8/9/2019 Kill the Mockingbird!

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Volume 9, Number 5

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Kill the Mockingbird

Jesse Walker

mo

To:B.

From: R

With the O.J. trial over, 1think the time is finally ripe for the

To

Kill Mockingbird project

we ve

been

talking about.

Here s

a

rough

outline of the movie, as I see it:

We o pe n w ith a shot of Gregory Peck close to the

en d

of

To

Kill Mockingbird Then cu t

to him today. I figure his character should still be alive. When wa s Mockingbird supposed to

take place? Let's figure 1959 o r s o - there wa s segregation then, right?) He s old bu t tough,

with a sour look on his face. Through flashbacks, we show the great tragedy of his life: in

1975, Scout wa s assaulted an d killed by a gang ofblack toughs -

wh o

got off scot-free,

thanks to crook-coddling liberals in th e justice system. He turns his back on his liberal val

ues an d dedicates himself to on e end: Putting every nigra criminal behind bars.

Jump back to the present. A black athlete has just killed his wife. (We should usea

made-up

name

for th e athlete, of course- bu t could we get O.J. to play him? At the very

least, Kato should get a cameo.) America is outraged, an d Peck offers his services to th e

prosecution. They rebuff his offer an d blow the case. Outraged, Peck makes the final step

over to vigilant ism- Law? Who needs the law? I stand for justice

At

this

point

we

move

into familiar Charles Bronson territory. In the

end

Peck leads a

group of other enraged citizens in capturing the athlete

an d

hanging him.

I think we should call the movie Kill the Mockingbird What do yo u say?

mo

May 1996

To:R.

From:B.

Unfortunately, I think

To

Kill Mockingbird

was supposed

to take place earlier

than 1959.

I m

sure

we can

find

some wa y

around that, though - maybe something about cryonics.

Anyway,

that s not

the biggest problem 1see

with your

idea.

As yo u know, the studio has a firm policy against making films that are insensitive

or

racist. Your story ma y cross that line when it employs the word nigra.

Ca n

we cu t it?

Also, one of the toughs wh o kills Scout should be Latino, an d one should be a white gu y

wearing his baseball cap backwards. The rest can be black, bu t should

no t

be given many

lines.

The biggest problem, though, is tha t I m n ot s ure Gregory Peck is still a bankable star. In

fact, I m not sure whether he s still alive.

How

about Jim Carrey?

With those changes, I think this ma y be ready for development.

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Liberty

8/9/2019 Kill the Mockingbird!

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Volume 9,

Number

5

mo

To:B.

From:R.

Good suggestions, except that I don t think people werewearing their baseball caps backwards in

1975. Someone should check this.

Rather

than

cryonics,

why don t we

use time travel? Jim Carrey and his daughter are suddenly,

unexplainably

pushed

into the future. Almost immediately, she is killed

by

a gang,

and

then etc.

In fact, why don t we push this completely into the future - say 2010? Then we could have them

pursued

by a Terminator-like creature from the further future that wants to stop some important thing

they doin the year 2010 Ideally, 1 would play the Terminator character.

We'll keep Scout alive in this one,

and

make her a cute, spunky, wisecracking kid. Let's drop the

justice stuff and make it a straightchase movie - O J coming to kill Carrey and his daughter. We'll

call it Kill the Mockingbirds

Interested?

mo

May

1996

To:R.

From:B.

Of course I m interested But it needs a little more work. What, for example, is

1

trying to keep them

from doing?

And why

are they in 2010 to begin with?

My people have spokenwithCarrey's agent, and he seems interested. Is there anyway we can

rewrite this to make better use of his comic talents?

mo

To:B.

From:R.

Naturally. Let's say

he s

brought to

2010

because the people of the future

have

forgotten

how

to

laugh

Someone reads an old book about Carrey's zany courtroom antics and decides he's just the man they

need -

and

they pick up his wisecracking daughter as well,

by

mistake. I must admit 1haven't actu

ally seen the original

To

Kill

a

Mockingbird - are there any zany courtroom antics in it? Even if there

aren't, we might dig

up

some in the original book- I' ll have one of my readers check it out - or else

we'll just come up with some flashbacks of our own. 1seem to remember a great scene in the original

y Cousin inny script thatwas never filmed; maybewe could use it.)

Instead of 1 coming back from the future to kill

our

heroes, let's say he's already there in 2010,

and that

he's responsible for the grim state of the day. We could

add an

environmental message as

well: he s trying to wipe out endangered species for some reason or another I doubt we d have to

explain it)

with

a terrible flying machine,

the

killing bird.

Our

heroes' eventual mission (and

our

movie's title): To Mock

the

Killing Bird

mo

To:'R.

From: B

Bad news - Carrey's getting cold feet. Sayshe wants to be taken seriously as an actor and won t be

doing any more comedies after his upcoming sci-fi project, Ace Double While

we re

searching for a

new lead, I thoughtyou might turn your attention to the Amadeus followup we ve been kicking

around. I m thinking we should go for a horror angle - say, a summer camp haunted by the spirits of

dead composers.

Did they have chainsaws in the eighteenth century?

Liberty

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