Robert Moreno says he always wanted to tell a story with the 1992 riots in Los Angeles as the backdrop. And when his writing partner, Jason Stentz, pitched him on gun runners who live in upper middle class Orange County while selling their goods in inner city L.A., “getting them stuck in the riots was an easy choice after that,” Moreno said. “It would be the worst possible situation to be stuck in, if that’s who you were and that’s what you did for a living.”

Now Moreno and Stentz now find themselves in one of the best situations for a screenwriter: Their script, Orange Curtain, is the latest project added to the Amazon Studios Movie Development Slate. And that comes with a $10,000 option extension payment.

“This is the first screenplay I’ve had optioned, although I’d written several other projects in the past for various producers and directors,” Moreno said. “I’ve also done my fair share of rewrite work through the years.” Stentz has also “done a few polishes and punch-ups” and sold a crime/thriller (Midnight) in 2009.

Amazon Studios project details:

Orange Curtain
by Robert Moreno and Jason Stentz

Genre: Thriller/Drama

Premise: Hunted by both police and gangsters after a deal gone wrong, a crew of Orange County arms dealers scrambles to escape South Central Los Angeles on the eve of the Rodney King riots.

The Amazon Studios Take: The movie works on a couple of levels. On one hand it’s a well-wrought thriller with compelling, original characters trying to escape a desperate situation, and on the other hand it’s a movie about a very specific moment in time — the L.A. riots of ‘92. These riots not only give us a sense of social context and heightened danger, but they also force our protagonists to face the very menace they helped create: people buy guns to kill other people. It’s this reality that our group of arms dealers must finally face up to when they find themselves stranded in South Central on one of the most dangerous nights in L.A.’s history.

Amazon Studios intends to add projects to its Movie Development Slate on a regular basis. If you have an original script that you’d like to see considered, you may submit it privately or publicly. The Amazon Studios team will evaluate each submitted script and in 45 days decide whether or not to pay $10,000 to extend the initial option by 18 months and add the project to the development slate.

Three projects on the development slate have producers attached: Touching Blue (Denise Di Novi, Crazy, Stupid, Love.), Original Soldiers (Bill Gerber, Gran Torino) and Children of Others (Oscar winner Edward Saxon, Silence of the Lambs).

WGA members can learn more by having their agent contact our Los Angeles-based production company, Amazon Studios, Inc.