Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus Chapter 157 157: CH : 152 Owning Asian Market

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"He called the film a masterpiece," Caron said, still trying to process the magnitude of the endorsent. "Publicly. On cara, in front of *Variety* and *The Hollywood Reporter*."

"He told the exact sa thing back in October," Horner replied softly. "When I showed him the final, locked cut. He looked at and said: *'This is a masterpiece, Jas, and the critics are going to be wrong about it.'* At the ti, I honestly thought the kid was just being polite."

"Was he?" Caron asked.

A long pause echoed over the line.

"No," Horner said, his voice laced with awe and a healthy dose of fear. "Having spent ti in a room with him... I don't think simple human kindness is really his operating mode. I think he just saw the future."

---

The music trade publications, operating on a slightly different, more analytical tiline from the reactionary daily entertainnt press, published their in-depth responses to Marvin's involvent in the *Titanic* score over the following days. And they were—in stark, undeniable contrast to the divided, cynical film criticism—largely unambiguous in their worship.

*Billboard Magazine* ran a massive, multi-page feature that would be continuously cited in industry boardrooms and academic discussions for years afterward:

> **THE YERS PHENONON: WHY THE MUSIC INDUSTRY NEEDS TO START TAKING THIS CHILD SERIOUSLY — AND WHAT IT ANS THAT IT ALREADY HAS**

> *"In any given decade, the global music industry produces approximately two or three genuine, undeniable anomalies—artists whose sudden ergence cannot be fully explained by the available, corporate fraworks of talent developnt, market positioning, or industry infrastructure. These are the mythic nas that, five years after they appear, every A&R rep claims to have identified imdiately.

> Marvin yers is this year's anomaly. He is very likely this century's anomaly.

> His debut EP, *Marvin 1*—five vocal tracks, released in the late sumr of 1997 by Columbia Records under what terrified industry sources describe as contractual terms unusually favorable to an artist with zero prior comrcial history—According to the last sales records, it has officially sold 4.4 million pure physical units in the United States alone. That figure places it in the top tier of debut releases in any genre in the last twenty years. The EP remains locked in the top ten of the Billboard 200 a staggering seventeen weeks after its release.

> The three lead singles—'Song of Enchantnt', 'I Need Your Happiness', and 'Battle Hymn'—are constantly glitching the top five, overthrowing each other and every newly released pop track, but never, ever falling below the top five. It is a terrifying persistence that is simply not explainable by standard radio saturation or marketing spend. The label's own financial analysts are completely struggling to account for the phenonon. Every single track has achieved Platinum certification. Three have achieved Multi-Platinum. The album as a whole is tracking toward Diamond status.

> These numbers would be considered legendary for an established, legacy artist. For a debut release by an eleven-year-old performing his own original compositions, they constitute a seismic event that the music industry simply does not have an adequate historical precedent for.

> And now, there is *Titanic*.

> Marvin yers' contribution to Jas Horner's score for Jas Caron's bloated historical epic is, by the accounts of everyone who has seen the film and paid attention to its auditory landscape, deeply essential rather than rely ornantal. The haunting Celtic tin whistle motif that threads through the film's emotional core—first heard in the opening oceanic fras and recurring at key narrative intervals with a cumulative emotional impact that builds to devastating effect—is yers' physical instrunt, yers' interpretation, and by several insider accounts, yers' original conceptual contribution to what ultimately beca the score's identifying sonic identity.

> The legendary Jas Horner has publicly stated on the record: 'The whistle is the very soul of the score. Without Marvin's breath in that instrunt, the film sounds different in a way that is not rely tonal. It sounds significantly less true.'

> Furthermore, the closing song—'My Heart Will Go On,' composed by Marvin, lyrics written entirely by Marvin, arranged entirely by Marvin, and perford flawlessly by Marvin—has already generated the kind of imdiate, cultural response that guarantees sweeping Grammy nominations.

> Our official prediction: Marvin yers will attend the Grammy Awards in February 1998 not as a cute novelty guest, but as a dominant, multiple nominee. His debut EP alone would easily justify at least four nominations in the current competitive field. His sweeping contribution to the *Titanic* score adds Best Original Score and Best Original Song to the probable list. But more importantly, he is a lock for the upcoming Golden Globes.

> His arrogant, public prediction of *Titanic*'s box office success this weekend, if it proves even marginally accurate, will add a terrifying new dinsion to his public profile that no PR campaign could ever manufacture: the absolute, god-like credibility of being mathematically right when every adult in the room was wrong.

> A one-hit wonder does not do this. A generational, talent does.

> We are generally not in the habit of making sweeping prophecies at *Billboard*. We will make one now: in ten years, the global music industry will look back at 1997 as the exact year Marvin yers arrived, and it will be completely unable to explain why it took anyone longer than approximately forty-five seconds to recognize that the ga was permanently over."*

Marvin read all of this press coverage over the course of the day with the dispassionate attention that was his primary mode when dealing with intelligence that arrived from external sources.

He processed it, filed it in his mory, extracted the useful leverage from the performative flattery, and placed each piece of the puzzle in its correct relationship to the overall global picture.

The film was going to be fine. He had known this as an absolute, historical fact long before he ever stepped up to the microphones.

The press conference had served its multiple, layered purposes—which were vastly more complex and not entirely the simple PR purposes the press had attributed to it.

Yes, it generated unbreakable goodwill and future leverage with Jas Caron and 20th Century Fox. Yes, it provided brilliant, advance promotion for the imminent physical single release of *My Heart Will Go On*, guaranteeing massive returns for the Zenith Trust and Wolf Cousins's comrcial interests in the soundtrack. Yes, it perfectly positioned him as an authoritative, public voice on matters beyond simple pop music, which extended his profile in ways that were useful for corporate plans that were not yet visible to the public eye.

He wanted to be a "prophet," too.

But it was also simple. The film was an extraordinary cinematic achievent. And saying true things, Marvin had found in his existence, was almost always worth the beautiful complexity it produced.

He set down the last of the press clippings and looked out the window of the San Marino estate. The December afternoon was going rich, gold in the manicured gardens.

The Golden Globe nominations were imminent. The Grammy nominations would follow. The Academy Award nominations would arrive in February. But the global box office would tell its true, unstoppable story over the next several weeks in the only brutal language that the Hollywood industry truly listened to, which was cold, hard numbers.

He was incredibly comfortable with all of this.

He picked up the telephone on his desk and dialed a number.

It rang exactly three tis before it was snatched up.

"Mr. Caron," Marvin purred, his voice a low, commanding vibration of pure velvet. "This is Marvin yers."

A stunned pause echoed on the other end of the line—the audible pause of a powerful man frantically recalibrating his reality.

"Marvin," Caron breathed, his voice thick with exhaustion and shock. "I... I saw what you did this morning outside the hotel."

"Yes," Marvin replied smoothly. "I imagine that you did. The resulting shockwaves were quite intentional."

"You... you really didn't have to do that, kid. You put your own neck on the chopping block for a movie that the trades say is dying."

"I am entirely aware of the perceived risk, Jas," Marvin said, his tone carrying the authority of a king. "I did it because I wanted to say sothing true to the world. But I also wanted to call you—separately, and directly—to ensure you understand that the film is exactly what I said it was on those steps. In thirty years, people will still be passionately discussing what you built. I wanted you to hear that from directly, without the performative interference of caras or studio executives."

A much longer pause stretched across the line.

"Thank you," Caron finally whispered. His voice had the raw, broken quality of a man who has been desperately waiting a very long ti to hear sothing validating, and has finally, miraculously heard it, and does not quite know how to safely carry the imnse weight of the relief.

"You are welco," Marvin smiled, his Incubus charm radiating through the receiver, actively soothing the director's frayed nervous system. "Enjoy the weekend box office returns, Jas. I assure you, Saturday and Sunday will be better than Friday."

He hung up the phone with a soft click. He looked out at the golden garden for another quiet mont, savoring his victory, and then opened his leather-bound notebook and began writing sothing entirely new.

Outside, December continued its mild, indifferent Los Angeles afternoon.

Sowhere across the sprawling city, and across thousands of screens in Arica, *Titanic* was playing in darkened theaters.

People were watching it. People were crying. People were walking out into the crisp December evening, finding payphones, calling their friends, and saying: *You absolutely need to see this film.*

The slow, unstoppable tidal wave of word-of-mouth was beginning.

It would take approximately two more weeks to officially reach the critical, cultural threshold that Marvin had identified. And after that, the numbers would do exactly what numbers always did when a true masterpiece found its audience: they would unstoppably climb.

Marvin was not concerned.

He wrote three pages of new, brilliant musical arrangents, closed his notebook, and stood up from his desk to go find Amy.

There was a studio empire to build, and there was work to do.

—

On the afternoon of December 31st, 1997, as the global financial markets prepared to close the books on one of the most volatile and destructive economic years of the twentieth century, Sophie Chen completed the year-end program accounting.

She executed the final reconciliation with the precision and thoroughness that had co to characterize her work throughout the entire Asian Financial Crisis. Operating out of the terminal, she sent the classified summary to Grant yers, Irving yers, and Hoffman simultaneously, dispatching a master copy directly to yer's estate in LA.

The docunt scrolling across Marvin's monitor was exactly four pages long. The first three pages contained the grueling, line-by-line position accounting of the greatest financial raid of the yers blood. The fourth page contained the summary.

**ZENITH TRUST / SCARLET CAPITALS — ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS PROGRAM**

**Year-End Summary: December 31, 1997**

**Starting Capital (Irving yers transfer, July–August 1997): $100,000,000**

**Currency and Derivatives Program — Realized Gains:**

Indonesian Rupiah NDF Program: $39,200,000

Malaysian Ringgit NDF Program: $11,100,000

Thai Baht / Philippine Peso Supplentary: $8,700,000

Korean Won NDF Program: $23,200,000

KOSPI Financial Sector Put Program (all expiries): $28,700,000

Total Currency and Derivatives Realized Gains: $110,900,000

**Total Capital Available for Equity Redeploynt: $240,900,000** *(Note: discrepancy variance accounts for previously held autonomous liquid assets)*

**Equity Positions Established (December 1997, at cost):**

Samsung Electronics:** $198,400,000 (10.1M Shares) — Ownership: ~7.1%

TSMC:** $147,600,000 (47.5M Shares) — Ownership: ~4.8%

LG Electronics:** $78,300,000 (9.9M Shares) — Ownership: ~6.0%

Hyundai Motor:** $69,800,000 (7.2M Shares) — Ownership: ~7.2%

POSCO:** $58,900,000 (4.0M Shares) — Ownership: ~5.1%

Sony Corporation:** $79,200,000 (2.9M Shares) — Ownership: ~1.9%

Toyota Motor Corporation:** $98,700,000 (3.4M Shares) — Ownership: ~0.7%

Nintendo:** $60,000,000 (4.5M Shares) — Ownership: ~2.4%

Capcom:** $45,000,000 (9.8M Shares) — Ownership: ~11.1%

Square:** $40,000,000 (5.8M Shares) — Ownership: ~8.7%

Toshiba:** $40,000,000 (8.2M Shares) — Ownership: ~3.2%

Konami:** $35,000,000 (6.2M Shares) — Ownership: ~6.3%

Bandai:** $30,000,000 (3.4M Shares) — Ownership: ~4.8%

Nissan:** $30,000,000 (7.9M Shares) — Ownership: ~5.3%

Lenovo:** $15,000,000 (Private Strategic Joint Venture) — Economic Stake: ~6.0%

China Petroleum & Chemical:** $5,000,000 (Early Strategic Entry) — Economic Stake: ~2.3%

Huawei:** $2,000,000 (Internal Proxy Ownership Rights) — Economic Interest: ~5.0%

**Total Equity Positions at Cost: $1,050,900,000**

**Total Capital Deployed (cost basis): $1,050,900,000**

**Total Liquid Capital Available (starting capital currency gains): $255,900,000**

**Implied Leverage Multiple:** 4.16x average across book

Below the staggering numbers, Sophie had attached a sensitive addendum regarding international corporate governance.

Marvin read it with a slow smirk.

He knew the laws of international finance perfectly. In a normal, healthy macroeconomic environnt, quietly acquiring anything above a 5% equity stake in a publicly traded corporation triggered massive, mandatory regulatory disclosures. In the United States, it was a Schedule 13D filing. In Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, similar corporate transparency laws existed to prevent foreign hostile takeovers.

If an Arican had attempted to buy 7.1% of Samsung and 11.1% of Capcom during an economic boom, the respective governnts would have instantly blocked the transactions, invoking national security and dostic corporate protectionism.

But 1997 was not a healthy economic environnt. It was an apocalypse.

The Asian Financial Crisis had brought sovereign nations to their knees. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was currently gutting the Korean economy. The Japanese banking sector was suffocating under mountains of bad debt. In Seoul, citizens were literally donating their personal gold jewelry to the governnt just to help pay off the national sovereign debt.

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