Chapter 124

Phil took an early lunch to contact Stan Balsam at his Manhattan office – although he still sat at the desk opposite Hailey. He expected to go through a series of underlings before talking to Stan Balsam but the man answered the phone on the second ring.

“Uh, good morning, Mr. Balsam,” Phil stammered, caught slightly off guard by reaching the man so quickly. Phil wasn’t sure that someone calling Barton could get his personal number. “This is Philip Warner, interim CEO at Lambswool Studios, returning your call.”

“Oh, hey,” the man said. “Thanks for calling so quickly. It usually takes the Hollywood types a week or more to get back to me. I suppose they like to show me who’s in charge.”

“I’m not a Hollywood type, Mr. Balsam,” Phil corrected.

“It’s Stan, if you’d rather, and I’m not a Hollywood agent,” the man on the other end admitted. “I deal with athletes. Randi is my sole entertainment client and I only took her on because I’m so fond of Brock Miller. Truth is, most of those types are extremely high maintenance.”

“And pro athletes aren’t?” Phil wondered aloud.

“Good point!” Stan replied.

“I’m friends with Terrence Williams of the Eagles,” Phil told him. “He decided to go without an agent. I think my mother and her father helped him negotiate his compensation. It was pretty easy because all that is slotted now. He’ll need someone when his rookie deal ends. He’s a pretty solid guy. I can give him your number if you’re interested.”

“Always,” Stan said. “I can’t guarantee anything but I’ll talk to him. How is he doing on endorsements?”

“Truly, I don’t know,” Phil admitted. “I spoke to him a few weeks ago but he’s been focused on training camp. He said the guaranteed money from his rookie deal will set him up for life.”

“Probably,” Stan agreed. “He was No. 2 overall. That’s $41 million in guaranteed money. I met him a couple of times. He seems like a great kid. I know he didn’t raise any red flags when we checked him out.”

“Checked him out?” Phil wondered.

“We do a standard background check on all potential clients,” Stan said. “You know, domestic violence arrests, gang affiliations – the stuff that tends to drive down draft stock. Mr. Williams was high on our list but someone got to him before I could even contact him. I’m not surprised he dropped his agent. The man he signed with has a big name but he’s not the most ethical guy you’re going to find. Anyway, Mr. Warner...”

“Phil,” Phil cut in.

“Thank you, Phil,” Stan said. “I was hoping that you might have time to sit down with me in a couple of weeks. I’m going to be in Los Angeles and I wanted to get started on the nuts and bolts of Randi Darby’s next contract – assuming the show is going to be renewed.”

“Can we talk frankly, Stan?” Phil asked.

“I would hope so,” Stan replied. “We need to trust each other to be true to our word.”

“I’m not in Hollywood,” Phil replied. “I live in Calder City. I just completed my sophomore year of college. My family has controlled Lambswool for more than a decade as hands-off ownership. I recently had to make the ownership hands-on because we are losing money hand over fist. ‘Iconoclast’ is a problem for me. I want to renew it. It deserves to be renewed. Your client deserves to be compensated. The end of this season and the start of what would be next season are going to highlight her talents. But I do not have an unlimited budget and I have 12 other shareholders to answer to. I’m sure you’ve heard this refrain but I am willing to open my books to you and the agents from the other major players. I am going to need Ms. Darby’s help – along with that of Ms. Wells and Mr. Hardwell – before I can commit to a third season.”

Stan Balsam let out a long sigh.

“You’re right, I have heard that tired refrain,” he said. “In your case, however, I believe you. I read the story in Hollywood Now about what transpired at Lambswool last week. That’s why I’m calling now. I had no idea of your age but I knew I’d never heard your name before last week. Since we’re being blunt, I’ll tell you that the production costs are not going to go down. They will increase every single year. I am not an entertainment lawyer but I did extensive study on the industry before I agreed to take Ms. Darby as a client. This show will never see a profit. If that is what you expect then you’re being delusional.”

“Oh, I know it will never make money,” Phil said. He was surprised that he wasn’t pissed off at the lecture. Instead, he appreciated the fact that the man was trying to fill him in on something he might not know. “Right now, we’re losing almost $20 million a year on the show. One-fifth of the studio’s shortfall can be traced to a single project. Of course the other four-fifths can be traced to mismanagement – not only on the executives’ part but on my part. I have dealt with the mismanagement as best as I can. I simply can’t commit $20 million to cast salaries. There is no way I can justify that to the shareholders and there is no way I can justify that to myself. As you said, the production costs aren’t going down. It’s going to cost more for location shots. It’s going to cost more for props and extras. It’s going to cost more to feed everyone. It’s going to cost more for makeup and the makeup artists. I understand all that. That makes it even more important that we reach a deal that’s equitable not only to your client but to the studio.”

Hailey watched the conversation with interest. She had no investment in the outcome except for her interest in the show’s continuation.

“What is your proposal?” Stan asked.

“You see, that’s a real problem for me,” Phil answered, the sides of his mouth turning downward. “Right now she’s at 180 an episode. I know she probably deserves a huge raise. She did a great job and her arc will carry the show through half of next season. But if I give her 250, I have to increase Tiffany Wells and Dirk Hardwell to 300. They’re the top-billed stars, after all. That pushes my cast costs to over $11 million for just three actors. When you factor in the rest of the cast, I’m going to hit $20 million pretty quickly. Christ, there must be 25 characters that I have to retain for at least six episodes. I know these are my problems and not yours but, since we’re still being truthful, my problems are your client’s problems. I’m reconciled to losing money on the project. What I’m not reconciled to is everyone seeing this as a good deal but me. We’re all going to have to give a little. I’m going to have to eat the losses. You’re going to have to accept that the salary I offer probably isn’t in the range of what you’re hoping to see.”

Stan Balsam was silent. He had negotiated only a series of endorsements for Randi Darby and those had gone smoothly. This was not going smoothly.

“So you don’t have a starting point?” Stan asked. “I can go $200,000 per episode if Tiffany and Dirk will agree to 250,” Phil answered. “I’ll offer a series of riders that I saw were missing from Randi’s current contract. I’ll offer an additional $50,000 for a Golden Globe and another $50,000 for an Emmy. I’ll go $25,000 for a People’s Choice Award. To be honest, I think the Emmy is a long shot but she stands a good shot at a Globe and the People’s Choice. Those will give her the same salary as the top-billed stars – because I can’t see them winning any awards. I’m going to start working on that this weekend. My fiancée is a fan of the show and is going to put together a DVD of what she believes are Randi’s best scenes from Season 2. I’ll get that to you by next week regardless of where we are in the negotiations.”

“The awards rider would apply to Season 2?” Stan asked.

“I think it has to,” Phil said. “She’ll be out from under the contract by the time next year’s awards hit.”

Stan was quiet for a moment.

“I’m not sure I can recommend that to my client,” he said. “The problem is that those awards shows are so unpredictable. The best performance doesn’t always win. There is no guarantee that she will meet the incentives.”

“All I can guarantee is this, Mr. Balsam,” Phil said. “The only opportunity she is going to have to collect those incentives is if she accepts what I’m offering. Otherwise, I’m going to have to take the company’s bottom line into consideration and cancel the show. I don’t want that. I hope you know that. But I can’t justify losing that much money. I’ve already had one group of people grab all they could from Lambswool and you said you know how I dealt with that. If you force my hand, I’ll deal with ‘Iconoclast’ the same way. That’s the sad reality.”

Phil spent the evening going over the contracts of the executives he’d dismissed from Lambswool. He needed to get a handle on the duties each performed. He didn’t want to miss a loan payment or an important meeting because no one was around.

He had identified all the important tasks while still in Los Angeles. The major responsibilities had already been delegated but the niggling tasks still had to be done by someone – that someone would be Lewis Steinmetz.

Hailey sat down opposite him at the table. Phil didn’t even acknowledge her presence until she pulled the papers out of his hands.

“We are not going to have another Waterford,” she said firmly.

“Hailey!” Phil began but she held up a hand to stop him.

“No,” she said. “We played this little game last year. You took on a project and ignored everyone and everything for six weeks! We are not going down that road again.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Phil asked in exasperation.

“I’m not saying Lambswool and its problems aren’t important,” she stressed. “I’m saying your family and your friends are just as important. This will not lead to any more screaming matches with your mother. It will not lead to you sitting in the same room as people who love you without even noticing they are there. I expect you to find a happy medium between the job you took on and the rest of your life. So far, that medium is well on the far side of what I’m going to put up with.”

“You want me to salvage ‘Iconoclast,’ don’t you?” Phil inquired.

“At any means necessary?” Hailey replied rhetorically. “No! If it means you disappear into a shell for the rest of the summer and then disappear to Los Angeles for the rest of the year, I would prefer ‘Iconoclast’ goes down in flames. Phil, look around you.”

Phil noticed for the first time that everyone else who lived in the apartment was in the room. He wasn’t certain how long they’d been there but the looks on their faces – even Bob’s – told him it might have been awhile.

“Fine,” he said as he gathered up his papers. Hailey grabbed his wrists.

“When I told you to look around you, I was referring to the resources at your disposal,” Hailey noted. “No, Katelyn doesn’t have an MBA but she can look at financial ledgers to see if there is anything you can cut that you might have missed. No, Tiffany is not employed at a multi-zillion dollar advertising firm but she can take a look at how you plan to market some of your upcoming projects – including your awards push for ‘Iconoclast. Sure, Molly isn’t the conductor of the New York Philharmonic but she knows music and she might be able to save you a bunch of money by using songs that already in the public domain. Yeah, maybe Bob is just a muscle-headed jock...”

“Hey!” Katelyn cut in.

“I’m kidding,” Hailey said. “Bob is your target audience for about two-thirds of the movies under consideration. Did you think to maybe have him take a look at the synopsis and see if it would interest him in the slightest?”

“I am a muscle-headed jock,” Bob replied with a grin at Hailey. “I went to see ‘Key Club.’”

“Oh, Christ,” Katelyn muttered.

“I thought it was a piece of crap, if that’s any consolation,” Bob said, laughing. “Even the bodacious boobies didn’t make it worth watching.”

“What I’m trying to tell you, Phil, is that we will help you as much as you let us,” Hailey continued. “If you insist on trying to do this all by yourself, there is nothing we can do but let you. But we’re not going to be silent like last summer. If you try your disappearing act, you’re going to hear it – loud and often – and not just from me. OK?”

Phil inhaled deeply and shut his eyes.

“I’ll do my best to keep an even keel,” Phil agreed. “I’m working the rest of this week at Barton and them I’m done there for the summer.”

“Yes, your mother informed me of your little game with the contract,” Katelyn interjected. “Thanks to you, I have to go through each and every employee file to ensure no one pulled the same stunt. Fuck you very much!”

“Sorry,” Phil said with true remorse.

“And I get to do all the stuff alone that your mother had planned for both of us,” Hailey noted. “So you will have a few extra hours each week to work on this alone because I’ll be at Barton some evenings.”

“Crap,” Phil muttered.

“I didn’t get any new work but I’ll find some reason to be pissed off at you before the summer is over,” Tiffany promised with a laugh.

“Yeah, me too,” Molly added.

Phil turned to Bob for his part of the production.

“I will not go with you to tell Coach that you’re sitting out Fall Ball,” Bob said. “And I will not defend you to anyone who wants to give you shit for it.”

Phil nodded but Bob rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m kidding about both of those,” Bob said with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be team captain so I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best to make sure that everyone understands it isn’t something you wanted to do but something you felt you needed to do.”

“Thanks,” Phil said. “Bros before hos.”

“Oh, you just gave me the reason I needed to be pissed at you, too!” Tiffany said, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

“Me, too!” Molly said.

Katelyn and Hailey seemed content to simply glare at their boyfriends.

“I didn’t say it!” Bob pointed out.

“I didn’t mean it,” Phil added quickly. “I was trying to be funny.”

“Ha ... ha,” Katelyn said.

“Ha ... ha,” Hailey echoed.

“Now I’m pissed at you for dragging me into this mess,” Bob said. Everyone in the room glared at Phil – just as they were doing when Hailey sat down. It lasted for a moment before they burst into laughter.