A Unique Hobby

One evening, at a nightclub in Hollywood.

At Quentin Tarantino's invitation, Aaron had come to the bar with him to unwind. After selling a screenplay, the guy finally had some money.

"The screenplay for Natural Born Killers can't be sold that cheaply again. I just wonder when Tony Scott will adapt your True Romance?"

Aaron sat on the couch, idly sipping his drink as he chatted with Quentin.

"Aaron, you decide. I never thought the screenplay would sell so quickly."

Quentin Tarantino knew his own work best. He knew his screenplay was a mess, story-wise.

Aaron noticed that Quentin had been staring at the dancers' calves. "Hey, what are you looking at? There are so many girls on the dance floor. Have a few drinks and go for it!"

Quentin Tarantino smiled. "I'm looking at their feet. Which pair is prettier?"

"Feet?" Aaron froze for a moment, then gave Quentin Tarantino another look. Sure enough, the guy's gaze was fixed on their feet.

"You don't look at whether their faces are pretty, whether their bodies are sexy enough, whether their breasts are big enough, or whether their asses are perky enough?"

"You look at feet!"

Quentin Tarantino looked at Aaron with a mysterious smile. "Aaron, you're still young. You don't understand the beauty of it."

Aaron shook his head. Fine. To each their own.

"By the way, if you have time, you should come up with a low-budget screenplay for yourself and find a way to shoot it."

"We can test the waters at the Sundance Film Festival first. If we can build some reputation in the industry, it'll be much easier to raise investment for future films!"

Aaron stopped worrying about why Quentin Tarantino liked women's feet so much and got down to business.

Quentin Tarantino gave it serious thought, then said helplessly, "But we're both newcomers. Can we really get investment?"

"To make a feature film, by my estimate, we'd need at least one or two million dollars!"

Aaron took a sip of his drink. "First, polish a screenplay properly. When the time comes, we'll figure something out together."

"Sounds good." Quentin Tarantino knew that Aaron Anderson was currently Michael Ovitz's favorite at CAA. Maybe he really could find a way.

Aaron's current thinking was simple: he didn't want to put up the money, but he wanted to make the movie himself. With his current status, that was quite a challenge.

After some time, Quentin Tarantino wrapped an arm around a heavily made-up woman and prepared to get a room.

"Aaron, aren't you going to have some fun too?"

Aaron shook his head. "You go ahead. I've got things keeping me busy lately!"

"All right, see you around." Quentin Tarantino kissed the glamorous woman in his arms, then left with a grin.

At the moment, Aaron's most important project was the North American distribution rights for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles entrusted to him by Golden Harvest.

Hollywood's six major distributors had no shortage of finished films, and their offers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were low. 20th Century Fox was proof enough.

So Aaron focused mainly on the leading companies in the second-tier distribution market: TriStar Pictures under Columbia Pictures, New Line Cinema, Samuel Goldwyn Films, and Orion Pictures.

As for the many tiny distributors such as New Century Pictures, New World Pictures, Miramax Films, and Trimark Pictures, they were not even within Aaron's consideration.

MGM/UA had originally been one of his targets, but after being acquired for the second time by Nevada gambling tycoon Kirk Kerkorian, the company had become far too strange in the film and television entertainment market.

Afterward, Aaron began visiting the companies one by one with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles project, but he did not get to meet anyone important.

TriStar Pictures in particular seemed unlikely. Coca-Cola had just merged Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures to form Columbia TriStar Pictures, while Sony was in the final stages of acquisition talks with Coca-Cola.

"Looks like TriStar is no longer much of a possibility." After leaving Columbia Pictures' studio in Culver City, Aaron headed to the last company he had high hopes for: Orion Pictures.

"Oh, it's you." In the reception room, Aaron was unexpectedly greeted by Peter Holman, the Orion Pictures executive he had met in the hotel room before.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Holman." Aaron remained professional.

"This is an action movie. It fits current trends perfectly and would suit Orion well!"

Peter Holman leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. "Suit Orion?"

"Do you know what movie Orion is working on now, and who we're working with?"

"Kevin Costner. Besides, we already have quite a few films on our distribution slate. We don't see anything outstanding about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Aaron smiled. "Kevin Costner's self-directed Western, Dances with Wolves, right?"

Why did Aaron know? Because Michael Ovitz had just successfully signed Kevin Costner to CAA that year and secured him a three-million-dollar salary.

Kevin Costner had even expressed his willingness to reduce his salary to one million dollars and put the excess funds into Dances with Wolves.

"The way you people at CAA do business really makes studios dislike you."

Peter Hoffman had already been unhappy about not getting to enjoy Nicole Kidman last time. Now that Aaron Anderson had come to slap him in the face, naturally he did not hold back.

Michael Ovitz's money-first tactics had indeed offended too many people over the years. CAA's habit of stacking stars together to demand high prices from studios had greatly driven up film production costs.

"Mr. Holman, CAA negotiates business, not box office."

Peter Holman grew impatient. "What do you think of 2.4 million US dollars for the North American rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"

"What Orion values is profit, not the project itself!"

When Aaron left Orion Pictures, he was neither disappointed nor upset. The gap in price was simply too large.

At least New Line Cinema and Samuel Goldwyn Films had shown some interest. They just needed to see the finished film first.

Golden Harvest could wrap filming on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in July and produce a rough cut. That would be the time to truly negotiate the price.

Orion's main projects were Kevin Costner's directorial debut, Dances with Wolves, which he was also starring in, and the sequel RoboCop 2.

Aaron shook his head. Dances with Wolves was going to face plenty of setbacks. When a new director helmed a large-scale production, it was easy to go over budget.

Other than RoboCop 2, which had a clear path to profitability, many of Orion's other projects did not appear to have much profit potential.