Doing Time in a Bottle

Sam Winchester’s a daring archaeologist in 1904 Morocco whose gruff manner crushes the feelings of young Elizabeth. When she finds a bottle and releases the Genie inside, she’s granted one wish. The Genie, not anxious to return to the bottle, suggests that Sam be punished for breaking her heart. In the heat of the moment, Elizabeth makes the wish, and Sam is imprisoned in the bottle, while the Genie is free to pursue his lifelong desires: food, fun, and women. Sam can only be freed from his sentence when he grants one person a wish that brings true happiness. Over the next 100 years, the bottle is uncorked a handful of times. Each time, the wisher thoughtlessly wishes for something that doesn’t bring true happiness, and Sam is sent back to his prison.

Finally, modern day archaeologist Lisa Bradshaw finds the bottle. Through a stroke of luck, Lisa doesn’t witnesses Sam emerge from the bottle, giving him an opportunity to get out of his genie attire and pass himself off as a regular guy. One of Sam’s biggest challenges is adapting to the high-tech world of the twenty-first century so Lisa doesn’t think he’s a lunatic asylum escapee. The scheming Genie will do anything to get Lisa to make a thoughtless wish, thus sending Sam back to his prison. Sam is desperate to find out what would make Lisa truly happy and in the process, falls in love. Lisa thinks they’re both crazy until she discovers the truth, but just as Sam’s time runs out and she must make the one wish that could free Sam, an earthquake traps a member of the dig and Lisa wishes for him to be saved from certain doom.

Though Lisa’s wish is noble, it doesn’t bring her true happiness. Sam goes back to the bottle but this time the Genie gives him the answer to his question: love is the only path to true happiness -- the one wish Sam has no power to grant. Since the Genie has been free for 100 years, he’s released from the curse that imprisoned him in the bottle over 2000 years ago, when he, too, was a mortal man. In the clue that Genie leaves him, Sam discovers one more chance at freedom might be possible, if Lisa truly loves him and is willing to perform a courageous deed to prove it. Sam negotiates a deal with a fortune teller who finds the bottle to take him back to Morocco. Once there, Lisa declares her love for Sam, but Sam must risk his life and Lisa must overcome her fear to save him before he can be freed from the bottle forever.