He didn’t mind the solitude.
The intense pace of the shoot and the subsequent promotional tour had drained him, and a few quiet days were exactly what he needed.
With no immediate obligations pulling at his attention, he finally made the drive back to USC to finalize his graduation paperwork.
Inside the administration office, the staff member reviewing his file looked up with a serious, practiced expression.
“Your debut performing well is a great start, Adam, but don’t let it go to your head.
We’ve seen plenty of students catch a spark right out of the gate and never replicate it.
Most of them end up remembered as one-hit wonders.” The counselor stamped a form and pushed it across the desk.
“The university hopes its graduates build lasting careers.
If you maintain this trajectory, you could eventually join our list of notable alumni—the kind of name current students actually study.”
Adam nodded politely, signed the necessary documents, and left the office without lingering.
He felt no desire to parade his success around the campus.
The gap between his current reality and the standard college experience had widened too much.
He spent his days negotiating with studio executives, while the peers walking past him on the quad wouldn’t see the inside of a boardroom for years, if ever.
As he crossed the lawn, a few students slipped folded notes into his hand—names, numbers, and specific times written out plainly.
He understood the transactional nature of the gestures.
Success attracted people looking for an easy climb, but he had zero interest in those hollow interactions.
He tossed the notes into the nearest trash bin and kept walking straight through the campus gates.
Adam flagged down a taxi on the street.
“Beverly Hills Hotel,” he instructed as he climbed into the back seat.
The driver, an older man with an easygoing demeanor, glanced in the rearview mirror.
“The real Beverly Hills, huh?
The big estates?”
“That’s right,” Adam replied briefly.
The rest of the ride passed in silence.
The driver clearly wanted to strike up a conversation, hoping for a glimpse into a lifestyle he rarely interacted with, but Adam wasn’t in the mood to play tour guide to his own life.
Stepping out at the hotel, A young man in a sharp suit greeted him with total professionalism.
“Welcome, sir.
Do you have a reservation?”
“I do.
Adam Cole.”
“Room 1211.
Right this way.”
The room ran three thousand dollars a night, an expense Adam could only justify because of the advance he had drawn against his incoming box office royalties.
The space featured a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that looked out over the entire neighborhood.
Manicured estates stretched out in every direction, properties that easily started in the tens of millions.
Looking at the sprawling mansions, Adam felt no rush to buy real estate.
He knew the broad strokes of the American economy’s future.
Over the next few decades, the market would face significant downturns capable of temporarily cratering property values.
Buying at the peak of an upward trend would be foolish.
Patience would allow him to acquire properties at a fraction of the cost when the inevitable corrections occurred.
Still, standing in front of that glass, the sheer scale of the wealth hidden behind those tall hedges sharpened his ambition.
Whatever milestones he had reached so far, the view made it perfectly clear how far he still had to climb.
He spent the next two days in the room, methodically outlining the framework for his second film.
Out in the world, Saw continued to dominate theaters.
Unlike the film’s trajectory in his original memories from 2004, this release had every conceivable advantage stacked in its favor—a wide screen count, a heavy promotional push, and an impeccably timed holiday launch.
By the time the 1991 Halloween weekend wrapped up, the film had eclipsed its original historical performance by a wide margin.