Script File

The Dead Chip Syndicate

Offered the chance to run his twin brother's A.I. company, Anthony Wilson ditches his failing screenwriting career to start anew in Macau. The job turns highly lucrative when Anthony's new client, Cash Cheang, a pompadour-topped and Johnny Cash-loving casino operator, hands him a bag full of cold hard Yuan to implement a facial recognition system in his casino.

Hearing about Anthony's past life as a screenwriter, Cash offers him another job -- ghostwriting a biography about the casino mogul's life rising from the mean streets of Macau to becoming one of the city's most notorious and successful businessmen. Anthony accepts the job while also agreeing to help Cash sell his latest scheme, a cryptocoin aimed at raising funds for a floating casino in Macau.

As Anthony learns more about Cash's life, he realizes the biography is filled with dangerous secrets about the Chinese elite, secrets these powerful people would rather see buried for good. "You always cheat the ones closest to you," warns an ancient Chinese proverb. Words that ring true as Anthony enters a playground more surreal and depraved than decadent Hollywood. More deadly too as Anthony soon discovers he's the dupe in a huge Chinese money-laundering scheme that might be orchestrated by his treacherous twin.

  • Andrew W. Pearson
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Genres:
    Drama, thriller, family, international
  • Number of Pages:
    120
  • Country of Origin:
    Macao
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Miami International Screenplay Awards
    Miami
    December 16, 2021
    Quarterfinalist
  • The First-Time Screenwriters Showcase
    London
    April 15, 2022
    Selected
  • TSL Free Screenplay Contest
    Los Angeles
    April 15, 2022
    Quarterfinalist
  • Amsterdam Lift-Off Film Festival
    Amsterdam
    October 3, 2022
    Selected
  • World Film Carnival - Singapore
    Singapore
    November 16, 2022
    Award Winner
  • Los Angeles Screenplay Competition
    Los Angeles
    December 14, 2022
    Quarterfinalist
  • Stafford Film Festival
    London
    January 5, 2023
    Finalist
  • ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition
    Los Angeles
    January 11, 2023
    Quarterfinalist
  • Beverly Hills Film Festival
    Beverly Hills
    April 19, 2023
    Selected
  • Indian Independent Film Festival
    Kolkata, West Bengal
    February 21, 2023
    Best Feature Screenplay
  • Barcelona Indie Awards
    Barcelona
    March 11, 2023
    Selected
  • Fox International Film Festival
    Rome
    February 26, 2023
    Selected - Best Adapted Screenplay
  • Red Movie Awards
    Reims, France
    December 25, 2023
    Selected
  • The Gladiator Film Festival
    İstanbul, Turkey
    March 17, 2023
    Best Screenplay
  • Snow Leopard International Film Festival
    Madrid, Spain
    April 5, 2023
    Best Adapted Screenplay
  • 8 & Halfilm Awards
    Rome
    March 7, 2023
    Best Thriller script
  • Golden Wheat Awards
    Istanbul, Turkey
    March 2, 2023
    Best screenplay
Writer Biography - Andrew W. Pearson

ANDREW PEARSON was born in Pakistan, grew in Singapore, and was educated at boarding schools in both England and America. With a degree in psychology from UCLA, Pearson has had a varied career in IT, marketing, mobile technology, social media, esports, and entertainment.

In 2011, Pearson relocated to Hong Kong to open Qualex Asia Limited, bringing its parent company's experience into the ASEAN region. In 2016, Pearson started Intelligencia Limited, a leading implementer of AI, analytics, BI, CX, data integration, digital marketing, social media and cloud solutions for the gaming, casino, finance, hospitality, sports betting and retail industries. Pearson is currently working on projects in countries such as India, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Mexico, the Philippines and Australia. Pearson has also leveraged Intelligencia's expertise to implement software solutions from such vendors as Alicloud, Alteryx, Datameer, DOMO, SAS, HDS, Qlik, Pegasystems, Tableau, and TIBCO at some of the world's biggest casino operators, lottery companies, gaming companies, and sports books.

While working in Hollywood, Pearson optioned and adapted the novels Open Water, The Sunday Macaroni Club, The Jukebox Queen of Malta, and Scavenger Reef, attaching such talented directors as Kevin Hooks, Fraser Heston, Mark Lester, Diane Ladd, and Jorge Ramirez-Suarez to his projects. Pearson's script for The Sunday Macaroni Club was a Quarter-Finalist in the 2004 Zoetrope Screenwriting Competition and The Flirting Game was selected as a Finalist in the Fourth Screenplay Search Competition.

In 2009, two books that Mr. Pearson edited appeared in print; the first in the Double Down on your Data series, Clive Pearson's How Analytics is Revolutionizing the Casino Industry and Santiago Maggi's Investment Strategies for Uncertain Markets, a book about the financial markets that presciently predicted the 2007 global financial meltdown.

In 2010, Pearson also wrote The Mobile Revolution and it was published by Qualex Publishing. In 2013, Pearson was invited to write a chapter in Global Mobile: Applications and Innovations for the Worldwide Mobile Ecosystem, a book on mobile technology. The book, which was co-authored by several of the mobile industry's leading figures, was published in July 2013.

In 2017, Pearson published The Predictive Casino, a book about how analytics should be used in the casino industry. This was followed by other books in the Predictive series, The Predictive Sports Book, The Predictive Retailer, The Predictive Airliner, with others soon to follow. Pearson has also written a series of books detailing how AI can be used in various industries. The books include The A.I. Sports Book, The A.I. Hotelier, The A.I. Retailer, The A.I. Casino, The A.I. Cruise Line, and a general book on A.I. in advertising called The A.I. Marketer.

Pearson is also a noted columnist, writing on topics such as analytics, mobile media, social media, and cloud technology for such publications as The Journal of Mobile and Social Media Marketing, The Journal of Applied Marketing Analytics, ComputerWorld HK, and The Mobile Marketer. Pearson is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Mobile and Social Media Marketing, as well as the president of the Advanced Analytics Association of Macau.

Pearson is also a VP of the Macau Grow uP eSports Association in Macau and has been part of the producing team that created the award-winning Girl Gamer Festival in both Macau, Lisbon, and Dubai. Pearson sees esports as a way to reach the coveted Millenial demographic, especially in China.

An avid traveler, Pearson is a sought-after speaker, lecturing on such disparate topics as AI + ML, casino and mobile marketing, data analytics, social media and interactivity. If he's not pounding the pavements of Hollywood, he's probably meandering through the labyrinthine streets of Hong Kong's Lang Kwai Fong, or tearing up useless betting slips at Happy Valley (perhaps the most perfectly named racecourse in the world (for some)), or dining at a hawker center in Singapore, or wandering through tall safari grasses in South Africa, or grabbing some lechon at a bustling outdoor food market in Manila, or doubling down at the gaming tables in Macau. Basically, Pearson's trying to find the next great story that the world doesn't yet know that it desperately wants to see...

Add Writer Biography
Writer Statement

This script is based on my novel of the same name, a book that is the first in the Exotics trilogy that follows an ex-pat through the shady casino and sports betting world of China and S.E. Asia.