He would be afraid… if only he could.

Fear

A feature film from Opening Act Productions, LLC™

Scientist Thomas Banich genetically eliminates the crippling fear that has plagued him all his life, only to open a Pandora's box. While wrestling to understand what he is becoming, Thomas must battle those who seek to use his discovery to create an army of fearless ubermen. The struggle takes Thomas from the labs of Genexis to Harvard's ivied halls and finally to the UN. Betrayal and dark secrets from the past hound his journey. He'd be afraid�Eif only he could.

Fear opens in a nightmare, the nocturnal apparition that visits Thomas most nights. It has all the things—a lab, scientists, experimentation—familiar to his world, but what does it mean? Thomas wakes, remembering he must give a speech at Columbia Medical Center arranged by his former professor and mentor, Dr. Aidan MacAlistair. Thomas gives it, if somewhat ineptly, astounding the audience with his historic genetic discovery. The commotion and pressure is too much. Thomas flees. As he hides, he meets the urbane and charming Dr. Richard Hyde. Hyde offers Thomas a position with Genexis, the leading biotech company, that is hard to refuse. Despite his fears, it isn't long until Thomas joins the company.

Genexis is cutting - edge, reeking of seemingly limitless private funding. It isn't long before Thomas is working secretly on the research that truly drives him: genetically eliminating fear. He is successful, only to be ambushed by Hyde and his henchmen, who want the work for their own evil ends. Pure adrenaline and luck help Thomas escape. In the process, he accidentally injects himself with the serum, previously untested on a human. He ends up in Father Ian Archer's chapel, where the final transformation—physical and oddly spiritual too—occurs. Ian is a foil to Thomas' belief in the omnipotence of science and the truth of the technological imperative.

Thomas is reborn, a new man without the shackles of fear. He attends Dr. Teresa Keller's lecture. She is an attractive colleague whose work with a fearless Amazonian tribe helped Thomas, unbeknownst to her, make his breakthrough. Thomas also is a hunted man. He barely escapes Hyde at the event, diving from the top of the skyscraper to crash through the glass atrium far below. He should be dead, but Thomas' body mends itself during the ambulance ride.

Thomas heads to Harvard, his only lead and a place from his past. His dead father had been a professor, who had been fired after a genetic experiment harmed some of his students. Thomas finds hidden files identifying his father as a former Nazi and implicating Harvard faculty and others in a bigger conspiracy. There's more than one way to mold minds at this institution.

Thomas returns to New York to see Teresa and to visit Aidan in the hospital. (He had been hurt when the ambulance was attacked earlier.) Hyde's men are waiting. Thomas wakes at Genexis to find himself betrayed. Aidan and Hyde are partners—modern day heirs of the Third Reich, made possible by the Nazi fortunes and men, like Aidan and Thomas' father, who were secretly spirited away by Die Spinne after the war. Thomas learns that Aidan and his father had experimented on him, resulting in his fear. They have been his nightmare.

Now, a small army of fearless soldiers is ready to attack the signing of a peace accord between the Israelis and Palestinians at the UN, made possible by other Genexis work. The only problem is Hyde's version of the formula is incomplete causing his men to eventually go crazy and die. Hyde and Aidan show Thomas Teresa and threaten to inject her with the flawed serum unless he gives them the correct formula. He relents, but Hyde injects her anyway.

Hyde heads to the UN for his mission. Thomas escapes, fighting Hyde's fearless soldiers at the UN and saving the Israeli and Palestinian ministers. Thomas has won the battle.

But he has not won the war. In the aftermath, the UN adopts a resolution creating a special international terrorism strike force. Genexis and Hyde will offer their assistance.

Thomas and Teresa (who lived because she was injected with the correct serum before almost dying) must wait to face Hyde and his men another day. And they must work to understand what they have become—the Adam and Eve of new fearless race?

This action - thriller provides adrenaline - inducing entertainment while it explores thought - provoking questions in the vein of the Matrix, Gattaca and The Island. This 112 - page script is can be filmed as a medium - to high - budget independent film. The investment for Fear is more substantial, but it has the potential to be a blockbuster.

This becomes an obvious progression for OAP and will set us up to be a major player with large action sequences and special effects.

SCRIPT TEASER (Requires a PDF viewer)