Murder in a Small Town Premiering on Fox and ITV Fall 2024

Comps and References: Brazil meets Her and Vanilla Sky

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Writer: Alex Proyas

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Director: Alex Proyas (The Crow, I, Robot)

 

Logline: A down-on-his-luck bureaucrat who finds life meaningless, opts for the new global sensation, to have his consciousness uploaded to an artificially enhanced afterlife, and soon discovers it is less heaven and more hell.

 

Synopsis: Paul Dimitrou lives a despairing and mundane life as a statistician in a bureaucratic near-future society,  dodging his ex-wife and longing for time to write his memoirs. He decides to escape his dead-end life and applies to The Ministry of Transmogrification to have his consciousness uploaded to an AI-built afterlife called HEAVEN.

 

Paul’s consciousness is uploaded to HEAVEN through a  bizarre industrial process, leaving his human self behind to face a very clinical and swift death-by-cremation. Paul awakens in HEAVEN, where he's pleased to find himself with a  full head of hair. But the world around him is strangely empty, ruled by the ominous  Ministry, and patrolled by angel-like drones. All electronic devices and autobiographical books have been banned by The Ministry to Censor Individualist Thinking, yet Paul manages to secure an old typewriter to write his memoirs.

 

Paul is given a newbie - an artificially incubated newborn baby that will soon serve as a vessel for a newly uploaded consciousness.

 

Indulging in the consequence-free excesses of HEAVEN, Paul tries to track down his mother - who refuses to see him. He pins all his hopes on finding someone who will justify his obsessive quest to find the 'truth' of his life story.

 

With its restrictions becoming increasingly prohibitive HEAVEN’s luster is quickly fading, and Paul’s old melancholy is fast returning. Paul finally tracks down his mother and learns that she is living her afterlife free of the troubles of ingrate family members - especially Paul, who neglected her while squandering his youth and potential.

 

Paul begins to accept the emptiness of life in HEAVEN and decides to finish his memoirs while taking care of the newbie who has provided him with some purpose.

 

After receiving terrible feedback on his memoirs, Paul makes a failed attempt to save his baby newbie from advancing to the next stage of the process. He decides to take his own life,  something that has never been attempted in Heaven before.

 

But  Paul’s consciousness is resurrected ] and brought before Anthony  Gage, HEAVEN’s billionaire creator- in the form of a twelve-year child. Gage reveals that HEAVEN is part of a nefarious plan to exterminate humans and allow The Ministry to rule the planet. Gage explains that he is evolving the humans in HEAVEN to become angels, and explains that life can be whatever Paul makes of it: heaven or hell.

 

Paul realizes that HEAVEN has become an extension of his selfishness. He learns that the antidote to his loneliness, and the key to happiness is to reconcile with the person that loved him the most.