Movie Pitch Monday

My Rounders 2 Pitch

Welcome to another episode of Movie Pitch Monday — a show where I pitch hypothetical movie ideas. If you don't know who I am, I'm Edward Mullen, I'm an author, blogger, and YouTuber.

In the past, I have done pitches for Avatar 2, Back to the Future 4, Ready Player 2, A Quieter Place, and dozens of others.

In today's movie pitch, I want to pitch a sequel to one of my favourite movies — Rounders, staring Matt Damon, Edward Norton, and John Malkovich.

I'll briefly recap the first movie so that we're all on the same page.

Mike McDermott (Matt Damon), law student, living in NYTo pay for law school and his bills, he goes around to different tables around town and plays no limit Texas Hold'emIn the beginning of the movie, he's cocky and plays Teddy KGB (John Malkovich) in which he loses all his money, three stacks of high society aka 30 grandHe takes a regular job and focuses on his studies, he has made a commitment to his girlfriend, to not play poker againHis friend Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of prison and uses him name to rack up debtThey both get in over their heads and need to come up with the money quickMatt Damon's girlfriend finds out that he's playing poker again and leaves him without questionMike and Worm go to every game in town, including some outside of townThey lie, cheat, and collude to give themselves every advantageWorm gets greedy and uses poor judgementEventually Worm is caught bottom dealing by a bunch of off-duty police officers and they beat Mike and Worm upWith no other options, Matt Damon goes to his Prof and borrows the money to pay back Teddy KGBBut instead of using the money to pay him back, he uses it to play poker with Teddy KGBMike spots Teddy's tell and wins back his debt as well as enough to pay back the Prof, and the 30 grand he original lost at the beginning of the movieIn the end, Mike goes to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker

Okay so that's where we left off. My movie pitch takes place in present day, 20 years after the first. We follow the story of Jason (Miles Teller), a young kid who has saved up some money, like four or five thousand dollars, and has moved to Las Vegas with dreams of competing in the World Series of Poker. He has won a number of online tournaments and has done quite well, but it has always been his dream to play with the big boys in Vegas.

ACT ONE

The opening of the movie, I would do a montage of Vegas, upbeat music playing, cards being dealt, dealers raking chips, large stacks of chips being accumulated, and poker pros sitting around until early hours, playing hands.

When we first meet Jason, he has just arrived to Las Vegas for the first time. He walks down the Vegas strip and into a grand entrance of one of the casinos and has his back toward us. He is in awe of the grandiose opulence of the hotel / casino. He's only ever seen it in movies. The camera pans around and we see a look of awe and excitement on his face.

He enters the casino timidly, and just checks out the scene a bit. He finds a table that doesn't look that intimidating and takes a seat. He pulls out a wad of cash and gets dealt in.

He folds a lot at first, plays a few hands, takes a small win. An hour later, he gets a little more comfortable and begins to get on a roll. At the end of a long night, he looks exhausted and is up like four or five thousand dollars.

He walks out of the casino, gets a hotel room, and crashes for the night.

The next day, he returns to the Casino and someone recognizes him from the day before. They tell him they were watching him play and invite him to sit at the high-limit table, minimum buy in 10,000. The kid doesn't have enough money, but agrees to go and watch. When he goes there, he sees some of the pros he's seen on television like Daniel Ngreanu, Phil Ivey, Phil Helmuth, etc.

After an hour or so, he gets the itch and really wants to play. The guy who invited him to play says that he will bankroll him and they will split the winnings. Jason agrees and takes a seat. He's up and down and back up again. He has over 100,000, which seems like a lot, but not at this table.