Rage
"2"
They were sitting in a small Italian place they had been going to since they were fourteen—other than Justin who had only been going a couple of years with the other two. They were about half way through the meal and both Justin and Michael were talking almost none stop.
Brian was about to kill both of them.
“OK, we have to get complete creative control—that’s non-negotiable.”
“And we write the screenplay.”
“I think we should ask for points—at least ten percent of the gross, forget the net.”
“And cast approval.”
“Director approval.”
“I should be the Art Director. I know what look we’re going for.”
“Right.”
“And the merchandizing—just the dolls and tee-shirts alone would be worth a fortune.”
“You know, we need to make sure that the European and Asian markets are all on board, too—you can lose a fortune if you let that sort of thing slide or trust the studio to take care of it for you…”
“Tell me about it!”
Finally he couldn’t stand it another second. “Yo, bitches—stick a fucking sock in it.” The other two paused long enough to look at him. “You don’t even know what the offer is. He may just want to develop a line of birthday cards from it—get a fucking grip.”
Michael and Justin looked at him, the thought hadn’t occurred to them.
“Yeah, shit—he might be right.”
“It’s probably just something like wanting to take it mainstream or something.”
“He probably just wants to option it and let it sit in some drawer.”
“He won’t even pay in real money, he’ll probably want some percentage deal after net or something and you know these things never make a profit on paper.”
Michael looked at Brian who was finishing his salad, “What time was he going to call?”
“The conference is set up for two our time in my office with legal there.”
“You know, I have the store open and I’ll miss the after school crowd.”
“Yeah and I have life studies then. I really shouldn’t cut.”
Brian was ready to scream. “Listen you twats, the man wants to discuss some kind of franchise and development deal with your Goddamned comic. He’s represented by one of the biggest talent agencies on the West Coast. He works with A list people, he likes comic books and he never does anything with a budget of less than fifty million.”
“Is he queer?”
“Yes, he’s a fucking fag. Now I expect you to have your butts
in my office at
“But you said that his son showed him the thing. Are you sure he’s gay?”
“I’m a fag and I have a son. It happens. Work with me here.”
“…I guess I’ll be there.”
“OK, but my professor will be pissed.”
Brian could feel tomorrow’s headache already. “If you sign a contract worth real money, you don’t need your professor, Justin. The point of studying what you are is to get to the point where someone will hire you and pay you money for what you do. If he signs you, you’re there.”
Justin looked at him for a second—the light dawned. “Oh, yeah.”
“Thank you. Now can we go home and fuck?”
“Um, Brian, I don’t think Ben would like that…”
Brian looked exasperated. “Jesus, Mikey, not you.”
Later that night, Brian woke with Justin moving beside him. They had made love, fucked, whatever, for a couple of hours after the dinner. Partly to work off the carbs and partly because Justin had too much nervous energy to stand/sit/lay still for more than thirty seconds. Finally, finally, they had fallen asleep and now he was awake again. The clock read three-thirty.
Jesus.
“Do you think it’ll be a good offer?”
Brian tried to be patient. Justin was still young; he was new at this sort of thing. “It will probably be decent. We’ll find out what he has to say and we’ll have one of the lawyers go over whatever they put on the table.”
“Yeah, I know, but…”
“Justin, go to sleep. If you’re too tired to think tomorrow you won’t be any help.”
He snugged closer to the larger man. “You do this sort of thing all the time, don’t you?”
“I talk deals every day, sure.”
“Watch out for us, OK?”
He kissed Justin’s fore head. “Of course.”
“This is big time, you know? It’s a little scary.”
This wasn’t like Justin. Justin was fearless, Justin slew dragons. He rolled over on his side, their heads sharing a pillow, his hand on the smaller chest. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be there and you’ll impress him just like you impress everyone. He already wants what you have so you’re in the driver’s seat. Just listen to what he has to say, think before you open your mouth and you’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, now get some fucking sleep.”
“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s very cool. Go to sleep.”
At
“OK, we’ve been looking over what we would like to do with Rage. Right now it looks like the way to go is take the characters, take some of your plots and situations and develop this for a specialized market with eyes to expand if it can get a foot hold with some mainstream audiences.”
“What sort of development would you be looking at? Are we talking about live action or animation?”
“That’s a question at this point, there are arguments for either. Whichever way we go it’s going to cost a fucking fortune. If we go with live action, we’re looking at killer special FX and a budget from God and if we talk animation we have to decide technique and we’re looking at probably three years before it gets to any kind of screen readiness.”
That startled Michael. “Three years?”
“Sure, and that’s assuming we can get the backing.” There was some background noise on George’s end, some voices and what sounded like a dog barking. In Brian’s office they could hear disjointed parts of a conversation. “I said get out of here.” “Because we’re on a conference with some people, that’s why.” “A little while, now get out.” After a minute he came back on the line. “Sorry, the kids just walked through with the dog. Now, like I was saying, if we do this for film, we’re going to have to scare up some major backing and dealing with gays is going to be controversial. The Bible belt won’t buy this and we’ll probably get burned in effigy.”
Brian broke in. “We all know that this would be controversial, if you don’t know where you can sell it, or are assuming a limited distribution, why are we discussing this?”
Justin and Michael looked worried. They knew this wasn’t mainstream, for shit’s sake. Brian just looked at them smiling, he was used to this part of it.
“Now, Brian, that’s not going to be a problem. We plan for broadening the appeal by playing down the gay thing.”
“…Excuse me, this is Justin here. If you downplay the gay side then what’s going to set it apart from any of the other superhero films? What would be the point?”
“I said downplay, not eliminate it. I mean, c’mon, we can’t have a blowjob on the poster outside of the multiplex’s if Mom is bringing the kids and Grandma.”
“Yeah, hi, I’m Michael. But the whole point of Rage is that he fights injustice and prejudice against gays in Gayolopis and if he doesn’t do that then…”
“Michael, he’ll still be gay and he’ll still defend queers, not to worry. We don’t want to change that.”
“Look George, why don’t you and John work up a treatment and send it here? That way the boys can see exactly what you have in mind.”
“We have one all set to go—or it will be in no time. We’ll fax it to you by, say, this time tomorrow. Sound good?”
Justin and Michael exchanged looks. Nodding. “Yes, that would be fine, George. Why don’t you send that to me and I’ll get it to them by dinner our time tomorrow.”
“We’ll talk again the day after tomorrow, then?”
“Same time, same place.” The connection was broken and they all looked at Brian to explain what had just happened.
“OK, They’re interested in Rage, but they want you to think that there will be problems because of the controversial nature of the thing. They want to turn it into a franchise, but to do that they’re going to have to tone down the gay aspect while claiming that they still want to retain it as far as they can.”
“Yeah, but the whole idea is that he’s a gay avenger and if they lose that, then…”
“No shit. But on the other hand, half a loaf is better than none. They’re going to work up a prospectus and fax it to us tomorrow, you’ll read it and we’ll conference again on Thursday.”
Justin looked at Brian, confused. “I didn’t get what their idea is, exactly. They were taking about life action but they were talking about animation and they weren’t too clear about whether it would be TV or movies.”
“Yeah, they haven’t figured it all out yet. They’ll be up all night writing that draft to send you.”
Michael was his usual slightly half a step behind self. “But I thought they had this worked out.”
“This was just a feeler and they liked you two and they want to work with your idea, they just have to figure out the details.”
“What about the financing?” Justin, of course, would come up with the real questions.
“When they know what they want to do and what it will cost, they should have an idea where they want to take it.”
The legal guy made a move to the door. “If you don’t need me, Mr. Kinney, I’ve got some things to finish.” It was the first thing he’d said the entire time.
Brian looked over at him. “No, thanks for sitting in. When we get closer to something we’ll bring you back.”
The lawyer nodded. “You want me here for that call on Thursday?”
“Yes, I think you should plan on it, Bob.” Bob’s eyes were still on the copies of Rage sitting on the desk. “You want to take a couple of these with you to familiarize yourself with the product?” The man nodded, Justin handed him a few issues. He looked like his eyes would bug out as he left.
“Straights, God.”
Michael had his jacket on. “I’ve got to get going, too. I have Vic watching the store for the after school kids and Mom will kill me if she finds out. You know how she is with him overdoing.”
That left just Justin and Brian sitting there. “Vic loves working at the store, he likes seeing people and getting out. It’s good for him.” Justin was thumbing through one of the comics while he was speaking.
“I know.”
Justin looked over at Brian, now seated back behind his desk and starting to do something on his computer.
“Hey, I’m sorry, you have work to do. I’ll meet you back at the loft, OK?”
His eyes still on his monitor, Brian said, “No, stay. This will just take a minute.” He typed for a few minutes, hit a couple of buttons, clicked a couple of times with the mouse and shut down the machine. Next he pressed the intercom. “Cynthia?”
“Yes?”
“I’m leaving early today, is that a problem?”
“No, you go play. The rest of us will try to keep the place solvent while you’re having your way with that blond beauty of yours.”
“Your ass is still fireable, bitch.”
“Yes, sir, I’m shaking now.”
The two men walked out to the elevator, Justin noticing the stares they were getting as they went down the various halls to get to the main reception area. As they were waiting for the car a woman came up to Brian, looking tentative at best.
“Excuse me, Mr. Kinney? I’m sorry to bother you, but we need a decision on these storyboards today and I was hoping that you might be able to…”
Brian took the boards from her, putting them on the receptionist’s desk to spread them out. They were the paste-ups for a proposed series of ads for a new brand of dog food and were covered with images of cute puppies and sad eyed basset hounds.
“When are the clients coming in?”
“There’s a meeting scheduled for ten tomorrow morning.”
“Aren’t these the same things I saw yesterday?”
She had started out nervous, she was moving onto flustered. “Well…no, you see we changed the composition here and this is a cocker spaniel instead of a St. Bernard and the lettering is larger and…”
“It’s the same fucking ad and it still sucks. Come up with an illustration that works with the concept and this time avoid trite and cliché. You have until nine tomorrow when I want them on my desk.”
Her chin trembling, the girl scurried away. Boards in hand, likely to cry.
The bell sounded for the elevator, the two men got on in silence. “You weren’t very nice to her.”
“I’m perfectly nice when someone knows what they’re doing. She screwed up.”
They walked in continued silence to Brian’s car.
“Hey, Brian? Are you always that hard assed at work?”
Brian paused in his starting of the car. “You need to understand that this is my work. This isn’t a hobby for me, this is what I do. This isn’t a fucking popularity contest and I don’t accept crap.” He turned the key in the ignition. “I thought that you were starting to understand that.”
“Why was everyone staring at us upstairs?”
“Some of the issues of the comic have ended up around the office. Someone brings them in.”
“Don’t you care?”
“Why should I give a fuck what they think?”
“I guess.”
They rode a few blocks in a less comfortable silence. “Why are you helping with this thing with Rage? Just to be nice to me and Michael?”
“That’s a large part of it, but if I didn’t think it would work, I wouldn’t have involved the agency.”
“Would we be together if you didn’t think I could produce—not crap?”
Brian actually sighed. “Obviously not, just like you wouldn’t be with me if you thought I was stupid or ugly or something. We are the people we are and that’s who we’re attracted to.”
Justin had thought pretty much the same thing any number of times, it
was just a bit harsh to have Brian come out and say it. “So if
They were at the loft, pulling into Brian’s regular space. God, another princess moment.
“Justin, are we really going to get into this? We’re together. Leave it at that for Christ’s sake.”
“But Brian, it matters—if I was different…”
“Then you’d be your sister or your cousin. Fucking drop it and lets go upstairs and celebrate.”
“Celebrate what? There wasn’t any offer yet.”
They were out of the car, in the creaky elevator. “George e-mailed me as soon as we got off the phone. He probably had it ready to go. They just wanted to get a feel for you and Mikey, see if their gut was that you could work together. They want to make a firm offer when we talk again.”
Justin stared at him. “Why the fuck didn’t you say something?”
“Because you and Mikey would make me insane if you knew. It’s under control, now leave me alone about it.”
“Brian!”
“They’ll have the complete offer in the fax tomorrow, I’ll run it through legal and you’ll see it then.”
“Holy fuck.”
“I think you’ll be happy with it.”
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