Page 111 of Out on a Limb

“You’re here now,” he said, like he was rescued. “Aren’t you having fun?”

“I am.”

“Good. So drink that wine and get ready for lots of awkward convos.”

They took seats on the inner circle so they wouldn’t have to move. One assistant after another sat down and chatted up Cameron. It was a montage of faces and namedropping, the same conversation looping over and over.

“I’m an assistant over at Paramount.”

“I’m second assistant to the president of the network.”

“What do you think is going to be the breakout movie at Telluride?”

“I heard he’s reupping his deal at the network and is developing a reboot ofAlly McBeal. It could go straight to series.”

“I’m on the lot, too. We should totally do drinks.”

“I heard they’re getting tossed off the project and the studio is bringing in new people.”

“So Ryan Gosling came into the office yesterday…”

Cameron could run down the hot writers and hot projects and the execs ankling their posts to start their own shingles. He knew how to have those conversations.

But he didn’t have the energy to care at that moment. He wanted to look at more pictures from graduation.

“So you’re at Mobius,” the next guy said. He had the generic cuteness of a failed congressional candidate. “I’m at Popcorn Pictures. I work for Alvin Baylor. We just bought the rights to the Stairmaster and are fasttracking it for a fall production start date.”

Cameron’s head perked up from his wineglass. “Did you just say the Stairmaster? Like the exercise machine?”

The guy nodded with pride. “It’s perfect. It’s a well-known property popular with men and women. It has a straightforward name. And nobody’s thought of it.”

“How are you making a movie out of the Stairmaster?”

“Alvin had the genius idea to make it likeTransformers, where the Stairmaster and other exercise equipment are actually an alien species sent down to help humankind defeat its greatest evil.”

“Trans fats?”

Sarcasm did not penetrate this guy’s excitement. “We haven’t pinned down a villain yet. But Alvin scooped up the rights to the Thighmaster, the NordicTrack, and a brand of spinning bikes. He’s planning to do itAvengers-style: Big ensemble pictures with standalone films in between for each supermachine.” The assistant shook his head in delight. “It’s brilliant.”

Cameron tried to wrap his mind around watching a film about a superhero Stairmaster. If a sequel to Mad Max could become an Oscar-winning movie, he supposed anything was possible. “What’s the script like? Is it tongue-in-like or serious?”

“We don’t have a script yet. We’re in the process of finding writers to slap something together.”

“I don’t know who’d want to write that,” Cameron said.

“We’ve already got interest from agents. A-list writers are pounding at our door. It’s going to be one of the hottest script assignments in town.”

“Really?” Something about that seemed so depressing, yet so Hollywood. Cameron had reached his industry smalltalk threshold. “Are you single?”

“Um…I am.”

“Were you always single?”

The assistant looked at the speed networking leader, who counted the seconds on her clock. “I had a girlfriend for a year. We both started in the mailroom at Gersh. She’s now a manager of casting at Fox.”

“What happened?”

“Well, she worked for a talent agent and got to know a bunch of casting directors and assistants. She got an assistant job to the head of casting for Fox and got promoted six months ago.”