A reclusive but brilliant inventor takes on, and beats Thomas Edison in the race to electrify America, but loses his sanity and wealth along the way.
jd099mPenpusher
A reclusive but brilliant inventor takes on, and beats Thomas Edison in the race to electrify America, but loses his sanity and wealth along the way.
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Yup, as soon as I read the logline I thought of several Tesla v Edison stories made already and others in the works – dem the brakes.
Historical dramas and biopics are the exceptions to the rule that characters shouldn’t be name in the logline. ? If you identify the rival to the main character by name, then you ought to name the main character as well. ?I presume this is is based upon the life story of the eccentric genius Nikola Tesla. ? So a possible logline might be:
The true story of Nikola Tesla ?the brilliant and reclusive genius who beat Thomas Edison in the race to electrify America only to lose his sanity and wealth.
(28 words)
The true story has the makings of compelling drama. So much so, that there are currently 2 announced movies in the works on ?his life and rivalry with Edison. ? One of them is based upon the historical novel “The Last Days of Night” which was optioned for a movie before the book was even published. The book was written Graham Moore who won the best screenplay Oscar for “The Imitation Game”. ? And he’s likely to script the movie.
So there’s that, unfortunately.
fwiw
This one doesn’t really follow the rules of a logline as such. You have a very interesting concept with the first half but “loses his sanity and wealth” is a consequence and not part of the driving plot. Try something like:
A reclusive but brilliant scientist attempts to take on Thomas Edison in the race to electrify America despite…?and this is where you would talk about losing his wealth and sanity. Hope this helps.