?
Based on the novel by Ed Protzel.