FADE IN:

EXT. "JFK" AIRPORT - PARKING LOT

SKY PILOT NICOLAS CAGE arrives for work at SODOM AIR accompanied by music from a 1990s CORPORATE TRAINING VIDEO. He ditches his WEDDING RING, flashes his NICOLAS CAGE SMILE, and meets up with FLOOZY ATTENDSLUT NICKY WHELAN, wearing her finest SINLETTOS and a fresh application of JUICY JEZEBEL lipstick.

NICOLAS CAGE

Hey, baby. Let's stare silently at these elevator doors a while, I know that gets you hot.

INT. "JFK" AIRPORT

NIC CAGE'S plucky blonde daughter CASSI THOMSON searches for her Dad, but instead stumbles across ruggedly famous international journalist CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY arguing with a religious person.

RELIGIOUS PERSON

It's the end times! Judgment is coming!

CASSI THOMSON

Oh yeah, well if God is real, why do bad things happen?

RELIGIOUS PERSON

Your mundane question has already surpassed the ability of this movie to address anything of substance!

(runs off)

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Thanks, random stranger. I was in a tsunami once. I love you.

CASSI THOMSON

Holy fuck SLOW DOWN. Wait, hang on, apparently I love you too. Oh hey, there's my Dad! Wait for me!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Always, and forever!! I WILL FIND YOUUUUUU!!!!!

NICOLAS CAGE

Whaaa, Cassi, er, hi! Honestly, I don't even know her name! Who are we talking about? Where'd this condom come from? What's an airplane?

CASSI THOMSON

Never mind Dad. I wanted to surprise you for your birthday, I figured you and Mom would be doing something special and...

NICOLAS CAGE

Yeah we were, but I was called in at the very very last minute with no warning. That's why I have absolutely zero luggage, not even the basic flight bag that any pilot about to cross the ocean would have. Bye!

(leaves)

BAGGAGE GUY

(driving up)

Excuse me, I have two printed tickets for a U2 concert in London, for Nic Cage? It's their "OOOH YOU ARE SOOOO BUSTED" tour. Nic has been bugging me about these for exactly TWO WEEKS! Which is why he boarded the plane without them. Maybe he remembered you can get tickets online for like 20 years now? The important thing is that his obvious lie has been clumsily exposed, so my work here is done! THUS SPEAKS BAGGAGE GUY

(pelted with frogs)

INT. SODOM AIR FLIGHT 666 - COCKPIT

NICOLAS CAGE

(into radio)

Oh hey, ground crew, did we ever get that computer problem fixed? You know, that problem we had in our computers? I hope I'm not getting too technical.

GROUND CREW

(over radio)

Shit no, we were too busy enviously fornicating with tax collectors in false temples. Good luck, asshole!

(static)

NICOLAS CAGE

Eh, who needs a fully functioning plane anyway. All right gang, let's do a wheel-rolling over to the taking-off street!

In the passenger section, we meet a group of finely-crafted, fully realized characters including ANGRY MIDGET, TEXAN DUDE, MUSLIM GUY, HAPPY BLACK GUY, ALZHEIMER LADY, AIR MARSHAL GUY, CRAZY SHADES BOOB LADY, and JORDIN SPARKS. The AUDIENCE starts hoping these folk are all really devout so they can VANISH from the movie as soon as possible.

EXT. NEW YORK SUBURBS

CASSI arrives to see her born-again Mom, LEA THOMPSON, and her younger brother, ANNOYING FUCKING DORK KID.

ANNOYING FUCKING DORK KID

Cassi, you're home early! I thought I'd have another four years to grow into my stupidly oversized clothes!

CASSI THOMSON

What the hell, you're like some alien being's concept drawing of "YOUNG HUMAN LIFEFORM". Anyway I brought you something.

ANNOYING FUCKING DORK KID

Oh boy, it's the baseball glove I've been asking for! That allows the wearer to play baseball, and for which I have made specific requests to be given one! Your presenting of it, to me, aligns so perfectly with my expressed wishes!

CASSI THOMSON

Wow, we can't even trust our audience to deduce that a kid is happy to get a baseball glove without spelling it out in giant crayon letters.

CASSI goes inside to talk with LEA who has (GASP) a modest-sized CROSS hanging on the wall and a BIBLE lying around in plain view!!

LEA THOMPSON

It's so good to see you Cassi. I know it's been tough since I became religious, which made you and your Dad freak the fuck out for some reason. Never mind that there are millions of Americans running around WAY more hard-core than I am. Heck, in some states I'd be considered agnostic.

CASSI THOMSON

I just want a nice, civil visit, Mom, so let's please keep this respectful.

(sits)

So anyway, I was at the airport when some idiot wacko Jesus-freak nutjob went all "Bla Bla God" like a raving fucking lunatic and WHOOPSIE DAISIE

INT. UNHOLY SHRINE TO FALSE IDOLS OF MATERIALISM, AKA THE MALL

CASSI and ANNOYING FUCKING DORK KID decide to catch some GOSH-DARN AW-SHUCKS MALL-BREAKDANCING when suddenly RAPTURE!!!

MALL SHOPPER

Oh my God, a whole bunch of people instantly vanished! Should we go into shock? Look for them? Run for our lives?!?

(quarter-second pause)

FUCK THAT EVERYBODY START LOOTING!!!

RUNNING GUY

HOLY SHIT MY NEW 48" TELEVISION GOT RAPTURED, NOW I'M RUNNING AROUND WITH AN EMPTY BOX ON MY SHOULDER!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUCK

HOUSEWIVES

WE MUST PLAY FRENZIED TUG-OF-WAR WITH THIS RATHER UNREMARKABLE LOOTED ITEM!!! LET GO OF MY POST-APOCALYPTIC CHEAPO PURSE YOU FILTHY HARLOT!!!!

CARS CRASH! PLANES CRASH! A SCHOOL BUS gently rolls off a BRIDGE!!

CASSI THOMSON

I have to find my stupid annoying brother-like-thing! Perhaps he teleported into a hospital!

EXT. HOSPITAL

CASSI arrives to face a HUGE SWARMING CROWD clogging the entrance!

CASSI THOMSON

Oh no! Well I can just go round to a side door, smash the glass, crawl slooooowwwwwlllly through it... and reach the lobby full of THE EXACT SAME SWARMING CROWD GODDAMMIT

CASSI decides to look for her preteen brother in the NATAL WARD for some reason. But it's EMPTY!

RANDOM HOSPITAL PATIENT

(dramatically sweeping back curtain)

Yes, it is I, Random Hospital Patient!! According to the rule of "tell, don't show", I'm here to explain what you're looking directly at! Which is that all the babies vanished. Children too.

CASSI THOMSON

ALL the children? Man, I guess it REALLY sucks to be the kid who had his bar mitzvah YESTERDAY.

INT. LOST-SOUL PLANE

On the plane, people have also vanished! CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY decides to use his INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM POWERS!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Nic, I've thoroughly questioned everyone, and thanks to my ruggedly handsome technique, I have established that while some people vanished, others... did not vanish. You're welcome.

NICOLAS CAGE

Damn, I should head back to JFK, but I can't reach anyone on the ground. I'll just improvise a return course, what's the odds of anything going wrong with that?

NICKY WHELAN

Probably better than "you will instantly find yourself on a head-on collision course with another plane", but, well...

(points at other plane heading directly at them)

NICOLAS CAGE

Don't worry, there's still lots of time for us to avoid a collision. So let's wait until there's almost no time. That's more like it. HANG ON!!!

NIC grabs the controls! BANK, PLANE, BAAAANK!! STRAIN, NIC, STRAAAIIINN!!!! They GRAZE the other plane with their WING!!

NICOLAS CAGE

Damn, now we have to somehow fly aaalllll the way back to JFK with a bad wing AND losing fuel!

NICKY WHELAN

But any flight from New York to London would go over the Canadian Maritimes. Why not land there, which would be much closer and something an actual pilot might try?

NICOLAS CAGE

Because, er, all of Canada vanished too! Including the landmass itself!

(thinks)

But wait, why would a whole country of polite, honest, upright, noble, do-the-little-things-to-help-the-hockey-team-win people suddenly...

(realizing)

Oh crap! Quick, empty everyone's wallet! Throw their shit everywhere! Dump everyone's purse contents onto the control panels! Hurry and clutter the cockpit as much as possible!!!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Oh no, this missing guy had Bible Study! And this missing person wore a cross! And THIS missing person was burning coloured paper in a secret flue to announce the new Pope! They were all devout Christians!

(pause)

Also, my investigative skills suck.

NICOLAS CAGE

So this... was the Rapture. Well, no time to digest that, gotta save the plane!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Er, how long is that gonna take? We still have to get to all the stuff with the United Nations and the Antichrist Secretary General and...

NICOLAS CAGE

Actually we cut all that out. Since there's only 16 books in the series to build our franchise with, we're going full Hobbit and making the first third of one book into a whole movie, while padding it out with a paint-by-numbers airplane-in-distress story that was tired and old when "Airplane!" satirized it in 1980.

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

So we kept the Rapture but took out every other trace of the whole Biblical-End-Times story? Are we leaving in any kind of religious or moral message?

NICOLAS CAGE

Not really. Oh sure there's the standard Dad-reconciles-with-family-member from every disaster movie. But this could just as easily be a disaster caused by an EMP or germ warfare and the whole movie would play out exactly the same way.

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

So I guess you could say the whole point of this stupid mess has been... LEFT BEHI-

NICOLAS CAGE

Please don't.

EXT. NEW YORK, AKA THE BIG APPLE WOAAAHHHHHHHHH

CASSI returns home to find LEA has been mercifully delivered from having to do any more scenes in this crapfest! She grabs the nearest BIBLE and throws it through a WINDOW since destroying windows is, apparently, her primary coping mechanism. Then she goes to her local CHURCH and finds the PRIEST still there!

PRIEST

Yup, apparently it doesn't mean shit if you spend your life doing good, you just have to "believe" in exactly, precisely the right way. Fuck you, Buddhists!

CASSI THOMSON

There's not any vaguely sane branch of Christianity that would agree with that. Who the hell is this movie even made for?

ORIGINAL AUTHORS TIM LAHAYE AND JERRY B. JENKINS

Hey everyone! Don't forget to book us for your post-screening Q&A and book-signing event! Who wants T-shirts, we got T-shirts!! Seriously though, we have SO MANY T-shirts.

INT. PLANE - PASSENGER SECTION

JORDIN SPARKS

I just realized, nobody will have the patience to sit through the end credits to hear my sappy, bland, craptastic ballad! If I'm gonna have any impact I've got to have a big freakout scene!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Okay, whenever you're ready.

JORDIN SPARKS

Huh? No, I already started! I'm freaking out right now!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Oh, whoops. Um, try to stay calm. Just give me the gun. It'll be

(phone beeps)

Cool, I got bars!

(leaves)

JORDIN SPARKS

...Way to leave me hanging, Chad.

(pause)

Heh heh, "hanging--

(swarmed by locusts)

EXT. NEW YORK - SUSPENSION BRIDGE

Thinking that her whole family and love-of-her-life CHAD are all dead, CASSI prepares to jump!

CASSI THOMSON

Though if the Rapture is real, suicide is probably the WORST fucking thing I could do right now...

But her PHONE rings and it's CHAD!

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

(on phone)

Cassi, it's me! Quick tell me, are you okay? And I have to know, how the fuck is it dawn where YOU are, but East of you, where WE are, it's still pitch dark?

NICOLAS CAGE

(grabs phone)

Cassi, listen! We have no fuel and no wing and no landing flaps and no descenders and no fuselage and no cabin and no hydraulics and no instruments and no gauges and no radar and no overhead bins and no drink cart but if I can just find a flat strip of land, everything will be OK, got it?!?

CASSI THOMSON

Got it!

CASSI leaves the BRIDGE and runs FAST FAST FAST! She finds a MOTORCYCLE and rides it FAST FAST FAST! She finds a TRUCK and drives it FAST FAST FAST! She gets to a long stretch of highway that is CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION but is also perfectly paved and smooth for its entire distance!!

CASSI THOMSON

Now to drive through smashing all these silly wood barricades! There, that truck-sized hole will easily accommodate a commercial passenger jet.

INT. PLANE - COCKPIT

NICOLAS CAGE

This is it guys! Damn, I never should have left my daughter, or cheated on my wife! I see I was wrong now, and repent! Everybody pray!

NICKY WHELAN

Um, Nic, in case the Rapture isn't QUITE over, maybe save the repenting until AFTER you land the plane and save us?

To help NIC find the highway, CASSI explodes A STACK OF PROPANE TANKS!! NIC manages to land while knocking over and exploding ANOTHER STACK OF PROPANE TANKS!!! Finally the plane skids to a halt INCHES away from YET STILL ANOTHER STACK OF PROPANE TANKS that have been left lying around by the ACME CONSTRUCTION COMPANY.

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY

Phew! You saved us Cassi! Oh, you too, Nic.

CASSI THOMSON

(undramatically)

THIS... is only the beginning. We still have 47 movies to go!

NICOLAS CAGE

Yeah right, like I'd agree to do any more of this garbage.

(signs contract for GHOST RIDER VS. DRIVE ANGRY: REQUIEM)

NICKY WHELAN

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE, the director has activated the "closing shot" sign. Please uplift and lock your gaze while assuming final-tableau positions!

Everyone strikes a DRAMATIC POSE in front of the burning airplane full of jet fuel beside the propane tanks.

END