The Things She Says(53)
As soon as his laptop booted up, he typed a ton of notes. Visions of Black had two elements: the full-color, disjointed visions and the black-and-white hospital scenes, which represented the main character’s reality of blindness and amnesia. He’d been stumbling over it, but in his moment of clarity, he’d realized the visions were her reality and the hospital the altered state. That’s why it hadn’t been working. Once he flipped them, everything came together. The theme was altered reality.
After a couple of hours, he’d finished pouring the contents of his brain onto the page. Next, he opened the Creative Financing file and added the idea he’d come up with a few minutes ago. Borrow against future gross. Which was not great, because it granted rights to profit on a film he hadn’t even conceptualized yet, but it beat the fake engagement.
The other ideas weren’t stellar, either. He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the screen. None of this would net the backing he needed to make a blockbuster of Visions of Black. Guys starting out did this kind of scrambling, stuff he’d done ten years ago to put enough money in his hands to commit brilliance to film and impress the deep pockets into taking a chance on him.
And finally, after years of bleeding his emotional center onto the screen, one of those deep pockets stepped forward. Jack Abrams signed on the dotted line, but to compensate for Kyla’s exorbitant salary, Kris had agreed to cut advertising dollars and stir up publicity with the engagement. It had seemed like a fair trade at the time.
Studios were evil. But they had connections, distribution channels, promotional departments. Things an independent film director only dreamed of.
Kris made coffee and waited until the brewer trickled the final drop into the pot before pulling out his phone to call Jack Abrams. He’d put off the call, hoping a genius idea for promoting Visions of Black would fall from the sky.
The hour was still early on the west coast but Jack was a morning person, too. Kris hoped their good working relationship would smooth out the issues from the bomb he was about to drop.
“Mr. Abrams,” he said when the other man answered. “It’s Kris Demetrious. Sorry to bother you, but I need to tell you I’ve decided not to announce my engagement to Kyla Monroe.”
“Not announcing it?” Jack paused. “Or not going through with it at all?”
“Not going through with it at all,” Kris said. “It’s not the right path. I’d like to discuss other options.”
“I’m a little taken aback,” Jack said gruffly. “We all agreed on this publicity angle.”
“Yes, sir. I changed my mind. I’d like to renegotiate funds for advertising instead.”
“That’s not possible. The numbers are the numbers and our contract is solid.” Jack Abrams was a powerful man and the nuances of his statement weren’t lost on Kris.
“I understand. I intend to honor the contract. I’m asking you to be open to other possibilities.”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to reallocating.”
Which meant Kris would have to cut somewhere else, but the budget was too tight for that. Kyla’s salary was the major sticking point. She was a huge draw, and she’d already approved the script. Above all, the role needed her particular spin. No other actress would be right. He couldn’t shoot the movie without her. “Thank you, sir. I don’t think that will work.”
“Then it doesn’t sound as if you have a choice but to stick with the original plan.”
“No, sir. It doesn’t.”
Kris ended the call and contemplated smashing his phone through the laptop screen. But he needed it to call Kyla and talk her into taking less money. That conversation didn’t go any better. She refused to listen and instead issued a thinly veiled threat to speak to her lawyer if he didn’t get with the program. So much for hoping their history might sway her toward a peaceable solution.
His temples throbbed. Years of work, about to go down the drain because he couldn’t pretend to be engaged to Kyla. Yes, he’d agreed to it. But that had been before VJ put his cynicism through the shredder and spliced his psyche back together into something he didn’t fully understand yet. But he did know people should see Visions because he’d created something brilliant, not because of a fictitious engagement.
He had no choice but to find another way. He would not be forced to cool things off with VJ to make an engagement to Kyla believable, all because Abrams and Kyla refused to budge. The cool-off would happen when and how he decided. Hollywood did not control his life.
Disgusted, he stabbed the power button on the TV remote. He hated TV. The chances of finding a decent enough distraction were about zero but he flipped through the channels anyway, hoping to stumble over an old Hitchcock or Kubrick flick.