Love Interest or No Love Interest

A shift in my daily schedule has created some much needed and consistent free time for script writing, so today I reached WAY back and picked up the first script I wrote called "Inside."

"Inside" is essentially a merge of "Copycat" (the Sigourney Weaver movie) and "Die Hard." It's the story of an award-winning architect turned agoraphobe called upon by the FBI to assist in the rescue of hostages taken captive in a high-tech building he designed.

The story contains a few interesting elements. One, part of it is somewhat based on the true story of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse that occurred in 1981. Second, the protagonist's main character issue is based on my own years of suffering from mild agoraphobia. (Cause you know the saying..."Write what you know!")

ANYHOW...get to the point, Eric!

So, Lainie Gallers, a TNT executive I pitched to last summer said she was interested in "Inside," but would rather see it without the love interest; the love interest being an old flame caught up with the wrong crowd who has to do right by helping save Architect and assisting in thwarting the kidnapping even at the risk of losing her own life.

There were some logistic issues in the "why, how, who" Lovie would get caught up in, so I saw Lainie's wisdom in pulling her out and letting Architect figure out how to be the hero by himself. But my question to my two readers out there (hi, mom and grandma) is this...don't you kinda HAVE TO HAVE a love interest? I mean, I know you don't "have to," but it just seems like a key cog in the machine.

Regardless, I spent my new "free" time today reworking my scene list for this movie, pulling out Lovie and trying to figure out how to keep adding tension and helping Architect to save the day on his own.

Oh, and Lainie, if you're still interested, I'm happy to send over a copy after I'm done with this next rev!