Hi,
I'm an aspiring screenwriter (age 20) from the UK and I've just finished the first draft of my script. Below is a fairly detailed plot summary and I wanted to know if you guys thought it was too similar to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (bearing in mind I actually saw that film after I began writing the first draft), only I don't want it to feel like a rip off, so if you have a minute please read the plot below and tell me what you think - I would greatly appreciate it!
The script opens with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and - once the reward of a lifetime is put on the head of John Wilkes Booth - follows a number of bounty hunters who cross paths in a fortuitous turn of events, each willing to fight to the death for the prize.
The whole fun of the script is not knowing which bounty hunter is going to win the battle of wits and eventually be the one to take Booth to the hangman and get his reward (obviously I know), however upon revising notes for my second draft I've noticed that it's rather similar to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and as I'd eventually want to enter this script into festivals/competitions and send it to agents and producers to try get is sold/made, the last thing I want is people thinking it's just some lousy rip off.
The script essentially follows a bounty hunter who needs the money to buy vaccinations for his daughter's Smallpox condition which is getting worse by the day (he has a flaw of choosing work over his family, which we find out as his wife says it and later on he kills a bounty he's supposed to take alive just for the fun of killing, even though his family will get half the reward - he's wanted alive as the hangman is none other than Lincoln's brother and wants to torture Booth before killing him as an act of revenge). He visits the prison where one of Booth's co-conspirators was locked up and manages to find out where Booth's headed. He then visits the theatre that Booth worked at and asks one of his colleagues to accompany him as he doesn't know what Booth looks like. He says that if they identify him, he will give them a slice of the reward.
At this point I got annoyed with myself because this feels like I'm copying the plot to Django Unchained.
After a while of travelling with this person they would stop off at a saloon and the bounty hunter's warrant would fall out of his pocket. Someone would see this and pick it up, putting two and two together. They wait until nightfall and set fire to the bounty hunter's stagecoach or kill his horses so that they have to travel with him in his 6-horse stagecoach, which only he of the three of them knows how to drive. The bounty hunter and the person from the theatre hatch a plan to kill the third person while he is asleep and escape, but when they attempt this, they realise their weapons have no ammo, and the ammo is in a bag in the guy's hand, so instead they just flee to a nearby village. They buy new horses and new ammo and get a good few hours on the guy in the stagecoach. It was wet and muddy when they fled so the guy in the stagecoach simply follows their tracks to the town and asks if anyone saw them, to which he is pointed in the right direction. Meanwhile on their new horses, a storm rages on and the only way they can continue ahead is to cross a river, a jump which their horses manage, but break their legs. The men are knocked out and when they wake up who is standing over them but the stagecoach man (who has taken their weapons and tied their arms and legs). We then check back in with the bounty hunter's daughter whose condition is worsening and her mum who is looking for a second job to help pay for the vaccinations. We then have a few scenes of the three men in the stagecoach where we find out about them more in depth and get some character development, as well as seeing how their relationships evolve.
They then reach the farm where Booth is hiding, and stagecoach man storms off ahead such is his cocky, impatient attitude. Booth, however, has set a trap for the inevitable onslaught of bounty hunters, and it is stagecoach man who falls prey to it. The others are still tied up in the stagecoach and find a knife in the weapons bag, which they use to cut themselves free. Eventually there is a Mexican stand-off style shootout and everyone but the original bounty hunter we met dies. He takes Booth to the hangman, claims his reward and we get a 'one month later' text on screen where we see the bounty hunter talking with his local sheriff, being offered a job, which he turns down to spend time with his family, thus completing his character arc. We then see his daughter on the road to recovery doing whatever it was she said she wanted to do earlier in the script but couldn't due to her illness.
I'm just getting really frustrated with it at the moment as I feel like I had a solid plot but all I can think is 3 people (including a bounty hunter) who hate one another keep needing each other to get to a prize in the wild west just feels like I'm ripping off The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Do you guys think I'm worrying for nothing or is it too similar?
Thanks so much if you've made it this far, please let me know what you think
