In Development
NONSTOP TO BRAZIL
A lush, romantic fable driven by a scintillating selection of Brazil's most famous boss nova songs.
Writers: Brad Anderson & Lyn Vaus (Next Stop Wonderland)
In 2011, Nick Orton, an aspiring Jazz saxophonist, finds a long lost boss nova record at a New York flea market. To his surprise he discovers the forty year old record contains a mysterious letter from the Brazilian musician Nelson DeMorro addressed to "Hannah"... In 1961, Hannah, a beautiful young concert pianist arrives in Rio de Janeiro as part of an American goodwill tour. Torn between the competing affections of two men, Hannah escapes into the seductive music clubs of Rio's burgeoning boss nova scene and has a life changing encounter with the young Nelson DeMorro...
Forty years later, Nick sets out to find "Hannah" and follow through on Nelson's wish that she be the first to hear the song she inspired so long ago...
CONCRETE ISLAND
A twisted urban Robinson Crusoe story courtesy of J.G. Ballard.
Writer: Scott Kosar (The Machinist; The Crazies). Based on 1974 novel written by J.G. Ballard.
Robert Maitland, a wealthy architect, finds himself stranded in a manmade 'island' (a section of fenced-off wasteland in the middle of a motorway intersection) forced to survive on only what is in his crashed Jaguar and what he is able to find. As his condition degrades, it soon becomes difficult to determine whether Maitland is finding sanity or watching his mind fall apart as he finds companions on the island and eventually decides to remain there and forsake his former life.
THE MAPMAKER'S WIFE
An epic love story set in 18th century Peru.
Writer: Brad Anderson. Based on novel by Robert Whittaker
In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000-foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, and a third--Jean Godin--nearly died of heartbreak. At the expedition's end, Jean and his Peruvian wife, Isabel, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Planning to bring his wife back to France, Jean trekked across South America to check in with the French colonial authorities, but was refused permission to return up the Amazon back into Spanish territory to retrieve Isabel. So they remained a continent apart for 20 years until 1769, when Isabel started making her way east. Isabel's solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of 18th-century Europe spellbound. Her party ran aground on the Bobonaza River (which feeds into the Amazon), and though almost everyone perished, she managed to survive alone in the rainforest for weeks. Her survival--unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration--was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and the power of devotion.
CONFESSIONS OF A MEMORY EATER
A drug that allows you to relive memories wreaks havoc on a college professor's life.
Writer: Bragi Schut (Season Of The Witch). Based on book by Pagan Kennedy
Once a brilliant historian with a promising academic future, Win Duncan is at a crossroads in his career when he is mysteriously summoned by Litminov, a wild but brilliant chemist from his college days. Litminov has made millions since, and has bought a pharmaceutical company solely to develop MEM, an experimental drug that gives one the ability to recall life's best memories with crystal clarity. Duncan becomes a beta tester and loses himself to the most delicious moments of his past-those precious few years with his mother who died tragically when he was just a child; ecstatic sex with his wife when they first fell in love-until he discovers the dark side effects of a drug that turns the past into pornography and renders the present useless.