It is with great pleasure that I announce that my thriller screenplay The Elvis Conspiracy has won the Best Screenplay Award in the Mojo International Film Awards. This is the third time the script has won top honors in an international competition in the last four months.

Previously The Elvis Conspiracy won Best Screenplay accolades in the Multi Dimension Independent Film Festival and the Movie Play International Film Festival. In that same time period, the script has also been named a Finalist in England’s Bright International Film Festival and an Official Selection of Mexico’s Oaxaca Film Festival.

The Elvis Conspiracy is very unique in that it is an “alternate history” script. In other words, it is a “what if” story.

Alternate history is a film genre that Quintin Tarantino has had success with in films like Inglorious Bastards and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It has also recently been used successfully in the Daniel Radcliff comedy Weird: The Al Yankovic Story in which the biography music parody icon is itself complete fiction. Basically, the genre involves taking real historical people and events and using them fictitiously.

ANOTHER REALITY

I first became exposed to the concept of alternate history with the film Fatherland, which painted a hypothetical world in which Hitler had won World War II. The film starred Rutger Hauer and was based on a 1992 novel by Robert Harris. I fell in love with the concept of the genre.

As tends to happen with any guy who can growl while he sings and swing his hips a bit, I was being compared to Elvis Presley by some member of the press in the late 1990’s. I was even attached to play Elvis-inspired crooner Conrad Birdie in a planned 2004 Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie. But my big film break had thus far alluded me.

I had always been impressed with how Sylvester Stallone had written his own breakthrough role as Rocky Balboa because he wasn’t being offered quality roles. I thought I could do the same thing for myself by writing an alternate history version of the Elvis story.

My idea was to take the wild conspiracy theories around Elvis’ life and death and tell a story as if they were real. I even imagined that I would play Elvis as a young man and John Travolta would play him in his older years.

A YOUNG MAN’S GAME

I have far too many wrinkles and far too little hair to give Austin Butler and the other heartthrobs of Hollywood a run for their money playing young Elvis now, but that might be the key to the script ultimately being made into a film.

By eliminating the dream of me playing the role from the equation, I have been able to concentrate on making it the story people will be dying to see, rather than just a character I would want to play.

At one point in time, I was commissioned to write a screen adaptation of one of my novels. Part of the package for me to agree to write it was that I would be attached to play a specific part.

The script turned out fairly decent, and an A-list actor wanted to make the film. But the deal would involve him playing my role. I remembered how Stallone had stuck to his guns when the studio wanted to buy his script for Rocky to have Burt Reynolds star. I thought I could have the same luck.

The guy who wanted to play my role: Heath Ledger. He went on to win an Oscar. My movie never got made. It was one of the biggest mistake of my life.

Now that I am older and wiser and focused on a script that I am not campaigning for a role in, I would love to have an A-list actor want to do this film. And perhaps there’s a good reason they should.

AWARD-WORTHY ROLES

I’m told that one of the reasons The Elvis Conspiracy keeps winning awards is that it has award-worthy characters.

The lead character is actually Col. Parker – Elvis’ manager. I had always envisioned Tom Hanks as Col. Parker, so I knew I had to write a character an actor of his magnitude would be drawn to and couldn’t say no to.

That’s what M. Night Shyamalan has set out to do with The Sixth Sense – write a role that Bruce Willis couldn’t say no to. He wrote a script that good, and so Willis agreed to do the film for the unknown writer-director. The rest is history.

Since the time I started writing my script and the time it has started to gain some notoriety, Hanks has already played the role of Col. Parker for director Baz Luhrmann. So, chances are that he won’t be wanting to do my film. But that just opens up the playing field. It’s a meaty role that a quality actor could easily surf to a prosperous award season. What actor doesn’t crave winning awards? Whether we admit it or not, it is an entirely ego driven profession.

Elvis in my film script is tailor made for best supporting actor honors. It requires the actor playing the role to convincingly portray multiple people. You see, sometimes people talk about Elvis as if he was entirely different people: Young Elvis, Army Elvis, Hollywood Elvis, Las Vegas Elvis, etc. In my script we imagine that thanks to such things as plastic surgery, forged documents, and lip syncing it really is multiple people that are used to create the appearance of Elvis over the decades of his career.

You never know what will happen. We have a pitch deck available for producers and literary agents to look at. It’s circulating to some studios, but I’d be happy to put it in the hands of anyone in the industry who might have an interest in seeing it made. So please reach out if your cousin Larry is best friends with the dog walker of someone who might be interested in The Elvis Conspiracy.

Winning Best Screenplay honors in the Mojo International Film Awards is certainly another proud feather in my cap. I’m always so touched by everyone who offers their support with words of encouragement. Your kind words really do put a smile on my face and in my heart. I aspire to make you all proud.

Peace. Love. Trust.

Rikki Lee Travolta

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