Leslie Miller and David Johnson are a producer/director team who've been working along the lowest rungs of the low-budget film industry for longer than they care to recall. Hoping to move up in the world, Leslie and David decide to start pitching a glossier project around town, and they score a deal with a major studio to make a mid-budget science fiction-thriller. However, Leslie and David soon find themselves clashing with the head of the studio, and when the financing is pulled from their project, they're left trying to finish it on a budget even they find impossible.