L.A. Rage

By Gary Denne

Ageing Australian screenwriter Bob Cavanaugh flies into L.A. to sell his screenplay, The Mighty Kygor, to a major Hollywood studio. But his world comes crashing down when he's informed a similar script is in the works and his script is no longer needed. Devastated, he enlists a beautiful and street-smart B-movie actress who realizes his script will be the next Hollywood blockbuster and wants to play a part in his success. With her industry knowledge, Bob discovers his script has been plagiarized entirely as a new movie, and sets out in pursuit of those responsible to convince them to honor his deal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Denne
• Release date: Jan 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215293034

Gary Denne

Gary Denne is an Australian-born writer. In the late 90s, he travelled the world and found himself in Toronto, Canada, where he began an experimental novel inspired by his journal scribbles and road-trip experiences. It was published as 'The Matt Zander Journals' in 2008.'Pump' became his second novel, first published in 2012. A post-collapse action-thriller, it told the story of the mysterious and powerful Maddox Corporation that ran New York City as a private sanctuary for the rich in a dystopian future. A tenth anniversary edition of 'Pump' was released in 2022, when it became apparent that the real world was beginning to mirror much of the dystopia depicted in the novel.'L.A. RAGE' is his third novel. Released in 2024, it is a tale of revenge and a fast-paced thriller set in the heart of the Hollywood entertainment industry, where studio executives tell you they love you for as long as it takes to steal your ideas for themselves.

Book preview

prologue

Robert Cavanaugh was a mildly successful writer in the 1980s of Sydney, Australia. Naturally, no one wants the word ‘ mildly ’ in front of ‘ successful ’ when talking about their life ’ s work or career, but this story needs to be an honest reflection of his journey to become a Hollywood scriptwriter, and especially so — a record of the days he spent in Hollywood, California on the eve of signing on the dotted line to sell his screenplay The Mighty Kygor to Windbreaker Studios. This story needs to reflect, in all accuracy, why he did what he did in L.A.

Bob, as he preferred to be called, got his start as a writer on a serialized soap-drama that began shooting down the road from his local bar, or what the Australians liked to call a pub . One day, the producers of the show were celebrating their successes in said pub, and Bob, being the friendly and instantly likeable Australian man that he was, shared several beverages alongside them as he told a few stories from his day. At the end of the night, after having many alcohol-induced belly laughs at Bob ’ s stories, these particular lads invited him to their studio the next day. Bob, being a bit short of work on the odd handyman jobs he made a living from, obliged.

When Bob got to the production office, a bit worse for wear from the night before, the studio lads barely recognized him. It seemed they had forgotten exactly who he was until Bob reminded them of a few tales from the night before. Once the lads recalled the larrikin before them and their memories returned, they handed Bob a bunch of script pages to sort into shooting order. After only a few short weeks, Bob was in a dingy production office typing away on a typewriter. Give us some stories … something we can use, the producers would demand. So that ’ s what he did. For several years, Bob bashed out an episode each week for a show called The Pretenders . It was the quintessential Aussie serial soap-drama about a group of suburban, neighborly friends. Teen angst, relationships, parental dilemmas, heartthrobs, awful acting, and lust-filled girls in tight tank-tops … it had all the usual checkboxes that viewers seemed to look for in an escape from the everyday. And it was where Bob learned how to take his Aussie charm and wit and turn it into stories on a page that people seemed to like. It didn ’ t motivate Bob, nor inspire him. But it paid the bills. And it was a hell of a lot better than painting houses or mowing lawns in the harsh Australian sun for a hundred bucks a week.

But over time, Bob wanted to write what he found interesting. He didn ’ t want to be known for the endless teen drama of boy meets girl … blah blah blah … the end. He wanted to write his ‘ what ifs. ’ His ideas. What he thought would make for a good story. It ’ s all he would think about after he ’ d been to the pub for a drink, heading home to his flat and a microwave dinner. He knew, without a doubt, that if he put his mind to it, he could write something grand. Something to be proud of. And so, he went to work. Script after script, he submitted to the studio lads ’ bosses, producers he had networked with, and people he knew in the industry, albeit the small Australian industry that it was. He figured that someone, somewhere, would take his stories and make them into movies. On the big screen. His name, up in lights. ‘ Written by …’ Oh, the sweet heavenly reward of seeing his name up in lights.

But it never happened, dear reader. That moment never came. By the time Bob was forty-eight, the show he ’ d worked on for several years was finally canceled due to dwindling ratings and an appetite for reality television where scriptwriters were no longer required. Of course, reality television was far from actual reality and still required a script for the cast, but a true storyteller, they did not need. It seemed Australian audiences had grown tired of the same old stories, the same scenes, the same boys, the same girls, the same ‘ blah blah blah ’ shot differently year after year. They wanted something new and fresh.

Bob struggled to get work in the industry. The studio lads and his entire network had moved on. Everyone had a new gig, new friends, and new contacts. You really learn who your friends are in showbusiness — that, Bob did learn. Leaving the industry behind, he ended up working in a factory packing sheepskin products into boxes. Sheepskin rugs. Sheepskin boots. Sheepskin hats. As long as it was sheepskin, he packed it into a box. And it was hard work. In some ways, it felt like a prison sentence. As though somehow, life had seen the soap-teen-angst drivel that he had written for The Pretenders and deemed it punishable by hard labor in a sheepskin factory. There he was, day in, day out, packing sheepskin products into boxes. They were shipped locally, nationally, and internationally. It was as though millions of people around the world wanted to live in sheepskin. That was the gold standard of the time. Sheepskin was ‘living the dream’.

To answer your question, dear reader, of course Bob kept writing. He wrote more stories. He wrote what he wanted to write. Science-fiction. Drama. High concepts. Mostly aimed at breaking into Hollywood, which, for any screenwriter, was the ultimate dream. What if he wrote something that someone in Hollywood liked, he would often wonder to himself. What if that was the market where he was best suited? During the day, he would pack sheepskin products into boxes while he daydreamed of characters, story arcs, set pieces, and twists. And at night, he nursed an Old Fashioned and tapped away, writing his ideas while classic action movies from the 80s played on the television in the background.

Life went on. Over the years, his body aged, but his mind did not. Bob was still sharp as ever. One night, after a long day of packing sheepskin products into boxes, he was awoken by a possum rummaging around the garbage bins in the laneway of the block of flats, one of which he rented. Bob got out of bed to shoo him off, but misjudged the first step down his stairs, hitting his toe on the edge of the step. Bob screamed out in agony and quickly sat down on the steps, grabbing at his toe in immense pain. In the moments afterward, an idea came to him. A vision. A grand science-fiction soap opera of a struggle between good and evil. A race of aliens known as the Kygor and their quest to become mighty. He wondered at the time, as his toe began to throb, if he was simply thinking of a movie that already existed. He went to the kitchen table, flicked the light on, and began scribbling pages of notes in his notebook. Once he was done, he went back to bed, thinking no more of it. He needed to get the weight off his toe, and he needed to sleep. As for the possum, the little critter wasn ’ t heard of again.

arrival

Bob touched down in L.A. early in the morning. He cleared customs easily enough, albeit with an overwhelming sense of unfriendliness from the Homeland Security officer. After he waited patiently for his baggage, he headed out into the LAX arrivals zone. As he stepped outside the terminal, the Californian sun instantly beamed down on him and gave him the warm welcome the security officer had not. After fourteen long hours in a flying metal tube, he had arrived.

Pulling his suitcase behind him, Bob was dressed in comfortable tan chinos and a loose, midnight-blue, Hawaiian short-sleeve shirt, looking like he had arrived to see the sights and relax at a hotel pool. Hawaiian shirts were Bob ’ s standard-issue uniform. He absolutely loved his Hawaiian shirts, and never had too many. Granted, it probably did make him look like the typical tourist from Down Under, but wearing a Hawaiian shirt made him feel relaxed and calm in an otherwise crazy and busy modern world.

Arriving at the rental car counter, a lovely young American lass efficiently processed his booking and gave him the most detailed of instructions. It could ’ ve been the Californian sun, the L.A. air, or the fact that he was exhausted from the long Sydney to Los Angeles route, but as he hit the freeway in the metallic-gray four-door sedan rental car, he had a huge smile on his face as he carefully looked around at his surroundings while navigating the traffic. Headed north on the 405, in the distance he could see the Hollywood Hills, clusters of mid-sized buildings, and the ubiquitous palm trees all over the suburbs surrounding the freeway. He couldn ’ t believe he was finally there. Los Angeles. L.A. California. Hollywood. Everything about this place was like a dream. And he had dreamt about this moment for a very long time.

He took the exit for Sunset Boulevard, leaving the freeway behind. A patchwork quilt of old gray road began winding and twisting around leafy hillside suburbs … very wealthy hillside suburbs, given the size and presentation of the homes. No sooner had he started to climb into the hills on Sunset did he begin to feel d é j à vu. Like he ’ d somehow already been on that very winding road and was now home. Bob gazed out the windows as he drove, following the road up and down, twisting and turning around Sunset ’ s bends and corners, thinking to himself … I know this.

The palm trees, the houses, the round garbage bins, the landscape, the foliage … he knew all of it from somewhere. Of course, he was on Sunset Boulevard, a place that ’ d been shown on countless TV shows and movies he ’ d watched over the years. But it wasn ’ t like Bob was remembering this from a TV show. This was an unmistakable feeling of remembering a place he ’ d never been. Maybe it was the pine-trees lining side-streets, the feeling of being in the hills, above the city, or the last remaining rays of sunlight shining down on landscaped gardens and nice houses, but driving on Sunset felt so … familiar.

After the long drive on Sunset, through Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, Bob managed to stumble upon Hollywood Boulevard. He passed by big hotel chains and huge retail precincts, taking up whole city blocks. He saw more palm trees. Big, blue street signs hanging from traffic lights. Billboards. Women in tight leggings walking the tiniest of wind-up dogs. Convertibles with their tops down. And film shoots happening right on the sidewalk. Bob saw all of that, arriving in Hollywood. It was weird seeing all the glamourous stuff with his own eyes rather than from a camera ’ s viewpoint on TV. But gawking out the windows as much as he could while stuck in long lines of traffic, he knew reality was going to sink in sooner or later. He was here for a reason. He didn ’ t have time to get distracted by California girls in leggings or Hollywood stars on the Walk of Fame. He was here to seal the deal on his script, The Mighty Kygor . Once the deal was signed, maybe he could enjoy himself for a few days before flying back home. But in reality, he was not a rich man. He was running on empty. The sheepskin factory kept him afloat and living comfortably on the basics of life, but as he drove past the big, fancy, Hollywood hotels, he certainly knew he could not afford to pull into them and have a valet take his car while he waltzed into the lobby like a big-shot.

Bob spotted a more modest motel on Vine Street and felt a sense of relief. He pulled into a single off-street parking space that was vacant out front, just like it would happen in the movies.

As he got out of the car, he looked up at the colorful neon sign facing the street. Hollywood Nights Motel, it read. VACANCY. The motel itself was a two-story establishment for the budget-conscious traveller. It was painted pink and reminded him of one of those places he ’ d see on CNN where cops would be busting down one of the motel doors to find bad guys quickly flushing drugs down a toilet and hookers with their hands over their tits running in all directions screaming. There was a tiny garden out front to add a bit of green life to the place in what was otherwise a green-less area of Hollywood. Bob wondered how plants even survived in a place like L.A. Maybe they evolved to enjoy breathing in all that smog?

The motel office sliding doors opened, and Bob walked in, instantly inhaling some kind of strange cooking smell… as though someone had been cooking a peculiar meat right there in the motel office for the past few years and it ’ d dried into the wallpaper.

He casually walked to the counter. A fully encased office was behind a huge sheet of glass with a small transaction slot where paper, pens, and money could be passed back and forth. It was the same type of exchange one would have with a teller at a bank where the teller was behind completely enclosed glass as though you were talking to a human exhibit on an alien planet ’ s zoo. Behind the glass was an old Indian man sitting at the desk. He slowly looked up and saw Bob at the counter, but he didn ’ t get up. He had a plate of food and a newspaper from the motherland spread out in front of him. Bob noticed a canary in a cage right behind him, chirping away like mad. Poor little thing was probably complaining about the smell, but it was falling on deaf ears.

G ’ day there, do you have any rooms available? Bob asked, projecting his best Australian voice so that it would penetrate the glass and get the old man ’ s attention through the tiny air holes.

Ever so slowly, like one might move when dying from a bullet wound to the gut, the Indian motel clerk got up and stepped over to the counter. Bob watched him pick up a clipboard and slide it underneath the glass, nodding for him to sign in.

Ah, okay. No worries, mate. Give me a minute, Bob replied to the non-verbal request.

He started to fill in a registration card, glancing around the lobby, wondering if he was making a mistake. The thing was, he just needed a place to sleep, and it was only going to be for a few days. Plus, he actually found comfort in the fact that he couldn ’ t see anyone else around and through the doors that led out to a small courtyard pool and then the guest rooms. There was only silence.

Credit card … credit card, the Indian man insisted.

So, he can talk when he wants to , Bob thought to himself. Just not something like, ‘ Hello, sir, how are you? Welcome to Hollywood. ’

Bob pulled his card from his pocket and slipped it to him. He ran it through his machine and punched in some numbers. Bob then signed the slip the machine spat out — it was a credit authorization. Clearly the Indian man didn ’ t think Bob had a trustworthy face. Bob could see it in his eyes. This was Hollywood. He ’ d probably seen all types through this place. After all, it wasn ’ t exactly in a nice part of town. The security cameras, gated parking, encased reception, and spiked fencing around the property told Bob this place wanted to keep a certain clientele out.

Room 114. Out the doors. To your left, the old man said, sliding a room key through the slot. He turned his back on Bob and returned to his chair, easing himself back down again.

The canary was still singing. Bob wondered if the golden-yellow ball of feathers knew it ’ d made it all the way to Hollywood and was living a celebrity