Stories by @michaelcosby

HBO's Bruce Wayne: Pilot

Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham, haunted by his parents' murder. Reuniting with his loyal butler Alfred, he uncovers corruption within his family's own company, WayneCorp. Aided by honest cop Jim Gordon and childhood friend Lucius Fox, Bruce narrowly survives assassination attempts orchestrated by the company's charming, ruthless chairman, Charles Palantine. Surrounded by new allies and romantic possibilities, Bruce chooses to stay in Gotham on his birthday, taking control of his destiny and setting the stage for a war against the darkness consuming his city.

View Askew's Preacher

A hard-drinking Texas preacher named Jesse Custer, possessed by a cosmic entity called Genesis that gives him the power to command anyone with his voice, hits the road with his ex-girlfriend Tulip and a degenerate Irish vampire named Cassidy to find the God who abandoned Heaven. Hunted by the Saint of Killers—an immortal, unstoppable gunfighter unleashed by terrified angels—Jesse must confront the monstrous family that murdered his father and forced him into the pulpit, culminating in a bloody showdown in the burning ruins of Annville where he finally breaks free of his past and demands answers from the divine.

David Hayter's Watchmen

In an alternate 2005, retired vigilantes investigate the murder of a government hitman, uncovering a conspiracy to unite warring nations—by slaughtering millions.

Zack Snyder's Rainbow Six

After thwarting a mid-air terrorist attack, veteran CIA operative John Clark is recruited to lead Rainbow Six, an elite international counterterrorism team granted preemptive strike capability. Clark assembles a multilingual unit of specialists and pursues ex-KGB agent Dmitriy Popov across Europe, uncovering a shadowy conspiracy targeting pharmaceutical companies. The trail leads to billionaire eco-fascist David Brightling, whose genetic research lab has engineered a lethal aging virus designed to cull humanity and "give Mother Nature a fighting chance." When Brightling's security plots to distribute the virus via cash at the Kentucky Derby, Clark and his team must infiltrate the event and stop the payout before 170,000 spectators become vectors for global annihilation—while Clark's kidnapped wife Sandy fights to escape Brightling's sealed compound.

Jason Reitman's Justice League of America

Batman's secret surveillance system is weaponized against the Justice League, exploiting their hidden weaknesses. As heroes fall, the trail leads to Maxwell Lord, a charismatic CEO with a tragic past who unleashes a global army of transforming humans. When Lord seizes control of Superman's mind, Wonder Woman faces an impossible moral choice. The Flash makes a devastating sacrifice to stop the apocalypse, forcing a shattered League to reckon with Batman's betrayal and decide if broken trust can ever be rebuilt.

Neil Blomkamp's Halo

In 2552, humanity is losing a genocidal war against the alien Covenant. The super-soldier Master Chief escapes a doomed battle-cruiser with the AI Cortana, crash-landing on a mysterious ring-world called Halo. While rallying surviving Marines, they discover Halo is an ancient weapon designed to sterilize all sentient life to contain the parasitic Flood. After rescuing Captain Keyes from Covenant torture, Chief learns the Covenant mistakenly worship Halo as holy. Fighting through Flood-infected corridors and Forerunner defenses, Chief activates Halo's self-destruct instead of its weapon, destroying the ring and the Flood with it. He escapes with Cortana, the only survivors.

Sam Raimi's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

In 9th-century Persia, Prince Dastan is framed for his father's murder by Grand Vizier Nizam, who covets a sacred dagger that can rewind time. Fleeing with Tamina, the dagger's priestess guardian, Dastan discovers Nizam's plan to unleash the Sands of Time and rewrite sixty years of history to seize the throne. As Dastan and Tamina fight across deserts, gypsy caravans, and the besieged citadel of Alamut, their enmity becomes an alliance, then a love worth dying for. In a triple-rewind climax beneath the hourglass that holds all of mankind's time, Dastan must sacrifice everything—including himself—to undo the invasion, save Tamina's kingdom, and earn a future neither of them can remember.

Adam McKay's The Boys

In a world where superheroes are corporate-manufactured celebrities, Hughie Campbell's life shatters when the careless speedster A-Train kills his girlfriend. Recruited by the ruthless Billy Butcher, Hughie joins The Boys—a black-ops crew of damaged misfits waging covert war against corrupt supes. Their target: The Seven, the world's most powerful hero team, led by the chillingly empty Homelander. As Hughie falls for Starlight, a disillusioned Seven newcomer, The Boys uncover Vought-American's plan to stage a superhero massacre and seize control of the White House. Armed with a weapon that makes unstable Compound V literally blow up in their enemies' veins, The Boys storm the Seven's floating fortress for a final, bloody reckoning—one that will expose the truth behind the capes or kill them all trying.

Justin Lin's Oldboy

A man imprisoned for twenty years in a private cell with only a television for company is suddenly released and hunts for his captor, uncovering a trail of high school secrets, a decades-old suicide, and an incestuous sibling relationship destroyed by his own careless teenage rumor—only to discover his young lover is the daughter he hasn't seen since infancy, and that the architect of his suffering has designed every step of his revenge to make him feel the same forbidden love and loss he once inflicted.

Julien Temple's Speed Racer

In a dystopian 21st century, Speed Kayton joins the corporate-owned racing circuit to uncover the truth behind his brother Rex's fiery crash. Aided by fierce liaison Trixie and loyal mechanic Sparky, Speed discovers Rex faked his death and now races as the masked vigilante Racer X, fighting to expose Nucleus Corporation's secret prison city. As chrome-eyed agent Bob Killinger hunts them both, Speed must finish the Tokyo-to-Taipei sprint to help his brother bring down the corporation—while their grieving father Pops learns to let his surviving son race.

Stephen Chow's Dragonball Z

On his 18th birthday, outcast high schooler Goku discovers his grandfather's brutal murder and learns he is the last protector of the mystical Dragonballs. Teaming with genius Bulma and desert bandit Yamcha, he seeks Master Roshi to stop the alien Namek lord Piccolo's resurrection before the eclipse. As Goku trains to unlock his hidden power, he uncovers a devastating truth: he is not human, but a Saiyan sleeper agent sent to destroy Earth. Now Goku must master the balance of time and choose his own destiny—savior or destroyer—before Piccolo rises and the world ends.

Josh Boone's The Stand - Part 1

In a world decimated by "Captain Trips," a super-flu that kills 99% of the population, the few survivors are haunted by prophetic dreams. They are called west by Mother Abagail, a 108-year-old woman who represents the remaining light, and east by Randall Flagg, a grinning, darkly charismatic figure who embodies pure, chaotic evil. As the survivors—including Texas everyman Stu Redman, pregnant young Frannie Goldsmith, struggling musician Larry Underwood, deaf-mute drifter Nick Andros, and gentle giant Tom Cullen—journey across a corpse-choked America, they must choose a side. The film follows their harrowing paths through plague, tornadoes, and madness, culminating in their gathering in Nebraska. As Flagg amasses his followers in Las Vegas, the stage is set for a final confrontation between good and evil, ending on a cliffhanger as the dark man's red eye opens and Trashcan Man whispers, "My life for you."

Akira: Part 1

The story is re-centered in New York: after the destructive Akira incident destroys Manhattan, the US economy nearly collapses. Out of desperation, the government leases the now-vacant land to Japan, which has become an economic powerhouse and is struggling with overpopulation; this city of Japanese citizens built on formerly American land becomes New Tokyo.

John Carpenter's Fallout

Vault 13 is a retro-futuristic bunker where survivors of a 50-year-old nuclear war live in a simulated 1950s suburbia. When the vault's water chip fails, a restless dreamer leads a scout team to the surface: a quirky tech, a stern officer and an arrogant scholar. The wasteland is a hellscape of rubble and mutants. The tech dies in a raider trap, and the team is captured by Max, a survivalist who offers a water chip in exchange for Vault 13's mythical G.E.C.K. At the Hub, a crime lord and a historian reveal the vaults were a corporate doomsday scheme. The scholar betrays the group to The Master, a mutant zealot creating a sterile super-race. As the team escapes, the Overseer locks them out, revealed as the war's architect. Mutants siege Vault 13; the hero's father dies opening the door. The hero crushes the mutated scholar, kills the Master, and mercy-kills an infected Max. Leading survivors into the wastes, he activates the G.E.C.K., creating a fragile Eden with the officer at his side. War never changes—but people do.

F. Gary Gray's Kane & Lynch

Convicted traitor and death row inmate Marcus Kane is being transported to San Quentin when his prison bus is violently ambushed by a black armored truck. He wakes up in a mysterious interrogation room face-to-face with his former best friend and betrayer, Sean Cosgrove, who Kane believed was dead. Cosgrove reveals that he now leads a covert mercenary team called "The Seven" and has kidnapped Kane's wife Megan and teenage daughter Eliza, locking them in an air-tight cell with only 96 hours of oxygen. To save them, Kane must retrieve a stolen microchip known as "The Skeleton Key"—a device containing nuclear launch codes—and deliver it to Cosgrove. To do so, he is forced to partner with Lester Lynch, a schizophrenic former government asset and accused murderer who suffers from violent psychotic episodes and hears voices commanding him to kill. Kane and Lynch embark on a brutal, globe-spanning mission from Tokyo's Yakuza underworld to the frozen coast of Alaska, forming a fragile and reluctant alliance. In Tokyo, with help from a grizzled CIA contact named Higgins, they infiltrate the fortress-like tower of Japanese kingpin Retomoto, retrieve the microchip, and escape in a helicopter as the building explodes behind them. But when Kane delivers the chip to Cosgrove, the villain double-crosses him, murders Megan mid-phone call, and takes Lynch hostage. Kane survives a point-blank shooting, rescues Eliza, and teams up with an eccentric, foul-mouthed CIA agent named Carmikael—whose kneecap Kane once shot out—to track Cosgrove to an Alaskan cargo dock. In a bloody, explosive showdown on a burning barge and collapsing ice, Kane and Lynch finally kill Cosgrove and destroy the microchip. Lynch disappears into the wilderness, finally at peace with his demons, while Kane surrenders to the FBI, now reconciled with his daughter Eliza, who visits him in prison and begins to call him "Dad."

Tony Scott's Grand Theft Auto

The film centers on a young ex-convict forced to be brought back to action as he sees his repo yard facing foreclosure. Things quickly go south as his uncle’s cocaine business is dismantled, with all the drugs stolen and the fault landing on his lap. Amidst all the chaos, the young con kidnaps the daughter of a yakuza boss and intends to make his way to Las Vegas to recover the lost merchandise, stealing one car at a time.

David O. Russell's Uncharted

It follows Nathan Drake, the supposed descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he searches for the lost treasure of El Dorado with journalist Elena Fisher and mentor Victor Sullivan.

Sam Raimi's Batman: Echoes

Batman has mysteriously disappeared after Dent's death, leading Gotham citizens to take to the streets to fight in his place, including Barbara Gordon, who becomes Batgirl. Scarecrow and Harley Quinn are featured as the main antagonists.

Sam Raimi's Batman: Shadows

Gotham becomes torn in two as citizens dressed as Batman and The Joker duke it out in the streets. As D.A. Harvey Dent tries to keep the city together, he targets the one problem tearing it apart: Batman! But what happens next has dark ramifications for not just the Dark Knight, but Harvey Dent himself. Bruce Wayne embarks on a crusade to better Gotham as both himself and the Batman, but a young new hero on the scene stands in his way, claiming his mission is shortsighted. Meanwhile, Harvey Dent starts down a path leading to nothing but ruin. The fate of Gotham hangs in the balance as these two sides of the same coin do battle. But when the coin finally flips, on which side will it fall?

Doug Liman's Splinter Cell

A “Splinter Cell” is a warrior who has been handpicked from the best American Special Forces units operating. He is then stripped of his identity, rank and official affiliation with the United States government before being redeployed as a ghost; the most dangerous one-man army the West has to offer. A Splinter Cell does not operate under official orders, nor does he go into areas of operation where the United States already has a military presence. The Splinter Cell goes into the places where we cannot legally be; the places where, if caught, he could ignite international war. The Splinter Cell is a disavowable operator. He does not—at least not officially—exist.