Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

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*My Heart Will Go On* had performed vastly beyond the initial projection, which itself had not been a conservative estimate. The track had shipped globally on the back of *Titanic*’s extraordinary box office run.

The film had exceeded even the highest studio estimates, becoming the highest-grossing release in cinematic history by a margin that felt almost implausible to the executives tracking it in real time.

The sync licenses, publishing royalties, master recording income, and international physical distribution—taken together, that single song had generated pure revenue in the high eight figures. The publishing position alone was a goldmine throwing off income that would continue to yield returns for decades. The mechanical royalties, performance rights, and sync placements kept arriving in waves as the song became permanently embedded in the global cultural vocabulary.

But the profits hadn’t sat in a bank account.

They had been reinvested almost entirely and immediately, with the focused intention of a person who understood that a windfall was only a windfall if you treated it like one. Marvin had treated it as capital.

”Backstreet Boys,” James Hendricks said, steepling his fingers to move the conversation forward. ”Current status.”

The answer came partly from Max at the table and partly from the Wolf Cousins team projected on the Los Angeles screen.

The Backstreet Boys were no longer a project with ’potential’—they were an act with demonstrated, unstoppable commercial mass.

*Millennium* was deep in production, and the label’s internal projections for its release were so high that the normally cautious A&R team had stopped walking them back.

The pre-release indicators pointed toward a decade-defining pop event. Radio programmers had been cultivated perfectly.

The international markets—Germany, Japan, Southeast Asia—had been worked with a thoroughness that most American acts never received, simply because most American label structures didn’t have the integrated international presence to work them properly.

Cheiron’s European footprint, combined with Diana Spencer’s aristocratic, high-society championing behind the scenes, had changed the calculation entirely.

”I want a number,” Marvin said quietly.

Max looked at his notepad. ”Projected first-week sales in the United States, based on retailer advance orders, radio callout research, and early airplay tracking, are between one million and one and a half million units. *Worldwide*, across the international markets that we’ve been developing over the preceding eighteen months, the projection is substantially higher.”

The room absorbed this. A million and a half physical units in seven days. It was a staggering metric.

”That’s not a ceiling,” Marvin said, his eyes scanning the faces of his executives. ”Work the promotion correctly across the television networks, and it won’t be.”

Patricia Moss, who had been listening to the first hour of the meeting with the razor-sharp attention of someone assembling a complex weapon from its components, spoke up. Her voice was direct, accented with the hardened cadence of a woman who had spent a career in boardrooms where directness was the minimum standard for being taken seriously.

”The distribution structure is a vulnerability,” she said, leaning forward. ”You’re still partially dependent on third-party distribution in the US for physical products. PolyGram had its own. Universal has its own. At the revenue levels you’re projecting for the next eighteen months, that dependency is going to start costing you in ways that feel small on paper but add up significantly on the ledger.”

”I know,” Marvin replied, not blinking.

”Realistically, you have two options,” Moss continued, testing him. ”Building proprietary infrastructure, which is capital-intensive and takes years to finalize, or negotiating an aggressive distribution agreement with one of the majors while the leverage is on your side.”

”Which we currently have,” Marvin stated smoothly.

Moss paused, studying the thirteen-year-old boy sitting at the head of the table. ”You’re using *Millennium* as leverage for a distribution deal.”

”I’m simply noting that whoever gets the right to distribute *Millennium* is going to have a very, very good fiscal year,” Marvin smiled, an expression that did not reach his eyes. ”And that creates a conversation highly worth having.”

Moss looked at him for a long moment. She saw the trap he had laid for the major labels perfectly. Then she made a single note on the legal pad in front of her. ”Alright.”

He wasn’t negotiating for distribution. He was auctioning the year’s biggest album to the highest bidder. By the time the majors realized it, they’d be competing to see who could offer Wolf Cousins the fewest fees, the greatest guarantees, and the broadest freedoms. The album was never the prize—it was the bait.

”The long-term objective is proprietary distribution,” Marvin said, leaning back in his leather chair. ”Infrastructure we own, control, and scale ourselves. We’re not in a position to build it properly today, and I have no intention of building it poorly just so we can claim to have one.” He folded his hands on the table. ”But that doesn’t mean we wait. This year we lay the foundation. We establish warehousing relationships, negotiate logistics partnerships, build retailer networks, and develop the operational framework our own distribution company will eventually run on. When the time comes, we won’t be starting from scratch—we’ll simply replace outsourced pieces with our own.”

He tapped the table once. ””But we’re not starting from zero. Meyers Brand Works is already laying the foundation across Europe. Regional warehouses. Retail locations. Logistics partnerships. Distribution hubs. Piece by piece, we’re assembling the network before we ever need to rely on it completely.”

He gave a small smile. ”Take our Harry Potter merchandise as an example. The products are designed there and the majority are manufactured in Japan, where the production costs, supplier network, and quality control make large-scale manufacturing significantly more efficient. From there, they’re shipped by sea to our European distribution centers and received into a Meyers warehouse, and from there distributed to bookstores, supermarkets, independent retailers, and our own Meyers retail locations throughout Britain. The same framework can be replicated across France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the rest of Europe. Manufacturing centrally and distributing regionally is considerably more cost-effective than trying to establish separate production facilities in every major market.”

He paused only briefly before continuing.

”Publishing follows a different philosophy. The editorial work remains in Japan, but there’s no reason millions of books should cross half the world when information can travel instantly. The print-ready files are transmitted digitally to our European printing facilities, where the books are produced locally on the same premium paper and full-color presses that define the Meyers standard. From there, they’re delivered straight into our distribution network. We cut freight costs, reduce delivery times from weeks to days, replenish inventory almost immediately, and maintain consistent quality regardless of where the customer buys the book.”

Marvin folded his hands together. ”They’re already identifying printing companies worth acquiring. Once they’re upgraded to our specifications, they’ll become part of the same ecosystem.”

Marvin leaned back in his chair. ”That’s why our timeline is different from everyone else’s. Most companies build publishing first, then distribution, then retail. We’re building all three simultaneously. By the time we’re ready to launch a fully proprietary distribution network, most of the infrastructure, relationships, and operational systems will already be in place. We won’t be creating a network from nothing—we’ll simply be bringing every link in the chain under one roof.”

”That’s a three-to-five year runway,” Moss assessed.

”Yes.”

”And in the meantime, you negotiate from a position of absolute strength.”

”That,” Marvin said simply, ”is what strength is for.”

The A&R conversation shifted naturally toward ’the search’—which was what Max had taken to calling it internally. It was accurate because it possessed the quality of something ongoing and purposeful rather than reactive, exactly distinguishing it from how most legacy labels approached talent acquisition.

Their own ’Spice Girls’ project was the first specific name placed on the table.

”They’re signed,” one of the Wolf Cousins A&R scouts said from the LA screen, shaking his head. ”Virgin Records has them locked. *Spice* sold something like twenty-three million copies globally. They’re simply not available.”

”I know they’re not available,” Max said, waving a hand. ”I’ve been watching how their management is operating. This is about relationship-building. Not acquisition.” He glanced at Marvin, who nodded slightly in approval. ”There are vital conversations worth having about co-releases in certain closed markets, about capturing the publishing rights on their future material. The direct signing isn’t the play right now. The relationship is the play.”

This posture had come directly from Marvin. It had taken Max time to fully internalize it because it ran counter to the primal instincts of the cutthroat label business. The standard instinct in A&R was to sign—to close the deal, acquire the asset, and forcibly move an artist from the column of people who *might* work with you to the column of people who *definitely* worked with you.

Meyers Music Group posture was vastly different. Marvin was building relationships with artists and managers across the industry in a way that looked, from the outside, like friendly networking. In reality, it was the construction of a web of goodwill and mutual interest. It was a web that would eventually convert into lucrative deals at the exact moments when the deals were correct, rather than at the moments when the label’s desperate acquisition impulse was loudest.

Max flipped to the next page of his notes. The register of the conversation shifted slightly—not in formality, but in the attention that arrived when the subject moved from what existed to what was being built.

”Unsigned talent,” he said. ”The pipeline.”

He had a separate section for this. It looked different from the rest of his notes—less structured, more like a map drawn in motion, with arrows, brackets, and names sized by urgency.

”The Barbados girl first,” Marvin said.

Max found the relevant section. ”Eleven years old. Our Caribbean scout, Delroy, caught her at a regional competition in Bridgetown. He sent me a recording.” He paused. ”It’s not polished. A phone held up in a room with bad acoustics and background noise. Doesn’t matter. The voice comes through anyway. That’s the point—a voice that comes through *despite* all that tells you something good recording conditions can’t.”

”What did Delroy say about her?” Marvin asked.

”He said, ’This child performed like she’d already done it a thousand times. No nerves. Just standing there like she owned the place.’”

Max looked up. ”He’s been doing this for eight years. He doesn’t say things like that.”

”Family situation?”

”Mother. Younger brothers. Father is around, but not significantly. Working-class. Not a stage family—the mother wasn’t pushing her forward. The girl apparently just walked up and entered the competition herself.”

Marvin knew her already, but the rest didn’t, so he asked. ”What’s her name?”

”Robyn Fenty.”

The name landed without ceremony. Voss wrote it on his pad. Max moved on, which was the right move—there was no value in elaborating on something stated clearly.

”Next contact from Delroy is in three weeks,” Max continued. ”I want to send him back with specific questions. Background on the family, formal training, what her parents’ appetite is for the kind of conversation we’d eventually need to have.” He glanced at Marvin. ”She’s eleven. There’s no rushing this.”

”No,” Marvin agreed. ”But there’s no ignoring it either.” He leaned forward, forearms on the table. ”The conversation with the family—whenever and however it happens—cannot feel like a business conversation initially. It needs to feel like people who heard something and thought she deserved support. Which is true.”

”I know how to do that,” Max said mildly.

”I know you do. I’m saying it out loud for the record.”

Max acknowledged this with a slight nod and moved to the next section. ”Amy.”

The room’s energy adjusted. Not because the name was famous—it wasn’t close to famous yet—but because Max’s tone shifted the way a musician does when about to play something surprising.

”Full name Amy Jade Winehouse. Fifteen years old. Southgate, North London. Currently enrolled at the Sylvia Young Theatre School.” He set his pen down, unusual for him during a meeting. ”She has a guitar. She’s been writing her own songs since she was twelve. The material she’s producing right now—” He stopped, then started again. ”She’s fifteen, and she’s writing things working professional songwriters twice her age aren’t writing. I don’t say that lightly.”

”How did she come to us?” Voss asked.

”Through the Cheiron London branch. One of our session people, Tom Adler, has a connection at Sylvia Young. They passed along some demos as a courtesy, not expecting anything. Tom sent them to me with a one-line email.” Max picked up his pen, turning it once.

”’You need to hear this.’”

”And?” Marvin said.

****

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