Despite what the media claimed, Dream Talent Agency and ICM were not truly enemies. They were rival companies. In business, no relationship is permanent. They change constantly, with changing agendas and changing times.

The power of money and opportunity necessitated that fact. And that is why businessmen around the world, who follow the treatises written by Sun Tzu, know that in Business keeping your friends close, and enemies closer, really just meant keeping a close relationship with everyone in the field.

If a businessman follows that, opportunities would come knocking from the most unexpected of places.

“We have offers for the role, from ICM and Jenkins Agency, I have carbon copied the emails to you,” Jeremy said. Both him and Will, were seated in Will’s office, they had just finished discussing the details that were to be shown in [1917] with director Lucas, and now they were going over their next possible step, that the company would take with [500 days of summer].

“Okay, I want you to go over the profiles from both ICM and Jenkins and select a suitable candidate from the list. And schedule a meeting at the earliest with the CEO of ICM.” Will replied.

“Are we moving towards a more friendly relationship with ICM?” Jeremy asked uneasily.

Will shook his head and said “No, any relationship that we build with ICM could only be in the interest of cooperation. They have their agendas, we have ours. Their ambition is to be at the top of Hollywood, and so is ours, but that does not mean that we can’t use the opportunities provided to us while keeping a closer eye on the ground situation of their employees and talents there. And I am sure, they will be doing the same to us. One of their agendas will be to poach possible talents from our agency and ours will be similar, if not the same thing. A relationship of apparent cordiality will go a long way, in achieving that for both of us, while simultaneously we can work on improving the public image of our relationship as well.”

“So basically, keep your friends rich, and your enemies rich and then find out which is which?” Jeffery asked him, after a moment’s pause.

“Technically,” Will affirmed.

“Alright, Will, I’ll let Amanda know about setting up the meeting, and I will go through the listings, let’s see where this takes us. I will trust you on this one.” Jeffery sighed.

Saying that, Jeffery nodded to Will and left his office. Will sat in his seat, contemplating while looking at the picturesque sunset outside of his window.

***

In the conference room of the MCA building, in Los Angeles, California. A meeting between the board of directors and other executives was taking place.

Matthew Collins, the CEO of the MCA was chairing the proceedings. Beside him was his nephew Steve Collins, the head of the Public Relations, to his other side, was Christine Collins, Steve Collins’ wife, who was the head of the finance department. These three together constituted the majority of the shares of the company. Besides them, in the room, was Benjamin Charles, The leading Agent, and along with him were the other agents who worked for the company.

They were discussing the final deals of that fiscal quarter, and the future projections for the company.

“As you can see, we had to lay off fifteen more employees from the HR department, and we’re going to have to moderate the budget we allocate for our D-rank stars, we really need to find better investment opportunities for this company, we’re rapidly losing our roster of clientele. And the influx of new talents has come to standstill, people are just not showing up to our doors to find work anymore. If we don’t do something about our public image and credibility now and show another movie with a box office like [17 Again] in the next fiscal quarter, I fear we will lose whatever dependable talents we had and we’ll have to shift our goals inwards towards much lower budget films, and TV shows.” Christine Collins was explaining the charts on the screen.

“Surely, the actors realize that we’re still as good as we’ve ever been? I mean, we still did have a turnover of over 400 million this year.” Matthew interjected.

Christine shook her head and pointed out “Of that 400 million, twenty-five percent came solely from [17 Again] and that is easily associated with Will Evans, he’s being considered as an anomaly in the numbers by most companies in the industry. And the actors know that. They are looking past the works associated with him and looking for information and data provided with him out of the picture.”

“But we did the work on [17 Again], it was just written by the boy!” Matthew demanded.

“Well, when I said that he’s being treated as an anomaly, it includes everything that he has touched, and that includes the script he wrote for our film. The only way out of this, is if we show that either we can still produce films that guarantee good returns at the box office, or we associate ourselves with Will Evans and his company. His image will be a game-changer if we can establish that he’s partnered with our company.” She advised.

Matthew’s face went through a series of emotions that Benjamin could classify as annoyance, and disgust, followed by anger, and he didn’t have to think too hard to know that the next questions would be directed to him.

“Alright, we do have a few projects we were propositioned to work with by the boy’s company. Benjamin, what happened at the meeting? Did your team finalize the deal?” As he’d thought the next set of questions were for him.

Taking a deep breath, Benjamin surveyed the room around him, he could already see the looks of pity that were being thrown his way. They were empty of course, he knew that, and neither did he want them, but they were there. Looking to the CEO, he replied in as professional a tone, as he could muster “I did send one of my best agents, Reagan Norris’ direct agent, Jacob Woodsworth, to meet with Will. They rejected the terms, they consider the ten percent box office clause, too high a price for Reagan Norris.”

It was then Matthew’s nephew, Steve interjected “I have information from credible sources that DTA has approached every other company in the Big Six, and they’ve agreed to start meetings with at least two, one of which, is the ICM. The role that was offered to our actor, is now in the open market.”

The look of Matthew’s face was now akin to resentment, and Benjamin had to swallow the surge of anger at the CEO’s blindness, caused by his hubris, that was threatening to flow through him. He instead calmly tried to pacify “If we remove the ten percent box office clause, we may still get the role for Reagan. I did tell you previously that the clause was too steep, they wouldn’t accept it.”

Matthew cut him off “No, this is too much. The kid doesn’t know how to maintain good business relationships. Sometimes, you have to accept a raw deal to pacify a sleeping tiger. Now he’s trying and aiming too far out of his station, and he’s shown us his fangs. Well, a kitten can snarl all it likes, but they’re usually very careful around the tiger. Now the tiger has awoken and this one is ready to roar. If he wants to destroy all possible relationships with us, then so be it. We will hit him back with everything we have as well.”

Benjamin couldn’t believe the level of ignorance the CEO was showing. His hubris, ego, and pride, supported by his record of constant success due to a niche in the industry had blinded him to his faults. He could see that the other people in the room, including his nephew’s wife were feeling the same way as Benjamin was.

He tried again to pacify the CEO saying “Sir, just give me one more try. I am sure, if I go have a meeting with Will, we could reach a more favorable outcome.”

Matthew looked at Benjamin and for a moment, it looked like he wanted to snarl, but he reigned in his emotions and let out “Fine! One turn, Benjamin. And only because you’re one of my oldest and most efficient employees. I will give the kid one chance. After this, we burn all the bridges and prepare for whatever fight we have ahead of us. We’ve come out of things worse than this, we will do so again.”

‘We have come out of things worse before, Matthew. But in those times, we had a reliable team on the board making decisions, not a family ruling over a company like a dynasty.’ Benjamin internally retorted as the meeting ended. He had to make for his office, and call his wayward nephew to arrange a meeting now. He wondered if there was a different way for him to get out of this.