Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

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Some defended the Academy’s decision. Others accused it of being manipulated by money, connections and aggressive campaigning.

And the most uncomfortable question kept returning:

If the Academy could overlook *The Sixth Sense*—an $800-million phenomenon that critics had praised alongside its enormous audience—what exactly was a Best Picture supposed to represent?

That question irritated Academy members far more than the criticism itself.

The older generation of voters had spent decades believing the Oscars were the final authority on cinematic excellence. Now millions of ordinary moviegoers were openly challenging their judgment, and they weren’t doing it only in Hollywood columns. They were doing it from computers in bedrooms, offices, universities and homes around the world.

The backlash had even begun affecting the way people talked about the Academy itself.

For some, the Oscars were still the highest honor in filmmaking.

For others, the ceremony had begun to look increasingly like a contest between studios with the deepest pockets and the best-connected campaigners.

And Harvey Weinstein had done little to quiet that suspicion.

He had perfected a style of awards campaigning that made people uncomfortable precisely because it worked. Screenings were arranged. Voters were courted. Narratives were built around films and performances. Trade publications were flooded with praise. Industry conversations were carefully steered. By the time voting arrived, a movie was no longer simply competing on the merits of what appeared on the screen.

It was competing on how effectively its studio had convinced Hollywood that it deserved to win.

Now Weinstein was doing it again.

He moved through the Beverly Hills estate that evening with the confidence of a man who believed he understood the Academy better than the Academy understood itself. Guests drank champagne beneath enormous arrangements of flowers while executives, actors, producers and journalists circulated through the rooms.

The party was lavish enough to make the message unmistakable.

Miramax was not merely celebrating a movie.

It was preparing for another campaign.

The irony wasn’t lost on everyone.

Only months earlier, Weinstein himself had walked onto the Oscar stage to accept the Best Picture trophy for *Shakespeare in Love*, despite having no creative role in making the film. To some, the moment had been harmless—an excited producer celebrating his company’s victory.

To others, it had looked like something else entirely.

Harvey Weinstein standing beneath the lights, holding Hollywood’s most coveted statue, seemed less like a filmmaker accepting recognition and more like a declaration.

Look who controls the room.

The image had become almost symbolic.

Now, with another awards season approaching, the Academy’s older voters were already bracing themselves for another fight.

What they didn’t understand was that the controversy surrounding *Shakespeare in Love* was only the beginning.

The Oscars had survived decades of criticism before. They would survive this one too.

But something had changed.

Audiences had begun separating the prestige of the Academy from the prestige of the films themselves. A movie no longer needed an Oscar to become culturally important, and an Oscar no longer guaranteed that the public would accept a film as the year’s greatest achievement.

And with *The Sixth Sense* sitting in the background of the argument—a critically respected film that had become an $800-million worldwide phenomenon—that distinction had become impossible to ignore.

The storm surrounding the Oscars had not passed.

It had simply moved somewhere the Academy could no longer control.

And Harvey Weinstein, standing in the middle of his Beverly Hills party with another awards campaign already taking shape around him, was about to make it considerably worse.

The party itself had barely settled into its rhythm. Waiters moved between clusters of producers, actors, agents, and studio people, while conversations rose and fell beneath the music and the steady clink of champagne glasses. Everyone seemed to know everyone, or at least knew enough to pretend they did.

Marvin moved through it all without ever appearing hurried. He greeted people as they approached, stopped when someone wanted a word, laughed when the moment called for it, and somehow never seemed trapped by any conversation for too long. People kept finding reasons to come over to him.

He was good at this. Very good.

At 5’6”, Marvin stood out even in a room filled with people who had spent years learning how to be noticed. He wore a tailored light-blue summer suit with matching trousers and pristine off-white leather loafers. Instead of a tie, he had chosen a crisp off-white dress shirt, the top two buttons left open.

He looked young. There was no getting around that.

But everything else about him made the age easy to forget.

His face had become more striking with every passing month, the last traces of boyishness slowly giving way to something sharper and more assured. There was an ease to him now that hadn’t been there before.

His conversation was quick and sharp without ever sounding rehearsed. He knew when to speak, when to listen, when to make someone laugh, and when a simple look was enough to make the other person keep talking. He never seemed to reach for attention. It simply found him.

And beneath it all was the same presence everyone who had spent enough time around Marvin had learned to recognize.

The part of Marvin people couldn’t quite put their finger on, nor was it something most people could have put into words.

It was different tonight. Softer. Almost gentle.

He didn’t need to do much. A smile here, a hand on someone’s shoulder there, a few words spoken in that calm, easy voice of his. People relaxed around him without realizing they had done it. They lingered when they should have moved on. They found themselves listening when they had only meant to exchange a few polite words.

It was simply there, hanging around him as naturally as his smile or the way he carried himself. People felt it before they had a reason to notice it, and once they did, they rarely stopped noticing.

But tonight, there was something else drawing their attention.

Everyone in the room knew what sat behind that easy smile: the newly registered scripts that still had no cast, no crew, and no finished production attached to them.

That alone was enough to make people hungry. But these weren’t just any projects. They were Marvin Meyers’s projects, and that changed the equation completely.

Some wanted to know what Marvin was planning. Some wanted a part in it before anyone else could get one. Producers were already wondering whether there was a way to attach themselves, agents were quietly measuring which of their clients might fit, and executives were trying to figure out what they could put on the table without making it obvious how badly they wanted in.

Others didn’t care what they had to do to get there.

If Marvin wanted a particular actor, they could get him. If he wanted a director, they’d find one. If he needed money, distribution, financing, a deal, a favor—or a favor owed by someone else—there were plenty of people in that room willing to start making calls before the night was over.

The scripts hadn’t even reached casting yet, and already people were trying to find a way inside.

That was the part everyone understood. Hollywood could be patient when there was nothing worth chasing. Marvin had made sure there was.

A few top dogs were content simply to stay close to him, close enough that if one of those scripts became the success everyone expected, they could say they had been there from the beginning. Others were thinking much further ahead. They wanted their names attached before the bidding started, before the trades got hold of it, before everyone suddenly claimed they had seen Marvin’s potential first.

And Marvin, moving through the room as though none of it mattered, knew exactly what they were doing.

Men watched him.

Women watched him too, most with a little less subtlety clearly ogling.

Everyone wanted something from Marvin Meyers.

The only question was what they were willing to give him for it.

That was why the room had been so carefully arranged tonight. The conversations were louder than usual, the smiles a little more deliberate, and executives who normally guarded their attention were suddenly making time for anyone connected to Marvin Meyers.

Nicole noticed it the moment she stepped inside.

She had arrived with Tom, as they were expected to do, but the appearance of togetherness ended somewhere between the car and the entrance.

They walked side by side without touching. There was almost a foot between them.

Tom acknowledged the photographers with the practiced smile he’d perfected years ago. Nicole did the same, lifting her chin and giving the cameras exactly what they wanted.

A married couple. Hollywood royalty. Everything perfectly fine.

Only Nicole could feel the emptiness between them.

Tom reached for her once as they approached the entrance, perhaps out of habit more than affection. She shifted slightly to avoid his hand, so smoothly that most people wouldn’t have noticed.

Most people.

The photographers didn’t.

They had a way of noticing everything.

”Nicole, over here!”

”Tom!”

”Together, please!”

She turned toward the cameras and smiled.

”Of course.” Her voice was pleasant. Her eyes weren’t.

Inside, the noise swallowed them.

Nicole paused for half a second, allowing her eyes to adjust to the warmer light and crowded room. She recognized producers, agents, actors, studio people, critics, and the usual collection of guests who appeared whenever Miramax had something worth celebrating.

Then she saw him.

Marvin.

Her expression changed before she could stop it. The smile she’d been wearing for the cameras disappeared.

A real one took its place. Her eyes brightened. For a moment, she simply stared. He hadn’t been expected to come.

That was what made it matter.

Marvin had skipped even the celebrations for *The Sixth Sense*. Even when the numbers became impossible for Hollywood to ignore, he stayed away. The parties came and went without him. The congratulations, the champagne, the photographs, the people wanting a few minutes of his time—none of it seemed to interest him.

By then, everyone had gotten used to it.

Marvin rarely went to parties, even when the invitation had his name written across it. He skipped most of the industry dinners, stayed away from the Oscar and Grammy after-parties, and had a habit of disappearing almost as soon as an award ceremony ended.

Even winning hue hadn’t changed that.

Nobody seemed to hold it against him.

He was still young enough that people found it more amusing than insulting. What could they expect from someone his age? He had never seemed particularly interested in standing around a ballroom shaking hands with people he barely knew.

So no one would have expected him at a Miramax party.

Especially not tonight. And yet he was here. For *The Others*.

For her.

Nicole looked across the room at him. Something warm spread through her chest.

She knew what this film had done. Everyone here did. A movie crossing a hundred million dollars domestically was a result worth celebrating, especially for a picture that had begun with far less certainty than the numbers now suggested.

But it wasn’t *The Sixth Sense*.

It wasn’t the kind of success that could explain Marvin suddenly deciding a crowded Miramax party was worth his time. If anything, the success of *The Sixth Sense* should have made his absence from something like this even more understandable.

And yet he’d come.

He hadn’t needed the party. He hadn’t needed the publicity, the congratulations, or any of the people waiting for an opportunity to get close to him.

He’d simply chosen to be here.

Nicole lowered her eyes for a moment, unable to stop the small smile that touched her lips.

She knew why.

And somehow, knowing made the whole room feel different.

Her gaze remained fixed on him.

Marvin was speaking with someone near the bar, looking completely at ease. Then, almost as though he’d felt her watching him, he turned.

Their eyes met across the room. His expression barely changed.

Just the smallest lift at one corner of his mouth. Nicole’s heart gave an embarrassing little jump.

She quickly looked away.

”Are you all right?” Tom asked.

She turned toward him. ”Fine.”

”You seem distracted.”

”I’m just looking around.”

Tom followed her gaze, but by then she’d already picked up a champagne glass from a passing tray.

Nicole lowered the champagne glass before she could take another sip. She could still feel Marvin watching her from across the room.

It was ridiculous how quickly her mood had changed simply because he was there.

****

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