Synopsis/Details
In 2028, a national public-health panic leads America to criminalize sugar for minors. Possession becomes a misdemeanor. Selling it carries mandatory juvenile detention. Overnight, high schools turn into the front line of a booming underground economy. Lockers become stash houses. Hall monitors become surveillance. Candy bars move like narcotics.
Owen Rourke is seventeen, restless, and broke. His mother works doubles at the hospital so he can afford the tests that might get him into a good college. He has spent years inventing systems, ideas, and plans no one at school ever cared about. Then he watches a sophomore group chat argue over candy futures and realizes the purest free market in the building is being run by fourteen-year-olds.
He approaches John Franks, the quiet kid who somehow runs everything without seeming to move. John tests him. Owen passes. Within days he is designing pricing tiers, gold-star inventory systems, and supply routes. Victor Voss, the charismatic architect of the school’s candy cartel, takes notice. Owen is frighteningly good at this.
His best friend Marcus refuses to join. Marcus’s sister spent eleven days in the hospital because her body cannot process sugar the way other kids’ bodies can. He will not make money off kids doing more of it faster. The friendship frays as Owen rises.
Ryan gets trapped by debt. John’s loyalty to Victor collides with his need to protect his best friend Tony. Guidance counselor Mr. Parker starts noticing patterns that no longer look random. The operation grows too fast. A sweep hits the east wing. Shortages appear. Violence follows. Someone ends up in the hospital. Someone else ends up on the ground in an abandoned parking lot.
By the end of the pilot, Owen has helped Parker connect the evidence that brings Victor’s local network down. The immediate school operation is finished. The larger question remains: if the ban created this world in one school, what is happening in every other school in the country?
SugarLand is designed as a 6–8 episode limited series with room to continue. The pilot is self-contained while opening a clear series engine that can expand to other schools, enforcement costs, medical collateral, and class differences. The tone sits between the dark character comedy of Barry and the teenage energy of Superbad. The production footprint is intentionally contained: reused school interiors, a handful of houses, and a few exterior locations. It should be cheap to make.
The story is about a fundamentally decent kid who discovers he is excellent at something that will cost him everything he cares about, and about the friendships that try to survive that discovery.
Available free on a non-exclusive basis.
Writer retains full rights to produce their own version at any time.
Any other production must give the writer a ‘Written by’ credit.
All rights revert to the writer if the project is not produced within 24 months.
