Book and Screenplay Writer-
James Francis Johnson
SCREENPLAYS
I love writing prose, but is there a better life than writing screenplays, including comedy skits and television shows, for a living? To write prose in this day and age of Twitter and Instagram is tantamount to Dickens reciting passages of Martin Chuzzlewit from inside a boxing ring to a crowded, boisterous crowd of WWE fans. A writer wants to be read, even if it means an audience listening to and watching actors read his lines.
SO LONG COLUMBUS
One-Hour TV Pilot
(WGAe No 1361343)
LOGLINE: Space Aliens, after watching TV News and Social Media posts about the bane of White Supremacy, decide to vaporize all 800 million Caucasians from Earth, leaving the remaining tribes to fight one another for the spoils, and leaving individuals to make sense of the loss of friends, coworkers and family members.
SYNOPSIS: The pilot begins with a sequence of brief social media posts, TV news and podcast hot takes, all saying the same thing: that white people are the root of all evil and the cause of all the world’s problems, with even white talking-heads suggesting that the planet wound be better off without them. It turns out that this footage is being viewed by space aliens whose mission is to make the Universe a better place – so they vaporize all 800 million of the earth’s white population and then announce the good news to the 7 billion remaining people of color.
In this first episode, we are introduced to the characters that will spend the rest of the 8–10-part series navigating the initial chaos brought on by the collapse of the rule of law, the monetary system, and high-tech companies, if not most all of American, Canadian, European and Russian businesses. TARA is a famous TV and movie star, who is half white and half black, with a son who is a quarter black and who she must find and rescue from Latino gangbangers in Santa Monica, and that’s after she witnessed her white father being incinerated by the aliens. KEVIN is an African American LAPD Sergeant, with a wife and two kids, who, at a protest, gets spit on by an angry young white woman, only to then see her disappear along with all the other whites at the rally. LOKI is a young, fast-talking, hilarious black man, with six followers, who sees an opportunity to waylay Kevin and the other surviving cops for the sheer fun of it. But he is talked down by CLARENCE, the main protagonist, a well-educated professional black man, who, fueled by anger at the taking of his beloved white fiancée, sees a different, more visionary opportunity. FERNANDO and his wife and two young kids are at the Mexican-California border trying to get into the U.S. while being pursued by his cartel boss uncle’s henchmen when things get crazy with the removal of white patrolmen and immigration supervisors.
The pilot ends with Iranian Islamist soldiers setting off to take over, and established a Caliphate in, Russia and Europe; China coordinating a plan to seize control of natural resources of Russian oil fields and African mines, and control of media centers in San Francisco and New York City; and Fernando’s uncle dreaming of his cartel army reinventing themselves as Latino heroes by invading and acquiring Southwest USA.
THAT SUNDAY
(Co-written with Monica Armijo)
(WGAw No 2111700)
Quarterfinalist in 2021 Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competition.
LOGLINE: A passionate young woman travels back to 1941 to find her true mate, but she must surmount more than just Time to keep alive romantic love.
SYNOPSIS: In 1946, an Unknown man receives a few copies of his newly printed novel, THAT SUNDAY, that is dedicated to “Blondie,” which he takes from the Publisher and drives off with to a tidy stone house. In 2000, a beautiful blonde named ROSE, who believes in romantic love, experiences a crushing breakup that sends her driving off in the show and then crashing into a cold river. Rose wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how she got out of the submerged vehicle. Once Rose recovers, her friend and fellow nurse, BREE, takes Rose into Manhattan to a Vintage Store, where they meet the owner, an old mysterious lady, Klara, who speaks with a Russian accent. Klara puts on the counter a copy of THAT SUNDAY, and asks Rose to read the dedication, but Rose is too distracted by all the vintage items in the store to read past the words, “To Blondie…”
They repair to a 1940s-themed club to dance the night away only to have Klara send them back to the same club in 1941. Rose and Bree meet two Naval officers, CLIFF and EDWARD, with Rose and Cliff finding an instant and overwhelming attraction. And here is when Rose first encounters her nemesis, JUNE, the gorgeous cigarette-smoking former girlfriend of Cliff. They also meet another Naval officer, OLIVER, and his new girlfriend, DOTTY, who claims to already know and share an apartment with Rose and Bree. The two-time travelers think they are in the middle of some cosplay act. The men leave and the three ladies exit into the street where, finally, Bree understands that they really are in 1941. But all Rose cares about is seeing Cliff again.
Will Rose find true love during the months leading up to Pearl Harbor? Who is Klara? Will the aspiring doctor, Bree, be cool with living out her life sixty years in the past when medical technology was primitive compared to her real timeline? Who pulled Rose out of the freezing river in 2000? These questions are all resolved in an epic climax in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during WWII.
FOLLOW YOUR PASSION, KILLER!
(WGAw No. 2045469)
LOGLINE: A wheelchair-bound young woman, at odds with her bad-news brother, decides to help her self-help junkie friend to follow his passion, which just so happens to be serial killing.
SYNOPSIS: TIA JANSON, a physically handicapped young lady, watches an online video of the stunningly beautiful ROSALIND KELLY promoting her new self-help book, PASSION KNOWS NOT FEAR. Tia sighs that it’s easy for someone who looks like Rosalind to be brave and confident. Tia then dons a virtual-reality headset to become the goddess, Athena, where she can fly and flirt with another avatar, Thor. Tia’s fantasy is interrupted by, first, her brother, FRANK, who taunts her and then takes her collector item Supergirl plaque so to pawn for gambling money, and, then, by her friend and erstwhile caretaker, GARY DEVINE, a self-help enthusiast who had been the one pester Tia to watch the Rosalind video and to read her newest book. Gary insists that if Tia follows Rosalind’s advice to be fearless, then she will no longer need a wheelchair.
Gary is a little off-center, as evidenced by his condo featuring bright colors, Thomas Kincaid paintings, and a shelf full of motivational books and one volume called The Big Book of Serial Killers, which he caresses with longing. He goes to work as a nurse in a hospital where he is belittled by his macho boss, DR. REGAN.
Tia is an accomplished hacker, and so she learns that her avatar friend, Thor, in real life, is LAPD Detective HORACE FRANKLIN, a 45-yr-old African American with, in Tia’s words, a “kind face.”
Gary pushes Tia down a commercial street in Van Nuys. He bemoans his being a coward for not pursuing his passion and taking crap from Dr. Regan. He pauses before a scuba suit on display in front of a thrift shop. Then he turns to Tia and announces that, yes, it’s time to buck up and follow his passion. Which is? asks Tia. “Serial killing, of course!” Tia finds this laughable, since, to her, Gary is a harmless do-gooder. But he will need her help in procuring a paralytic drug called Vecuronium being that he wants to be a merciful killer. Just then, Frank appears to further torment his crippled sister, which makes Tia agree to buy the drug on the dark web and have it delivered to Frank’s home as a prank more than a way to abet murder, as she believes that Gary would never actually go through with following his passion.
Gary does indeed begin to follow his passion, as he killed Rosalind Kelly; an evangelical preacher who promotes acquiring material wealth (like Joel Osteen); a beautiful hippie-like lady who espouses that if one listens to the Universe, it will, in turn, reconfigure the space-time continuum to help little you achieve your goals; and a Tony Robbins stand-in and the only one to whom Gary resorts to physical violence.
Detective Franklin and the FBI finally converge on their suspect -- Frank, who Tia has framed for the murders.
DEAR ADOLPH
(WGAw No. 1944710)
Quarterfinalist in the 2019 Blue Cat Screenwriting Competition.
LOGLINE: A beautiful German art historian is given the chance to save fifty million lives if only she will travel back in time and have sex with Adolph Hitler.
SYNOPSIS: Maria is a young beautiful art historian living in 1972. She is a native of Munich but the story begins with her and her boss visiting America to study, first, Hitler’s paintings now kept in a U.S. Government basement, and, then, Picasso’s work at the MOMA. Meanwhile, back in Munich the PLO kill Israeli hostages at the Olympic Games and Maria’s parents die in a car accident on their way to a divorce lawyer.
She returns to Munich where Virgil, from the year 2072, convinces her to journey back to 1919 to seduce Hitler, a virgin, and nurture his art career to prevent the coming Nazi carnage. He warns that she must keep Adolph from ever meeting Rudolf Hess, but Hess sees and becomes infatuated with Adolph from the start.
Maria and Adolph, now married, relocate to Paris where they seek out Picasso as a mentor. Adolph goes through a three-year artistic journey from being a glorified duplicator to a profound modernist, though Hess continues his siege by writing him Nazi propaganda. At the moment when Adolph achieves his lifelong dream of becoming a successful artist, Maria announces that she is pregnant, and so Adolph orders their return to the Fatherland.
Back in Munich, Virgil takes Maria to our known timeline to witness Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch and to tell her that all that is left for her to do is to make sure that her Adolph does not show up at the Burgerbraukeller on that fateful night.
Out of nowhere, Adolph gives Maria a manuscript he has written about how he became a successful artist punctuated with insightful chapters on Art Hihstory. Maria is blown away and then realizes that it has no title, to which he offers one, “My Struggle,” whereupon Maria does the translation, “Mein Kampf.”
BUT just then Hess shows up to demand that Adolph come with him to address a mob on the verge of a food riot. Now Adolph devolves to his natural talent of whipping up the anger of a Jew-hating mob. All seems lost as it looks like Adolph will take part in the Beer Hall Putsch and thus ensure subsequent war and genocide.
She sets to work by convincing the Nazis that Hess is a Jew. Hess is murdered by one of the SS men. Maria feels so betrayed by her husband that she informs the police of the coming Putsch and adds that it may be best to kill one Adolph Hitler.
On the night of the Putsch, Maria goes home with the knowledge that she has completed her mission. In the living room, she sees a painting -- a stunning portrait of her done by Adolph. She breaks down while saying, “You saw me…You saw me.” Meanwhile Adolph is at a podium -- but not at the Beer Hall -- rather at an event to celebrate the publication of his book.
Maria begins composing a letter that starts “Dear Adolph..."
In the final scene, Adolph sits in front of her portrait finishing up the Dear Adolph letter that hints of Maria leaving him forever, though she does love him. He is distraught, but just then he hears her voice, “…did you really think I was going to leave you to your own devices?” He stands up to greet his beautiful wife who then cocks her head and says, “What do you say we conquer the world…without killing anyone?”
MY VIRAGO
(WGAw No. 1892630)
Quarterfinalist in the 2016 (under the previous title HUBRIS THE GREAT) and 2017 Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competitions.
LOGLINE: A delusional librarian is besieged by a host of Philadelphia underworld figures as he searches for his biological father while having to choose between his dying mobster mother and the love of his life, Virago.
SYNOPSIS:
This script, MY VIRAGO, has undergone three total rewrites and new titles. The original version was called I AM PETE ROSE, YEAH! when it was enough about the famous real-life baseball player, Pete Rose, that it required him to appear in the movie. Therefore, I decided to write him out of the script so that the story could be more about a new, more colorful and interesting protagonist, HUBRIS THE GREAT. This version became a Quarterfinalist in the SCRIPTAPALOOZA SCREENWRITING CONTEST and was also analyzed by three Hollywood professionals, an agent, an Austin Film Festival judge and a script consultant, Christina Gray Then I read, and decided to obey the exact dictates, of the two screenwriting bibles, Save the Cat and Syd Field’s Screenplay so that now, in MY VIRAGO, the script is above all else a love story between Hubris and his former heroin addict girlfriend, Virago, whom he might lose if he does not grow from a snobby intellectual to a man of action.
The story takes place during three days in Philadelphia. It is about a bombastic 25-year-old librarian, Hubris the Great, nee Bart Bannon, the son of an infamous lady crime boss, Carol, who has had a schoolgirl crush on the self-proclaimed “baddest of the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies bad boys,” a fictional player of that team, and also named Bart Bannon. Hubris refers to his mother as Medea, the lady of Greek myth who murdered her own children. She is now dying of kidney failure. Hubris has never been told the identity of his biological father. There are four possible candidates, including Bart Bannon. The various twists and turns of the plot involve four items that keep changing hands: a murder weapon, an illegally harvested kidney, a briefcase filled with $50,000 and an autographed Bart Bannon rookie card that is marked with incriminating stains. Meanwhile, the actual Bart Bannon is in town for three days to sign autographs.
There are flashback scenes to the night, in the spring of 1993, when Bannon was ejected from a Phillies game and thereafter walked into a South Philly bar owned by the much younger version of the crime lady, Carol. This is the same night Bannon signs the rookie card, and it is also the night that sets in motion the next 25 years of an organ-trafficking business. Present, too, are all four of the future Hubris’ hypothetical daddies. Aside from Bannon, they are Ruly Carpenter, the only humane member of the quartet, and who will become Hubris’ psychiatrist; Pete Giamatti, who will be become a surgeon, though only as Carol’s partner in illegal organ transplants; and Dallas Green, who will become a Philly Police Captain courtesy of Carol and Giamatti’s corrupt influence. At the end of the night, after Bannon has left the bar, a woman is raped by Green and murdered by Carol, while the newly signed Bart Bannon card becomes stained with both the woman’s and Green’s blood.
In the present day, the story begins with Hubris and Virago in a mismatched relationship that owes more to his manic imagination than to actual compatibility, but then deepens and becomes more real as they are thrown into, and threatened by, the events of the next three days. These events are initiated when Giamatti, who is in possession of the card and kidney, plays hard ball with his partner, Carol, demanding that she give him $50,000 or else she gets no transplant. Green and Carol want that card, him so to rid the world of evidence to his crime 25 years ago, and she because of her love for the older Bart Bannon. Giamatti gets shot dead at the end of Act One, with Hubris as a witness, whereupon the four main articles exchange hands. Now Hubris, and by extension his beloved Virago, become the target of various criminal elements all bent on regaining at least one or all four of the articles. He gets knocked around so much that his Hubris the Great persona, which is a defense mechanism he created at the age of fifteen, begins to crumble from the Midpoint to the end of Act Two. Hubris has now had all the delusional sense of superiority beaten out of him, and it is at this point, while sitting on the steps of the library alongside Virago, that he comes up with a plan to outmaneuver all the bad guys AND to find the identity of his biological father AND to save his Virago.
THE TROUPER
(WGAw No. 1853354)
LOGLINE: A beautiful Minnesota singer/actress, who once made a purity vow to her strict Pastor father, collaborates with a Little Person in Hollywood in an effort be a star while trying to avoid compromising her principles.
SYNOPSIS:
Annette Noren has received praise all her life as the singing star of her father’s church, as Miss Pre-Teen Minnesota and as the valedictorian of her Performing Arts College. Charlie Lonigan is a Little Person from Kansas who is also immensely talented as a song and script writer, but, unlike Annette, he has received nothing but abuse because of his size, and in fact, once in LA, the only way he can make rent is to allow NBA players to bowl him, illegally, down a private alley. Annette and Charlie meet in an LA comedy club where Charlie makes a deal with Annette's agent in that he will write Amy Schumer-like stand-up routines for Annette in exchange for the agent trying to sell one of Charlie's screenplays. The problem is that Annette, in portraying this vain and obscene stage persona, has to compromise many of her Christian ethics. Her dilemma is compounded when her mother leaves her father and both parents end up stalking Annette in LA?
Claude Salberg becomes the agent of both Annette and Charlie, as he tries to get the latter’s screenplay produced with Annette as the lead. Claude takes such a keen interest in this project because the screenplay reflects his own frustration in being a short man. The premise of Charlie’s screenplay is that the average height for an American male is five-ten, and so what happens is that, in a supernatural flash, every man’s height shifts to the other side of the five-ten midline, for example the five-six Claude would become six-two, while Shaquille O’Neal would shrink to four-seven. This simple change in male height disrupts all personal and professional relationships. A producer bails on Claude, at which point he decides to produce it himself, using Annette’s sudden YouTube stand-up fame, which is parleyed into an in-your-face Maybelline commercial, to attract investor’s and viewer’s interest.
ME THE STAR
(WGAw No. 1859842)
Quarterfinalist (under previous title THE ALGORITHM) in the 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowship Screenwriting Competition.
LOG LINE: There is a new app that enables everyone to star in their own movie, only the next upgrade may lead to a global catastrophe unless a group of reluctant, anti-social-media heroes can save the day.
SYNOPSIS:
The story takes place in Los Angeles where The Algorithm, the more centralized successor to the Internet, has its headquarters and its Rehab program to rehabilitate those with low involvement in Social Medea. The three people called to Rehab are a washed out male Hollywood player, a 22-year-old lady Luddite and a young man, Vint, who is a computer programming genius. Their instructor is a charismatic African American woman who preaches the necessity of Social Media but who may in fact not be a True Believer. The first act ends with three random events that gives each student extra incentive to raise their KLOUT score, which is a measure of one’s involvement in Social Media.
Meanwhile, there is an app called MeTheStar, having been written by Vint, which allows users to access the world’s now ubiquitous cameras to create three-act films of events in their lives. Vint’s evil business partner, Carson Dax, is now trying to push the envelope for the launch of MeTheSUPERStar, a program that encourages users to be a star in their own movie in REAL TIME – that is, it melds Reality with a Virtual environment. This pushes the world to the brink of an apocalypse, as a commercial airplane pilot envisions himself in a Star Wars movie; and SWAT team members comport themselves as unrealistic action heroes. Thus our Rehab students must get Vint to the building where he can outmaneuver Carson Dax and The Algorithm so to “save the freakin’ day.”