Script Notes / Possible Spoilers From Vince McMahon Biopic

Notes on the screenplay for the Vince McMahon biopic, “Pandemonium”, have hit the web. Courtesy of PWinsider and 4chan.

Note: These notes are from early versions of the screenplay, before Vince McMahon had any involvement and before WWE Studios joined on as partners. The final script will likely be way different and a lot of the “racier” / more controversial parts will probably be cut out, if I had to guess.

The script begins in 1970 with Vince, already married to Linda (who is working as a waitress in a strip club), frustrated by his door to door job as a salesman. His frustration is increased when he visits his father (Vince Sr., who curses up a storm in every scene as he talks down to his son) who’s WWWF is playing to half-empty buildings. Vince implores to his father that the audience doesn’t care about the wrestling but really wants drama and theatrics. His father doesn’t want to hear it and blows his son off, demanding he doesn’t get involved in wrestling. There is a scene where Vince is exiled to Bangor, Maine to be the local promoter and is blown away after witnessing Led Zeppelin live in the building, realizing the lesson of how important lighting, music, flashy characters and audience engagement are to changing the pro wrestling presentation.

In a scene at the strip club Linda tells Vince she is pregnant (with Shane McMahon) and Vince declares the mother of his child “won’t work in a place like this” and they leave. The manager tries to stop Linda from leaving before the end of her shift and ends up in a fist-fight with Vince, who hiptosses and clotheslines him. The script then makes it very, very clear that Linda is turned on by what Vince has done. There is also a line where Linda says that she and Vince could never be the political type but perhaps their kids will be one day.

Vince is brought in as an announcer after his father gets WWOR TV and doesn’t want to pay his announcer a “national, union” wage, realizing Vince is family and is exempt from union fees. Vince becomes an announcer and eventually negotiates a one million dollar buyout of his father, keeping Gorilla Monsoon on as his number two. Monsoon is a big character in the film, being portrayed as what Pat Patterson was in the real-life version of WWE. In an early draft, Monsoon ends up on the stand during Vince’s steroid trial, playing the role that Hulk Hogan did in real life, as the former McMahon confidante, now forced into a situation against him. A later draft of the script puts Hogan in that role.

A major change from real-life in all the drafts of the script is the idea that Vince Sr. passed away during the McMahon trial. McMahon Sr. passed away before the first Wrestlemania. In the script Vince and his father have a moment where they make amends before his passing, leading directly into a major scene where McMahon, on the stand in his defense, has a big dramatic monologue about how the government shouldn’t be in the business of blue collar people, telling them what they can and can not do, turning the jury sympathetic to him before he is cleared of all charges.

In a twist, over the course of the trial, Vince’s infidelities are exposed, shocking his family. After he is found not guilty, there is a scene where Vince is in a limo with Linda, Stephanie and Shane and they all rail against him for the terrible person he is — only for all of them to flip the switch on him and tell him that’s the making of their next great heel. Instead of the Montreal Screwjob the “Mr. McMahon character” in this version of the story was inspired by Vince being exposed for being a terrible person over the course of the trial. During the trial, there is a scene where Shane and Stephanie McMahon, still in High School, are bullied over their father’s legal issues, leading to the siblings beating up their bullies in a school hallway, sending them into lockers using wrestling moves and telling their classmates they should try to “Be A Star” and see how it feels.

The Ted Turner rivalry is brought up, including the infamous “I’m in the ‘Rassling Business” phone call that Vince McMahon has recounted over the years, but there’s no Eric Bischoff to be found in the script. Instead, in this version, Jim and David Crockett work for Turner and they go after Hogan for their weekly program.

The film portrays that Vince found Junkyard Dog as a construction worker, Roddy Piper drunk in a jail cell, Jimmy Snuka as a porn actor and transformed them into pro wrestlers. There is a scene where Vince drives Linda to Montreal for their anniversary and throws a fit in a French restaurant because he hated their food, leading to the owner coming out – the owner being Andre the Giant – and that all along, the trip was Vince’s way of scouting this giant he has heard of. The idea is that Vince then brings Andre into the business and trains him to be a wrestler. There is also a scene of Vince stealing Hogan from the AWA, introducing him to steroids and teaching him how to wrestle.

There is a brawl between Randy Savage and Roddy Piper on a plane. There is a scene where Hogan is dealing with steroid use hurting his sex drive and indeed, the size of his genitals. Hogan attempts to film his sexual encounter but can’t figure out how to use the VHS Camcorder he bought. In a later scene, a female wrestler (Stacy Kiebler) propositions Vince backstage, leading to him instead telling Linda (in front of Kiebler) what was suggested — so instead Linda leads Vince into the stands at MSG to do the deed herself with her husband while fans are distracted by WrestleMania 20.

In the screenplay, Linda’s one order to McMahon is that he can do whatever he wants to present his persona and the company to the public – lie all he wants – but between them there can only be truth. As their success builds, the two marvel that pro wrestling could sell out Madison Square Garden (which it had for decades but that is not the story the film wants to tell) and that Wrestlemania brings in millions, leading to a scene where they and Monsoon all sit there slack-jawed in happy shock over how the show did. During the movie Vince gets lost in the success (and the sex and drugs and rock and roll that comes with it) is played up while he realizes how badly he’s hurt Linda when it all comes out.

One version of the script features a scene where Randy Savage and Vince have a conversation about how Savage is popular with young women the same age as Stephanie, leading to Savage telling Vince he would never think of touching her. That is the only time that oft-repeated rumor is mentioned, and you can pretty much guarantee that scene will never see the light of day for all the obvious reasons.

Here is an image from the beginning of the screenplay: