James Cameron
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JAMES CAMERON Written by Jon Evans ii. [email protected] FADE IN: INT. KEVIN’S ROOM - DAY KEVIN’s eyes open. He sits up in his bed, looks around his cramped room. He’s thirty but looks older, weary, stressed. INT. KEVIN’S BATHROOM - DAY He brushes his teeth. INT. KEVIN’S KITCHEN - DAY He opens the door to a fridge partitioned into five sections with five names, pours milk on his cereal, sits at a table where his four housemates are eating breakfast. None of them acknowledge the existence of the others. EXT. KEVIN’S HOUSE - DAY He emerges from the kind of dilapidated, multi-roommate San Fernando Valley house where the dreams of one’s twenties slowly die, gets into his Hyundai, and drives off. INT. KEVIN’S OFFICE - DAY Sits in one of a sea of soul-devouring cubicles, dressed in business casual, staring frustrated at his screen. EXT. KEVIN’S OFFICE - DAY Drone workers stream out of an oppressively bland business park to their cars. He is among them. 2. EXT. STRIP MALL - DAY Emerges from his Hyundai, approaches the GAME CAFE. INT. GAME CAFE - DAY An Internet cafe devoted to video games, its walls covered by anime posters. Kevin nods to the owner, proceeds past the obsessive gamers and geeks hammering away at games in the public room, and enters one of the private rooms in back. INT. PRIVATE GAME ROOM - DAY Mostly full of XBoxes. The anime decor here is even more sexual. There’s also a huge poster for a fantasy game called ARTIFACT. RANDY, tall and lean, and TUCKER, morbidly obese, wait within, armed with chips, pretzels, beer, and Coke. RANDY Kevin! My man! TUCKER You ready to kick some ass? KEVIN I guess so. TUCKER You don’t sound ready. KEVIN Yeah. Got a lot on my mind. (beat) I’ve been talking to Lisa. We’re going to try to get back together. RANDY Who? 3. KEVIN Lisa. TUCKER Who’s Lisa? KEVIN ...Right. Very funny. Classy, too. TUCKER No, seriously, who is she? KEVIN Enough, OK? Your opinions are clear. Jeez, I thought you liked her. Tucker and Randy exchange what-the? glances. RANDY Kevin, we really don’t know who... KEVIN Enough. We’re trying to get back together. End of discussion. RANDY ...Well. Good luck with that. KEVIN Thanks so much. An awkward silence broken by - BEAST Gentlemen! He’s compact, Asian, and full of good cheer. RANDY AND TUCKER Beast! 4. BEAST Are you ready to wreak some goddamn havoc? TUCKER Sir, yes sir! BEAST Then let’s get goddamn to it! CUT TO: EXT. VIDEO GAME AFGHANISTAN - DAY A box canyon full of Taliban. We shoot some of them, turn, shoot some more, dive for cover, come up behind the wreckage of an ancient Russian tank, shoot again, and again. Across the way our two buddies are doing the same -- INT. PRIVATE GAME ROOM - NIGHT TUCKER That’s it, hajji! You don’t mess with a Navy SEAL! I know fifty ways to kill you with my bare hands! RANDY And five more with his dick. TUCKER That’s right! Eat dick, hajji! EXT. VIDEO GAME AFGHANISTAN - DAY The Taliban are down. We hustle down the canyon -- -- which opens up to a valley full of a huge Taliban army. 5. INT. PRIVATE GAME ROOM - NIGHT BEAST Whoa. KEVIN ‘I say we nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.’ The other three give him a weird look. TUCKER I don’t think there are any nuclear weapons in this game. KEVIN What are you, Captain Literal? RANDY They’ve got a tank! EXT. VIDEO GAME AFGHANISTAN - DAY An ancient but functional Russian tank rolls towards us. KEVIN On it. He switches weapons. A crosshair overlay alights on the tank. KEVIN (CONT’D) ‘Hasta la vista ... baby.’ He pulls the trigger. The tank explodes. 6. INT. PRIVATE GAME ROOM - NIGHT RANDY Since when do you speak Spanish with a bad German accent? KEVIN Since when do you not speak Terminator? RANDY What? KEVIN Terminator 2? ‘Hasta la vista, baby’? You’ve been sniffing too much exhaust at work. BEAST What’s Terminator 2? KEVIN ...Excuse me? TUCKER You mean the game? No, that’s Exterminator 2. I don’t think there’s any Terminator series. KEVIN Are you high? I mean the movie. RANDY Sorry, never seen it. KEVIN Yes you have! Like, twenty times! The four of us snuck in and saw it at least five times when it first came out. RANDY Uh, no, I don’t remember that at all. Do you guys? 7. Tucker and Beast shake their heads. KEVIN ...This is a really dumb joke. TUCKER You’re the one talking about nukes in Call of Duty, and saying we saw a movie we didn’t. Are you high? KEVIN Tucker, ‘nuke the site from orbit’ is a quote. From Aliens. The movie. As you well know. The other three are nonplussed. BEAST Aliens? RANDY Let me guess. Some arthouse thing. TUCKER Dude, not everyone sees all the weird crap you do. Kevin is genuinely confused. KEVIN Weird? Arthouse? Hello? James Cameron? Directed five of the biggest movies on all time? Appeared as himself in that season of Entourage we saw last week? RANDY No, that was Ridley Scott. 8. KEVIN No, it wasn’t - what is this? You’re three of his biggest fans in the world. What the hell? TUCKER Sorry, no. Never heard of him. KEVIN Oh, for God’s sake. He grabs a nearby keyboard, calls up IMDB.com, types ‘JAMES CAMERON’ into its search box... ‘RESULT: Nothing found.’ Baffled, he types ‘TERMINATOR’, gets the same thing. KEVIN (CONT’D) What the... TUCKER Wow. You like some obscure shit, when even IMDB don’t know it. Kevin gives him a weirded-out look. A little rattled now, he tries ‘THE ABYSS’. Again nothing. ‘TRUE LIES’: nothing. KEVIN This is a stupid joke. He searches Wikipedia. Then Google. No James Cameron. KEVIN (CONT’D) What the hell is this? TUCKER Maybe you got his name wrong. 9. KEVIN Did you hack the wi-fi to filter out the real results, or something? For your pathetic little joke? RANDY Whoa, Kevin, take it down a notch. You’re acting kinda crazy here. KEVIN I’m acting crazy? (beat) Is this about Lisa? Becase our first date was Avatar? TUCKER The Last Airbender? Dude, that was one seriously bad movie! KEVIN No, not... BEAST Who’s Lisa? KEVIN That’s it. Seriously. Fuck all of you. He storms out, leaving them gaping, bewildered. INT. KEVIN’S OFFICE - DAY Kevin sits with a phone up against his ear. KEVIN I’m afraid he said the layout and formatting all need to be completely reworked to meet corporate standards. He listens a moment, and blanches. 10. KEVIN (CONT’D) Oh, wow. I’m really sorry to hear that. This must be a tough time. But someone still has to - He listens a moment again. Winces. KEVIN (CONT’D) Tell you what. Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it up myself. Another moment - KEVIN (CONT’D) You’re welcome. I’ll find the time somewhere. Uh, my condolences. He hangs up, sighs heavily, stares blankly at his computer screen. It displays a list of the all-time top box-office hits, headed by THE DARK KNIGHT and THE AVENGERS. INT. SANDWICH SHOP - DAY Kevin, in line with the lunch crowd, looks up, and - KEVIN Lisa! She’s pretty, accompanied by a another man, and confused. LISA ...Yeah! Hi! KEVIN What are you doing here? LISA Just getting lunch. KEVIN What a coincidence. 11. LISA Yeah. This is my boyfriend Matt. She expects Kevin to introduce himself. Instead - KEVIN ...Your boyfriend? LISA Yes. I’m sorry, you look familiar, I know we’ve met, but I can’t remember your name. KEVIN You know we’ve met? Is this a joke? LISA Oh! I remember! I’m sorry. We went on a date once, didn’t we? KEVIN A date? Once? He stares at her, gobsmacked. LISA ...Is something wrong? KEVIN You don’t remember our four-hour conversation two nights ago? Lisa and Matt’s walls go up; he just got creepy. LISA I think you have me confused with someone else. KEVIN Lisa McDonald? Can’t stand your mother’s new boyfriend? (MORE) 12. KEVIN (CONT'D) Spent most of university suffering from depression? Likes peanut butter on California rolls? LISA What is this? KEVIN I don’t know. Wait, yes I do. Complete fucking insanity. Matt steps in front of her, combative. MATT OK, buddy, you need to walk away now and not come back. LISA We should go. MATT Yeah. They turn to leave. Kevin cuts them off. KEVIN Wait! Matt shoves him away, hard. MATT You come near her again, I will break bones, you understand? KEVIN One question. Just one. Our first date, what movie did we see? LISA First? It was our only date. 13. KEVIN What movie? Please. It’s important. LISA ...The Blind Side. Kevin can only stare at her as she walks away. INT. KEVIN’S OFFICE - DAY At his computer, wild-eyed, clicking through IMDB. KEVIN (under his breath) This is insane. Insane, insane, insane. James Cameron. What happened? He types in ‘PIRANHA II’. No results. KEVIN (CONT’D) (under his breath) You did something before that... He remembers. Types in ‘ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK’. Clicks on ‘VISUAL EFFECTS’ - - and higlights: ‘Visual Effects - Jim Cameron.’ KEVIN (CONT’D) Jim Cameron...What happened to you? Suddenly Kevin’s boss looms over him.