[…] I’ve been demonstrating that in this series, every idea from a news article. While you can surely keep an eye out when reading the NY Times or LA Times, you’d better believe there are plenty of writers already eyeballing those pages. So troll smaller newspapers. Offbeat news sites. …read more […]

I also thought of Fargo when I read the headline. Why not a little spin on the subject. Fargo + The Bling Ring. The daughter of a rich but not famous person (think Kim Kardasian before the sex tape) that desperately wants to be famous. So she decides to fake her own kidnapping. She records videos where she reads fake communications from her captors and sends them to the media. Of course they pick it up. She continues making videos and becomes famous. Then an "anonymous" tip (she is the one tat calls) alerts the police, they find her and free her. Now she's really famous. So she goes to every major news show, talk show, she's offered a huge contract to make a TV movie based on her story, an offer for a book... She's really excited to have paparazzis chasing her all the time. But of course, the detectives are doing some research and things don't add up. She sends them to search for false clues, but they figure out it was a fake kidnapping, she did it herself, is sent to trial. But... another person wants to become famous. His solution? Kidnap her for real.

Or Fargo meets Fight Club. This guy is kidnapped, we see him being captured, kept locked, being punished by a single kidnapper. The kidnapper knows a lot about him and his family, knows the darkest family secrets - treachery, deceit, hey, maybe even incest. And in the end we find out he has split personality and one of his personalities kidnapped the other because the "public" personality was in denial about all those family secrets.

Fargo meets Home Alone Little kid neglected by his family fakes a kidnapping to get more attention from his parents. Of course the tone is much, much more lighter. Maybe the parents don't want anyone to find out their kid is kidnapped and decide to hire an inept detective that follows the leads but is constantly tricked by the kid, who is hiding in the basement or the attic of his house. OF course they find him and realize how bad parents they have been, everyone goes home happy.

Mixing up a little of Home Alone Little kid neglected by his family fakes a kidnapping to get more attention from his parents. Of course the tone is much, much more lighter. Maybe the parents don't want anyone to find out their kid is kidnapped and decide to hire an inept detective that follows the leads but is constantly tricked by the kid, who is hiding in the basement or the attic of his house. OF course they find him and realize how bad parents they have been, everyone goes home happy.

First thought is comedy. Too much potential for humor in blundered efforts and missed opportunities. Maybe there's a ransom to be had? Maybe an inheritance? But I could definitely see a Suspense/Thriller of an "innocent" attempt at avoiding drama backfiring and causing complete chaos and false accusations that fuel rage and result in a REAL kidnapping and murder. Hell yeah. Sounds good! (well, maybe not for the murder victim)

I like that one! That could be an excellent thriller. Other than Fight Club, I know there's at least one other movie that deals with that, but I'm totally drawing a blank...

All these ideas are good, but my favourite part of the original was that the guy did it because he was frightened of his girlfriend, I just thought that was so funny. A fake kidnapping was the only way he could think of to get away from her. And it lets you have the clingy girlfriend play the detective, who knows WAY too much about the guy, so she starts figuring stuff out WAY too quick. And, of course, the kidnappers are scared of her too!

This is sort of reminding me of the idea from back in day 1, maybe because the first person who immediately came to mind was the stripper kidnapper in my head was a quick and dirty recast with this obnoxious, fame-obsessed high school girl that I was using in another story (she has quite a little imaginary career). She could "top from the bottom" in the second kidnapping, since she's doe it before, constantly be telling the kidnapper what to do and how to do it, "excuse me, I'VE done this before" and so on, but of course everyone thinks it's just her crying wolf again and so the real kidnapper has to take more drastic measures.

Exactly! Give a gal a reason and she'll hack the NSA to find dirt. Psycho! Not that I would know that from personal experience or anything............ This one just has comedy written all over it.

And you can easily imagine anyone from "This Is The End" in various parts... although maybe they're a bit too old now, but you have your pick of just the least qualified people on Earth to pull a fast one, and you could get Anna Kendrick or Aubrey Plaza or even Hermione herself to play the psycho girlfriend.

The adult actress Hypathia Lee once faked her own death to sell merchandise. Inspired by that and the saying that death is a great career move: A movie agent holds a reclusive star actor captive, and fakes his gruesome death in order to take advantage of the enormous money making possibilities. As the world mourns this alleged tragic death, an obsessed fan/stalker stumbles on the truth and partnering with a down on his luck celebrity photographer, she sets out to rescue her crush only to discover that the agent will go to any length to keep his prisoner hidden.

Sounds nice, artificially creating a legend. Great idea.