Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

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That did not mean everyone at the top was corrupt. Far from it. Marvin had already met enough decent people to know otherwise. But power had always attracted predators, and the film industry was no exception.

Marvin truly didn’t mind the darkness of the industry. After all, he was born a demon of the Abyss. His soul was infinitely more corrupted than all of these Hollywood executives combined. According to Marvin’s perspective, as long as transactions took place between consenting adults who were aware of the rules, no laws were violated, which applies to approximately 98% of cases.

Everyone in Hollywood got exactly what they wanted—fame, money, Oscars, or survival—even if the price was paid in flesh, position, or money. The strong devoured the weak; it was the law of the universe..

Of course, predators like Harvey were everywhere in Hollywood. Harvey was simply unlucky because his immense success made him too arrogant. He offended too many powerful people, becoming sloppy, which would inevitably lead to his eventual, highly publicized downfall years later.

Ironically, Harvey’s greatest weakness wasn’t his appetite—it was his arrogance. Men who believed themselves untouchable eventually stopped noticing how many enemies they were creating.

But from the perspective of being Harvey’s loyal ”horse boys,” Ben Affleck and Matt Damon did their jobs exceptionally well. They were extraordinarily talented. As writers and actors making them incredibly valuable assets to the Miramax machine, Harvey knew how to recognize an asset when he saw one.

Matt Damon, in particular, had become one of the brightest stars of his generation. Equal parts gifted actor and accomplished screenwriter, he possessed the rare ability to earn both critical acclaim and commercial success. Calm, articulate, and widely liked within the industry, he often projected the kind of dependable, all-American image that studios loved to place at the forefront of awards campaigns. Behind the scenes he was also the quiet, highly effective ’fixer’ for the group, using his golden-boy image to intimidate journalists, bury stories of Harvey’s indiscretions, and pull the ladies for the group.

....

...

..

.

After the conversation with Marvin went nowhere, Harvey left the screening room and headed upstairs to his executive office.

The applause from the audience still echoed faintly through the corridors, but by the time the heavy office door shut behind him, the excitement had already faded into business.

He loosened his tie as he crossed the room.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were already waiting.

Ben looked up from the leather sofa.

”Finished with the wonder boy?”

Without waiting for an answer, he walked over to the crystal decanter on the sideboard.

”You look like you need this.”

He poured three glasses of Scotch, handed the first to Harvey, kept one for himself, then passed the third to Matt with the practiced ease of a loyal subordinate.

Harvey accepted it without a word.

Ben took a sip. ”So? Did you land the new script?”

Harvey drained nearly half the glass before answering. ”No.”

He let out an irritated breath. ”He’s financing most of *The Lord of the Rings* himself.”

Ben blinked. ”Seriously?”

Harvey nodded bitterly. ”He’s putting up the bulk of the money, and he’s backing Peter Jackson all the way.”

”He won’t budge. I tried getting him to consider another director. Spielberg. Cameron. Anybody with experience. He wouldn’t even entertain it.”

Harvey began pacing behind his desk.

”And his own projects...”

He waved his free hand dismissively. ”One’s some tiny vampire picture. Three-million-dollar budget. Independent. No stars. No studio. No big direct. No franchise.” He snorted. ”Sounds depressing as hell.”

He took another drink. ”The other one’s some coming-of-age picture about a teenage girl.”

He shrugged. ”Neither one sounds like the kind of movie that should be following *The Sixth Sense* or *Hide and Seek*.”

Ben frowned. ”So he’s walking away from the big money?”

”Looks that way.” Harvey stopped pacing. ”And he’s completely sold on Peter Jackson. I couldn’t move him an inch.”

Matt, quietly swirling the amber liquid in his glass, looked up. He possessed a sharper, more analytical mind than his friend. He reminded the furious executive of a highly inconvenient truth.

Matt finally spoke. Quietly.

”Harvey...” He rotated the glass in his hand. ”I wouldn’t dismiss it that fast.”

Harvey looked over.

Matt shrugged. ”Every time he puts his name on something, it turns into money. Word going around town is Columbia made well over fifty million from his first record alone... and they only had distribution rights and a twenty-percent participation.”

He shook his head. ”That’s the crazy part. Marvin negotiated the contract so well that the label made a fortune... while he made several fortunes. If the gossip’s even close to true, I’d hate to imagine what Marvin walked away with.”

He met Harvey’s eyes. ”At some point you’ve got to admit that’s more than luck.”

The office fell quiet.

Harvey slowly nodded. ”I know.”

He hated admitting it. ”I know.”

He stared into his glass. ”That’s why I was willing to put money into *Lord of the Rings* in the first place. He refused to let me attach a real director or writer.”

He laughed bitterly. ”Hell... I was even prepared to finance that little vampire movie just to stay in business with him.”

He sighed. ”But three films? At that scale?”

He shook his head. ”I can’t justify it. Not with that fat guy running the show. If that thing goes off the rails, Miramax gets buried with it.”

He looked from Matt to Ben. ”So we’ll sit this one out.”

”If it works...”

He shrugged. ”It works. If it doesn’t...”

A slow smile crept across Harvey’s face.

”...well...”

”I won’t pretend I’d lose any sleep.”

Ben raised an eyebrow.

Harvey leaned back against his desk. ”To be perfectly honest,” Harvey added, his voice dropping into a cruel whisper. ”I really hope that arrogant kid falls into a humiliating mess with this cheap vampire movie. The kid needs to stumble. Just once. Right now everybody treats him like he’s untouchable. Maybe that little vampire movie blows up in his face.”

”Maybe critics tear it apart. Maybe audiences stay home.”

He spread his hands. ”If that happens, he comes back down to earth. And when he needs a real studio behind him again...”

Harvey smiled thinly. ”...he’ll know exactly whose door to knock on. He can just go back to writing books and acting in peace, instead of trying to interfere in the grown-up world of studio production and financing.”

Ben chuckled into his drink. ”I’ve gotta admit...”

”That’d make life a lot easier.”

Matt didn’t laugh.

He took another slow sip of Scotch and looked out across the Manhattan skyline beyond the office windows.

Harvey was one of the smartest businessmen he’d ever met.

But he also had a habit of believing every success eventually needed him. Matt wasn’t so sure that applied to Marvin.

For the first time in years... Harvey might have found someone who genuinely didn’t need Harvey Weinstein at all.

Matt thought in his mind that Harvey, blinded by his own massive ego, had severely underestimated the intellect of the little boy.

....

...

..

.

The iron gates of the San Marino estate swung closed behind him with a pneumatic hiss that sounded like finality. Marvin stood alone in the courtyard for a moment, breathing in the evening air. Tremblin Drive was quiet, as if the neighborhood understood that certain houses demanded silence.

He had dropped Amy at her apartment, where files were already multiplying like bacteria in warm petri dishes. Jeff had been deposited at the editing bay in Burbank, muttering about aspect ratios and the impossibility of finding decent gaffers. Lindsay had said almost nothing during the drive, her small frame tucked into the corner of the back seat, listening to the adults discuss contracts and call sheets. She was thirteen, like him, but existed in a different dimension of childhood—one where a single day on set as an extra represented hope, a paycheck, a reason for her parents to keep her fed for another month.

Marvin had made sure the check cleared before she stepped out of the car. He always did.

”I’m home.”

His voice didn’t echo. The house absorbed it, too well-bred to throw sound back at its owner.

Mrs. Aranda materialized from the shadows near the kitchen archway, her shoes making no sound on the marble. She had that particular talent of good servants—present when needed, invisible when not.

”Marvin.” She took his jacket before he could offer it, her hands efficient and warm. ”Dinner was satisfactory?”

”Passable. I’m going to freshen up.” Feeling the constriction of polite society falling away. ”I ate out, but could you have a cold vanilla milkshake brought to the study? Heavy on the vanilla, light on the ice cream. And Mrs. Aranda—no interruptions after that. Not unless the house is burning or someone is dying.”

Her eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch—the equivalent, in her lexicon, of screaming surprise. ”The creative mood, again?”

”Something like that.” He was already moving toward the stairs. ”Scarlett called earlier. One person she named was enough to spark an idea. If I don’t get it onto paper now, it’ll vanish

”It shall be done.”

...

The shower was scalding. Marvin stood beneath the spray until his skin turned pink, washing away the residue of the day—the handshakes, the negotiations, the careful performance of being a thirteen-year-old boy genius that he had perfected for public consumption. He toweled off and dressed in the dark: a worn cotton t-shirt that had softened through a hundred washes, cashmere lounge pants that hung loose on his hips. Comfort was essential for creation. Restriction of any kind killed the flow.

The family library occupied the west wing. Books still lined the walls—leather-bound spines that had belonged to his late great-grandfather, untouched and dignified. But his ambition had colonized the center of the room. The drafting table dominated, its surface angled precisely to catch the pool of light from the articulated lamp. Beside it, the computer hummed in standby, a beige monolith from a era when technology was still optimistic.

The milkshake sat waiting, condensation beading on the glass. Right on schedule.

He drank deeply, the cold sweetness pulling him to the physical world, then powered on the machine. The modem began its ritual screech—a banshee wail of electronic negotiation that filled the quiet room. Handshaking. Connecting. The sound of 1999 trying to touch the future.

Marvin’s fingers hovered over the keys.

”Let’s see if I’m already too late.”

Yahoo first. Then AltaVista. The search bars loaded with agonizing patience, pixel by pixel.

*Malèna.*

Nothing.

*Malena.*

Tourism sites for the town. A few Italian restaurants.

*Monica Bellucci Malèna.*

Fashion spreads. Her name attached to *L’ultimo capodanno*, *Comme un poisson hors de l’eau*. Nothing about Sicily. Nothing about war.

He tried the architects.

*Giuseppe Tornatore.*

Cinema Paradiso. The Star Maker. The Legend of 1900. Interviews in Italian film magazines scanned and poorly translated, speaking of ”future projects” with the vague verbosity of artists who haven’t yet committed words to paper.

*Luciano Vincenzoni.*

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. For a Few Dollars More. A Fistful of Dynamite. His legacy secured in the cement of the Spaghetti Western, nothing else stirring in the dark.

Marvin leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking.

The internet was a newborn in 90s. It knew nothing of scripts locked in desk drawers, of treatments whispered over Chianti in Roman trattorias, of the paranoid secrecy that governed development deals. If Tornatore and Vincenzoni were writing it—if they had already written it—the digital world would remain oblivious until Variety announced principal photography.

He could not afford to assume.

JK Rowling’s Harry Potter situation still smarted— lawyers circling like sharks scenting blood in the water of independent creation. He would not step into that trap again. Not with this.

Tomorrow, his legal team would conduct the search. US Copyright Office. Italian guild records. SIAE registrations. Quiet calls to agents at CAA and William Morris, to producers in Rome who owed the Meyers family debts older than Marvin’s current incarnation. If *Malèna* existed anywhere in the labyrinth of international intellectual property, he would know before noon.

Only then would he copyright it.

He returned to the keyboard.

*Monica Bellucci.*

The search results painted a portrait of a woman ascending. Modeling campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana. Small roles in French and Italian cinema. Recent photographs showing her at festivals, that impossible face turning heads with the gravitational force of a planet capturing moons. She was twenty-nine, standing at the precise apex of a woman’s beauty—that narrow window where youth and maturity achieve perfect equilibrium. In five years, the first whisper of time’s betrayal. In ten, the industry would begin looking past her. But now? Now she was incandescent.

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