When a former superheroine’s messy divorce forces her to come out of retirement, move back to her hometown, and team up with a perky super half her age, she’s thrown into a super-sized midlife crisis that makes her reconsider what it really means to be a shero.
Action-comedy SHEROES follows the story of retired superhero Daphne, whose costly divorce from her husband Jeff forces her to put back on the tights of her old crimefighting persona, Shero. But do those tights make her look fat? Fact is, nobody wants a middle-aged woman super. Her only job option is to move back to the last place she wants to be — her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota — and team up with the annoyingly idealistic Gen Z defender of Minneapolis, Smartypants (Hazel in her civvies). Determined to regain her fame, Shero strikes out on her own, beating Smartypants to every crime so she can take the credit. Her recklessness ends in a mess of dead mobsters, injured civilians, and a city-wide blackout, leading Smartypants to dump her as a partner. When Daphne tries to apologize, she finds out from Hazel’s partner, Mackenzie how devastating this all has been for her, because, growing up without a mom, Shero was Hazel’s idol. Daphne does some soul-searching, finally confronting her own mother, Lenore, about how she fucked Daphne up by making her hide her superpowers. Daphne tells Hazel she wants to do better, and Hazel begins teaching her the value of doing good for the sake of others, rather than just herself. Fashion designer Mackenzie makes them new supersuits, and Shero and Smartypants finally start working together. Supervillains looking for a challenge flock to the Twin Cities, raising the duo’s profile even more, until they are forced to face The Man: a pack of bitter but buff male supervillains led by…Jeff?? Yes, Daphne’s ex’s feelings of rejection and grievance have turned him into the rageful and roided-up Manly Man. After destroying Daphne’s house and putting her friends in the hospital, Manly Man tells her not only did he never love her, but she’s unloveable. When Daphne, Hazel, and Mackenzie take refuge at Lenore’s house, Daphne breaks down, telling her mother that she believes it’s true: even her parents never wanted her to be who she was. Lenore reveals that she always loved and was proud of Daphne, but wanted to protect her — because Lenore too, has powers. They destroyed her family growing up, so she felt hiding them was the only way for a woman to be safe. This revelation sparks a plan, and Shero, Smartypants, Lenore and Mackenzie team up to defeat The Man. When this earns Daphne the opportunity she’s been waiting for, to be the super of New York City, she declines: she’s got everything she needs right there in St. Paul.
Betsy is an award-winning Brooklyn-based writer and director. Since receiving her MFA from NYU, she has criss-crossed the country producing and directing documentaries (FLAT DADDY, about the impact of the war in Iraq on four military families from around the U.S., premiered at DOC NYC in 2011), produced and directed for hire on projects ranging from pieces for the Working Families Party and the Code Liberation Foundation, to those animal videos for The Dodo, to video letters for Nickelodeonʼs BLUE'S CLUES. Her editing credits include voter education videos in five languages and fund- and awareness-raising work for Family Equality, Brick Education, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and Swing Left. Her most recent doc, THE HALLOWEEN HOUSE (2021), about how one man's (Tony Award-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire) obsession with scariness brings together his diverse neighborhood, will play at Lincoln Center's Diversity and Inclusion Film Festival in November 2024. Her episodic experience comes from 25+ years miking everyone from Carrie Bradshaw to Elmo as a location sound person on shows that include ELEMENTARY, THE SOPRANOS, THE MARVELOUS MRS MAISEL, and POSE. As a screenwriter, she writes thrillers and comedies with a dark side centered around women who won't take no for an answer. Her one-hour thriller pilot PRICELESS was selected in 2023 for the Stowe Narrative Lab & the Writers Lab NYC, and in 2024 for the Nostos Screenwriting retreats and The Women’s List. Her comedy-thriller screenplay SHE DONE IT was a semi-finalist for the 2024 Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship and was selected for the 2024 Cinestory Feature Retreat.
