FADE IN:

INT. BOXING ARENA - NIGHT

A HURRICANE wails outside. NICOLAS CAGE walks around, the camera trailing him in a shot that never cuts away and lasts for about three hours. This shot is what all MOVIE CRITICS will devote a whole paragraph to.

DIRECTOR BRIAN DE PALMA

ISN'T THAT NEAT!? You should probably leave now, it's all down-hill from here.

NICOLAS meets up with all the main characters in the movie. The camera zooms in closely on the ones that are BAD GUYS. NICOLAS sees someone.

NICOLAS CAGE

There he is! There's the man who will certainly not be behind the upcoming conspiracy!

GARY SINISE

(looking extremely evil)

Ha ha. My character adds nothing to the story at all - I'm not the bad guy though.

The camera zooms in on all the characters again for good measure, including CARLA GUGINO, who sits down a seat next to the SECRETARY OF DEFENSE. Suddenly, he is SHOT with a gun from somewhere. Chaos erupts.

INT. STILL THE BOXING ARENA - NIGHT

CAGE goes and visits the security office of the casino/hotel/arena.

SECURITY GUY

There are hundreds and hundreds of cameras here. They're always recording.

AUDIENCE

Hmm. So Cage will have to use these cameras to discover what's going on. Sounds interesting.

NICOLAS CAGE

Let me see the boxing match.

(watching)

A ha! It was a fake punch. This is a big twist in the movie despite it being given away by the movie trailers.

INT. BOXING ARENA AGAIN - NIGHT

STAN SHAW

What's this about?

NICOLAS CAGE

(from the trailer)

It was a phantom punch!

STAN SHAW

Welp, you caught me.

STAN SHAW proceeds to explain half of the movie's main conspiracy plot to NICOLAS.

MOVIE TRAILER

I already told you all this! Ha ha ha! You paid 8 bucks to see what you found out from free commercials!

When he's done, NICOLAS goes back to the security office.

INT. A BOXING ARENA - NIGHT

AUDIENCE

Ok, NOW Cage will have to use the security cameras to unravel this intricately threaded conspiracy plot.

NICOLAS CAGE

Oh hey. There's the girl. I'll go talk to her.

He leaves.

AUDIENCE

Dammit.

INT. BOXING ARENA/HOTEL/CASINO - NIGHT

NICOLAS CAGE

A ha! I found you. What's going on?

CARLA GUGINO

(explaining the other half)

Well, see. Gary is the bad guy and he's testing weapons but I don't want him to, so I snitched to the secretary of defense so Gary and some supporting characters killed the secretary and accidentally shot me.

NICOLAS CAGE

(from the trailer)

They didn't miss him with that second shot. They missed you.

GARY SINISE

Har har! I am here. With a gun. Cretins.

Suddenly, the HURRICANE going on outside gains POWER. As it does so, a NEWS TEAM goes outside to cover the story. The wind rips off an ANTENNA from the news van, which flies through the window of a house nearby. The OWNERS pick up a phone and call window repair, who says they can't make it out there that night. The caller bangs his hand on a table in anger, which makes a mouse behind the table run around. The owner sees it and is scared. He jumps around a bit, bothering the people living below him. The people below him use their broom to bang on their roof to tell him to stop, which collapses the floor. The floor collapsing causes the house next door, whose owners were, at the time, smoking pot, to shake a bit. The lighter, which was being lit at the time, is, in turn, thrown against the wall and lights it on FIRE. The FIRE sets off smoke alarms, which disturb the local DOG'S ears, who runs away and into traffic. This causes a car to swerve and run onto a large ramp. This sends the car flying into the air, which CRASHES into the boxing arena and lands directly on GARY SINISE.

NICOLAS CAGE

That was close.

CARLA GUGINO

I love you.

All of the minor subplots of the movie are then resolved in ways in which all of the characters in the movie somehow lose and their lives wind up miserable.

DIRECTOR BRIAN DE PALMA

And the moral of the story is.....uh....er.....well, the main point is...er....hmm. Well we at least surprised you with the unpredicatble plot twist of....uh..certainly you were entertained by the...uh...

BRIAN looks through his SCRIPT, looking for anything resembling a good story.

DIRECTOR BRIAN DE PALMA

You thought that long camera shot in the beginning was cool, though, right?

END