Chapter 126

“This is fucking bullshit!” Phil seethed. The six others in the room looked at him from around the conference table. They had never seen him raise his voice. Even when he fired two-thirds of the staff, he had remained calm and implacable.

Now, his face was red and his hands were balled into fists. No one wanted to be the first to speak so Phil continued his rant.

“We show Courtney Hollings’ ass for 48 seconds,” he added in even a louder voice. “We show Rafe Costas’ ass for 37 seconds. We have 317 instances of cursing or offensive language. That’s OK with those old cocksuckers, though. But because we show 11 instances of smoking and have a scene in an opium den, they want to slap an R rating on us! What in the fuck!”

Clark Withers looked at the other shocked faces and decided to bite the bullet.

“Sir, there are things that ... you just can’t show,” he said.

“The God-damned movie is set in 1922!” Phil yelled. “Fucking people smoked. They went to opium dens in some parts of the world. Do they expect us to create an authentic feel with current morals? Are there any fucking rules to how they rate films?”

“Not really,” Clark admitted. “Uh, look, it’s mostly a matter of who’s putting it out and how much money they’re willing to toss in the screener’s direction.”

“Fuck!” Phil yelled at the top of his voice. “This fucking town is nothing but slimeballs and assholes. I swear to Christ, I hope someday the real world pops its fucking head into this cesspool. Hollywood would go broke paying the legal bills of every bastard walking around with his hand open for a payoff. So I have the choice of spending fifty grand to re-edit the film or putting it into an envelope for those pricks.”

“It will be more than fifty thousand either way you go,” Clark said meekly. “Re-editing the film on this tight a schedule is going to push costs to five times that amount. And a bribe that small isn’t worth even talking about. The MPAA would want at least half a million before they give it a PG-13 rating.”

Phil picked his water glass off the table and was tempted to hurl it against the wall. He stopped and set it back on the table when he realized the walls of the conference room were also glass – and replacing one of the panes would set him back another five grand.

He sat heavily in his chair and expelled the air from lungs noisily.

“Options?” he asked in his normal voice.

“You’ve pretty much spelled them out as far as I can see it,” Clark said. He had managed to state the facts without retribution – not always a given in his chosen profession. He decided to test his luck further. “We re-edit film and remove either the scene in the opium den or two instances of tobacco usage; we pay off the MPAA to give us a better rating or we release ‘Kismet’ as R or NC-17.”

“That will kill us!” a woman said from across the table. “Our core audience is teenagers and young adults. Either rating cuts that audience in half.”

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. “That’s not really an option. Can we appeal the board’s decision?”

“Not and release before the new year,” Clark said. “You’re right, Phil. The screeners are a bunch of has-beens and never-will-bes. But they have this power and they guard it jealously. We can appeal but they would drag their feet until it was too late to release at Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t be surprised if another studio hasn’t paid them to give us that rating. Our financial situation isn’t a secret. I get calls every day from production companies offering to buy ‘Kismet’ from us for a pretty hefty sum. I know everyone in this room has taken calls like that.”

“So, we do a quick and dirty re-edit,” Phil said. “What’s to stop them from finding something else?”

“That report in your hand,” Clark said, gesturing to the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating statement. “They told us what needs to be done to get down to PG-13. If we appeal, you’ll need to negotiate a fee with them and I know you don’t want to do that. But, a re-edit can’t be done overnight. It’s going to take six weeks and another week for the MPAA to review the changes.”

“That’s going to push us pretty hard on getting this in front of test audiences,” the woman opposite Clark Withers said.

“I’ll handle putting together the test audience,” Phil declared.

Anna Goldblum raised her eyebrows. She was in charge of marketing and demographics for the studio and it was her job to arrange pre-screenings for target groups. She started to wonder if she was on her way out the door, too.

“It has nothing to do with you,” Phil said quickly. “The Internet advertising plan was brilliant and I’m not sure how you convinced IMDB to link to our website but the results have been fantastic. Look, I am the target demographic. I know people my age and I know how to get them to come to an early screening without paying them money. And you can bet your sweet ass that I’m not going to screen this fucker in Hollywood.”

He saw Anna blush and Phil soon joined her. He had heard more than one male mention that Anna Goldblum had a nice-looking butt. He immediately wondered if that had caused him to use the very words that had caused him to threaten to fire one of the production assistants.

“I apologize,” he said quickly. “That was just a figure of speech and it wasn’t directed at you in any way. I hope you didn’t take offense. I sincerely apologize for my choice of phrasing.”

“I’m more offended that you might think I don’t have a sweet ass,” Anna said with a laugh. “No offense taken so no apology is necessary.”

“It comes back to how things work in the real world,” Phil said, shaking his head. “A comment like that anywhere but in this town would have me trying to reach an out-of-court settlement for sexual harassment. Please know, I’m trying my hardest to make sure this workplace is friendly for females and minorities.”

“I know you have,” Anna said. “It might be like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon but I know that, at least personally, it is appreciated. But, back to the important stuff...”

“I find making sure the people who work here are comfortable to be very important,” Phil cut in.

Anna smiled at Phil. She was 26 years old and, although she hadn’t been promoted to the job that her former supervisor had lost, she had been given a pay raise and additional responsibility. She knew she would be in high demand if Lambswool went under – but she hadn’t put out resumes because she hoped it would survive.

“My sensibilities aren’t going to cost the studio a bunch of money,” she said with a laugh. “For now, I’d like to hear more about your plan for test audiences – if you don’t mind.”

“I’m still putting it together,” Phil admitted. “I promise, the moment the plan is crystallized, I’ll let you know so you can poke holes in it. I’ll let you know in the next couple of weeks. OK?”

It really wasn’t OK but Anna Goldblum knew who signed her paychecks.

“That’s great, Phil,” she said. “With that off my plate, I can see what I can do to countermand the backlash from the ‘Iconoclast’ thing.”

Phil sighed heavily and nodded.

“It was the best I could do and keep us afloat until next year,” he said. “So, let’s get started on the re-editing immediately. Pull anyone you need to pull to get this done. We can pay overtime so long as it isn’t excessive.”

He closed his eyes as the reality of the situation settled on him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Get this done by this time next month regardless of the cost. I’ll pay overtime out of my pocket if I have to. This has to be done by Halloween. I mean that. There can be no delay and I can’t give you a second longer. Clark, I want you to oversee this. OK?”

“Absolutely,” Clark said, happy at being offered such a high-profile assignment.

“I’m not going to bullshit you,” Phil said, looking hard at the man. “Everyone in this room has put their heart and soul into this project. I know you have, too. You’ve all done amazing work but none of it is going to make a bit of difference if we don’t get this back to the MPAA by Halloween.”

“You’ve got to quit working so hard,” Emma Thomas said when she sat down at the table with Hailey. Hailey had books and notes scattered about and there was barely room for Emma’s tray.

“What else should I be doing?” Hailey asked. “Phil is out in Los Angeles. I’m stuck here. I’m still trying to bring my GPA up and I’ve got a lot to do to move Beta Club to where we want it to go.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “And by Christmas, you’ll be burned out and miserable. Aren’t you the one that told me that college is supposed to be fun?”

Hailey sighed.

“That was when I had someone to share it with,” she admitted. “College was fun last year. Phil and I were going great. I had someone at home waiting for me every night. Now I don’t. I have this to keep me occupied.”

“Why don’t we all get dolled up and go to a party this weekend?” Emma asked. “Taylor and Bob play at home Saturday morning. We can all find someplace just to let off some steam Saturday night.”

Hailey found herself shaking her head before Emma even finished speaking.

“Why not?” Emma asked.

“I’m not going to go out and have fun when Phil is working 80-hour weeks out there,” Hailey confided. “You should see him. He looks so tired and frustrated. I know it’s driving him crazy. He’s just not used to dealing with people like he has to deal with out there. Everyone is so phony and a lot of them get mad when he’s blunt with them. Right now, he’s trying to keep ‘Iconoclast’ on the air and it’s going badly.”

“He’s going to cancel ‘Iconoclast’?” Emma asked, appalled at the very concept. “That would be stupid!”

“See, that’s what I didn’t understand until he explained it,” Hailey said. She told Emma about all the costs involved in the show – and how the previous leadership had saddled the studio with a poor contract from the network that aired it.

“He has to take all that into consideration,” Hailey said. “He’s balancing that with making sure ‘Kismet’ is ready for theaters in November and trying to dig the studio out of the hole it’s in. How can I justify going out to a party with my friends when I know he’ll be at the office or going over books in his apartment on Saturday night?”

“That’s insane,” Emma said. “I ... I can’t believe Randi Raver is holding him hostage for money. You’d think the $25 million she made in record sales last year would be enough to tide her over.”

“That’s something else Phil explained to me,” Hailey continued. “On the books, Randi earned $25 million. That’s what she paid taxes on. That means she paid about half of it to the government. Then her agent took six percent – of the entire $25 million. This was her last album for her old label and they took about 25 percent. So she paid 50 percent to the government; 25 percent to her label; and another 10 percent to her agent, the studio musicians and other people. Her tour cost another 10 percent of her gross take to put on. So of the $25 million she earned, she actually brought home about $2.5 million. Now, that’s still a lot of money. I’m not saying it isn’t. But it’s a lot different than the $25 million the magazines say she’s made.

“The studio is the same way. Phil says ‘Kismet’ will gross about $200 million at the box office in the U.S. if it’s a hit. But the costs associated with putting it out and starting production on the next one come pretty close to taking up all of that. The studio will see about a $50 million return at the box office. That’s about a quarter of what Phil has to find in order to keep the studio running. For some of the other production companies out there, that would be great. For a place with so deep a deficit, it isn’t enough. So he’s trying to find money everywhere he can. The worst part is that he’s in over his head – and he knows it. That’s harder on him than anything else. He just doesn’t have the experience to deal with people and to deal with the problems. Beth could do it because she’s used to it. She can spot bullshit a mile away. But Phil can’t.”

“Can we help him?” Emma asked.

Hailey shook her head sadly.

“None of us knows enough to even be a sounding board for him,” Hailey told her. “He’s working with the one person he trusts in L.A. – the lead attorney at Lambswool. I’ve offered to go over things with him but it’s no use. I just don’t understand the situation well enough to help him.”

“That sucks,” Emma said. “It sounds like he needs a night of fun more than even you do.”