The Last Don - Mario Puzo [151]
Vail said fondly, “Claudia, you have no idea what the real world is all about. Which makes you perfect to do screenplays. What the hell difference does it make if I’m happy? The happiest man who ever lived is going to have terrible times in his life. Terrible tragedies. Look at me now. I’ve just won a great victory, I don’t have to kill myself. I’m enjoying this meal, I’m enjoying the company of you two beautiful, intelligent, compassionate women. And I love it that my wife and children will have economic security.”
“Then why the fuck are you whining?” Molly asked him. “Why are you spoiling a good time?”
“Because I can’t write,” Vail said. “Which is no great tragedy. It’s not really important anymore but it’s the only thing I know how to do.” As he was saying this, he was finishing the three desserts with such evident enjoyment that the two women burst out laughing. Vail grinned back at them. “We sure bluffed out old Eli,” he said.
“You take writer’s block too seriously,” Claudia said. “Just take some speed.”
“Screenwriters don’t have writer’s block because they don’t write,” Vail said. “I cannot write because I have nothing to say. Now let’s talk about something more interesting. Molly, I’ve never understood how I can have ten percent of the profit of a picture that grosses one hundred million dollars and costs only fifteen million to make, and then never see a penny. That’s one mystery I’d like to solve before I die.”
This put Molly in good spirits again; she loved to teach the law. She took a notebook out of her purse and scribbled down some figures.
“It’s absolutely legal,” she said. “They are abiding by the contract, one you should not have signed in the first place. Look, take the one-hundred-million gross. The theaters, the exhibitors, take half, so now the studio only gets fifty million, which is called rentals.
“OK. The studio takes out the fifteen million dollars the picture costs. Now there’s thirty-five million left. But by the terms of your contract and most studio contracts, the studio takes thirty percent of the rentals for distribution costs on the film. That’s another fifteen mil in their pockets. So you’re down to twenty mil. Then they deduct the cost of making prints, the cost for advertising the picture, which could easily be another five. You’re down to fifteen. Now here’s the beauty. By contract, the studio gets twenty-five percent of the budget for studio overhead, telephone bills, electricity, use of soundstages etc. Now you’re down to eleven. Good, you say. You’ll take your piece of eleven million. But the Bankable Star gets at least five percent of the rentals, the director and producer another five percent. So that comes to another five million. You’re down to six million. At last you’ll get something. But not so fast. They then charge you all the costs of distribution, they charge fifty grand for delivering the prints to the English market, another fifty to France or Germany. And then finally they charge the interest on the fifteen million they borrowed to make the picture. And there they lose me. But that last six million disappears. That’s what happens when you don’t have me for a lawyer. I write a contract that really gets you a piece of the gold mine. Not gross for a writer but a very good definition of net. Do you understand it now?”
Vail was laughing. “Not really,” he said. “How about TV and video money?”
“TV you’ll see a little,” Molly said. “Nobody knows how much money they make in video.”
“And my deal with Marrion now is straight gross?” Vail asked. “They can’t screw me again?”
“Not the way I’ll write the contract,” Molly said. “It will be straight gross all the way.”
Vail said mournfully, “Then I won’t have a grievance anymore. I won’t have an excuse for not writing.”
“You really are so eccentric,” Claudia said.
“No, no,” Vail said. “I’m just a fuckup. Eccentrics do odd things to distract people from what they do or are. They are ashamed. That’s why movie people are so eccentric.”
Who would have dreamed that dying could be so pleasant, that you could be so at peace,