BILLY BUNKER (45), has the world by the balls. He’s a successful Hollywood Producer, wealthy, and engaged to a gorgeous starlet half his age. That all gets turned upside down when he’s bonked on the head and knocked out cold by an airport maintenance ladder while waiting to board a flight. As a result, Billy spends the next ninety days in a coma at a Los Angeles hospital. While there –
His unclaimed luggage, a unique Chelsea, custom-made suitcase, is carted off to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in small-town Scottsboro, Alabama where all unclaimed airline baggage in the United States is sent for re-sale at an outlet-styled store.
JENNA (35), widowed, works at the outlet. She’s also a passionate writer and spends her nights crafting fictional romantic tales based on the contents of the lost luggage she opens. She posts these stories on her blog: BAGGAGE STORIES. One night, she posts a story about the contents she found in Billy’s lost suitcase. Most notably, an engagement ring and note that reads: I can’t live without you
When Billy finally awakens from his coma, he’s greeted with the news that his far too young fiancé has dumped him, that his partner has promised a new series to Netflix (one that they have not developed) and that the airlines lost his luggage. Welcome back.
Billy, determined to get his fiancé back and find that series for Netflix, launches back into his normal life. Problem is, he accidentally runs across Jenna’s blog story on his lost Chelsea suitcase. Angered that someone has his suitcase and infuriated that they wrote a story about his personal items, Billy impulsively heads off to the outlet center in Alabama to confront Jenna and try to reclaim what is his.
Of course, that doesn’t go well. Billy ends up in the local jail after totally losing it once he learns that his items have been sold off. Jenna, feeling somewhat responsible for his plight, bails him out and, that night, just a bit of a spark is lit. And Billy, angry all is life at everyone and everything somehow has found a sense of calm being around Jenna and other people from this small Appalachian town. One other thing: Billy’s certain that Jenna’s blog would be perfect for a new Netflix anthology series. He promises Jenna that he’s going to get that done.
Billy returns to L A and strikes a deal with Netflix to develop the series. One problem – they don’t want Jenna to write it. She writes romance and human interest. They want horror and thriller. So, Billy returns to Alabama to offer Jenna a handsome payday for the rights to Jenna’s blog and the Baggage Stories concept. No dice – Jenna has no interest in being paid not to write. Back to square one for everyone.
Then Billy convinces his partner that he can work with Jenna to write the types of stories they’re looking for. He and Jenna spend the next several weeks together to re-draft her BAGGAGE STORY love tales into horror and thriller scripts. During this collaboration, they grow even closer. For the first time in a long time, Jenna has become emotionally intimate with someone. They both share stories of their troubled pasts and become closer as a result.
When the task is completed, Billy heads back to L.A. to pitch the series to Netflix. They still don’t want Jenna to write it. Worse yet, as luck would have it, Billy is swarmed by Paparazzi at a restaurant when meeting his starlet ex-Fiancé for a business meeting. Jenna sees this on entertainment news and assumes that they have re-rekindled their romance. Feeling duped by both the writing venture gone bad and the betrayal of love, she breaks off all contact with Billy, including waiving any interest she had in the series. He can keep it!
Billy returns to Alabama in one last-ditch effort to convince Jenna that his feelings for her are genuine. To boot, he told Netflix no dice on the series deal and is committed to producing it himself. He and as the writers. Except for this time, they’ll be writing as a couple.
2021 CONTEST PLACEMENTS
PAGE = Finalist.
SCREEN CRAFT = Semi Finalist.
THE SCRIPT LAB = Quarter Finalist.
SCRIPTAPOOLZA = Quarter Finalist.
LAUNCH PAD = Quarter Finalist