by Rafael Francis
In 2020, the world stood still, but I didn’t. I was in Melbourne, writing what started as a stylish gangster scene and quickly evolved into something far more personal. The script was called Sugar Coated Cocaine, a gritty, emotionally rich crime drama about a reluctant young man pulled into the jaws of a violent New York crime family.
The feature clocked in at nearly three hour, raw, ambitious, and unapologetically intense. Despite being an unproduced screenwriter, the response was immediate: Top 20 on The Crime List out of 800 projects, official selection at the GIL Screenwriting Awards in Spain and Sydney Lift-Off Film Festival, and interest from Clayton Watson (“The Kid” from The Matrix Reloaded). That attention led to meetings with RLC Motion Pictures, headed by Russell Cunningham and Felipe Teplisky. They saw something real in it, but they also knew the runtime and density made it hard to produce as a debut feature.
They offered me a choice: trim the story down under 100 minutes or build it out into a limited series. I chose the latter. I chose depth. Because Killing Donnie, as it would soon be called, isn’t just a crime saga. It’s about manipulation, loyalty, the legacy of abuse, and what happens when trauma rewrites your identity.
Responding to RLC’s feedback, I spent well over three intense months rebuilding the story into six one-hour-long episodes. They optioned the script for a lucrative sum contingent on production, offered me a producer role, and committed to filming in New York. We had Zoom meetings about casting with names like Fabian Frankel and Olivia Rodrigo pop up, scouted alternative locations, and debated logistics. But the team believed in the script so much, they insisted it be shot on location, the grit, the history, the realism of New York was inseparable from the characters.
But six months later, the inevitable happened: the budget would be too high, the funding too elusive, and the option expired. Everyone still believed in the story, just not in the numbers. I went back to work. Rewrote it. Renamed it. And found the true heart of the story.
Killing Donnie isn’t just a crime drama. It’s a story about Johnny, a young man torn between who he is and who the world demands he become. Under the suffocating thumb of Donnie, a manipulative and charismatic crime boss, Johnny is slowly moulded into a weapon. But even Donnie’s influence isn’t the only catalyst. The love of Johnny’s life, Marianne, becomes his only refuge, until her betrayal shatters his last thread of resistance.
Her infidelity doesn’t just break him, it transforms him. In that moment, Johnny finally crosses the line. He becomes what he feared. What he hated. What he swore he’d never be. The tragedy is not that Donnie made him a killer, but that the world around him left him no choice. Even love, the one place Johnny sought shelter, became a tool of destruction.
This is what Killing Donnie is really about: the slow erosion of a man’s soul. A story of innocence corrupted, of broken loyalty, and the psychological toll of surviving in a world that feeds on vulnerability. It’s as much about human fragility as it is about power.
In the years that followed the stalled series, I went on to write several other feature projects, exploring new genres and ideas. But no matter how far I wandered creatively, I couldn’t escape the gravity of this story, it kept pulling me back. Eventually, I adapted it into a two-part novel soon to be published, told from Johnny’s perspective, allowing even deeper insight into his inner world. The book serves as both an expansion and companion to the series, giving creative teams a rich narrative foundation to draw from and reminding me why Killing Donnie could never be left behind.
Over five years, I’ve lived with these characters. Rewritten them. Sharpened them. Workshopped them with producers. I’ve come close to production more than once. And I still believe with everything in me that Killing Donnie is the defining work of my career, my bible, my creature that I thirst to tame, the project I’ll never walk away from.
I’m ready to see it come to life. With the right partner, the right platform, the right belief, it will.
Let’s bring it back.
Let’s finally kill Donnie.
Follow Rafael Francis on Intagram @rafaelfrancis_ and his website, rafael-francis.com
