The air in the William Morris Agency conference room was thick with the scent of expensive cigars. This kind of place reminded Duke of Mad Men.
Seated on one side of the polished mahogany table were Duke, Mark Jensen, and David Chen all calm as they all wanted to close the deal today.
Across from them, the WMA team, agent Howard Minsky, Jonathan Powell, and a young Erich Segal, the author, who fidgeted with a pen, his academic demeanor out of place in the corporate arena.
Powell, a smooth talker, began the pitch. "Connor, Mark, Love Story isn't just a script; it's a phenomenon waiting to happen. It's got that rare, timeless quality. It transcends the current noise. It's pure, undiluted love."
Segal, seizing the cue, leaned forward eagerly. "It's deceptively simple in its architecture. Boy meets girl, yes, but it's a poignant exploration of societal stratification, the fragility of life, the… the very essence of love itself."
He spoke like a literature professor, which he was.
Duke listened, his posture relaxed but his eyes missing nothing.
Minsky, the closer, finally entered the fray, his voice a gravelly rumble. "The town is buzzing, Connor. We've got significant interest. Real heat."
"But given your unique touch with material like this, we wanted to give you a seat at the table before it gets crowded. This could be the next great romance, what you achieved with Mike Nichols, maybe even reccomend this script to him."
There was a long, deliberate pause as Duke steepled his fingers on the table.
"Howard, David," Duke began, his voice calm and unnervingly even. "Let's dispense with the fiction."
"The rumors I hear around town aren't about a bidding war. The rumor is that this script has been shown to every major lot and has been passed on. Repeatedly. The word being used is 'maudlin.' The criticism is that it mistakes melodrama for emotion."
He saw Powell's smile tighten and Minsky's jaw clench. Segal looked as if he'd been slapped.
He remembered watching Love Story in his previous life, it's a movie about an italian poor girl who falls in love with a rich boy from New England, the boy is a WASP.
But he read the script and instead of Italian, the girl was jewish in this script. Everytime he got Love Story offered he checked the ethnicity of the girl and if it was still jewish, he wouldnt buy it since that means that they haven't done big changes and there's still a chance of lowering prices.
"If there was significant interest," Duke continued, his gaze locking onto Powell, "you wouldn't have personally walked this script into my office on five separate occasions over the last three months, each time with a progressively lower asking price."
"You're not here because of a buzz. You're here because you're out of options, and you believe my success with The Graduate has made me susceptible to a certain type of sentimental project."
He shifted his focus to Segal, his tone softening from brutal to merely analytical. "Erich, the core concept is sound. The potential for a commercial success is, as I said, obvious. But as it stands, the emotional core is unearned. It leans on cliché where it should build character. It tells me they are in love; it doesn't show me why, in a way that feels true."
Finally, he returned his gaze to Minsky and Powell, his voice regaining its steel. "So, here is the reality. Ithaca is prepared to make an offer. A single offer. It will be for the complete package rights, script, and a production commitment."
"The offer will be fair, but it will not be 'competitive' with a phantom bidding war. It will include strict budgetary controls and Ithaca will have final cut. This is not a negotiation. It is an assessment of value. You can take the offer, or you can continue shopping a script that the rest of this town has already rejected. The choice is yours."
He had not just called their bluff; he had torn up their cards and revealed the empty table. The power in the room had not just shifted; it had been seized completely.
---
Duke stood by the window of his office for a moment, watching the city below, before turning to his desk and summoning David Chen.
Chen entered with his customary quiet efficiency. He took his seat, placing a fresh notepad on his knee.
"Marvel," Duke stated, the single word hanging in the air like a challenge.
Chen, ever-prepared, didn't miss a beat. "Financially, it is achievable," he confirmed.
"Their magazine division is a consistent drain, and while their comic sales are strong, the profit margins are not what one would call extravagant. The initial acquisition cost would be manageable for Ithaca. However," he continued, adjusting his glasses in a gesture that signaled the arrival of a significant complication, "there is a profound structural issue that transcends the balance sheet."
He began to sketch on his notepad. "Since 1968, their comics have been distributed by Independent News. This company is a subsidiary of National Periodical Publications—DC Comics."
"Our primary competitor in this space effectively controls the pipeline through which Marvel's product reaches its audience. This gives DC tremendous leverage. They can dictate terms, throttle supply, or simply decline to distribute a title that threatens their own."
He laid the notepad on the desk.
On it, a simple, elegant diagram showed Marvel isolated, with a thick arrow labeled "Independent News (DC)" controlling its access to the market.
"Our original target, Charlton Comics, presents a far more straightforward proposition," Chen argued, his tone revealing a clear bias for the cleaner, more logical deal.
"Their characters are largely unknown and creatively stagnant. But their true asset is not on the page; it is in their logistics. They own their own distribution company—their own trucks, their own warehouse network, their own contracts with newsstands across the country."
"Acquiring Charlton gives us immediate, owned infrastructure. We could integrate The Paris Review and any future publications into that network, achieving the efficiency we discussed. Marvel is a flashy brand with a fatal flaw. Charlton is unglamorous, but it is a undervalued asset."
Duke listened, his gaze fixed on Chen's diagram. He processed the information not as a list of problems, but as a series of interconnected variables in a strategic equation.
"Your analysis is correct, but your conclusion is limited," Duke said, his voice calm and even, devoid of any criticism.
"You see Marvel's distribution problem as a reason to avoid them. I see it as their primary vulnerability and our greatest point of leverage."
He leaned forward, tapping the diagram.
"The play isn't Marvel or Charlton."
"It's Marvel and a strategic alliance with Charlton. We acquire Marvel. Then, before our competitors even know the deal is closed, we approach Charlton not as a buyer, but as a partner. We offer them an exclusive, long-term distribution deal for the entire Marvel line."
"We use Marvel's popular characters—Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four—to fill Charlton's distribution pipeline. Overnight, we make Charlton's network vastly more profitable and valuable. We don't just own the characters; we control the route to their audience, without the capital outlay and managerial burden of a full acquisition. We turn Marvel's greatest weakness into a weapon that empowers a smaller, more agile partner, which we then control through contract."
"And we can use that time to finish building our distribution channels for comics and magazines."
Chen was silent for a long moment, his mind recalibrating. The rare smile that had begun to form at Duke's initial synthesis now faded into a look of deep contemplation.
"A partnership, not an acquisition," he murmured, studying his own diagram as if seeing it for the first time.
"It is a more complex maneuver. It requires impeccable timing and negotiation. We would be creating a vertically integrated ecosystem without the full capital cost, while simultaneously severing DC's access to a major revenue stream, thereby weakening our primary competitor... The strategic payoff is indeed far greater, but the execution is fraught with risk."
"Draw up the preliminary analysis for the Marvel acquisition and a proposed distribution partnership with Charlton," Duke commanded, his decision made.
"I want to see the numbers for both scenarios. I want to know what it would take to make Charlton's owner say yes."
---
The scent of wet clay and damp earth filled the small, sunlit pottery studio, a world away from the polished offices of Ithaca Production.
Barbara, her hands already dusted with a fine gray powder, stood before a spinning wheel, a lump of centered clay waiting on the center.
Duke sat on a low stool nearby, watching her with focused intensity.
"Okay," she said, her voice soft and instructional. "The key is to keep your hands wet, and your touch firm but gentle. You're not forcing it. You're guiding it. You have to feel what the clay wants to do."
He nodded, removing his watch and rolling up the sleeves of his simple linen shirt.
He approached the task with the same methodical precision he applied to everything, but the clay was an uncooperative partner.
His first attempt collapsed into a lopsided, sad-looking mound.
Barbara giggled, a warm, unforced sound. "You're trying to force it, Duke. You have to collaborate with it."
She came up behind him, her presence a soft warmth at his back. "Here."
She reached around, placing her hands over his. Her fingers were cool and slick with slip.
She guided his hands, applying pressure here, easing it there. "Feel that?" she whispered near his ear as the clay began to rise, wobbling at first, then smoothing into a graceful, cylindrical form under their combined touch. "You're not pushing. You're just… present."
A memory, sharp and unbidden, surfaced in his mind. "This is like that scene in Ghost," he murmured, the words out before he could stop them.
She stilled for a moment, then laughed softly. "Ghost? What's that? It sounds spooky."
He realized his mistake, a temporal slip he could never explain. "A story I read once," he covered smoothly. "Forgot it wasn't a film yet."
He focused on the feeling of her hands on his, the slow, hypnotic spin of the wheel, the shared creation of something simple and tangible. It was a profound contrast to the abstract, high-stakes world he inhabited.
As they let the newly formed vase rest, Barbara wiped her hands on her apron, her expression turning gently curious.
"You're so focused on these creative things," she observed. "It makes me wonder… what are your parents like? Were they artists? Business people?"
The question, innocently asked, sent Duke into a silence for some moments, his gaze fixed on the wet, gray vase.
The real memory of his real parents a schoolteacher and an army soldier from the 21st century was something that could never be acknowledged.
"There's not much to tell," he said, his voice even quieter than usual, a deliberate flatness ironing out any emotion.
"I was raised in the system. I'm an orphan." He delivered the line as a simple, brutal fact, a file closed and locked away.
Barbara's face fell, her eyes filling with a sudden, deep empathy. "Oh, Duke. I'm… I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have-"
(When i cut off a character, do you guys want - or ...)
"It's fine," he interrupted, not harshly.
He looked away from the vase and directly at her, needing to change the subject, to steer them back to safer, firmer ground. "It is what it is."
He stood, wiping his own hands clean on a rag, the moment of vulnerability passing as quickly as it had arrived.
He looked at her, standing there in her clay-spattered apron, her face still etched with concern for a pain he only technically possessed.
"You know, the Academy Awards are in a few weeks," he stated, the words feeling strangely formal in the small studio. "The Graduate is nominated. I have to go."
He paused, a rare hint of uncertainty in his demeanor. "I was wondering if you would want to go with me."
-------
Goodish ending?