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story Throw away ideas, that can turn into a story

Not a great topic, but I still like the idea (if I even know where I am going with this) a community approach to a story, where egos will clash, ideas will not match, but it sure is fun to see what can happen.

Post a throw away idea, and be open minded to how the direction flows from other writers, you threw the idea away, so let it be a community (when needing a break from your main work) event:)
 
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I have an unlimited number of these, lol. If anyone wants movie plots, just ask, and I'll pitch you 8 plots in an hour.

I don't want to spend an hour but since this thread needs some inertia -

A man is renovating their home when they discover a hole in the wall behind the wallpaper. They cautiously reach into the hole, and pull out a wad of bills. They reach in again, and pull out a bottle of shampoo. A third time, and they pull out an expensive wristwatch. Many times they reach in, and each time a random item appears from the hole, occasionally just wads of cash or jewelry.

The man lives with his mother, who is developing severe health problems, and needs more care than their insurance offers. The protagonist keeps the hole a secret, but tells his wife. They begin extracting items from the hole each day, thrilled to be finally free of poverty, and buying nice things for themselves for the first time.

Days later, they watch the news together on an expensive new couch, in front of a big screen tv. A story comes on about how a local housekeeper has been arrested for stealing from her employers, and the news crew interviews her kids as she is dragged off to jail, protesting her innocence. Some of the items they listed her stealing sound very similar to items they had pulled from the wall.

They continued each night, pulling items from the wall, until they had so many items that they just began throwing away everything except the cash. They were the happiest they had ever been, and each night the stack of random bills grew higher.

One night on the news, there was a story about a man who had shot a tenant who he believed had stolen his wife's wedding ring during an argument about it. The protagonist seems to recognize the ring shown on the news story, and goes to rifle through the box of jewelry that came from the hole. He finds it, and on closer inspection, sees the last name from the news story inscribed inside the band.

They know now that the objects are coming from random places in the world, but they still need to pay for the mother's health care, and cost are mounting as the condition worsens.

They talk about it. It's clear that they are doing harm, but it's all for a very good reason. They are trying to save the mothers life, as pure and unselfish a motive as one could have. If a few people lost just a bit, a necklace, a wad of cash left on a table, etc, what did that really matter in comparison to a life saved?

They next night they are pulling things out of the wall, and one of the items is a pacemaker covered in blood and beeping. They decide that they need to stop, and they try to forget about the hole, and find other ways to pay for the medical care, and the bills for all the things they have bought on credit before realizing the problem.

The upkeep on the new standard of living that they had become used to was too high now, and no legitimate work would pay for it, so they each began carefully trying to extract just enough to cover the expenses.

They visit a doctor to check the mother's progress. He tells them that they have done everything they can locally, and that she will probably die soon if she can't be transported to a much more expensive specialty hospital.

The tension between them is growing, and all the happiness is gone. They are aware that each time they reach in the wall for money, they might accidentally kill someone. But they both know they need the money. They can't go back to the way things were before, and it's all a house of cards if they stop making payments.

They decide together that they are going to give in, and just keep extracting the money from the wall. They don't owe anyone anything, it's not their problem what happens to other people when they take the easy money for no effort. If those people were smart, they would have bought a house with a magic hole in the wall, etc. He starts watching a lot of fox news, and the anchors seem to be speaking to him directly. The people that lost money when he gained it were simply jealous haters, who weren't industrious enough to make their own money like he did. In a way, he was a hero.

The mother dies during treatment, but they are too far along to stop. Soon, he is mayor of the town, and how could someone so widely respected for his financial achievements be a bad guy? No one seemed to know how he actually got his money, but they admired it nonetheless, and saw him as the best amongst them.

One day, a drunk driver, who had gone on a bender after discovering that his life savings was gone from his safe deposit box, accidentally crashes into the mayors house. It starts a fire, and the man in the car is burned alive. Investigators comb the scene for clues, and discover thousands of missing items from unsolved crimes in the rubble.

At the end of the film, the husband and wife quietly pay off the crime scene investigators to cover up the findings and pin the stolen items on the burned corpse in the car, and are seen sailing off into a beautiful sunset on a yacht, as a cacophony of news headlines about destroyed lives play in the background.

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I suspect this is a pretty easy one to guess, but this is an allegory about Wall Street in the 80's and 90's.

this rough sketch is based around the culture exemplified in this clip.


I also have a BioPic of Fabrice Tourre a scapegoat of the masterminds behind the 2008 financial crisis that shifted a shocking amount of American wealth into the hands of the wealthiest people in the world, never to be returned. It was really just a handful of greedy sociopaths that basically signed the death warrant for the American middle class. The really scary part is that if you met one of them, you would have so much respect for them. Those thousands of glass windows, that Rolls limo, those security guards. They must be the best people in the world to have all that.
 
I kind of like the hole in the wall story. It could be pared down into a Twilight Zone episode; pick your favorite twist. Also it reminds me of the Stephen Wright joke, about the switch on his wall that he flicks up and down but that doesn't do anything. One day he gets a call from a woman in Germany, saying: "Cut it out."
 
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Here are a few of mine from the past:

1) One man is on a mission to prove the brontosaurus never existed. An evil, mysterious group will do anything to silence him.

2) Hideous aliens come to earth and with incredible sexual infatuation toward humans - But they only share their amazing futuristic technologies with the people that have sex with them

3) Global warming and extreme weather events wreak havoc. In response, all peoples of the world unite in hunger strike to protest Gods natural disasters. Everyone starves to death and then the planet heals.
 
Hello :) Here is old planning for a screenplay or idea of a screenplay that is way beyond my abilities to write, so for what it's worth, I bring it here:

TITLE: FOUR TALES OF LONELINESS
Planning of the screenplay "Four tales of loneliness."
Genre: 4-episode TV drama, LGBT+
The central theme of the screenplay is dealing with loneliness in modern times.

Four main characters:

1.Alex – (36) has a past of wildness, casual sex, and alcohol and drug abuse. Today, he is HIV positive, living a quiet, lonely life with a cat. He has a close female friend Michelle, who is concerned about him and tries to fix him up with blind dates with different men who always reject him.

2.Fred – (41), is a lonely gay man who never got out of the closet about his sexuality. Lives lonely with memories of a young love he had and lost to a close friend who left him broken-hearted. His family believes homosexuality is a sin, and that's how they raise him.

3.Daniel – (23) is a young man who worked as a male prostitute in an exclusive gay escort agency and got brutally raped by one client. Trying to heal his life and mind out of the trauma. He uses a " replica " AI application to bone with and socialize to feel less alone.

4.Greg – (44) a mentally ill man whose sexuality and social skills have all been numbed by years of psychiatric medication. Take comfort from his loneliness by communicating with the voices in his head. He passes the time with creative writing.

Additional characters:

5.Janet – (45), a clinical psychologist to whom all four main characters go for therapy. They have conversations about their lives.

Plot and story:

Each of the main characters tries desperately to escape or find some refuge from their loneliness. Trying to find love or friendship as to be less alone. The four main characters also meet each other and interact with each other. The plot and story follow their interactions and attempts to find refuge from loneliness.

Ending:

The screenplay ends after each character finishes trying to escape their lonely life – some succeed, some fail, and they have to get used to being alone.

Possible ending to the characters:

Alex – finds someone who accepts him and is willing to start a relationship with him.

Fred – fails to escape the loneliness and bitterness of the past and has to accept that he will continue to be alone.

Daniel – tries to commit suicide in the end, but his life is saved by an intervention of a kind neighbor.

Greg – his mental condition deteriorates until he is willingly hospitalized by his family and finishes publishing his first poetry book.
 
this article says chat gpt generated 50 scripts in an hour, and it gives 10 example loglines

starts sounding real redundant after reading the first 4 or 5 lol, few couple were cool though
 
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One of the many facinating things in the above story:

All the AI log lines are in the same genres, SF, fantasy, or paranormal: mysterious portal, time travel, ancient evil, powerful sorcerer, chosen one, etc.

They are all juvenile. Does the AI think that this is what entertainment is? Is it?
 
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And back on topic:

I like sfoster's #1 too
1) One man is on a mission to prove the brontosaurus never existed. An evil, mysterious group will do anything to silence him.

This is so weird it is unique. Of course the brontosaurus existed . . . except, maybe. . . And why would anyone care? . . . except, maybe. . .

I don't know, but I'm thinking about it :)
 
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Ah. Not as weird as I thought, I guess. Oh well. Still, an inside view of an historic paleontological debate could be interesting.

And, why on earth would the evil mysterious group care so much? Money? Reputation? Or . . . something weird! :)
 
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And, why on earth would the evil mysterious group care so much? Money? Reputation? Or . . . something weird.

Yeah it's funny to think of it as a conspiracy instead of an accident. I didn't follow the train of thought though or try to flesh out the cult.

Edit: maybe they built their religion around worshipping the brontosaurus and they're afraid of the implications if it's proven that the brontosaurus never actually existed.
 
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