Chad Taylor

LA Stories

Miles Millar is a British screenwriter working in Hollywood. A poster for Kurosawa's Ran hangs on his office wall. David is a Hollywood agent. A poster for Batman hangs on his.

David says he sold the script for Batman. I'd be interested to know which one since the screenplay went through 10 drafts in as many years before being mostly ad-libbed on a sound stage, but I don't doubt his word. As the Italian saying goes: success has many fathers, but failure is always a bastard.

Writing is a group activity in Hollywood. Everyone does it - or rather would if they weren't so busy doing other things like producing or acting. I think Joan Didion said this - or perhaps it was John Gregory Dunne. Anyway, I'm saying it now in this review – and getting paid for it. See? That's how "writing as a group activity" works.

To receive their credit and a six-figure cheque for Lethal Weapon 4, Miles and his writing partner Al had to arbitrate with the Writer's Guild and pitch over the phone to Mel Gibson. In the premiere press line, the documentary crew ask Mel if he remembers Miles. Mel's handsome forehead jumps. He doesn't remember, and dollars tick behind his eyes as he calculates the time wasted answering the question. Lethal Weapon 4 had more writers than he has children.

Writer Simon Kelton and fellow expatriates play cricket in the Hollywood hills and go hunting, complete with horses and red coats and beagles happily bouncing through the scrub. They aren't hunting an actual fox, Simon smirks -- thus missing the deeper irony that, therefore, they aren't actually hunting.

Simon's is one of four 'LA Stories' in this documentary, and knowing how they end makes it no less enjoyable. Anyone with a working set of eyes will see it coming.

Tina Jenkins' script is about a man who turns into a cat. A newcomer to Venice Beach, she has mastered the language but not the lingo. She says "lorry" and "green-lit" instead of "truck" and "green-lighted". She borrowed £10,000 to come to LA. Guess how well she does.

"Nobody knows who writers are," Miles says gamely. It must be difficult coming up with what he originally describes as "a fresh idea" when your career path is already written for you.

The grim reality is that working Hollywood is as predictable as its product. If you like shouting down the phone, you could be a producer. If you like sitting on the other end of the line, then writing may be the way to go.

There is money in it. Hollywood makes less than 200 scripts into films each year but many thousand more are optioned so someone's getting paid.

Even fewer films are being made about Scottish hairdressers but one, The Big Tease is going into production as LA Stories begins. Co-writers Sacha Gervasi and Craig Ferguson say the film was green-lighted (sic) because of the success of The Full Monty. But don't worry - if it bombs, the credit will be all theirs.

-- NZ Herald, 2001