***Capital Fund Screenplay Competition's Hot 100 for 2018***
#64
Log line
A rich and famous actor is forced by a jealous TV news reporter to travel the country and pay off people he may have wronged before he was rich and famous.
Synopsis
At a young age, Breck Devonshire was told the people raising him were not his parents, as they had claimed to be. Denied the opportunity to meet his parents, Devonshire became a difficult child who wrecked havoc in his home and the surrounding neighborhood.
At eighteen, with anger and resentment in his heart and youthful ignorance, he left his home in Hollywood, Florida to find his parents. Along the way he met many people and experienced many things, things your typical eighteen year old doesn't usually encounter. Without the wisdom of age and life experience, the situations he found himself in, weren't always handled with maturity, which forced him to grow up quickly. As a result, much good was mixed in with the bad. Friends as well as enemies were made and left behind.
On his journey, Breck found his parents and learned that the people raising him did what they did to protect him. His parents were careless and wild, ill-suited to have a child. Breck reconciled with the ones who raised him, but decided to stay on the road and inevitably make more friends and enemies, do good things and bad things and learn necessary survival skills. Seven years after his journey began, it ended in Hollywood, California, working at a prestigious movie studio at the Craft Service table.
Meanwhile, acclaimed film director Francis Woody Lucasberg is looking for the male lead for his gritty revenge film and dismisses another actor. He turns to Hollywood agent, Shanessa Lebronshaq in desperation. She just happens to have another "actor" at the ready, TV news reporter Hitch Higgins who co-anchors a tabloid show. Francis quickly dismisses Hitch without realizing that he is standing right there.
Shanessa and Francis arrive at the Craft Service table where Breck is working. Francis glimpses at Breck, then does a double take. Breck has the look that Francis demands for the lead. A brief conversation sets in motion, Breck's ascension to lead actor, and Shanessa as his agent, much to the chagrin of Hitch who witnesses the encounter and initially dismisses the whole thing, assuming the movie will be a bomb.
After the movie becomes a box office sensation, and Breck becomes rich and famous, Hitch puts on his journalist hat and attempts to uncover anything in Breck's past he can use to destroy his reputation. Hitch finds people from Breck's past and prepares to travel around the country and film their stories for broadcast on his tabloid show. In the spirit of great television, Hitch provides Breck with a list of ten cities he's going to get dirt and dares Breck to follow him.
With his back against the wall, with Francis and the studio demanding he pick his next project or else. Breck reluctantly embarks on the journey. Francis insists that Shanessa accompany him to help save her one client, before he falls from the good graces of the public.
A cross country cat and mouse game begins. Breck and Shanessa try outwit Hitch and his trusty Camera Man and compensate people who may have a legitimate grudge against Breck. These hilarious adventures on a wild road trip reveal Breck's mistakes, but also put the incidents in context, showing there are two sides to every story and revealing the struggles Breck and the others have endured.
One struggle suddenly breaks Breck financially, followed by the devastating news that the studio has fired him and found his replacement. Shanessa's help throughout proves invaluable, especially after Breck loses everything amidst the chaos he has created in his life and is now attempting to contain and rectify. Their efforts are continuously thwarted by Hitch's TV co-host, Wheatley Vajna, who reports snippets of the scandals to the public to promote Hitch's upcoming series of reports on Breck.
Shanessa devises a plan to counteract the negative media attention about Breck and expose Hitch's jealousy by luring him to a Las Vegas casino. However Breck's past perilously confronts him in the casino. Using his acquired survival skills, Breck extricates himself and others from the dangerous situation.
Now the clock is ticking, they have just hours to make it from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in an attempt to stop the studio from signing Breck's replacement and save his career.
