Chad Tully, a college dropout turn travel agent living in Manhattan, receives news that his family’s property in the Outback of Australia is facing foreclosure. So, when Jerry Hampton, an ageing reality TV star comes in to plan a vacation, Chad books him into his family’s dilapidated property, passing it off as a five-star resort, hoping he will invest, saving the property.
ShellPenpusher
Chad Tully, a college dropout turn travel agent living in Manhattan, receives news that his family’s property in the Outback of Australia is facing foreclosure. So, when Jerry Hampton, an ageing reality TV star comes in to plan a vacation, Chad books him into his family’s dilapidated property, passing it off as a five-star resort, hoping he will invest, saving the property.
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Agreed with the above, it isn’t great that he’ll lose the family home, but if he does, as an audience, we kinda say “So what?” As mentioned he needs stakes he can’t just lose it, he has lose everything if he does, what is on the line if he loses the house? His life, his attachment to his family, the one connection to his parents or maybe he borrowed money from the mob to do it up, but gambled it away and now they want it back.
Maybe his parents are alive and on a years holiday, in that time the house has become a ruin and now his parents are coming home, so he needs a plan and quick… Get a long term renter to stay etc.
That last bit also gives you a ticking clock, which is always a bonus in a logline.
Anyways, the parts are there I can see a beginning, middle and end etc, it is wordy and lacks stakes, so overall good effort.
I am not sure what the story is…
Is this a story about how a celebrity walks into a travel agency and the lead character who works there spends two hours trying to convince the celebrity ?his family home is actually a 5 star resort???
Or is this a story about what happens next. About the Celebrity going to Australia and having to rough it in a beat down home masked as a 5 star resort?
Because your logline, as written, seems more like a setup to a story than the story itself.
Stripping out unnecessary words (like character names; no need for them, they just take up precious verbal real estate), the concept seems to be something like this:
A travel agent cons a wealthy actor into staying at his parent’s failing resort in the Outback, hoping he will invest in the resort saving his parents from imminent bankruptcy.
Well, I think ?the Outback is a great location for a comedy. ? However, as written, the ?travel agent has no substantial stakes in the outcome, no skin in the game. ? It’s his parents’ who are?at risk, not himself (directly). ? I suggest the concept be reworked to give him more of a stake in the outcome, more than anyone else. ?He should be the one with the most to lose, financially, emotionally, status, self-worth — in every way possible.
Maybe he’s in financial straits himself because he’s mediocre travel agent who can’t compete against the Internet which ?has decimated the whole business of personalized travel booking (which it has). ? And then he ?inherits the resort. He desperately grasps it as his only lifeline, his last chance to make something out of his life. ?He doesn’t ?just want to ?make save resort for someone else’s sake (like his parents) ; he must save it in order to save himself.
fwiw