2 boy-scouts fight over a piece of gold they find. Around a campfire an old Native-American tells the know-it-all kids what the Gold Rush did to his people… Suddenly we see the San Francisco skyline crash down. Out of the dust we’re catapulted to just tents on 1849 San Francisco hills. We meet southerner JACKSON, who just blew the gold he mined on booze, poker and prostitutes over the winter. Now in love, Jackson promises prostitute OLIVIA he will hit it big again, and take her back to Georgia…
2 boy-scouts fight over a piece of gold they find. Around a campfire an old Native-American tells the know-it-all kids what the Gold Rush did to his people… Suddenly we see the San Francisco skyline crash down. Out of the dust we’re catapulted to just tents on 1849 San Francisco hills. We meet southerner JACKSON, who just blew the gold he mined on booze, poker and prostitutes over the winter. Now in love, Jackson promises prostitute OLIVIA he will hit it big again, and take her back to Georgia…
2 boy-scouts fight over a piece of gold they find. Around a campfire an old Native-American tells the know-it-all kids what the Gold Rush did to his people… Suddenly we see the San Francisco skyline crash down. Out of the dust we’re catapulted to just tents on 1849 San Francisco hills. We meet southerner JACKSON, who just blew the gold he mined on booze, poker and prostitutes over the winter. Now in love, Jackson promises prostitute OLIVIA he will hit it big again, and take her back to Georgia…
THE COLONEL
Keanu Reeves
George Clooney
Woody Harrelson
Timothée Chalamet
Zac Efron
Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Li Yi Feng
Wallace Huo
Harry Shum Jr.
Wes Studi
Gil Birmingham
Graham Greene
Juno Temple
Jennifer Lawrence
Elizabeth Olsen
Like TITANIC, this movie uses action packed historical events as a backdrop to an epic relationship between the leads. What’s different is even most college educated Americans are unaware of the true history surrounding the Gold Rush. Though familiar with tragedies for Natives of the Great Plains depicted in THE REVENANT and DANCES WITH WOLVES, audiences will be shocked when they discover a California history airbrushed out of their text books and movies…
At the beginning of the Gold Rush there were 150,000 Natives living throughout California. By the end of the Gold Rush there were less than 30,000.
Upon statehood, the California government paid its new citizens to murder Natives. The state legislature appropriated 1.5 million dollars to reimburse citizens. Heads and scalps of men, women and children were turned in for 5 to 25 dollars.
In anticipation of the approaching Civil War, California joined the Union as a free state, with black slavery illegal. The law did not apply to Natives who could be captured and forced to dig for gold. Over 4,000 Native children were sold as slaves.
Sleepy outpost Yerba Buena, where Natives and a few U.S. soldiers live, becomes the major city of San Francisco overnight in 1849 when 100,000 men from around the world arrive. At the height 45 ships a day were arriving. Most were abandoned and sunk to make room.
When the U.S. Army defeats Mexico in the Mexican War in 1848, Mexico signs a treaty giving up and area that will become 7 western states. Mexico was unaware that gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill 9 days earlier.
Some estimates are as high as 1/3 of California Native women being raped. When Native slaves who are forced to bring their wives and daughters to their masters to be raped, they revolt and kill Stone and Kelsey. In response the U.S. Army is sent in and attacks 4 villages around Clear Lake. Bullets for the adults. Bayonets for the children.
During the Civil War much of the Union government is funded by California gold.
Miners all had the intent of getting rich quick and returning home to their families. Most miners never made even enough money for a return trip home and became employees of big companies. Food sources for Natives were stripped away.
Using a bromance with action, drama, and comedy it will keep an audience on the edge of their seats, whether watching 500 men side by side feverishly mining for gold, or the epic high speed horse chase. To be relevant with a modern audience, like TITANIC, it begins and ends with present day. The tale is told to Boy Scouts when an Native old man sees the kids fighting over a piece of gold at a fishing hole. We watch San Francisco skyscrapers crumble down and we’re catapulted to 1849 on sailing ships speeding for the bay. By unearthing the gold rush as a dramatic fiction with the depth of BLOOD DIAMOND, supported by historical events and characters, this project can capture the enormous scale of California’s hidden history. A world audience that applauded THE REVENANT will have more appetite for a movie with the globally recognized brand name CALIFORNIA, that has the back drop of the fabled gold rush. This movie will bridge where movie history crosses into a real history that Americans and the world will be shocked to know. The opening image of the Golden Gate Bridge is also a symbol of the hero, Jackson, crossing from racism, to a warrior against it.
