The motion picture entitled Good Guy with a Gun is a timely and poignant project that tells the story of a teenager coming to terms with his father's violent death who visits a small town and finds solace in a group of new friends. But as guns begin to play an increasingly important part of his life, the teenager finds himself going down a dangerous path of no return. It is a coming of age drama where young men and guns come crashing together…
Award-winner John Mossman wrote the screenplay is directing. The film stars Beck Nolan (Facial) as Will Greenwood, Tiffany Bedwell (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) as Tessa Greenwood, Jack Cain (Love, Victor) as Jonah, David Stobbe (Vronika) as Cade, Steppenwolf’s Ian Barford (13 Going on 30) as Jerry, Dan Waller (Canal Street) as Duke, indie powerhouse Joe Swanberg (You’re Next) as Tom Greenberg, veteran Chicago comic actor David Pasquesi (Veep) as Philip, Morgan P. Allen as Auggie, John LaFlamboy (The Moleman of Belmont Avenue) as Officer Osborne, John Mossman (Into the Wake) as Riggs, and Liv Shine (Shining Girls) as Donelle. Jennifer Jelsema (Come As You Are) as Anna, Chad Kaple as Mr. Hargis, Elizabeth Laidlaw (The Red Line) as Marilyn, Kathy Scambiatterra (Into the Wake) as Mrs. Zirzow, Skye Shrum (Number 6) as Noreen, Roger Welp (Saint Frances) as Officer Kruegher and Todd Wojcik as Father Tinley.
World Premiere December 2nd in NYC.
PLUS
This Ukrainian short written and directed by Bohdan Romanko and implemented by Naz Zebra - created using state-of-the-art technology - follows a heart-breaking chat between an ordinary Ukrainian man, compelled to join the defense forces on the front-line of the 2022 Russian War, and his emerging girlfriend who anxiously follows his journey as war rages all around him doing what she can to help.
Kevin is the Executive Producer on this film and working with the filmmakers currently to develop the feature version of this film.
Cargo
Cargo is a gritty tale - written by Amir Mohabbat with award-winning Producer John Condne and Kevin Cooper directing - that follows a group of immigrants from all over the world, holed up in a semi-trick, trying to get to Freedom, trying to get to a new life. Instead, the semi drives and drives, and all hell breaks loose inside the truck. Will they end up across the border or where they started?
Production Commences in January 2023
Joannie's Custom Phone Sleeves
Joannies Custom Phone Sleeves is written by Luke Thomas. Producing with Leyla Kader Dahm. Jay Pharoah, Jim O'Heir, Tim Kazurinsky attached to star.
Logline: A mall kiosk worker discovers a magic button in the mall’s basement - allowing her to re-live each day before her brother's inevitable death - but when she inadvertently ensnares the mall's janitor in this time loop who is anxiously awaiting the birth of his child, she must find her purpose and overcome her fears for tomorrow.
To The End
Logline: After a woman is separated from the love of her life due to a mission to another solar system, she finds that he may never have existed at all, and journeys through all of eternity and the depths of her mind to discover the answer.
INSTANT KARMA
Shout out to Jerry Bingham, the artist who drew world-class images from Paul's script.
Some day an entire book will need to be written about our passion project Instant Karma because of the many lives this project has lived. The project came about as the result of the late, great screenwriter Paul Hernandez and his work with two mentors - Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott - two of the most successful screenwriters in the history of movies.
Paul, Terry and Ted initially set it up at ImageMovers with Robert Zemeckis under a different title, where it lost steam. A rewrite was done by Paul and then it was optioned by New Line, followed by a Universal Studios option, followed by a Sony option finally now its home at Legendary. It's been a wild ride indeed, and a true tale of survival that we have shared with the incomparable Terry Rossio. Never has there been a more passionate caretaker of a movie than Terry (which he talks about on his Wordplayer Blog, definitely worth checking-out if you want to understand the nuances of studio Development).
We're honored to be at Legendary Pictures, a home that understands movies like this - working with an inspired team of executives including Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Alex Garcia and Jay Ashenfelter.
Time will tell if Legendary will green-light this movie, but we're doing our best to move it along in development as we continue to believe in Paul's vision and storytelling as much as ever. Paul's voice lives on in this undeniably special and funny screenplay that we know will entertain audiences some day....
The Speed King
With a major blow to live theatre due to COVID, we were lucky enough to find a supremely talented playwright willing to work outside of his comfort zone and write a screenplay for us. The award-winning playwright is Robert Tenges of Chicago Dramatists and he's currently sculpting a movie about a once world-renowned man that time has forgotten named Barney Oldfield.
As a fellow Toledoan, Kevin learned about Barney growing up, one of those stories that never left him. Coming off the heels of the success of the racing movie Ford v. Ferrari, Barney's story is more poignant now than ever before, cinematically transporting audiences back in time.
Barney is one of the most influential race-car drivers in history and ushered in the Age of the Automobile: the first driver ever to handle a mile track in less than a minute. By 1910, he achieved a speed of 131 mph, then considered the "fastest ever traveled by a human being." Auto titan Henry Ford himself -- a collaborator of Barney’s -- described their relationship: “After all, it could be said that you made me and I made you.”
This screenplay is part action film, part love story, and an inspiring tale of a blue collar kid from Toledo who became a world-famous celebrity...a man driven by his passion for success but haunted by death and the death-defying early days of auto racing. A man who married the woman of his dreams but lost her and himself along the way....
Barney Oldfield relished the fame and fortune that racing brought him, and soon moved from the race track to the bright lights of Broadway and even starred in several Hollywood movies including a 1913 silent film called Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life. In the film, the cigar-chomping speed merchant raced a train to save the heroine who had been tied to train tracks by the villain -- Barney naturally saves the day due to his driving skills. Historian Mark Howell notes, "Perhaps there is something symbolic in the fact that Barney Oldfield outraced a locomotive in this film, as though the automobile by 1913 had exceeded the railroad in terms of American importance." Oldfield himself and his huge celebrity status was indicative of a culture fascinated with automobiles and with pushing the limits of their potential not unlike today’s love of NASCAR.
Beware
Bury the Lead
With the jarring disruption of COVID in all of our lives, we believe escapist movies will be on the rise, something that was true just after after WW2 as demonstrated by Universal's legendary library of Monster movies.
Our version of this asks the audience to step back and imagine the worst kind of fear and discomfort: your own dog coming after you!
Beware was written by the masterly Paul Soter and his Broken Lizard cohorts, and takes place in a small town secluded in the Colorado mountains which has a natural disaster. As a result, all of this quaint town's dogs become infected and rabid, attacking their owners. A firefighter, separated from his 8-year-old son, has to fight off the attacking dogs to get back to his son and rescue the town.
Here's a head-scratcher of a project that time and time again reminds us that persistence is a vital part of being a filmmaker! The screenplay written by Justin Kremer was awarded an illusive spot on the Black-list. Uber cool and talented actor Sterling K. Brown is attached with his pal director Anthony Hemingway, another amazing partner who has been working with us and Billy Dec & Kat Stephans to cut through this "forrest" to get this special screenplay finally produced.