“A brilliant but volatile engineer battles academia, NASA bureaucracy, and the onset of schizophrenia as he fights to prove his revolutionary space travel theories in this gripping biographical drama screenplay set in 1990s Austin, Texas.”
KEYWORDS: screenplay, drama, biopic, thriller, Mars, celestial mechanics, academia, satire, University of Texas
135 pages 6x9 Trade book Available as a Paperback, PDF book, or ebook Read a 15-page preview at Blurb.com
About the Book
Set against the sun-baked academic corridors of 1990s Austin, Texas, Crashdown is a searing biographical drama screenplay based on a true story. Truck LeForge is a brilliant, unconventional engineer — mathematically gifted, socially abrasive, and utterly unwilling to compromise his vision. After losing his job, he enrolls in a graduate program at the University of Texas, determined to prove his revolutionary theories on Celestial Mechanics and Mars trajectory calculations to a scientific establishment that refuses to listen.
But the obstacles mount relentlessly. Truck battles Sjogren’s syndrome, confronts the creeping onset of undiagnosed schizophrenia, and clashes repeatedly with the entrenched bureaucracies of academia and NASA. His only lifeline is Brooklyn, a sharp-minded newspaper editor who helps him navigate the politics threatening to swallow him whole. Raw, unflinching, and deeply human, Crashdown is a portrait of genius at war with itself — a meditation on the cost of intellectual courage, the failures of institutional systems, and the devastating personal toll of mental illness left unrecognized and untreated.
Target Audience
- Readers and filmmakers interested in biographical drama and true-story screenplays
- Independent film writers, directors, and producers
- Audiences drawn to STEM narratives and academic fiction
- Readers invested in mental health representation in literature and film
- Fans of films like A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting, and The Imitation Game
Key Themes
- The collision between individual genius and rigid institutional bureaucracy (academia and NASA)
- Mental illness — specifically schizophrenia — and the stigma it carries in professional environments
- The archetype of the brilliant outsider, intellectually gifted but socially marginalized
- Scientific integrity and the suppression of unconventional mathematical approaches
- Resilience, failure, and the acceptance of an unplanned life path
- The human cost of being right in a world unwilling to listen
Purchase the Book
Please visit the book’s landing page on Blurb.com for a 15-page preview and options to purchase the paperback or PDF.
Further Reading
Visit the author’s website Inviticus.com for more screenplays (synopses, one-pagers, pitch deck, reviews), including the latest drafts.