“So the kid actually pulled it off,” Michael Ovitz said, the realization settling into his features.
“CAA is about to have another serious client on the books.”
Inside the agency, clients were quietly and ruthlessly sorted by tier.
The five senior partners occupied the executive floor solely because each of them managed at least one top-tier, ‘S-level’ client—the kind whose name alone could greenlight a hundred-million-dollar project.
But among equally ranked clients, a director always carried slightly more weight than a movie star.
An A-level director was essentially treated like an S-level actor, a dynamic determined entirely by how CAA conducted its business.
The agency had built its empire on the packaging model.
Instead of waiting for a television network or film studio to assemble a project piece by piece—finding a writer, negotiating for a director, casting the leads individually—CAA built the entire package internally.
They aligned their own writers, producers, and directors, and then used that momentum to attract their own A-list stars.
They virtually completed the project in-house and sold it to the studios as a finished, highly lucrative unit.
This model flipped the industry’s leverage.
Studios desperately needed projects that looked like guaranteed hits, and CAA held the keys to those packages.
A capable director sat right at the center of that machinery; without one, the package fell apart.
That was exactly why the agency had been so generous with Adam from the beginning.
CAA needed talented directors considerably more than those directors needed CAA.
“Nice work, Derek,” Ovitz said, offering a rare, genuine compliment.
“You’ve successfully secured an A-level client.”
Ovitz looked down the glass hallway, mapping out the trajectory.
“If Adam can deliver three consecutive successful films, he moves up to an S-level client.
And if that happens, you move up to this floor.
Sixth partner.
That is not a small thing.”
Derek nodded, keeping his ambition in check and immediately thinking a step ahead.
“I’d like to see if any of our high-end clients would be willing to voice support for the film publicly.
It would boost Saw’s box office, and it would go a long way toward cementing Adam’s loyalty to the agency.”
Ovitz pondered it for a moment before nodding.
“Agreed.
I’ll run it by the other partners and see who is willing to step up.”
Because Saw was an agency-packaged project, a percentage of its eventual box office flowed directly back into CAA’s accounts.
Promoting the film wasn’t a favor; it was simply good business.
The next morning, Adam opened the newspaper and found a prominent quote from Tom Cruise offering an unprompted, glowing endorsement of the film.
“This year’s best horror film, definitely worth watching,” the quote read.
“The film portrays a killer who uses terrifying devices to punish those who don’t cherish life, but he always leaves his victims a brutal opportunity to survive.
Through this film, I have already become Director Cole’s fan.”
Adam scratched his head, genuinely surprised.
Whatever the reason for the sudden praise, it was an incredible piece of luck.
Cruise hadn’t yet achieved the absolute global dominance that would define the latter half of his decade, but his recent Best Actor Oscar nomination for Born on the Fourth of July had firmly established him as one of the most bankable leading men in the industry.
It clicked for Adam a moment later.
CAA.
The agency was pulling strings behind the scenes.
Across the Atlantic, on the rainy Irish set of Far and Away, Tom Cruise barely thought about the quote again once he’d given his publicist the green light.
A passing gesture of goodwill toward a promising young director cost him absolutely nothing.
planting a seed of goodwill with a rising filmmaker was simply a smart investment for the future.
Between CAA’s quiet media manipulation and the natural surge of weekend audiences, Saw’s box office kept climbing.
By the end of its second day, the total had reached an astounding $12.13 million.
Recognizing the breakout character, New Line Cinema immediately dispatched Clark Gregg to promote the film in person at major theaters across the country.
Wherever Gregg went, massive crowds followed.
Jigsaw had cultivated a devoted following almost overnight.
For the first time in his long, grueling career, Gregg finally tasted real fame.
He was no longer an invisible working actor; he was a recognizable fixture in Hollywood.
As transformative as that was for Gregg, it didn’t compare to the tectonic shift in Adam’s life.
A proven director’s standing in the industry changed overnight in a way nothing else could.
But beyond the prestige, there was the money.
Once the film finished its theatrical run, five percent of the gross box office would be deposited directly into Adam’s accounts.
It would be a staggering sum, enough to buy a sprawling Beverly Hills estate in cash if he wanted to.
But Adam had entirely different plans for his capital.
Once that money cleared, he intended to use it to acquire underlying IP and invest in future projects.
Specifically, he had his eye on the rights to an old television series: Mission: Impossible.
It wouldn’t be adapted into a feature film until 1996 in his original timeline, meaning the window to get involved was wide open.
He understood now exactly why Tom Cruise’s endorsement was so valuable.
With CAA bridging the connection, Adam’s chances of getting Cruise into a room to pitch an action franchise were suddenly realistic.
Every director wanted to eventually helm big-budget spectacles.
But a single hit film wasn’t enough to prove anything definitively to a studio.
No executive would hand a rookie director big action budget solely off the strength of a low-budget horror hit.
Adam knew he needed to direct at least one more highly profitable horror film to prove Saw wasn’t a fluke.
Only then could he leverage that track record to demand a genre shift for his third film.
And by the time he made that leap, he intended to use his Saw royalties to co-finance the picture, securing an investor’s share of the backend rather than just a standard directing fee.
That was the blueprint.
Becoming a Succesful director required a ruthless, methodical approach, securing leverage one steady step at a time.
The first week wound down quickly.
With New Line Cinema taking the lion’s share of the profits, Adam knew the studio had every financial incentive to keep pushing the release as hard as possible.
He didn’t need to hover over the daily numbers; he let the executives work for their money.
Meanwhile, Salma Hayek found her life completely upended.
Her phone, which had been painfully quiet just weeks prior, began ringing off the hook as casting directors clamored to book the breakout female lead of the year’s biggest horror phenomenon.