Chris Moore was having one of those adrenaline-inducing days that sometimes occur in Hollywood when the Industry is obsessed with a single topic.

Four people had called him that September, 1991, morning urging him to read a screenplay called "Extremely Violent." Each caller was telling the young agent that this combination action, fantasy and parody picture would be a perfect vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Moore had never heard of screenwriters Zak Penn and Adam Leff, two neophytes less than a year and a half out of college, but he did what agents are programmed to do on such occasions. He picked up the phone.

"I don't know who you guys are," he told Penn. "I haven't read your script yet, but everyone in town is calling me about it."

The agent would later learn he had been set up. The buzz about "Extremely Violent" had been generated by low-level studio or agency employees he knew who also happened to be friends of Penn and Leff. Having failed to grab an agent's attention by more conventional means, the writing team had brazenly orchestrated a plan to transform their screenplay into a hot property and get themselves an agent.

By the time Moore discovered the truth, he had signed Penn and Leff as clients and was hardly in a position to object to the ruse. Under a new title, "The Last Action Hero," the screenplay did indeed become hot enough to launch a bidding war and eventually attract Schwarzenegger as both star and executive producer. It went on to form the backbone of a picture with one of the biggest price tags ever--an estimated $65 million to $80 million. Columbia Pictures will release "Last Action Hero" (the article was eventually dropped from the title) on June 18.

"Everyone should sell their script that way," said Moore (whose then-employer, Intertalent, was absorbed by International Creative Management), looking back on the writers' hustle.

Hollywood is filled with stories of screenwriters who toil in obscurity for years before making the big score. This is not one of those stories. For Penn and Leff, who got to know each other while taking a film appreciation course at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., the struggle for recognition lasted only a matter of months.

Their careers did begin in the standard way, however, as they recalled during an interview in an office at 20th Century Fox, where they are finishing work on a script for "P.C.U.," a satire based on their experiences at one of the country's most politically correct campuses.