Hollywood (我就是好莱坞) Part I

CHAPTER 6 - GOOD NEWS

After finishing Jurassic Park, Eric used all his spare time to write and modify the 17 Again script. The plot mainly focused around the topics of family, love, friendship, and life choices, so there wasn't really anything conflicting when it came to that, but he had to change everything that had to do with the geek cultural references and the passages where they used cellphones or laptops as it clashed with the current era.

Eric turned Ned into a successful entrepreneur and hardcore movie fan who liked to collect movie props. Obviously, the multiple epic references to the movie The Lord of the Rings could only be discarded.

After putting the script together, in accordance to their previous agreement, Eric went to find Jeff. Ever since he had read Jurassic Park, Jeff no longer belittled this little friend of his. He earnestly read the script a few times and really did found some inconsistencies like when the protagonist goes back to school wearing a Kevin Federline t-shirt, Jeff had to ask Eric who that was. Eric carefully searched through his memory only to realize that Britney Spears' second ex-husband was only a ten-year-old boy this year.

After modifying some bits and pieces that Jeff pointed out, Eric handed over the script to Michael Klaus.

Having wrapped a novel and a screenplay, he was in no hurry to begin working on anything else and instead started to practice basketball. There were a lot of showy moves in the movie and Eric didn't even know the basics so he had to start from scratch.

With so many basketball scenes, although Zac Efron's past acting performance wasn't that great, his stunts were seriously awesome, especially that time in the cafeteria when he taunted that douchebag called Stan.

A week later, after two hours of training in the community's basketball court, Eric went back home and kept working on his fancy moves when he was interrupted by the loud ringing of the phone. These days Eric had received countless calls from Michael, who kept him up to date in regards to the Jurassic Park publication as well as the 17 Again script. Regarding Jurassic Park, everything went very smoothly, and it was only a matter of time before Eric could see the book, however, went it came to 17 Again, things weren't looking bright.

Although several companies were interested after reading the script, when they heard of the scriptwriter's condition of starring in the movie, most of them just straight out rejected the whole ordeal. What a joke, this was an investment of tens of millions of dollars, who would be willing to take such a risk ?

Eric told Michael that he didn't have to set his sights solely on those six major film companies, he could also try those second-rated ones.

"Hey, you've reached the Williams residence." Said Eric after adjusting his breath.

"Hello, Eric, it's Michael."

Eric calmly smiled: "Michael ? It's almost ten, for you to call me this late at night, I take it you have some good news ?"

Michael couldn't help but complain on the phone as he said: "Don't even mention it, you seriously, do you how many times I called you ? You never answered !"

"About that, I'm sorry Michael, I was practicing at the community basketball court."

"Practicing basketball ? Wow Eric, now that's what I call determined. Well, I do remember the script having a lot of basketball scenes."

"Well yeah, then again I don't only train at the court, I also practice every morning for an hour in front of the mirror."

"I have to say, I admire you a little, not many people would have your perseverance. Take tomorrow off, we have an appointment."