FADE IN:

INT. BAHSTON GLOBE - JULY 2001

A group of REPORTERS leave a BAH in a CAH while admiring some MAHDERN AHT.

LIEV SCHREIBER

As the Globe’s new Hebrew in chief I’d like my team of top “Spotlight” reporters to tackle a new true life story that will snag us a shitload of award nominations.

MICHAEL KEATON

(stoically)

What about a wacky Cold War-era spy exchange?

LIEV SCHREIBER

No, not Oscar baity enough. I want something more hard hitting.

RACHEL MCADAMS

(femininely)

You mean like a comical tale about America’s horrific housing crisis with lots of Deadpooling?

LIEV SCHREIBER

No! That sounds too fast paced! We need a slow-burning story about hard unflinching realism!

JOHN SLATTERY

(assholishly)

What about a guy from the 1800s who gets reamed by Yogi?

LIEV SCHREIBER

Hmm, I like the rape angle, but not so much the bestiality. We need something that attacks people where they live, maybe with a controversial religious aspect to it.

MARK RUFFALO

(with severe crick in neck)

I know! Let's tell an uplifting story about how Roman Catholic priests are upstanding pillars of the Boston community! I mean aside from the loads and loads of constant child molesting they do.

LIEV SCHREIBER

My God, is THAT what this movie is about? I had better get a bleach shower ready.

INT. SMUG ASSHOLE BILLY CRUDUP’S LAW FIRM OF SMUG ASSHOLES

MICHAEL KEATON

Hello Billy, you’ve been working with the archdiocese to settle tons of these priest sex scandals out of court while taking a cut for yourself and have thus gotten more perverts off than Sasha Grey.

BILLY CRUDUP

Hey, it's not my fault the statute of limitations on child rape is only three years. Most victims of sex crimes don’t come forward until long after that because of fear or shame, or because they were kids and not paralegals. But on the bright side this means when they finally do speak up I can take full legal advantage of their horrific trauma and profit off of it. That cool Porsche Roadster you see in the parking lot? Child rape bought that.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Wow you're not even trying to hide how cartoonishly evil you are. But couldn't you have used the controversy of a sex scandal to scare the church into ponying up a lot more money while also getting some small form of justice for the victims?

BILLY CRUDUP

You mean take on the church for a righteous cause INSTEAD of simply taking a payday? No thank you. Besides, victims have a better shot at winning the lottery while getting hit by lightning on Judgement Day than getting the church to admit to any of their priests committing rape-related wrongdoing.

MICHAEL KEATON

Wouldn't that be because of greedy spineless butt lickers like you?

BILLY CRUDUP

Michael, you’re much too kind. I sold my soul and had it replaced with a festering pile of pus infected raccoon turds.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Clearly. Would you at least do us a solid and drop a dime on some of the pedophile priests you know about?

BILLY CRUDUP

That certainly sounds like something a guy who WASN'T a sentient herpes outbreak would do, doesn't it?

(uses dirty church cash to buy yacht full of coke and hookers)

INT. ECCENTRIC STANLEY TUCCI’S LAW OFFICE

MARK RUFFALO

Stan, I understand you're the local crusading lawyer. My team has a lead on a priest that was moved around from parish to parish because of all the Humbert Humberting he was doing. Also I heard you might know a little something about being a pedophile.

STANLEY TUCCI

Ugh, a guy hides a girl's body in a safe ONE TIME and he's branded for life. I’ll help you Mark, but it’s not just one priest, it’s probably more like 50.

MARK RUFFALO

Haha, no seriously, can you help HOLY SHIT YOU’RE NOT KIDDING?! This revelation bends my neck a full 45 degrees!

INT. BOSTON GLOBE

The SPOTLIGHT TEAM meets with a RAPE SURVIVOR.

RAPE SURVIVOR

The sad truth is that many victims kill themselves, but my burning desire to expose these scumsucking asshole priests has kept me going. Here is a whole mess of detailed information I have collected that I already sent you guys like 5 years ago.

RACHEL MCADAMS

You did? That means someone on our team must be a rat-fuck son of a bitch who had the means to uncover this disgusting epidemic years ago but chose not to!

All eyes are on JOHN SLATTERY.

JOHN SLATTERY

The fuck? Why do you think it's me? Just because I’ve been a suspicious snotty dickwad who’s been in the church’s corner from the very beginning you think I’M the one who buried this story years ago?

MICHAEL KEATON

Well, yeah. Your character is totally pointless otherwise. I mean WHO ELSE could it possibly be?

MARK RUFFALO

According to these church directories every time a rapist priest was relocated he’s listed as being on “sick leave”.

MICHAEL KEATON

But almost 90 priests were listed on sick leave in Boston alone, surely that can’t be the number of Jared Fogle’s we’re dealing with OH FUCK IT IS ISN’T IT

INT. SHITHEEL BILLY CRUDUP’S LAW FIRM OF SHITTY SHITHEELS

MICHAEL KEATON

What the hell, Billy? You never filed any of the cases you handled for the church, thus keeping your shady pro-NAMBLA dealings with the archdiocese under wraps?

BILLY CRUDUP

The confidentiality agreement the church made me sign prevents me from admitting how much of a used tampon I am for taking advantage of molested children while the church swept the scandals under the rug, also while I took gobs and gobs of their money.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Did you also steal some baby candy and pee in a puppy's face while you were at it?

BILLY CRUDUP

I know I look like an evil bastard but I actually sent the Boston Globe a list of 20 priests years ago and you guys ignored me. Only THEN did I become a living breathing shit stain with no dick.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Oh no! This means someone on our team must have buried this story before. Ooooh! Suspense!

All eyes are on JOHN SLATTERY.

JOHN SLATTERY

Hey fuck you! I’m not even in this scene!

EXT. THE REALLY IRISHY PART OF BAHST-- ERR, "BOSTON"

The Spotlight team knock on every door in Boston looking for victims or priests who will talk.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Excuse me man who looks like a creepy Mr. Magoo, some boys say you Jerry Sandusky’d them. Go ahead and deny it.

CREEPY MR. MAGOO PRIEST

No, that’s right.

RACHEL MCADAMS

But I have-- whoa wait, you’re admitting it? This is a horrible time for the iPhone to not be invented yet.

CREEPY MR. MAGOO PRIEST

But you see, it wasn't rape. I just fooled around. With children. And their private parts. Which I say in the same tone I would read an IKEA instruction manual. But it TOTALLY wasn't rape because I didn't get any pleasure out of it. I actually say this to you. Like, with my mouth, and the words coming out of it.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Excuse me, but how exactly do you think sexual contact with little boys isn't rape?

CREEPY MR. MAGOO PRIEST

Because look at my character name. I also admit to being raped by a priest myself, which I dealt with by eagerly passing the trauma on to other children. And if that’s not chilling enough I live within spitting distance of an elementary school.

RACHEL MCADAMS

I'm so shocked my facial expression is stuck somewhere between “just found out my Amazon order doesn’t qualify for 2 day shipping” and “January Jones”.

INT. BOSTON COURT ROOM

STANLEY TUCCI

Mark, I’ve been busy doing quirky legal maneuvering in order to unseal some documents which are the smoking gun that proves the church was knowingly covering for these molesting priests.

MARK RUFFALO

Great! We’ll have them by the balls! Just so long as our story isn't totally derailed by a huge national tragedy!

INT. THE VATICAN

The CARDINAL talks to a HOLOGRAPHIC PROJECTION of the POPE.

CARDINAL

What is thy bidding, my master?

POPE

There has been a great disturbance in the church.

CARDINAL

I have felt it.

POPE

We have a new enemy: Spotlight.

CARDINAL

They are close to publicly revealing the fact we vehemently protect child diddlers like the hypocritical asshats we are.

POPE

Don’t sweat it, Al Qaeda’s got our backs.

INT. BOSTON GLOBE - SEPTEMBER 2001

MICHAEL KEATON

Damn, it looks like the terrorists flew a plane into our child molestation story as well. We have to postpone it.

RACHEL MCADAMS

But all the victims we talked to are going to think we chickened out!

JOHN SLATTERY

Right now our readers aren't interested in news stories that don't include the words "terrorist" "9/11" or "Bin Laden chokes on giant flag-shaped dildo" in the headline.

STANLEY TUCCI

Also I just got those incriminating documents against the church unsealed and they’re now public record.

MARK RUFFALO

But we need some forced tension so I'm not even in Boston right now! I'm in Florida! And somehow can’t get any other member of my team to go photocopy the documents for me! We’re doomed!

(leaps from Florida to Boston)

Just in time! I got the papers and they prove that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll, Keanu Reeves is an ageless immortal, and priests fuck kids! We must print the story!

MICHAEL KEATON

Not yet! We need to manufacture some more tension first!

MARK RUFFALO

No! We have to run the story NOW! We must show the church they can’t get away with making me tilt my head so distractingly! I mean did I get hit in the neck with a Frisbee or what?! GGRRRRR!!! RUFFFALO SMASH!

MICHAEL KEATON

That was some very nice scene chewing Mark, but I just needed to get a source from inside the church to confirm all the priests we identified are Pedobear certified before we run the story.

JOHN SLATTERY

But wait, we never found out which one of us was told about this story years ago and didn’t do anything about it AND NO IT WASN’T ME SO STOP STARING ALRIGHT!!!

MICHAEL KEATON

Okay okay it was me, though I have no memory of it. I suppose everyone will take a moment to bitch slap me with their intense looks of shame.

LIEV SCHREIBER

Don't worry Michael, nobody really cared about that subplot anyway. So I’ve just run the story and put a number at the bottom where people can call in with any tips they may have about child rapings by priests.

Every phone within a quarter mile of their office RINGS OFF THE FUCKING HOOK for a MONTH.

EPILOGUE

There were well over 1,000 survivors of priest rape in the Boston area and none of the offenders got so much as a parking ticket. Major child sex scandals with priests have been uncovered in the following locations:

(draws a circle around the entire Earth)

MARK RUFFALO

Holy shit, this is actually a really terrible ongoing epidemic that thrives mostly because no one wants to talk about it.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Oh!! Oh!! But did you hear?! Leo might finally get his Oscar!!! Eeeeeee!!!!

MARK RUFFALO

But... But...

(sighs)

Yeah, that does make for safer water cooler conversation.

RACHEL MCADAMS

Right?! Thankfully there wasn't another actor nominated who might have potentially stolen the win from Leo, an actor who paid just as many dues and who had been overlooked in a previous year. But hey, at least the Academy didn't forget about the two of US!

MICHAEL KEATON

Fuck the both of you.

END