Over the next couple of weeks, Ben kept himself busy. He immersed himself in the rhythm of his new life—exploring the local area, reading every book he could find related to cinematography, directing, and screenwriting. His days were full, driven by the quiet desperation of someone who couldn't afford to waste time.
During this time, Helen called once. She mentioned that a small crew was looking for extras—nothing more than background figures in a generic scene.
Ben declined without hesitation.
He knew that kind of gig wouldn't teach him anything about the real craft behind the camera. He wasn't looking to blend into the background again or lie still like a prop.
He wanted to observe, to learn, to grow into the filmmaker he believed he could be. Crews like the one behind Forrest Gump—large-scale productions filled with real talent—were rare, but they were what he needed. He'd just have to wait for the right break.
For now, his credit card still had some room left, enough to float him for a little longer. He told himself that if it came down to it, playing a corpse on set wouldn't be the worst thing in the world… but it wasn't Plan A.
Yet, as the days passed, the phone stayed silent. No more calls from Helen. No offers. No updates.
Still, Ben didn't let the silence disappoint him. Deep down, he knew his name had become something of a punchline—a cautionary tale whispered among casting agents and crew managers. The incident on the Forrest Gump set had earned him a reputation. And in Hollywood, where image was everything, that sort of stain didn't wash off easily.
For someone still unproven, with no major success behind him, it made sense that doors weren't opening.
But Ben understood the game now. He had seen it all before—literally.
Somewhere deep inside, he carried the knowledge of another life, the wisdom of someone who had walked this path long ago. And though the industry had turned its back on him for the time being, he believed in patience, persistence, and timing.
This wasn't failure. It was just the waiting room.
After mulling it over, Ben decided that standing in the background of someone else's story wasn't for him. If he was going to put his time into anything, it had to be his own work. Playing a blurry extra in the corner of a wide shot wouldn't teach him anything. Instead, he figured it made more sense to head to the bank and secure a small amount of funding—just enough to get something modest off the ground.
Of course, it wouldn't be a huge budget. At most, he could pull together fifty thousand dollars, through a bank loan.
That ruled out anything grand or flashy. No sweeping period dramas or elaborate sci-fi with VFX. Not after the Forrest Gump incident. Nobody in town would touch a high-budget project with his name attached.
So it had to be something contained. Simple. Clean. A tight plot. Few actors. One or two locations at most. The smaller the crew, the more manageable the cost. He needed something that could be made with grit and resourcefulness—something a desperate but determined filmmaker could actually pull off.
And above all, it had to sell.
Ben leaned back in his chair, eyes staring at the ceiling. He wasn't just relying on hope. He had a secret weapon: the memory of a past life. A life where he had seen movies rise and fall, obscure indies explode into cultural landmarks, filmmakers nobody believed in become legends. His mind was like a vault of future classics—films that hadn't been made yet, but that he remembered vividly.
What he needed was to choose wisely. Something with a proven track record—at least in the life he remembered. A sleeper hit. A script that was deceptively simple, but packed with punch. A story that could catch fire with just the right execution and timing.
It was true—Ben had watched an endless number of films in his past life. His mind was a personal archive of cinema history, a flickering vault of stories, scenes, and shots. But even with the gift of memory, the details had blurred with time. He couldn't recall entire scripts, and many moments came back in fragments, half-glimpsed frames of something he once knew. Reconstructing them would take effort, imagination, and plenty of trial and error.
And then, there was the real complication—time.
The world had changed. Culture had shifted. Technology was still sleeping. It was 1993, but in Ben's soul, it was already 2025.
He had lived another life. A long one. Back in India, he had clawed his way up as a film director—not a famous one, but a hungry one. He had made his share of mid-budget thrillers, indie passion projects, even a streaming hit that trended for a week before the algorithm buried it. He had watched the rise of giants—the birth of Netflix, the streaming wars, the explosion of OTT content. He had seen Sikander change the game—a crime drama that rewrote what Indian web content could do. He remembered pitching to executives who stared at laptops while nodding blankly. He remembered battling censors, begging distributors, and watching entire genres rise and die in the space of five years.
But now…
Ben looked around the room. The walls were still yellowed with cigarette smoke. There were no smartphones. No YouTube. No streaming. Hell, DVDs hadn't even gone mainstream yet. People still rented VHS tapes from cluttered shelves.
And here he was. A man from the 2020s, trapped in 1993 Los Angeles, pretending to be a struggling USC grad.
No, he was a struggling graduate from USC.
But the cultural gap—that was the real riddle. He hadn't just crossed decades—he had crossed continents.
Back in India, his storytelling was steeped in emotion, family, symbolism, rhythm—in stories told with gods watching from above. Even his thrillers had melodrama baked in, a different kind of pulse. And now he was in Hollywood, the home of punchy dialogue, slick structure, and subtlety disguised as spectacle.
He tapped his pen against the notebook, thinking. "You can't bring masala to a steakhouse and expect applause," he murmured, half-smiling.
That meant cutting down options. A lot of them.
Literary dramas? Out. He wasn't that kind of filmmaker, not even in India. He never had the patience to film someone looking out a window for ten minutes.
Online films? No chance. This was still a few years before streaming would redefine how indie films broke out. There was no viable platform, no digital infrastructure. That well hadn't even been dug yet.
Commercial blockbusters? His specialty in the past life. He knew their rhythm, the structure, the set-pieces. But without millions of dollars behind him, he might as well try to build a skyscraper with duct tape. Big ideas needed big money, and after the Forrest Gump debacle, no one in Hollywood was going to fund him.
Horror films? Now that was a possibility. Horror had always been Hollywood's secret weapon. A cheap, well-crafted horror flick could make waves—sometimes even millions—off of pennies. But even the cheapest horror films needed a baseline budget—equipment, effects, atmosphere. A hundred grand at least, and that was being optimistic. Way above his ceiling.
But now he didn't even have one crore, let alone a Hollywood studio's million-dollar budget. After the Forrest Gump incident, no one would hand him anything riskier than a coffee order.
He scribbled a line in the corner of the page: "Budget must be 30k–40k. No crew. No stars. Just story."
He kept thinking. "No one's going to give me a studio. No one's going to give me a star. But I've got something they don't—I've already seen what works. I just have to bring it here… before they even know it exists."
Ben stared at his notebook, where he'd scribbled down a rough cap: $40,000.
That's what he could aim for. No more. Not even a dollar more, or the bank wouldn't even consider a loan.
So, what could be made with that?
He considered comedy. American comedies could explode if the concept was sharp enough. But comedy was cultural—deeply so. Timing, tone, references, delivery. And for someone who grew up overseas, diving headfirst into American-style humor would be like trying to write stand-up in a second language. A recipe for disaster.
Then something clicked.
It had to be simple. One or two actors. One location. Minimal camera movement. Maybe even handheld. No flashy set design. No background extras. Something raw. Something stripped-down and real.
Ben tapped his pen against the table, remembering. "A pseudo-documentary..."
The idea came together like gravity pulling dust into a planet.
A film that pretended to be real. That blurred the line between fiction and fact. No special effects, just pure tension. The kind of horror that lived in sound, suggestion, and silence. He remembered the film clearly now—grainy footage, screaming in the woods, panic in the night. It was perfect.
The Blair Witch Project.
It had everything he needed: low budget, real locations, no-name actors, and a killer marketing hook.
A low-budget horror film, grossing over a remarkable $248 million worldwide against a budget of just $60,000, becoming a box office phenomenon.
A found-footage film, shot in a forest, built around the illusion of truth. The actors didn't need to act—they just had to react. The camera didn't need polish—it needed to look like it was falling apart. It was designed to look amateur, and that made it brilliant.
And most importantly, it was a success story. One of the biggest box office successes of his previous life.
Ben leaned back, letting a slow grin tug at his lips. "That's it," he muttered. "That's the one."
He grabbed his pen, and for the rest of the afternoon, he scribbled down everything—casting ideas, production setup, story beats, camera angles. He wasn't trying to copy it frame for frame, but he'd use it as a blueprint. A spiritual successor. Something raw, real, and unforgettable.
The sun was setting outside, casting golden light across the cheap laminate surface. But Ben didn't notice. He was already somewhere else—in a world of his own making, scenes playing in his mind, dialogue forming as if whispered from another time.
And then, slowly, he began to write. Because, for him, this wouldn't just be a film.
It would be his second try to get into Hollywood.