Cannes didn’t just wrap; it detonated.
Steven Soderbergh was catapulted into overnight stardom, the youngest solo director in history to take the Palme d’Or at twenty-six.
The international trades wasted zero time crowning him Hollywood’s new golden boy.
Aaron didn’t pop champagne.
He worked the phones.
Striking while the press was completely unhinged, he carved up the remaining international distribution rights, pitting rival studios against each other to inflate the floor.
He hammered United International Pictures into a $4.5 million corner for the European rights.
Three hours later, he locked the Japanese market, bleeding Daiei Film for another $2.3 million.
Between those territory sales and the brutal Miramax buyout for Cinema Paradiso, Aaron was walking out of France as one of the most successful junior agents on the CAA roster.
Before the flight back to Los Angeles, he enforced a twenty-four-hour blackout.
The Mediterranean sun glared off the hood of a rented Alfa Romeo convertible as he took the curves of the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
The coastal wind roared through the open cabin, smelling of salt and hot asphalt.
“When do we actually have to be in the air?” Nicole asked, her voice carrying over the engine.
She had a pair of dark tortoiseshell sunglasses pushed up her nose and her bare feet resting near the dash, looking entirely removed from the chaos behind them.
“Wheels up tomorrow morning.” Aaron rested his right hand high on her bare thigh, his thumb tracing a lazy, absent circle against her skin as he downshifted.
“I have to report in to Michael and process the deal memos.
Did you actually enjoy the circus?”
Nicole covered his hand with her own, tilting her head back against the leather headrest.
“Best week of my life.”
By the time they touched down at LAX, it was late May.
The cutthroat summer box office bloodbath was already kicking into gear.
Every major studio was prepping massive, explosion-heavy tentpoles to fight for weekend supremacy.
Harvey Weinstein was playing a completely different board.
Instead of tossing Sex, Lies, and Videotape into the June meat grinder where it would get suffocated by studio marketing budgets, he held it back.
Miramax planted the Palme d’Or winner firmly in August—a surgical counter-programming strike designed to hijack adult audiences right as the blockbusters ran out of gas.
Aaron’s $6.8 million overseas sweep didn’t just pad the agency’s quarterly earnings; it sent a shockwave through Beverly Hills.
CAA paid out immediately.
He found a $200,000 bonus check on his desk and the keys to a brand-new Lotus Esprit.
Sitting across from Michael Ovitz in the sprawling, glass-walled corner office, Aaron spun the heavy keys around his index finger.
“Lotus,” Aaron said.
“General Motors just bought them.
Let me guess—Porsche and Ferrari wouldn’t touch the script?”
Ovitz leaned back in his leather chair, his face unreadable.
“They took one look at a protagonist who works as a Hollywood Boulevard hooker and slammed the door.
Their loss.”
Standard corporate pearl-clutching.
“Why is casting on Pretty Woman still a mess?” Aaron asked.
“It’s a straightforward rom-com.
We should have locked the leads a month ago.”
“Christopher Reeve passed,” Ovitz said.
“We offered the male lead to Al Pacino.
He’s circling, but he won’t commit.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Valeria Golino both said no to the female lead.”
Aaron filed the names away.
Pfeiffer was untouchable right now, and Golino was riding a $350 million wave from Rain Man.
Pacino wouldn’t take a rom-com, but it didn’t matter.
The only detail Aaron cared about was that the female lead was wide open.
Nicole wouldn’t waste time reading for casting assistants—he could drop her directly into the final room with the director.
“Since you clearly know how to bleed a distribution deal, I have a mess for you to look at,” Ovitz said, tossing a thin dossier across the desk.
“Go ahead.”
“A Hong Kong studio is bankrolling a live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adaptation right here in LA,” Ovitz said.
“Purely commercial play.
The budget is capped at 13.5 million, and their North American rep approached us to secure domestic distribution.”
Aaron didn’t need to open the file.
“Golden Harvest.
The guys who backed Cannonball Run.”
He knew the Hong Kong juggernaut well; they had spent a decade throwing millions at the wall trying to break Jackie Chan in America.
“They’re shooting guys in rubber suits in the Valley right now,” Ovitz said.
“Sit down with their rep.
See if it’s viable.”
“Done.”
Aaron knew for a fact the gritty, independent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was going to be a cultural hand grenade, destined to shatter $100 million domestically.
Before he chased mutant turtles, though, he needed a stranglehold on Pretty Woman.
He also had his eye on a spec script called Ghost, waiting for the right moment to weaponize Japanese investor capital—a play for next quarter.
That evening, Aaron met Steven Reuther at a dimly lit, wood-paneled bar in West Hollywood.
Reuther was the CAA-backed producer quarterbacking Pretty Woman, acting as the bumper between director Garry Marshall and Disney’s psychotic executive branch.
Right now, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg only cared about Dick Tracy.
Next to Warren Beatty’s neon-soaked vanity project, Pretty Woman was an afterthought.
Aaron shifted the ice around his glass.
“Has Pacino actually signed anything, or is he just wasting our time?”
Reuther rubbed his eyes, looking like he hadn’t slept in three days.
“No.
He’s coming in and doing scene work with the girls auditioning, but he won’t sign.
Warren Beatty is aggressively trying to poach him for Dick Tracy.”
Aaron stared at him.
“Hoffman is already in Dick Tracy.
Beatty has himself, Madonna, and Dustin Hoffman, and he still wants Pacino?
What is Eisner letting them spend, fifty million?”
“It’s a financial black hole,” Reuther muttered.
“Nobody at Disney gives a shit about Pretty Woman, and our female callbacks start this week.”
“Nicole Kidman,” Aaron said.
It wasn’t a suggestion.
“I’m putting her in the final callback room.
You make sure Garry Marshall and Pacino actually look at her.”
Reuther hesitated, then nodded.
Aaron kept his face neutral.
Pacino was wasting everyone’s time.
He had been hiding in theater for four years and desperately needed a commercial win to shake the rust off before Francis Ford Coppola dragged him back into Michael Corleone’s suits for Godfather III.
“If Pacino walks,” Aaron said, setting his glass on the damp coaster, “who’s the backup?”
“Richard Gere.”
Aaron took a slow, deliberate sip of his drink, already knowing exactly how to play it.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Thank you so much for reading!
Peace out,
Lucent
PIC’s in the Comments