Strange Aeons (the screenplay formerly known as Thaum, and then Kidd)

I've been fiddling around in my head with the premise and plots for my screenplay for the last week or two, bouncing ideas around. I've decided that I'm not going to have the main character as a police detective inspector who's also a necromancer - it's too restrictive, either setting up an X-Files style investigation-of-the-week formula, or constantly having to find ways to have the detective inspector

So Inspector Kidd's been relegated to supporting character, who might not even be in every episode (depending on how useful he is). I'm thinking of keeping his relationship with his children though, possibly by having his eldest daughter move in with the new lead character, Jonathan Grey (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Steerpike from the BBC version of Gormenghast - or someone with a similar bone structure).

Not sure who I'd have play Kidd. I've been picturing him as John Constantine up until recently (so definitely not Keanu Reeves then...). Perhaps Sting, just to remind the makers of Constantine what they were missing out on...

Despite my Kidd-Constantine image, the necromancy's going to become Grey's field of expertise, while Kidd's just going to be a clued-in mundane (to borrow Unknown Armies terminology), or maybe just a significantly less powerful mage than Grey.

Anyway, the opening scene, hot off the keyboard:

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SCENE 1 – ASHURST WOODS (Exterior, day) (Opening Credits Sequence)

As the opening credits roll, the view pans over four piles of clothes lying in the grass of a clearing. In the first two we can see a neatly folded shirt, tie, boxer shorts, socks and trousers, plus a pair of shoes. In the third we see a fawn-coloured blouse with a brooch fastening, brown skirt, tights, and flat-soled lady’s shoes. The fourth pile contains a black velvet dress, claret underwear and black satin shoes.
The camera draws back to reveal a circle of small white rocks, each about the size of a fist, sitting in the centre of the clearing. Three naked corpses lie in the grass. A young black man (DANNY CLIFFORD, 30) lies on his side, but his torso is twisted over onto his back, revealing four bullet wounds in his chest and severe bruising and cuts to his face, suggesting he’s been kicked repeatedly. Within the circle lies a slender brunette (MADELEINE TYLER, 27) in a foetal position, with a single wound through her left shoulder. At the edge of the clearing, slumped face-first against a tree, is another woman (SUE MCLEAN, 45) with her hair and a bullet through the centre of her back. Being naked, it’s quite obvious she’s been shot through the spine.
The voice-over of this scene is JONATHAN GREY, our principle character.

(V/O) GREY
It started with three murders. Danny Clifford, Sue McLean…

The image cuts to an overweight, naked man (HARRY GRAHAM, 55), running for his life through the woods. He’s clearly out of shape, and is wheezing and purple-faced as if on the verge of a heart attack, but too terrified to slow down.
Further back, two skinheads – LIAM O’NEILL, with a weasel-faced and wearing a union jack T-shirt, jeans, bovver boots and a manic grin, and JEFF BRONSON, taller, more muscular, wearing a leather jacket and with a grim, determined expression – chase after him. Both are carrying revolvers.

(V/O) GREY
…and Harry Graham.

Back in the clearing, Madeleine painfully raises her head and looks around the clearing. She awkwardly gets to her feet. A trickle of blood runs down her torso from the hole in her shoulder, and she stumbles before regaining her footing. She has spots of blood on one cheek.

(V/O) GREY
But not Madeleine Tyler. It wasn’t her time to die; she still had her part to play.

She spends several seconds standing over Danny’s body, tears in her eyes. She sobs and staggers from the clearing.
Cutting back to Harry and the skinheads, Harry runs from the trees into a gravel-surfaced lay-by, in which three cars are parked – a small hatchback, a 4x4 and a BMW. He stops by the driver’s door of the BMW and reaches for his keys.
Freeze-frame close-up of Harry’s horrified expression as he realises his keys, and his pocket, are back in the clearing.

(V/O) GREY
I always liked Harry. He wasn’t a friend, but I respected his talents.

The focus on the freeze-frame shifts to reveal O’NEILL and BRONSON coming up behind him, twenty or thirty feet away. The action begins again as the skinheads skid to a halt. Harry turns to face them.

(V/O) GREY
I think it helps that, at the end, he stood his ground and faced them. They had guns, they’d already shot his friends, and they were going to kill him. He knew all that. But that last bit of courage, despite his terror…

With the camera view at ground level, looking through Harry’s legs, a trickle of urine runs down one leg and pools around his foot. O’Neill and Bronson raise their pistols.


(V/O) GREY
…I think that made death a little easier for him.

O’Neill and Bronson fire. Harry’s feet lift off the ground and something heavy lands on the camera, cutting the screen to black.

(V/O) GREY
And trust me, I know about death.

The show title, ‘Strange Aeons’, appears on the black screen.


SCENE 2 – JONATHAN GREY’S HOUSE – HALL (Interior, day)

A hallway in a moderately untidy house. A sprig of some sort of dried herbs is pinned above the front door, and red sigils have been painted on the doorframe. On the wall is a poster print of Picasso’s Guernica. A couple of opened letters lie discarded on the doormat. A nearly-empty breakfast bowl, cereal solidifying into a milky crust, sits on the sideboard, beside a mobile phone handset and an LCD clock reading 17:57.
The door opens and a pale-faced young man (28) enters. He’s wearing a hospital porter’s uniform. His name badge reads ‘Jonathan Grey’. He removes his tie and drapes it over a coat hook, before addressing the camera:

GREY
I’m Grey, and I’ve had a hell of a day.

The mobile phone rings.

GREY
And it’s about to get worse.

He answers the phone.

GREY
Hello?

KIDD
(on phone)
It’s Inspector Kidd. You might want to come down to the woods.

GREY
Am I sure of a big surprise?

KIDD
It’s dead people. Your kind of thing.

Grey addresses the camera again.

GREY
I work as a mortuary attendant.

Into the phone:

I’ll change my shirt and be right over. Whereabouts are you?

KIDD
Near Pointer’s Car Park. The uniforms’ll be expecting you. They’ll let you through.

GREY
Thanks. I’ll be there.

He hangs up.

GREY
(to camera)
What did I tell you? So much for settling down with a book and a Chinese…

He wanders upstairs, undoing shirt buttons as he goes.