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*****
Jeff knew exactly who held the leash in this relationship. Marvin wasn't just a client; he served as the golden goose, the kingmaker, the most powerful entity Jeff encountered in his entire career.
….
…
..
.
Marvin sat back on the sofa in Jeff's newly renovated office. He picked up another screenplay from the stack on the table, flipping through the pages with a speed bordering on the superhuman.
With his meteoric rise to global fame came a deluge of offers. Couriers delivered scripts to Jeff's office daily, primarily because almost no one in the cutthroat industry actually knew the address of Marvin's San Marino estate.
Marvin quickly scanned through the scripts. He mostly just read the title pages, the attached directors and writers, and the brief narrative summaries. Almost all of these featured mid-budget horror movies or supernatural thrillers. None of them rang any creative or financial bells in his head.
He searched for a script possessing genuine money-making potential, but these submissions felt tragically, embarrassingly derivative. They all functioned as cheap, hollow clones of *The Sixth Sense*.
It highlighted a glaring flaw of the Hollywood machine: the industry felt creatively bankrupt.
Whenever an original idea shattered box-office expectations, Hollywood's first instinct wasn't to nurture the next great creator—it was to flood the market with pale imitations.
One hit film would spawn a dozen copycats. A fresh concept would be dissected, repackaged, and reproduced until every trace of originality had been squeezed from it.
Marvin knew this problem would only grow worse as the years went on. By the time the 2010s arrived, the industry would become increasingly dominated by sequels, reboots, remakes, shared universes, and executives desperately chasing the success of someone else's breakthrough.
Ironically, the biggest offenders weren't struggling studios trying to survive.
They were the giants.
The so-called Big Six had mastered the art of turning creativity into a formula. The moment something new proved profitable, entire conference rooms filled with executives would begin asking the same question:
"How do we make our own version of that?"
It was safer than taking risks. Safer than betting on unknown millennial slop writers. Safer than trusting original stories. And in Hollywood, safety often won over imagination.
That cowardice didn't just infect the industry—it became part of its business model.
Studio money backed many of the scripts sitting on the table right now; they simply wanted to lazily capitalize on the success of *The Sixth Sense* and blindly tap into his ever-growing, rabid global fanbase.
His reading pace felt incredibly quick—perhaps a bit too quick for a normal human—but his expression remained intensely serious. It made it difficult for Jeff, sitting behind his desk, to tell if his young client genuinely speed-read the dialogue or simply pretended to look busy.
After a few more minutes, Marvin tossed the final script onto the rejected pile with a soft thud.
"Is that all of them?" Marvin asked, a hint of disappointment coloring his voice.
"What, you didn't like a single one of them?" Jeff asked, genuinely curious. He leaned forward in his chair. "Paramount offers eight million upfront for that haunted asylum picture."
"Perhaps my standards sit too high," Marvin shrugged. "Never mind. I've got *The Others* secured, and *Hide and Seek*. My personal shooting schedule for this coming year feels basically full anyway."
In truth, Marvin wasn't just searching for a good, high-paying script for himself. He hunted for star-making vehicles for Jessica and Scarlett.
His expanding "coven" of young, rising stars remained a primary focus long-term. He met with the Girls on a regular, intimate basis in Los Angeles. The only girl in his circle he rarely saw face-to-face these days was Beyoncé, who was still recording her group's next album in Houston; they currently maintained their connection through late-night, hours-long phone calls.
Marvin's interactions with the girls felt like an intoxicating psychological dance. They behaved exactly like young, passionately devoted couples—deeply affectionate, protective, and tactile each time they met in private.
Yet, Marvin always maintained strict control, never fully crossing the physical line.
"By the way, Jeff," Marvin smoothly changed the subject, crossing his legs. "Because of our holiday release date, *The Sixth Sense* missed the eligibility window for the Golden Globe Awards this January. How is the PR looking for the Oscars?"
The music industry had already shifted on its axis. By the time the Recording Academy officially announced the Grammy nominations in early January, the global music apparatus was in a state of frantic, terrified motion.
Agency switchboards melted down, panicked publicists scrambled to salvage their clients' shattered campaigns, and industry headlines were frantically rewritten in real-time. Leading this relentless, unstoppable charge was ***My Heart Will Go On***.
Its title appeared over and over across the highest, most prestigious categories, serving as an ironclad confirmation of what the planet already knew: the track hadn't merely succeeded financially; it had culturally consumed the entire year.
For *My Heart Will Go On*, the nominations didn't feel like a competition; they felt like a sovereign coronation. **Record of the Year.** **Song of the Year.** **Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.** **Best Song Written for a Motion Picture.** Intense whispers of production and arrangement recognition echoed through the deeper chambers of the Academy. It stood as a rare, leviathan track that slipped effortlessly past the transient Billboard charts and cemented itself directly into the bedrock of historical permanence.
The majestic, undeniably massive piece of music made the notoriously snobbish Grammy voters feel entirely safe. They weren't making a risky choice; they simply bowed to the choice the world already made.
Beneath the surface of the golden gramophones and the PR statements, a darker, more cynical, systemic reason drove his uncontested sweep.
This was 1999, an era where the music industry's brightest stage was controlled from its darkest rooms.
The Recording Academy did not trust its own voters. Instead, it heavily relied on its "Special Nominating Committees"—faceless, secretive cabals comprised of the industry's old guard, powerful label executives, and legacy traditionalists who acted as absolute gatekeepers. These committees were notoriously stuck in a bygone era, terrified of the cultural tectonic shift toward hip-hop, R&B, and raw urban sounds that were dominating the streets and the charts.
They weren't just curators; they were a failsafe mechanism. They systematically worked behind closed doors to filter out Black artists, female disruptors, and rap genres from the prestigious "Big Four" categories (Album, Record, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist).
If the general voting body nominated a hip-hop track, the committee wielded supreme veto power, quietly shoving those artists into segregated "Urban" sub-categories. They were desperate to preserve a traditionalist, conservative image of what they deemed "prestige music."
Then came Marvin.
For the Academy's old guard, Marvin wasn't just a prodigy; he was a demographic miracle.
He was the perfect storm: a non-hip-hop, non-Black male artist born into wealth, carrying a lineage of Jewish and Christian heritage with unimpeachable, straight, white American origins. He didn't come from the streets; he came from the stratosphere. And most importantly, he had just delivered the most immaculate, orchestrally sweeping pop ballad of the decade.
He served as a godsend to the executives. He embodied exactly the kind of artist they wanted to crown—one whose music didn't threaten their delicate, traditional sensibilities, but validated them to such an absolute extent that it stood completely alone.
They didn't just award Marvin; they weaponized him. They used his music as their ultimate shield. Because *My Heart Will Go On* was a masterpiece—so flawless and universally beloved by the masses—they could hand it every major award in the building without facing a single shred of industry backlash. If critics accused the Grammy committee of racial bias or being out of touch, the old guard could simply point to Marvin and say, "We aren't biased; we are just recognizing generational greatness." He functioned as the perfect golden boy to legitimize their deeply outdated, rigged voting structures.
They used *Marvin's music* as their ultimate shield—a masterpiece so flawless and universally beloved they could hand it every major award in the building without facing a shred of industry backlash.
The consensus remained absolute, reinforced by an industry that knew exactly what it was doing.
Critics universally bowed to the track, dedicating entire editorial spreads to calling his music "timeless" and "transcendent." Radio station directors—many of whom shared the same traditionalist anxieties as the Grammy committees—simply referred to the song as an "unstoppable juggernaut." They locked it into heavy rotation, letting the broadcast tapes literally wear thin.
There was no debate. There was no cultural war. The Academy had found their perfect king, and they used his crown to keep the gates of the industry firmly locked against the changing tide.
When the final nomination lists printed and distributed, the harsh reality of the music industry lay bare for every rival executive to see. No fierce rivalry existed. No debate over who might take the throne occurred.
No second entry stood beside it this time.
Only Marvin Meyers stood completely and utterly alone at the apex of the Grammy.
No competing shadow from his own expanding catalog appeared. His new track *Unstoppable* released far too late in the fourth quarter to meet the Grammy eligibility deadlines. The field of nominees stretched wide, featuring strong names and proven legacy performers. None of them carried the same quiet certainty of victory following Marvin's work into the room.
"For the movie?" Jeff sighed, rubbing his chin. "Nothing stops us pushing for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for you, Marvin. In fact, you sit on the shortlist. But actually *winning* the statuette at night..." Jeff trailed off, his expression grim.
"I am not running a campaign, Jeff," Marvin replied instantly, his tone detached. It wasn't false humility or duplicity—he genuinely wasn't pushing to win a golden statue this year.
After all, his co-star Bruce Willis desperately campaigned for Best Actor for the exact same movie. Bruce, widely known for his stoic "tough guy" action persona, held career-defining aspirations. He desperately wanted a prestigious gold statuette to prove his dramatic worth to the industry.
A well-known, poorly kept secret circulated in town. Immediately after the preliminary nominations announced, Willis spent $1 million of his own money to launch an aggressive PR campaign. He bought out fifteen full pages of expensive, glossy ad space in *Vanity Fair* and *The Hollywood Reporter*. He hired expensive PR crisis experts to plant glowing, intellectual articles about his nuanced, subdued performance in *The Sixth Sense* across the national media.
Marvin didn't need to demean himself by competing for manufactured attention. If he joined the chaotic fray, it would only divert precious media resources and scatter the votes among the older Academy judges. It proved incredibly difficult for the conservative judges to vote for both the lead actor and the supporting actor from the exact same genre, and even more difficult from the same movie.
Furthermore, Marvin knew this Oscar season possessed its own industry-shattering drama.
Harvey's unprecedented manipulation of public relations and voter lobbying artificially propelled Gwyneth Paltrow and the light romantic comedy *Shakespeare in Love* to the very front of the Oscar race. From his future knowledge, Marvin knew exactly how this bloody campaign ended. Harvey would engineer an unexpected controversial win for Paltrow and the film, robbing Spielberg's masterpiece *Saving Private Ryan* of its rightful Best Picture and Best Actress Oscars.
Harvey currently set a dark precedent in the industry. The prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would never recover from this in the eyes of the public and the rival studios. Harvey publicly proved the sacred Oscars weren't based purely on artistic merit.
They could be bought, manipulated, and bullied to this extent. It provided a playbook many small and big players would follow for decades to come.
Marvin briefly considered utilizing Harvey's political machinery for his own Oscar campaign this year, but he hesitated. Looking at Harvey's obsessive, frantic attitude lately, the studio head's focus and capital clearly felt consumed entirely by the *Shakespeare in Love* war.
"Let Bruce buy his magazine ads," Marvin said dismissively. "Anyway, Jeff, I have another script formed in my mind."
Jeff felt shock no longer. He simply nodded. He pulled out his notepad, waiting for the hurricane to hit.
"A film," Marvin began. His voice dropped into a low, hypnotic cadence immediately commanding the room. "But more than that. A completely new, interconnected cinematic universe."
Marvin picked up his water glass from the table. He held it smoothly without drinking—a habit Jeff noticed over the year.
Marvin's hands sometimes occupied themselves with physical objects while his mind simultaneously constructed complex architectures.
"It's a vampire film," Marvin stated.
Jeff's expression did not change significantly. This itself represented a disciplined kind of expression. "A vampire film," he repeated neutrally.
"Not the way you currently think," Marvin corrected him smoothly.
"How exactly am I thinking?"
****
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