Chapter 49: Let's All Shut Down Together
Sitting in his luxurious office, Martin Bob quickly flipped through the script outline in front of him. He tilted his head in thought, then closed it and set it aside. Mel Gibson obviously wanted to break into directing, but it wasn't the right time. CAA had gone to great lengths to secure two leading roles for him; everything would have to wait until he fulfilled his acting contracts.
Martin Bob had laid out his position during a brief phone call with Mel Gibson, and the actor had hesitated only a moment before agreeing.
CAA was in control. The actors and directors under its banner were nothing more than chess pieces. The agency's enduring dominance had long since ingrained this belief deeply into Martin Bob's mind.
Even someone as untamed as Mel Gibson had to submit to the orchestration of superagents like them after joining CAA. If things kept developing at their current pace, it wouldn't be long before the agency dominated two-thirds or more of the Hollywood market.
While these thoughts sprang naturally to mind, Martin Bob maintained a strong sense of crisis. He had heard that Viacom's Sumner Redstone was constantly eyeing Paramount Pictures, and Walt Disney, led by an old friend, was transitioning into a massive media conglomerate. The era of Hollywood independent filmmaking was drawing to a close. What would CAA use to compete against those true super giants in the future?
There was only one answer: a steady stream of successful projects. As long as CAA's packaging services could generate enough profit, those media conglomerates would hold them up to the heavens.
If Interview with the Vampire became a major hit, it would definitively erase the fallout from the failure of Alien 3, strengthen CAA's partnership with Twentieth Century Fox, and show the film studios under other media conglomerates exactly what CAA was capable of!
Take Warner Brothers, for instance. They had never really bought into CAA's influence. On The Rock, they had actually rejected CAA's package deal and chosen to trust that Duke Rosenberg. They had to be struggling with regret over that decision right now. The more setbacks the project suffered, the greater the likelihood of its ultimate failure. As long as The Rock bombed, Warner Brothers would inevitably discard Duke Rosenberg and reconsider CAA's value.
News of The Rock's temporary production shutdown had already leaked. It was no secret to an industry insider like Martin Bob. CAA and Twentieth Century Fox had merely encouraged the injured stuntman a bit, then given a slight push from behind after he filed a complaint with the Screen Actors Guild. Just like that, Duke Rosenberg's production had plunged into crisis.