Hollywood: Blueprint

In early October 1990, Professor Anderson Horowitz stood before a room of graduating students at USC's School of Cinema-Television, reminding them what was expected of their thesis projects.

"Listen up. Anyone who still has credits left, get them done as soon as possible and start thinking seriously about your thesis film. You have less than a school year. In my experience, if you do this well, it can become the best calling card you'll have." His gaze moved across the room, then stopped. "Evan? Evan Rosenberg?"

Evan lifted his head. He had been staring through the room rather than at it.

"Sorry, Professor Horowitz," he said, sincere enough. "I didn't sleep much last night. I was thinking through my thesis project."

Someone behind him laughed.

"Look at that. Our resident superhero must've been out saving the world last night. Barely made it back before sunrise."

The room broke into scattered snickers. Evan's expression did not change. He glanced back once at the broad-shouldered guy who had spoken, then turned his attention to Professor Horowitz again.

"If any of you need help," Horowitz continued, "bring your script or your plan to my office. That's it. Class dismissed, everyone."

As the professor finished, Evan rubbed hard at his forehead and packed his bag. He had spent the whole night thinking about scripts. Even during class, his mind had been sorting through choices.

He had just slung the bag over his shoulder when the same broad-shouldered guy blocked the door with one arm draped around a blonde.

"Mr. Superhero," the guy said, grinning, "Katie tells me you're planning to shoot a feature as your thesis project. Jesus. I hope you can actually raise the money. Maybe I should explain what a feature actually costs."

Evan waited until the guy was done laughing. He looked at him like a tired man watching a bad circus act.

"I can raise the money," Evan said calmly. "Need me to help you scrape some together? You always come up short. And no, I don't just mean the film. Everyone knows you've always liked picking up my leftovers."

He glanced at the blonde and shook his head.

"Sorry, Katie. I don't just mean you. I mean the starting job and the cheerleaders."

Adam Goodman's face flushed. He took two steps forward, fists tightening, then thought better of it and stopped.

"Listen, superhero," Adam snapped. "My father already set aside the money for my film. Katie's going to star in my thesis project.

"You want to know the difference between us? After graduation, I'll walk straight onto a real set as an AD trainee. You? You'll spend the rest of your life doing grunt work on tiny crews until you finally quit."

The more Adam talked, the more worked up he became. Evan simply pushed past him and walked out. He had no interest in wasting time on a debate over the value of having a rich father.

Time had always felt scarce to him.

He had been living this second life for twenty years, and every minute of it had gone into learning everything he could about film production. Whatever had brought him here had left him with a near-perfect memory. Add to that the discipline he had carried over from another life, and Evan had absorbed what he needed at a terrifying pace.

Born in 1970, he had started making study plans as soon as he entered elementary school at five. He followed them with a child's body and an adult's patience. At seventeen, he entered USC's School of Cinema-Television with excellent grades and completed his required credits by junior year.

The plan he had spent twenty years preparing was about to take its first real step: directing a feature film of his own.

That was why he had not slept. He had thought the script was settled. Now that the moment was close, hesitation had crept in.

In the parking lot, Evan climbed into a black Ford F-150 and headed back to the apartment he rented near campus. The truck had been his father's college gift. Reuben Rosenberg believed a man ought to drive something with weight to it.

The apartment was only a five-minute drive from USC, close enough to make classes easy. Even after finishing his credits early, Evan still sat in on courses from other departments whenever they had anything to do with film or television production.

He parked downstairs, took out his keys, and unlocked the apartment on the left side of the fourth-floor hallway. He needed to settle the plan and get the script written as soon as possible. He was just about to close the door when the door across the hall opened.

A tall blonde woman stepped out in pajamas, carrying an overstuffed bag of trash.

"Hey. Back this early? No class?"

Evan paused with one hand on the door and took a closer look at her.

"I'm close to graduating," he said. "I've got work to do. Bye."

He had been withdrawn since childhood: isolated, quiet, not especially interested in people. The reason was simple. He carried too many secrets. Early on, he had been afraid of saying something that would make no sense to anyone else. After enough silence, silence had become habit.

And as someone who had lived more than thirty years in another life, he had never had much in common with people his own age. He also understood that the more a person said, the more likely he was to make a mistake. The blonde who had just greeted him was a perfect example. In his previous life, if he had met her, he would have been excited enough to ask for an autograph and a photo.

The studio apartment was not large. The bathroom sat to the left of the entrance, a small balcony faced the door, and the living room and bedroom combined came to a little over five hundred square feet. Most units in the building were rented by nearby students. A few went to people chasing Hollywood dreams. The main advantage was that they were cheap.

Evan dropped onto the sofa and stared at the videotapes scattered across the coffee table.

During freshman year, he had made the football team. By the end of his second practice, the coaches were already looking at him as their starting quarterback. The head coach had looked at him like he had found gold: a strong, agile body, a hard-nosed temperament, excellent athletic instincts, and most important, a brain that could memorize an entire playbook.

But football had never been the goal. He had played quarterback from high school through freshman year, experienced the rush, and quit as a sophomore. The quarterback who replaced him, the backup who had finally taken his spot, was Adam Goodman.

The players and coaches never stopped comparing Adam to Evan, and Adam hated him for it. From sophomore year on, the two of them had been at odds. Eventually they fought in front of half the football team. Evan's boxing settled it decisively, and Adam had never forgotten it.

Provocations like today's had been going on for three years. They always ended the same way. Evan, usually silent, said a few words. Adam lost his temper. Then he remembered he did not want to start another fight.

Katie was a cheerleader. She and Evan had slept together. So had most of the cheerleaders, if he was being honest. Evan liked her body, and Katie liked the status of sleeping with one of the most talked-about guys on campus.

In Evan's experience, vanity made people easy to read. Give someone the attention they wanted, and they would often give you what you wanted in return. That kind of attention had followed him through high school and college. It helped loosen a mind that spent too much of its time wound tight.

His stomach growled.

He checked his watch. It was already past lunchtime. He stood, opened the refrigerator, took out two sandwiches he had made that morning, and sat down at the typewriter on the balcony.

He swallowed the sandwiches in a few bites while watching pedestrians move below. Then his fingers struck the keys, and the title of his thesis film appeared on the page.

Happy Death Day.

Tree is murdered on the night of her birthday. When she wakes, she is alive again. At first, she thinks it was only a nightmare. Then the day unfolds exactly as she remembers it. That night, she is murdered again. Then she wakes again.

Is it a gift from heaven or death's idea of a joke? She is killed over and over, returned each time to the morning of her birthday. Wake, die, wake again. Her only way out is to find the mysterious killer. Otherwise, she will remain trapped forever between her birthday and the day she dies.

This had been one of Evan's earliest planned films.

The production cost could be kept extremely low. The time-loop premise was not new. Neither were the familiar themes of love and family. That did not make them useless. Innovation always came with risk, and Hollywood survived on old tools sharpened well.

Those overused Hollywood formulas were exactly what made this lean dark horror-comedy work. The hook was clear. The budget was small. There were only a few major roles. The cast could stay small, but the lead would have to carry the film.

The supporting roles only needed to be sharp enough not to break the illusion. Beyond that, acting was subjective enough that people could argue forever unless the gap was enormous.

In his previous life, this film had already proved itself. It had not succeeded the way The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity did, by leaning on a distributor's clever gimmick. For Evan, the problem was not whether the story could work. The problem was how to execute it from start to finish.

The same story could become two entirely different films in two different directors' hands.

For a full week, Evan worked like a man possessed. When he was hungry, he ordered burgers or pizza. When he was exhausted, he went into the bedroom and collapsed. Sometimes he got halfway through a scene, realized it would cause problems on set, and went back to revise.

After more revisions than he cared to count, he looked at the script in front of him and nodded with satisfaction. This was the most practical version he could write, one that balanced the images in his head against the realities of production.

He stapled the pages together, set them aside, and began writing the project plan he had been preparing for years. He knew no studio would invest in a newcomer like him. This film would have to be independently produced. Even so, he wanted every detail ready before he made a move.

He barely left the apartment that week. Every meal had been burgers, pizza, or sandwiches. By the time he woke up each morning, he could smell himself.

Shaking his head, Evan went into the bathroom and scrubbed himself clean. Then he picked up a razor and studied his exhausted reflection in the mirror.

He stood about six foot one and weighed just under one hundred seventy-five pounds, with lean, strong muscle, close-cropped ash-blond hair, and a hard, angular face. Nothing about him matched the soft, polished image people tended to expect from a Southern California film student. His silence only sharpened the rough, self-contained impression he gave people.

The luckiest thing about this life, he had to admit, was his face. For a man as quiet as he was, looks did more social work than charm ever could. He had never lacked for attention.

Once he was clean, he put on a fresh suit, picked up the folder, and drove straight to Professor Horowitz's office.

Evan knocked twice before pushing the door open. Professor Horowitz took the folder and pointed to the sofa opposite him. Evan had been there often enough that he took a cup, poured himself coffee, and sat down to wait.

Horowitz did not open the folder right away. After a sip of cold coffee, he moved to sit beside him.

"I haven't seen you all week," the professor said. "That surprised me. Did you go back to the ranch to visit your parents?"

The greeting came easily. Horowitz was Jewish as well, a point of familiarity between them. More important, he had respected Evan's discipline since his first semester at USC.

Evan shook his head.

"No. I stayed in my apartment all week. Barely went out. I've been working on the thesis film plan. Professor, you know how long I've been preparing for this."

Horowitz studied him. He had seen Evan's discipline up close for years. It was one of the reasons he was willing to help where he could.

"I know," Horowitz said. He nodded toward the folder on the coffee table. "This is it?"

"Yes. I brought it because I was hoping you'd look it over. I've been building this plan for a long time."

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