The California sun streamed into Duke's office, on his desk, the first-week sales reports for Cujo lay open impressive numbers by any standard, a guaranteed bestseller.
But the air in the room was not one of celebration; it was one of assessment.
Mr. Aldrich from Doubleday sat across from him, a man whose calm demeanor had always masked a shark's instinct for a deal.
"Connor, Cujo is a triumph," Aldrich began, spreading his hands in a gesture of magnanimous praise.
"The reviews are splendid. 'Hauser proves his mastery of terror.' The numbers are superb. It's cemented your place, not just as a bestselling author, but as a master of the form. The way you build that dread, from the first hint of the dog's sickness to the… well, the harrowing climax in that car… it's great."
Duke nodded, accepting the praise with a neutral expression. He heard the unspoken but.
He'd seen the same reports. It was a hit, a solid number two on the lists, but it hadn't dislodged the juggernauts at the very top.
It wasn't Jaws.
"Of course," Aldrich continued, smoothing his tie, "the conversation will always be different from Jaws. How could it not be? Jaws was a once-in-a-decade event. Fifty-three weeks at number one, Connor. Fifty-three! Cujo is more of a… a short lasting small success. Good enough in its own right, but it wasn't what Doubleday was expecting." He leaned forward, his eyes glinting, moving in for the kill.
"Which is why our offer is even more compelling. We would like to acquire the paperback rights for both."
He let the words hang in the air, a practiced pause for dramatic effect. "A single, unified deal. Jaws and Cujo. We're prepared to make it a landmark transaction. A seven-figure deal. We'll blanket the country with them. In every drugstore, every airport, every bus station from here to the east coast."
Aldrich's voice dropped into a conspiratorial, almost paternal tone. "This is the kind of payday that secures a man's future. Permanently. You could write what you want, when you want, from a villa in the South of France if you want to. No more pressure. Just the freedom that real wealth brings."
Duke steepled his fingers, his gaze steady.
"It's a very compelling offer, Robert," Duke said, his voice even, giving nothing away. "The scale is impressive. Walk me through the deal what's the proposed release schedule for the paperbacks? Would it be a simultaneous release, or a staggered one to maximize the marketing cycle for each? I'd be particularly interested in the backend; a front-loaded one thing seven figure is one thing, but the long-term value is in the royalties."
Aldrich blinked. He had expected awe, gratitude, perhaps a little negotiation on the advance number.
He had not expected a cold, dispassionate dissection of the deal's architecture from a man who was supposed to be a creative, still basking in the glow of a new release.
"Well, the standard royalty is..." Aldrich began, slightly flustered.
"I'm not interested in the standard," Duke interrupted gently, though the steel beneath was unmistakable. "Not for this. This is a unique package. It should be treated as such. And the marketing commitment—I'd want to see a detailed plan, with dollar amounts attached."
Aldrich sat back, perplexed. "Of course, of course. We can certainly provide those details. But Connor, a deal of this magnitude… it's a bird in hand. The biggest bird you're likely to see."
"Let me and my people run the numbers," Duke said, offering a thin, non-committal smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"And we'll, of course, be considering the landscape. It's a seller's market after all." He let the implication hang in the air: he would be taking this offer to every other publisher in town to drive a bidding war.
After a few more minutes of strained pleasantries, Aldrich left, his confidence visibly shaken.
Duke remained seated, the ghost of the seven-figure sum hovering in the room.
It was a life-changing amount of money.
It was the capital he needed. He intended to use that fortune not to buy a villa, but to fund his own distribution empire.
---
Later that day, in the cool, dark cocoon of a private screening room, the atmosphere was entirely different.
The air, thick with the scent of ozone from the projector and old velvet, was charged with Peter Bogdanovich's nervous energy.
He was a live wire, fidgeting in the seat next to Duke, his knees bouncing as the final, chilling frames of Targets played out. The film was good, it dissected the end of old Hollywood and the birth of a new, random American violence.
As the lights came up, Bogdanovich turned to Duke, his face a canvas of hope and anxiety. "So?" he asked, the single word laden with the weight of his future.
"It's great, Peter," Duke said, and he meant it. "The composition, the editing between Karloff's world and the sniper's… it's fearless."
Bogdanovich exhaled, a gust of relief that seemed to deflate his entire frame. "You think? God, I hope so. It's just… so different."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, the scholar giving way to the salesman. "So, the distribution… have you given more thought to potential partners? I was talking to a guy at a party, just casually, and he mentioned… well, American International Pictures might be a surprisingly good fit for a genre picture like this. They have that network, you know? The drive-ins, the grindhouses. They know how to handle this kind of… product. Get it in front of the right eyes quickly."
Duke didn't even blink.
"No," Duke said, the word flat and final.
Bogdanovich flinched. "No?"
"This isn't going to AIP," Duke elaborated, his tone that of a man stating an obvious reality.
"Then who?" Bogdanovich asked, the note of perplexity now unmistakable. "The majors won't touch it."
"Targets," Duke stated, his voice leaving no room for argument, "will be the first official release of Ithaca Productions' distribution arm."
Bogdanovich's face underwent a rapid, stark transformation.
First, there was a flush of profound, ego-stroking flattery to be the inaugural release, the chosen one, the film that would launch a new studio's most ambitious venture. It was the kind of honor a young, fiercely ambitious director dreams of.
But this was immediately followed by a cold, sinking wave of sheer, unadulterated terror. The honor was real, but it was on a ship that hadn't even been built yet, captained by a man who'd never sailed. His entire career, his brilliant, fragile film, was now being lashed to the decision of Duke's audacious, possibly suicidal, gamble.
"The… the first release?" he stammered, his voice barely a whisper. "Duke, with all respect… and I mean this with the greatest possible respect… do you even have a distribution arm?"
Duke finally turned his head, his blue eyes locking onto Bogdanovich's. There was no doubt in them, only a terrifying, absolute certainty.
"We will soon," he said. "We're working on it."
---
A week later, the person he was waiting for arrived. Lawrence "Larry" Goldberg was a man in his late fifties, built like a retired boxer, with a face that had seen a thousand disappointing opening weekends and a handshake that could crack walnut.
He wore a cheap suit and had the tired, pragmatic eyes of a man who dealt in realities, not dreams. Duke had headhunted him from Allied Artists, luring him with a staggering salary and the one thing a man like Goldberg truly craved: total operational control.
"This is Larry Goldberg," Duke announced to the assembled team in his office. "He's going to be in charge of building our distribution arm." He gestured to the others. "My Director of Operations, David Chen. My Creative Executive, Mark Jensen. And my Executive Assistant, Eleanor Shaw."
Finch gave a curt nod to each, his appraisal swift and seemingly unimpressed. Chen offered a neutral gaze and nod in return. Jensen looked at the man with curiosity, Eleanor simply noted his name in her ledger, her expression as calm as ever.
"Distribution," Goldberg began, without further preamble, dropping a worn leather satchel onto Duke's desk with a solid thud. "It's not about magic. It's about math and data. You ready for the math?"
"We're all ready," Duke said, leaning back in his chair, his gaze sweeping over his team.
"Prints," Goldberg said, while writting it in a notebook. "A single 35mm print of your movie costs a thousand dollars to make. For a modest national release not wide, like the one you asked for Targets, just enough to make noise you need two hundred prints."
"That's two hundred thousand dollars. Gone. Before a single person buys a ticket. That's just for the celluloid. It doesn't include the shipping, which is another fortune."
David Chen, ever the numbers man, was already scribbling notes. "A purely capital-intensive initial outlay. No return until the theatrical run commences."
Goldberg shot him a look. "That's right. And the return is never guaranteed." He moved to a second finger. "Bookers. You need a team of guys on the ground in key cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco. Their job is to schmooze, bribe, and strong-arm theater owners into giving you a screen. It's a relationship business. It's ugly."
"Strong-arm how?" Jensen asked, his youthful idealism showing.
"By showing them money," Goldberg said flatly. "Money from other markets. Which you don't have yet. It's a chicken and egg problem." A third finger went up. "The Split. The theater keeps fifty, sometimes sixty percent of the gross. Always. Your money comes from the other half. Out of that, you pay for the prints, the marketing, my salary, everything. What's left is your profit. If there is any of course."
Eleanor Shaw, without looking up from her notepad, spoke in her crisp tone. "We will require a detailed, line item budget for all projected expenditures, Mr. Goldberg. I will schedule a follow-up meeting."
A ghost of a smile, the first sign of human emotion, touched Goldberg's lips. She spoke his language.
He leaned forward, his voice a low gravelly rumble, addressing the room but focusing on Duke. "You don't just open everywhere. You open strong in two or three key markets. You get the reviews in the big papers. You generate buzz. Then, you use those numbers—the grosses from New York and L.A. to bully the theater owners in Cleveland and Denver. You 'expand the pattern' week by week. It's all about momentum. You stumble out of the gate, and the whole thing collapses. The theaters drop you, and your two-hundred-thousand-dollar investment in pretty celluloid circles is now the world's most expensive paperweight."
Duke listened, absorbing the brutal facts of it. He was a little intimidated by the sheer numbers.
He stood and walked to a large map of the United States he'd had mounted on the wall. "Show me," he said.
Finch joined him, pulling a red marker from his pocket. He authoritatively circled New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. "The main battlefields," he grunted. "You win here, you can win the war. You lose here, you've got nothing."
Duke looked at the map, the three red circles like targets.
The plan was set.
---
Tell me if you guys like the chapter, I been reading about hollywood distribution when it was only film stock and it was expensive af
Also Film stock is a huge fire hazard
Last thing, there were some people who didnt like the deal for distribution with CCR and Fantasy records, but i can assure people, its a good deal for a debut band