Aaron didn’t pause to celebrate the Kidman signing.
He pushed the actress into the publicity circuit for her upcoming release and went right back to the grind at his desk.
CAA’s roster was massive—over six hundred active clients—but the agent pool remained a bottleneck.
Michael Ovitz personally managed the top thirty earners.
For juniors like Aaron and Jack, the daily reality consisted of filtering the bottom tier: a revolving door of B-list talent and fringe players the senior partners refused to schedule.
Jack watched as Aaron spent Tuesday morning systematically dropping personnel files into the discard pile, barely scanning the summaries.
“Nothing?” Jack asked.
“You’ve cleared half the stack.”
“Dead weight,” Aaron said, keeping his eyes on the next file.
“No trajectory.
None of these people are going to be employable in three years.”
Jack offered a dry laugh.
“That’s why they’re on our desks.
If they were bankable, they’d be on the third floor.
We get the scraps.”
Aaron stopped, his hand resting on a thin, Manila folder.
“Take a look at that one,” Jack said, pointing.
“A kid grinding the LA comedy clubs and doing guest spots on MTV’s Remote Control.
He’s loud, unpolished, but the crowds at the Improv love him.”
Aaron slid the file to the center of the desk: Adam Sandler, 22.
He opened it.
He knew exactly who Sandler was.
In this timeline, the kid hadn’t even been tapped by Lorne Michaels for Saturday Night Live yet, but Aaron knew that within a few years, SNL would be his direct pipeline to becoming one of the most bankable comedy stars on the planet.
Getting him now meant getting him cheap.
He studied the headshot.
The kid looked raw.
“Sandler,” Aaron said, tapping the paper.
He didn’t need a classically trained actor; he needed someone who could reliably open a comedy in middle America.
“Let’s see if he’s got the mechanics to do more than write punchlines.”
He scanned the representation history.
Sandler was currently tied to Ari Emanuel—part of the younger faction that had recently defected from CAA to form ITA.
“He’s at the breakaway firm,” Aaron noted, tossing the file back.
“CAA spun out of William Morris the exact same way twenty years ago, and now they want to burn the guys trying to replicate the model.”
“Keep your voice down,” Jack warned, checking the hallway.
“Emanuel’s crew walked, and Ovitz wants them starved out.
Poaching a client like Sandler isn’t just a signing.
It’s a scalp.”
Aaron stood up, grabbing his jacket.
“Then I’ll get it.
Sandler’s contract at ITA won’t save him if the agency gets blacklisted.”
As he headed for the door, Jack slid a bound script across the wood.
“Keep an eye on this.
Touchstone is putting together a low-budget feature.
Rough around the edges, but the premise is structurally sound.”
Aaron glanced at the title page: $3,000.
He skimmed the logline.
A wealthy corporate raider pays a street-level sex worker three grand to spend a week at the Beverly Wilshire.
In its current draft, it was a gritty, cynical drama.
But he immediately saw the mechanics of a massive return.
If Disney’s Touchstone division sanded down the edges and pushed it toward a fairy-tale structure, it would print money.
It was exactly the kind of vehicle built to manufacture a star.
It was made for Nicole.
“Thanks, Jack,” Aaron said, tucking the script into his bag.
That evening, the industry crowded into the Samuel Goldwyn Theater for the Academy Award nomination party.
The room ran on transactional energy.
Rain Man was pulling eight nominations, serving as a massive, public validation of CAA’s packaging model.
The firm didn’t just represent actors anymore; they assembled the entire production and dictated terms to the studios.
Aaron stayed at the edge of the room, a glass of ice water sweating in his hand.
He watched the crowd cycle through their routines.
With the Touchstone script in his bag and Nicole’s signature on a representation agreement, the heavy lifting was done.
He had zero interest in networking tonight.
By midnight, the neon of Sunset Boulevard reflected off the hood of his Chevrolet as Aaron pulled to the curb.
He stepped out, his uniform strictly functional—dark jeans, a plain white shirt, and a tailored black jacket.
Inside the bar, the air was thick with smoke and quiet conversations.
Sandler sat hunched at the counter, looking exactly like a tired comic off a long shift at the clubs.
Aaron took the empty stool next to him.
When the bartender approached, he dropped a twenty on the damp wood.
“Keep his glass full.”
He turned to the comic.
Sandler glanced over, suspicious.
“You’re Anderson.
The kid from CAA.
What’s the pitch?”
“I want to sign you,” Aaron said, his voice flat, cutting through the background noise.
“ITA is a dead end.
Emanuel is fighting a war of attrition against Ovitz, and he doesn’t have the capital to win.
You stay there, you get caught in the crossfire.”
Sandler shifted, gripping his glass.
“I’ve got a contract.”
“It’s a standard one-year,” Aaron countered, checking his watch.
“It expires in thirty days.
Let’s deal in reality, Adam.
Ovitz has already decided ITA is getting buried.
You can either be on the side that greenlights the pictures, or you can go down with a boutique agency that won’t exist in five years.”
He didn’t wait for a reaction.
He kept the cadence brisk.
“You write the scripts, I handle the packaging,” Aaron added.
“CAA has the infrastructure to force projects through development.
You have the comedic mechanics.
Stop burning your time on MTV game shows and cheap cruise ship movies.
Own your own IP.”
Sandler stared at him, the defensive posture dropping as the financial reality set in.
“You can actually get CAA to fund my scripts?”
“If the numbers make sense, I’ll get them made.
It’s just business.”
Sandler left shortly after, quiet and processing the reality of the offer.
Aaron watched the door close behind the comic, feeling a cold, mechanical satisfaction.
He had zero patience for the traditional Hollywood hierarchy.
The industry was run by a rigid class of gatekeepers—the exact same breed of corporate operators and Wall Street executives who had dismantled his father’s company and pushed his family to the edge.
From the boardrooms in New York to Ovitz’s corner office in Beverly Hills, they were all just institutional monopolies protecting their bottom line.
He didn’t want to dismantle the system; that would be bad for business.
The machine itself worked perfectly fine.
He just planned on being the one who owned it.
_________________________________________________________
Thank you so much for reading!
Peace out,
Lucent.