Luke’s Screenplays

Luke has written ten screenplays. Four of them are based on his novels—THE DICE MAN, SEARCH FOR THE DICE MAN, WHIM, and WHITE WIND, BLACK RIDER (formally MATARI).

He is also the sole author of two original screenplays: PICTON’S CHANCE (1991) and MAWSON (2000).

He has collaborated on three screenplays related to dicing: LAST ROLL OF THE DICE, with Nick Mead (2002); DICELADY, with Peter Forbes (2003), and DICED, with Nick Mead (2006).

Finally, he is the screenwriter for the short film THE RANDOM MIND OF LUKE RHINEHART, directed by Nick Mead (2004), which was produced and aired on Channel Four in the U.K.

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Here are Luke’s screenplays in chronological order:

1985 THE DICE MAN. After reading the four screenplays on file at Paramount at that time, Luke wrote on spec his first screenplay. This screenplay has many new elements but mostly uses the characters and scenes from the novel. Paramount Pictures liked the screenplay enough to hire Luke to write a different one for them.

1986 THE DICE MAN. This script was written as an employee of Paramount Pictures. Paramount (David Kilpatrick and Teddy Zee) instructed the writer that the character Luke could not be married since his dicing would hurt his wife and kids and alienate the film audience. Luke actually wrote two rather different drafts. Paramount didn’t proceed with either of them. Paramount now owns them.

1990 ADVENTURES OF WIM, written under stimulus from early friendship with Andrew Walter and Peter Forbes, who briefly optioned it. (130 pages)

1991 PICTON’S CHANCE, written for Nick Mead’s company, CMC Ltd., but all rights reverting to Luke. This screenplay dramatizes what happens when a mild-mannered repressed man is given ten challenges, which, if he does them, will lead to a great reward. The challenges are like dice decisions and force him to play unaccustomed roles and do risky things. It is a comedy.

1993 SEARCH FOR THE DICE MAN (titled ANYBODY CAN BE ANYBODY)

When Senator Films and Hanno Huth optioned the film rights to SEARCH FOR THE DICE MAN in 1992 they hired Luke to do the screenply and one revision. The second revised draft was titled ANYBODY CAN BE ANYBODY and, although now dated in a few spots because of the advance of technology, is a good comic romp. Unfortunately, Senator Films still controls the rights to it.

1994 WIM AND THE BIG U.T. This new screenplay based on the novel ADVENTURES OF WIM was written working with the producer Harry Jakobs. It has formed the basis of several subsequent drafts written over the next ten years. Luke retains all rights to the screenplay.

1995 THE DICE MAN. This new version based on the novel was written after reading a long and interesting screenplay of THE DICE MAN written by friend Peter Forbes. The screenplay, while incorporating many new scenes, still has at least half the material from the original novel.

1999 SEARCH FOR THE DICE MAN. This script was written for a director who felt that a screenplay that simply stayed close to the novel would work very well. Luke whipped it off in two weeks and discovered a lot of good scenes he had left out of his two screenplays for Senator Films six years earlier. However, the script was too hastily written to avoid being a little clunky. Luke retains all rights to it.

1999 LAST ROLL OF THE DICE, with Nick Mead. This comic romp dramatizes the character Luke five years after the events of THE DICE MAN—when he has become depressed and alienated from his own ideas and followers. Even as he tries to follow a dice decision that he kill himself, a young teenager, Mia, an ardent fan of him and his work, sticks with him and tries to keep him alive, even as he has to protect her from the predators that are after her.

2000 MAWSON. This original screenplay was written for two Australian producers and dramatizes the love between Mawson and the teenage woman he would eventually marry and the incredible tale of his survival during the expedition he led to Antarctica in 1913. All rights to this screenplay remain with Luke.

2001 WHIM. Working with the German company Magic Worx, Luke did a new draft of a screenplay based on his original novel ADVENTURES OF WIM. This is in effect a third version of Luke’s screenplays based on Wim. All rights to it have been retained by Luke.

2002 THE DICE MAN. Working from suggestions from Mimi Gitlin, Matthew Davidge and Luke, and then mostly Luke, did a draft roughly based on the material Davidge and Luke had created a year earlier.

2005 WHITE WIND, BLACK RIDER. This screenplay, written when the novel was optioned by Wayrider Films (John Taylor and Jean Stewart), dramatizes the romantic adventure story about three Japanese samurai-poets and their conflict over the beautiful wife who is fleeing from one of them. All rights to the script now belong to Luke.

2006 THE DICE MAN. Frustrated that a screenplay written for Paramount in 2005 by Dan and Mark Waters contained no characters or scenes from the novel it was supposedly based on, Luke revised his DICE MAN screenplays to get one that would much more completely capture the novel.

2006 DICED, with Nick Mead.

To read any of these screenplays contact Luke at lukec@taconic.net

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