“Cool,” says Dime.
“I’ll need you guys’ consent to transfer the option over.”
Dime hesitates. “But you’ll still be our producer.”
“You better believe it.”
“What about the Swank situation?”
“He’s still got a blunt up his ass about Hilary, but we can deal with that. All kinds of ways to deal with that. Believe me, having her in the mix is nothing but good for us. But listen.” Albert coughs into his fist. “You need to know going in, Norm’s got somewhat of a problem with the option price.”
“What kind of problem.”
“A size problem. A hundred thousand per Bravo, ten Bravos, that’s a tough nut to crack right out of the gate. We’re already looking at plunking half a million for the script, then getting a lead on the level of a Hilary, a Clooney, we’re talking multiple millions here.”
Dime turns to Billy. “Here’s where we get fucked.”
“No!” Albert cries. “No, no, no, no, Dave, have some faith! We’ve come this far together, you think I’m gonna toss you over the side now? Dave, Dave, you guys are my guys, either we make it together or we go down together. That’s what I told them in there, but I’m not gonna bullshit you, Norm’s not Santa Claus, he’s not spending one more dime than he has to. He, they, one of his guys — look, these are businessmen, okay? Understand they’re very crude in their thinking, just by definition. They floated the idea of dealing with just you two, they see your stories as the principal elements in this and the rest of the guys as, well, ancillary. I said I’d run it by you, but—”
“No.”
“—uh huh, total nonstarter, that’s what I told them. Bravo lives by the warrior code, I said. They won’t ever leave one of their own behind.”
“For them to even—”
“I know! But you have to understand that’s the mentality we’re dealing with here. Streamlining, return on capital, all that MBA shit, but I think they got the message. It’s gotta be all Bravos or no Bravos, nothing in between.”
“Damn straight,” Dime woofs, with volume enough to raise giggles from the busboys down the hall.
“David, relax.”
“I’m totally relaxed. Billy’s relaxed too, aren’t you Billy?”
“Totally, Sergeant.”
“Hang with me, guys, I’m gonna get you there. Right now what they’re offering is, well, what you’d be doing is deferring moneys up front for a net-profits percentage in the movie. You get an advance when the option is exercised, then you get another pop when we go into production—”
“How much?”
“—David, let me finish, please. Look, just ballparking this thing, if it has even decent success on the scale I’m thinking of, you guys will come out considerably better than a hundred thousand, but you’ll have to hang in there and be patient. When I set our up-front number two weeks ago I was thinking we’d be playing with studio money, but it’s a whole different game when you go independent. The numbers scale back across the board, people usually end up taking a profits percentage in lieu of cash. Even stars take percentage if it’s a project near and dear to their hearts.”
“Fine, I hear you. How much.”
“Well, initially it’s pretty minimal. Fifty-five hundred against profits when the option’s exercised—”
A gurgling commences in Dime’s throat.
“—but you’ll get that second advance when production starts—”
“Fifty-five fucking hundred?”
“I know it’s not what you were hoping for—”
“No shit!”
“—but then you’ll get that second advance—”
“How much?”
“Well, we’re still working on that, but usually it’s tied to production budget. The bigger the budget, the bigger your advance—”
“Not our deal, Albert. You said a hundred thousand up front.”
“I did, because I believe in your story so much, and I still think we’re gonna home-run this thing. Look, two weeks ago I thought we had a real chance of taking studio bids, you guys had such outrageous buzz coming in. But we get a couple of no’s, and Russell Crowe taking a pass, that really hurt us. It doesn’t take much for the buzz to fade, and I admit, maybe I got a little ahead of myself, I jacked up everybody’s expectations and now we’re all going to have to adjust. Plus the fact that the war’s put up some spotty box-office numbers, didn’t I say that might be a problem? So we’re bucking that too. I know fifty-five hundred sounds pretty lame after the numbers we’ve been talking about, but for young men like yourselves, young soldiers on Army pay, it’s not nothing, right?”
“Albert, don’t even talk to me like that.”
“Dave, I’m just trying to get you to think long-term here. This is equity, think of it as stock, stock options, you’re deferring a chunk of money up front for a shot at real money down the road. And you guys would be helping to build something, that’s what equity’s all about. If the company makes money, you make money, you’ll be fully vested partners with Legends on this deal—”
“Wait, who?”
“Legends. That’s the name Norm wants for his company.”
“Jesus Christ, he’s already got the fucking name?”
“You better believe he’s got the name and that’s great, I got no interest being partners with a ball scratcher, and neither should you. He’s ready to go, Norm’ll pull a damn trigger — do you not realize the value of that? How freaking rare that is in my world? You die by the slow no in this business, lemme get back to you, lemme get back to you, lemme get back to you, everybody’s so scared of screwing up they’d rather lose a kidney than make an actual business decision. So here we are in Dallas, we meet this guy, he sizes up the situation and wham, he’s good to go. I’m not saying you have to love the guy, but you’ve got to respect the power of that.”
Respect this, Billy can practically hear the Bravos woof. As if in pain Dime swags his head side to side.
“But Albert.”
“What?”
“You said they love us.”
“I did, David, but that was two weeks ago. People move on, they start to focus on other things.”
“So you’re saying this is the best offer we’re going to get?”
“Dave, I’m saying this is the only offer we’ve got.”
“Does Norm know?”
Albert shrugs. “He knows we’ve been talking to people.”
“So what he’s offering is, basically, fifty-five hundred bucks apiece. And that’s all he’s on the hook for. No guarantees we’ll get anything else.”
“Dave, you want a guarantee, go buy a microwave. No guarantees in my world unless your name is Tom Cruise.”
Dime sighs, and to Billy’s profound alarm he turns and asks, “What do you think?” but before Billy can answer an unmarked door pops open between them and the suite, and Mr. Jones leans out.
“Mr. Ratner, the third quarter’s about to end.”
“Thanks. We’ll be right there.”
Mr. Jones withdraws but leaves the door ajar. Albert turns to Dime and Billy, lowers his voice. “Guys, tell me what you want. You wanna go in there and talk, or should I just yell through the door no thanks.”
“No,” Dime says.