A set piece would be when Laura takes Maurice to visit her sister Annette’s family in the suburbs on Christmas Eve. Her niece comes home crying from a friend’s house. When she had mentioned Santa Claus, her friends had laughed at her, saying Santa Clause was not real. She asked her brother and sister if that was true, and they said yes. She began wailing. Later that evening she was dressed in wings and a halo to play an angel in the church pageant, but was still inconsolable, making the family run later. Maurice watches her throw a tantrum expecting that at any moment she would be shouted at or hit by someone. He thought, “She better quiet down before she gets a whipping.” He sees her father, Bruce, approach and just knows she’s going to have a whipping. Instead, Bruce sits next to her, picks her up, puts his arms around her and strokes her hair. Instead of punishing her, he was loving her. Maurice could not believe what he had just seen. He vows to be a father like that someday.
It is called Last Bus Out
It is a Rescue Drama.
In the vein of The Blindside.
It is like Hotel Rwanda meets The Pursuit of Happyiness.
It follows determined basketball player Courtney Miles
And streetwise drug dealer Jabbar Gibson
As they seek to help their friends and family escape the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina.
Problems arise when police block the highways.
Together they will trust in God and refuse to be stopped as they rescue over 300 people.
The idea came to me when I read Last Bus Out by Beck McDowell and thought it would make a great movie portraying the victims of Hurricane Katrina positively .
My unique approach would be showing the people of the New Orleans as their own saviors instead of helpless victims just standing around as portrayed by the media.
A set piece would be when Courtney is driving down an empty stretch of Highway 90, heading northwest away from New Orleans. Suddenly a Crown Vic, the car of a police officer, appears. Courtney slows down. He has no driver’s license, so if the police pull him over, he will be charged with a crime. There will go his clean record, along with his academic and sports future. The police officer looks up, does a double take, glances over his shoulder at the empty highway. Then he looks up at the jampacked bus and scans the faces of the passengers looking out of the windows at him. Then he makes eye contact with Courtney. He smiles, nods his head, and lets the bus continue.
Target audiences would be teenagers, educators, basketball fans, faith-based audiences and the people of the Gulf Coast region.
People would want to see the movie due to its universal themes of faith, determination, community, personal responsibility and making the right choice.