ALTITUDE
A 737 on the Chicago to DC shuttle run has been hijacked.
Onboard the plane: 5 hijackers with a bomb wired to explode if the plane ventures below 20,000 feet. Their demands: Freedom for a dozen comrades picked up in the post-9-11 sweeps... Strange - because the hijackers are American.
Also onboard: Burned out bodyguard Jackson Bolt, on his way to DC for a Congressional hearing concerning the whistle blower assassinated while under his protection. With no way to get an anti-terrorist team onto the plane, it's up to Bolt to save the passengers... Without repeating his past mistakes.
As the 737 enters the holding pattern for Washington National Airport, another scenario presents itself: What if the bomb is nuclear, and the hijacker's REAL plan is to destroy Washington DC, and throw the United States government into chaos? Is this the second wave of terrorism?
Or could it be a group of clever thieves cashing in on post-9-11 paranoia to ransom a plane full of passengers for millions? Or is there something valuable on the plane? Is this a mid-air heist? Disguised to look like an act of terrorism?
Bolt, armed only with a cell phone and a Samsonite suitcase, must play a deadly game of cat and mouse with the thieves... While convincing a trigger happy Homeland Security Agent *not* to blast them from the sky. With no where to run, and very few places to hide, he must secretly organize his fellow passengers against the thieves. But time and airplane fuel are running out...
One of the passengers is working for the thieves. Providing them with inside information about him. Is it the single mom? The quiet businessman? The sexy business woman? The father returned from his son's funeral? Or the stewardess Bolt has been flirting with? Who can he trust? Who will betray him?
"ALTITUDE" is a non-stop thrill ride in the tradition of "Die Hard", "Speed", and "The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3". This is one plane you don't want to miss!
"ALTITUDE" - copyright by William C. Martell
For a copy of this script... E-mail me! wcmartell@ScriptSecrets.Net
To read the script online... ALTITUDE.
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MY BIO:
I've written 19 films that were carelessly slapped onto celluloid: 3 for HBO, 2 for Showtime, 2 for USA Net, and a whole bunch of CineMax Originals (which is what happens when an HBO movie goes really, really wrong). I've been on some film festival juries, including Raindance in London (twice - once with Mike Figgis and Saffron Burrows, once with Lennie James and Edgar Wright - back to "jury duty" in October of 2009). Roger Ebert discussed my work with Gene Siskel on his 1997 "If We Picked The Winners" Oscar show. I'm quoted a few times in Bordwell's great book "The Way Hollywood tells It". My USA Net flick HARD EVIDENCE was released on video the same day as the Julia Roberts' film Something To Talk About and out-rented it in the USA. In 2007 I had two films released on DVD on the same day and both made the top 10 rentals.
