Ed Protzel

creating complex characters caught up in challenging times

Original Screenplays


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.


THE LIES THAT BIND
Southern gothic drama

1859-61 Mississippi. Defying the South’s “peculiar institution,” a fugitive and group of slaves stranded in the Mississippi wilds form a secret partnership to build their own egalitarian plantation. They collide head-on with the family that dominates the town, threatening to expose long-buried secrets that could bring down their empire.

Driven by overwhelming longings, both outliers and establishment in this labyrinthine-plotted tale refuse to accept the roles society has forced upon them. 

Available for option. Based on the novel by Ed Protzel.


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.


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