This allows Reich to successfully murder Craye D’Courtney at a party, and when the Esper police come by, they’re none the wiser on who did it. You see, Espers can protect against the mind-reading powers of other Espers. However, Reich hires a first-class Esper, Tate, to stick with him throughout the murder and its aftermath. An Esper can come in, read your mind, know you’re guilty, and it’s straight to the electric chair. This has made murder impossible to get away with. In the future, we have these people called “Espers” who have the ability to read minds. If he doesn’t do something soon, Reich Industries is going to be in some deep shit. His nemesis, Craye D’Courtney, is stealing all of his business. He’s got products on Mars, on Jupiter’s moons, he’s even got an outpost at the edge of the galaxy. Let’s check it out.īen Reich, the CEO of Reich Industries, is a seriously wealthy man. You could argue this is Wall Street in the year 2491. We have a CEO of an enormous company as our protagonist. However, as soon as you start reading “Demolished Man,” you can tell why he became attracted to the material. It’s also nice to see a sci-fi adaptation from Stone, someone you don’t typically associate with the genre.

This meant that screenwriters took their time and wrote screenplays more like they wrote novels, with less emphasis on getting the reader in and out in 90 minutes. Another language? An entirely new screenwriting format? Remember, this was pre-1990s, before the screenwriting market was deluged with How-To books. You have no idea what you’re going to find.

Opening these old screenplays is a bit like opening an ancient scroll. Writer: Oliver Stone (based on the novel by Alfred Bester) This was one of his early assignments, an adaptation of the science-fiction novel, “The Demolished Man,” the very first Hugo Award Winner (in 1953). Premise: In the year 2491, a Citizen Kane-like business mogul attempts to do something that hasn’t been successfully achieved in 80 years – murder a man without getting caught.Ībout: Before Oliver Stone became a visionary director, he was one of the most coveted writers in Hollywood.

The demolished man