THE LAST ROCK STAR
materials for a film by, and with, Johnny Depp.
INCOMPLETE OUTLINE:
INT. AIRPORT HANGAR DOUBLING AS THE SET FOR EDWARD SCISSORDHANDS 2 - NIGHT
A+ list actor JD (Johnny Depp/Christian Bale/Michael Fassbender) flies through the air in front of a vast green-screen on a set of strings that he can’t control. JD is not sure if he’s in Nevada or Utah. Regular intravenous heroin/cocaine speedballs have reduced JD to a gaunt, Zombie version of the formerly robust, virile actor. It looks like he is almost done.
JD: I want to talk to Tim! I demand to talk to Tim.
JD keeps screaming, demanding Tim, but nobody responds to him. Finally after thirty seconds of this awful madness, he gets a response:
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (OFFSCREEN): Tim’s not around.
JD: I refuse to do the scene until I see Tim. SHOW ME TIM!
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (OFFSCREEN): You don’t need do anything. we’re just going to need your body for the next twenty seconds or so acting like you’re in pain and fear.
And then BAM the strings drop down and it seems like JD is falling and he didn’t realize he was actually 70 foot up and he’s SCREAMING because he’s headed towards the floor, but the rope stops a few inches from the ground, and JD wheedles his hands about in an awkward version of the classic Mission Impossible scene.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (OFFSCREEN): Shit, the tech wasn’t working that time. We’re going to have to run it again. Back to the start of the sequence, everybody.
JD: No! No! No!
INT. JD’s DOUBLE SIZED OPIUM DEN THEMED TRAILER - NIGHT
JD’s assistant RUSTY (Chris Pratt / Liam Hemsworth /
Zach Galifianakis ) looks for a vein on JD’s foot to inject a speedball into, but he’s having a hard time because JD’s veins are all so fucked up
JD: Give the size of the universe, there’s probably a version of me that went clean, chose the RDJ route, having a BBQ with their kids right now.
He explains that Marvel wanted him first for the role.
JD goes on about this alternate scenario where he became Iron Man.
Rusty: I can’t find a vein.
JD: You know the reason everything’s so fucked up?
Rusty: All your veins are collapsed.
JD: It’s because of carbs. Our bodies Our bodies aren’t meant to burn carbs, he says.
Rusty says that he still can’t find a vein. Look harder, look harder.
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - NIGHT
-JD sits down for a meeting with the producer, MOOKIE ROCKEFELLER (Sean Young / Meg Ryan / Molly Ringwald) an heiress who has used her inheritance to produce movies.
Mookie is explaining that they are going to digitally age JD backwards; through the magic of CG, they’re going to make JD’s face in the movie look like he was twenty three was when they shot the original.
JD: I was 27.
JD goes onto protest: the whole concept of the movie was about Edward Scissorhands aging.
Mookie is sympathetic, but this is the direction they’re going in.
JD wants to talk to Tim. Tim’s not available, Mookie explains. JD wants to know: Where’s Tim? Tim’s shooting the Ewok movie in England. Colin the AD is taking over from now.
JD goes on a five minute long rant/diatribe wherein he explains how the Colins are the problem with the world, how the Colins, the bureaucrats, the money people, the managers, the accountants, the tax men, the tax men of the soul, barely competent twelve step trust fund LA dweebs (etc, etc, etc) are ruining everything.
Mookie smiles, says she’s glad that JD’s still a poet, and excuses herself: she has to go off and have her vagina rejuvenated. You really should try it, JD.
JD is left alone in the room and screams, to nobody in particular “I DON’T HAVE A VAGINA! I DON’T HAVE A VAGINA”
EXT. JACUZZI - NIGHT
JD soaks in his Jacuzzi and looks out at the desert, at the stars. All of a sudden all of it changes into a CG version of reality, but somewhat amateur CGI 2000 videogame level.
We pull out to reveal that JD’s girlfriend, NINHA (Kylie Jenner / Grimes / Karlie Kloss) has been talking at him, or maybe, to him. But she’s just a video game character now.
NINHA: Did you hear anything I just said?
JD shakes his head and everything goes back to normal.
JD: Head in the clouds, sorry, what.
Ninha explains that she needs more money for the restaurant concept, it’s a vegan keto thing and there’s a lot of expenses.
JD: How bout this for a deal, honey, you dump all your boyfriends and your girlfriends, you call up Taylor and tell her there’s not going to be any more secret Aspen sleepovers, and then maybe I’ll consider investing again in your obviously asinine concept.
NINHA: It’s not asinine. It’s a great idea.
JD: It’s stupid, darling, because people are sheep, dumb sheep, 99.99 percent of them are, they are never going to get their heads around the genius of the keto concept. THAT’S WHY THEY KEEP EATING CARBS!
CUT to five minutes later and JD is chasing Ninha around the house with a knife. Stay away, stay away, she’s screaming. But he’s coming closer to her, and it looks like a video game to him, again, and then JD shakes his head.
JD: Fine. I’ll invest. I’ll invest. Just don’t leave me.
NINHA: I — can’t — I have to go.
He runs after her car crying, but she drives away into the desert night.
JD goes back inside, takes out the pizza from the fridge, puts it in the microwave until it is burnt and then eats it.
INT. JD’S TRAILER - NIGHT
JD lies naked on the bed in his trailer while Rusty looks for a vein in.
JD talks more about Keto, about what it means that most people, 99.95 percent of people are literally burning the wrong kind of fuel.
JD: What does it say about our world? What does it mean? We’re robots running the wrong way; we’re vampires without any blood; we’re rock stars without guitars.
JD: Just imagine what a world would be like where people are using the right fuel.
Rusty: I found a vein!
AIRPLANE HANGAR STUDIO - NIGHT
Finally blissed out on a successful speedball., JD (once again wearing the motion capture suit) jumps on an Olympic-sized trampoline while TEN CHILDREN in suburban 50s costumes jump upside down in a circle around him.
Switch to JD’s POV: he sees the kids jumping around in the same video-game type perspective from the night before.
JD spins around and as his spins, the Children’s faces turn into the faces of Mookie Rockefeller
MOOKIE ROCKEFELLER CHILDREN: Maybe if you got your vagina rejuvenated you wouldn’t age anymore!
JD looks down and sees a digitally rendered gun in his hand.
CHILDREN WITH MOOKIES FACE: Kill us all, JD, we’re using the wrong fuel! We’re not really people! You’re the only real person!
Switch back to third-perspective, POV, JD begins screaming, hysterically. Production assistants run on-screen, one injects him with some ativan.
INT. JACUZZI - NIGHT
JD sits in the Jacuzzi drinking red wine with KEITH RICHARDS (Jack Nicholson/Sean Connery/Lance Henriksen) Both wear sunglasses and no clothes.
Richards says that he needs to have a serious talk with JD.
JD: Do you want to play Russian Roulette?
KEITH RICHARDS: We’re brothers, JD.
JD: Blood brothers. Vampire brothers.
KEITH RICHARDS: Brothers tell brothers what’s going on.
JD: Want to know what’s going on? What’s going on is the last spiral. The final turn. What do you call it, the final turn? There’s some Latin name for that.
Keith tells JD that he has to get himself clean, just free from all substances, the studio can handle it, say you have cancer, vanish for a year, come back a new person. You’ll be shocked by how much we can heal, brother. “You can have a new start.”
JD disagrees. “I don’t need a new new starts. I’ve had a lot of new starts. What JD needs is an ending. A way to go out. How familiar are you with Stephen Paddock?”
Keith Richards asks if that’s that Jungian therapist JD was going to.
JD informs Keith that Stephen Paddock is the most successful mass shooter in American History. JD says that he’s been studying how Paddock did it, real easy and deliberate. He got the hotel workers to bring 20 bags of guns up to his room, and played video poker all night.
Keith gets out of the tub. This is too dark for him.
JD keeps talking about Paddock even thought Keith is gone. That’s what amazes him: the video poker, all night, right before he was going to murder 80 people. He truly did not care. You know what Paddock was? He’s the last rock star, well, maybe the second to last.
A SCENE:
MYLES
I don't see what's wrong with White Slaves.
POUL
That's not how the redemption arc works.
MYLES
You cannot tell me that White Slaves does not have meme magic. Just say it. White Slaves. White Slaves.
POUL
The penance has to fit the crime. JD's crime: violence again women, hence, a feminist comeback.
MYLES
Mmmkay. How about White Woman Slaves.
POUL
The racial element is confusing everything.
MYLES
I got it. It's Handmaid's Tale, but in reverse. A world where men are kept as studs.
POUL
This whole situation is making me nervous.
MYLES
Are we not on the plane? Are not these tickets real.
POUL
It still makes zero sense.
MYLES
Says the hairless ape flying in a rocket propelled metal tube around a ball of decomposed matter itself floating around a ball of fire.
POUL
How do you think he found us?
MYLES
What about the Last Gentile, as a concept.
POUL
No, really, let's stop it with the concepts.
MYLES
You were the one who said we needed a comeback concept for him. What could be better than the Last Gentile?
POUL
If I told you, three days ago, that we'd be flying to Reno to do a profile of Johnny Depp, you wouldn't believe me.
MYLES
We just have to accept some things as axiomatic, you know.
POUL
It could be a big trick.
MYLES
Why would the biggest movie star in the world want to play a trick on us.
POUL
He's definitely not still biggest movie star in the world.
MYLES
Ok, fine, the biggest movie star of 2009, the question stands: why? Why would he care about us?
POUL
Exactly, I don't know, it's just something to consider.
MYLES
You know what I think we should consider is Mel Gibson as Anne Frank.
POUL
Did you have more to drink when I went to the bathroom?
MYLES
Just envision it. Mel Gibson as Anne Frank. JD as Adolf Hitler.
POUL
I wish I were capable of being offended.
MYLES
It's like Schindler's Book, but with a twist.
POUL
As a goyim, you cannot be saying this.
MYLES
Yeah, but as a half-Jew, you can pitch this. You got the J card, we can play it.
POUL
Not the right answer.
MYLES
Let's put a pin it.
POUL
No pin in the Last Gentile.
MYLES
Oh shit, I got it. Listen, what's that William Blake quote you're always quoting me.
POUL
The fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.
MYLES
Right, that's it. So JD, he has a reputation as a violent, misogynistic, drug addicted asshole, so maybe that' snot a problem, maybe that's what we play into.
POUL
Do you think this might be a simulation.
MYLES
Poul. I need you to focus on my genius idea.
POUL
We might not be in this plane right now.
MYLES
And where do you think we would be?
POUL
I don't know.
MYLES
Great, so end of that conversation, so, returning to my incredible stream of reasoning, instead of running FROM his reputation, JD runs INTO it.
POUL
Avocado Freedom!
MYLES
Yes! That's the spirit. Avocado Freedom. So who is the ultimate violent misogynistic 60s rebel?
POUL
JFK?
MYLES
I was thinking Roman Polanski, but it's not either or, it's a both and.
POUL
I'm mildly intrigued.
MYLES
The first half of the movie is the last week of JFK's life, he's dropping L with Marilyn and talking about world peace while he's licking her butthole and him and RFK are having an orgy in the White House pool, it's like, tasteful hardcore, there's bush, but everything is in soft focus.
POUL
I'm going to sleep now.
MYLES
Wait, wait. I'm not quite done this. So then we get 11/22/63, right, and then we cut to the second half of the movie, it's Roman Polanski.
POUL
He should also play Charles Manson!
MYLES
Yeah! Exactly, it's like the Nutty Professor, except with the Tate La Bianca murders.
POUL
I'm asleep right now.
MYLES
And he plays the girl, too, the one that Polanski raped.
POUL
None of this is real.
MYLES
I'm going to write all of this down, ok.
Poul makes snoring sounds. Myles opens his laptop.