While attending a movie premiere in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, we very much enjoyed the hospitality of the historic Gadsden Hotel. That's the infamously haunted hotel in which Pancho Villa allegedly rode his horse up the marble staircase in the lobby, chipping the marble.
Standing on that staircase and talking the hotel's owner, I promised that I would write a screenplay that could be filmed 95% in the hotel.
After returning home and thinking about the great adventure (and private tour of the haunted floor), it occurred to me that the hotel would be a great place for a screenwriting retreat. Now we're cooking... how about a movie about screenwriting that is a ghost story where the ghost is a screenwriter?
When the awards took place during the Burbank Film Festival in 2020, the script was one of handful of finalists... and had its title read by Shane Black... not that such a thing makes the script special... but it is a special script. Could easily be done under $2M in one of the most beautiful old hotels in the American southwest.
Finalist, Burbank International Film Festival, 2020
Finalist, Rhode Island International Film Festival, 2020