The dining room table at the Bel Air estate was completely buried under a mountain of heavy, brass-fastened screenplays.
Margot sat in the middle of the mess, wearing a pair of reading glasses, holding a yellow highlighter. It was past midnight. She tossed another script onto the "No" pile on the floor, letting out a frustrated groan.
"They're all the exact same," Margot muttered to herself, rubbing her tired eyes.
She had spent the last three weeks doing nothing but reading since she officially set up LuckyChap Entertainment. Agencies all over town had heard Daniel Miller's girlfriend was looking to produce, and they had flooded the house with material. But the scripts were terrible. They were all either generic romantic comedies where the woman's only personality trait was being clumsy, or they were sterile, boring biopics about wives standing behind great men.
She picked up the next script in the stack. It was bound in plain black cardstock. The title page just had a name on it.
Margot opened to page one. She read the first scene. Then she read the second.
Ten minutes later, she sat up straight in her chair. She didn't touch her highlighter. She didn't reach for her tea. She just kept turning the pages, her eyes scanning the dialogue as fast as she could. It wasn't polite. It wasn't safe. It was a gritty, darkly hilarious, completely unhinged story about a disgraced, foul-mouthed female figure skater who gets involved in a kneecapping scandal to win a championship.
It was messy. The main character was deeply flawed, violent, and incredibly human.
Margot slammed the back cover shut, grabbed the script, and practically ran down the hallway.
Daniel was sitting in his home office, the desk lamp casting a warm glow over a massive stack of storyboard sketches. He was wearing a plain grey hoodie, holding a pencil, sketching out a camera angle when Margot barged through the door.
She marched up to his desk and slapped the black script down right on top of his storyboards.
"Read the first fifteen pages," Margot said, crossing her arms. She was practically vibrating with adrenaline. "Right now."
Daniel blinked, putting his pencil down. He looked at the script, then up at her. "Good evening to you too."
"I'm serious, Dan. I found it," she said, tapping the cover. "It's a biopic about a figure skater. But it's not the sparkly, Disney-channel bullshit everyone else makes. It's dark comedy. It's white-trash, cigarette-smoking, unapologetic chaos. The lead character is an absolute monster sometimes, and she owns it."
Daniel looked down at the title page. He didn't even need to open it.
A slow, highly amused smile spread across his face.
He knew exactly what the script was. On Earth-199, I, Tonya was the exact movie that had skyrocketed Margot Robbie from being just a gorgeous leading lady into a certified, Oscar-nominated powerhouse producer. It was the movie that put LuckyChap on the map.
He sat back in his chair, feeling a strange, satisfying sense of inevitability. Some movies, it seemed, were just meant to exist no matter what universe you were in.
He didn't tell her that, obviously. He kept the smile on his face, looking up at her.
"You want to play the skater?" Daniel asked casually.
"No," Margot said instantly, shaking her head. "I don't want to act in it. I just want to produce it. I want to build the whole thing from the ground up. I want to hire the director, find the locations, and run the set. But I need the budget, Dan. And I know it's a hard sell for a first project because the protagonist isn't exactly likable."
Daniel didn't give her a lecture on market viability. He didn't offer to rewrite the script or step in to co-produce.
He simply slid the script back across the desk toward her.
"Call the agency in the morning," Daniel said. "Buy the rights. I'll have the studio finance department set up an independent account for LuckyChap tomorrow. You have a blank check, Margot. Go make your movie."
Margot stared at him, her mouth slightly open. "You aren't even going to read it first? What if it's a total flop?"
"It won't be," Daniel said confidently, picking his pencil back up. "I trust your taste. If you think it's the one, it's the one."
Margot let out a massive, relieved laugh, leaning over the desk to grab the script. She walked around and kissed him hard on the cheek. "You're the best. I'm going to go call my agent and wake her up."
Forty-eight hours later, the world basically stopped spinning for an entirely different reason.
It was 11:55 PM on a Thursday night.
In a bedroom heavily lit by purple and blue LED strips, a Twitch streamer named Zephyr was currently losing his mind. He had over three hundred thousand people watching him live. The chat on the right side of his monitor was scrolling so incredibly fast it was just a blur of text and custom emotes.
"Five minutes, chat!" Zephyr yelled into his high-end microphone, aggressively clicking his mouse on the Steam library page. The countdown timer for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was ticking down. "I swear to god, if Steam crashes, I am flying to Culver City and rioting. I have been waiting for this since the trailer dropped. Five minutes!"
Zephyr wasn't playing a persona. He was genuinely hyped. The entire internet was. For the last two days, a massive cultural phenomenon had been brewing. HR departments across the country were reporting record numbers of employees suddenly coming down with the "Vice City Flu," calling in sick for Friday. High schools and colleges were expecting empty classrooms.
The digital clock hit 12:00 AM.
The 'Pre-loaded' button on Steam instantly swapped to a bright green 'PLAY'.
"Let's GOOOOO!" Zephyr screamed, slamming his mouse button.
The screen went black. The chat completely exploded.
There were no massive, unskippable corporate logos. There was no thirty-minute tutorial teaching the player how to look up and down. The game faded in from black, directly onto the neon-lit, sun-drenched streets of 1980s Miami.
A perfectly rendered digital Al Pacino stepped out of a hotel lobby. He was wearing the blue Hawaiian shirt.
The game didn't take control away. A small, clean prompt appeared in the corner: Press W to move.
Zephyr grabbed his controller. He pushed the stick forward. Pacino walked.
"Bro, the graphics," Zephyr whispered, leaning close to his monitor. "Chat, look at the puddles. Look at the reflection of the neon signs. It looks better than the movie."
Zephyr made Tommy walk down the sidewalk. A pedestrian carrying a boombox bumped into him.
"Watch it, tough guy," the pedestrian snapped.
Zephyr hit the punch button. Tommy Vercetti instantly cracked the guy in the jaw. The pedestrian dropped the boombox, which hit the pavement and physically bounced, the music warping as the speakers rattled against the concrete.
"Holy shit!" Zephyr laughed, his eyes wide. "The physics! The radio actually kept playing on the ground!"
He ran out into the busy street. A sleek, white sports car was stopped at a red light. Zephyr hit the interact button.
Tommy Vercetti ripped the door open, grabbed the driver by the collar, and threw him onto the pavement. Tommy slid into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut.
"This town's gonna be mine," Pacino's iconic, gravelly voice muttered from the speakers.
The chat went nuclear.
User_Hyper22: PACINOOOOOOO
User_GamerGod: BRO HE SAID THE LINE
User_DanFan: THE VOICE ACTING IS REAL OMG
User_ViceKing: 10/10 GAME OF THE DECADE
Zephyr slammed the right trigger. The sports car's tires screeched, leaving thick black marks on the digital asphalt as it peeled out. A synth-wave track blasted from the in-game radio. Zephyr hit a ramp near an alleyway at ninety miles an hour.
The car launched into the air. It soared over a chain-link fence.
"Bail out! Bail out!" Zephyr yelled, hitting the exit button mid-air.
Tommy kicked the door open and threw himself out of the flying car. The physics engine took over perfectly. Tommy ragdolled, hit the roof of a nearby building, rolled, and survived with a sliver of health. The sports car continued its trajectory, slamming hood-first into a billboard and violently exploding in a massive, volumetric fireball.
Zephyr threw his hands up in the air, pushing his chair back from the desk.
"What is this game?!" Zephyr shouted, completely ecstatic. "Chat, I'm never playing another shooter again. I'm living here now. I am moving to Vice City. Daniel Miller is an actual god bringing something like this into existence. Holy fuck!"
Within hours, clips just like that flooded Twitter and Reddit. Millions of players were experiencing the absolute mechanical freedom of the sandbox. There were clips of people flying helicopters under bridges, massive police shootouts that dynamically tore apart the environments, and players just driving along the beach listening to the 80s soundtrack.
Daniel had done it. He hadn't just released a game; he had completely redefined an entire medium overnight.
While the rest of the world was causing digital chaos in Miami, Daniel was sitting in a pitch-black room in Culver City.
The editing bays at the Miller Studios lot were soundproofed, temperature-controlled, and completely isolated from the outside world. The only light in the room came from the massive dual monitors on the desk and the large playback screen mounted on the wall.
Benny, Daniel's long-time editor, was sitting in the rolling chair, rapidly clicking his mouse, dragging massive chunks of audio and video tracks across the timeline.
They weren't paying attention to the video game launch. They were trying to solve a massive cinematic puzzle.
"It's lagging," Daniel said, leaning forward and pointing at the screen. "Right there. When we cut from the Emperor shocking Luke, to Han setting the charges on the bunker door. It takes all the tension out of the room."
"Because the pacing is mismatched," Benny agreed, pausing the playback. He rubbed his beard. "We have three massive climaxes happening simultaneously. We've got Luke getting tortured, Han in a ground firefight, and Lando fighting a massive space fleet. If we hang on the Ewoks too long, the audience forgets Luke is dying."
"So we tighten the weave," Daniel said. "We don't do full scenes. We do emotional beats. Cut from Luke screaming, straight to the Millennium Falcon dodging a laser blast, straight to Han throwing a punch. Accelerate the cuts as the music swells. Treat it like one continuous sequence instead of three different locations."
Benny nodded, his fingers flying across the keyboard to execute the trims.
The heavy door to the editing bay clicked open.
Betty, the lead supervisor of Miller Studios' in-house visual effects department, walked into the dark room. She was holding a secured iPad. Daniel had built the VFX team from the ground up, poaching the best digital artists in the world and giving them the hardware they needed. He didn't outsource to other houses. He kept everything under his own roof.
"Hey Dan," Betty whispered, not wanting to break their focus. "We just finished the final render on sequence forty-two. You want to see it?"
"The Death Star core run?" Daniel asked, spinning his chair around.
"Yeah," Betty nodded, handing him the iPad. "Full lighting, full textures, final composite."
Daniel hit play.
The screen showed the Millennium Falcon plunging into the narrow, claustrophobic superstructure of the second Death Star. The sheer scale of the digital environment was staggering. It wasn't just a generic grey tunnel; there were massive pipes, sparks flying, and intricate mechanical details whipping past the camera at terrifying speeds. The camera tracked behind the Falcon as it aggressively banked and rolled to avoid TIE Fighter fire, the exhaust engines glowing a harsh, realistic blue against the dark metal.
It looked incredibly fast. It felt dangerous.
Daniel watched it twice, his eyes tracking the light sources to make sure the reflections on the Falcon's hull matched the explosions behind it.
"It's flawless, Betty," Daniel said, handing the iPad back with a wide smile. "The sense of speed is perfect. Drop the file onto the secure server. Benny, slot it into the third act."
Betty beamed, taking the iPad. "Wait until you see the fleet battle. The Star Destroyer crash is rendering tonight."
As Betty left, Daniel turned back to the timeline. Millions of people were currently hailing him as a gaming genius, but this right here—the quiet, meticulous work in the dark room, piecing a film together frame by frame—was what he actually loved doing.
Back in Bel Air, the afternoon sun was shining over the patio.
Florence was lying on a massive lounge chair by the pool, wearing sunglasses and a bikini, reading a paperback novel. After the exhausting, months-long wirework and heavy emotional scenes of the Star Wars shoot, she was aggressively enjoying her downtime. She hadn't looked at a script in weeks.
The sliding glass door opened. Margot walked out, carrying two glasses of iced tea and a thick, black script.
Margot walked over, handing Florence a glass, and then dropped the script squarely onto Florence's stomach.
"Oof," Florence grunted, pulling her sunglasses down her nose. She looked at the black cover. "What's this? I told my agent I'm on strike until September."
"It's not from your agent, it's from me," Margot said, pulling up a chair and sitting down. "It's the first official project for LuckyChap. Daniel gave me the green light to produce it yesterday."
Florence sat up a bit, her interest genuinely piqued. She knew Margot had been reading non-stop. "You found one? What is it?"
"It's a biopic," Margot explained, leaning forward. "About a disgraced figure skater from the nineties. But it's told in this crazy, unreliable-narrator style. It breaks the fourth wall. It's dark, it's funny, and it's incredibly violent in a weird way."
Florence ran her hand over the cover. "Who's directing?"
"I'm interviewing a few indie guys next week," Margot said. "But I need my leading lady first. I want you to play her, Flo."
Florence blinked, looking at Margot. "Me? You don't want to do it?"
"I'm producing," Margot said firmly. "I want to be behind the camera on this one. And honestly? I think you'd absolutely kill it. The character is rough. She curses like a sailor, she's unpolished, and she's angry at the world. It's the exact opposite of Princess Leia. You spend two hours on screen smoking cigarettes and yelling at judges. It's an acting flex."
Florence opened the script. She read the first page.
Margot watched her silently, sipping her iced tea. She saw the exact moment the script hooked Florence. Florence's posture changed. She stopped lounging and sat up cross-legged on the chair, completely absorbed in the dialogue.
Ten minutes passed. The only sound on the patio was the rustling of paper as Florence quickly flipped the pages.
Finally, Florence looked up. A wicked, sharp grin was playing on her lips.
"She hits her husband with a frying pan on page twelve," Florence said, sounding incredibly delighted.
"And shoots him with a shotgun on page forty," Margot pointed out with a smile.
"It's completely unhinged," Florence laughed, closing the script and tapping it against her knee. She looked at Margot, the exhaustion from the Star Wars shoot totally gone, replaced by the hungry look of an actress who just found a meaty, challenging role. "I love it. I'm in. When do I need to start ice skating lessons?"
"Next week," Margot grinned, holding her glass up.
Florence clinked her glass against Margot's.
It was a quiet moment on a sunny patio, but it represented a massive shift in the Hollywood landscape.
Daniel was at the studio, actively editing the final piece of the biggest cinematic franchise in history while simultaneously completely dominating the global gaming market.
Margot had just launched a production house that was about to make waves in the indie circuit, controlling the narrative behind the camera.
And Florence was the powerhouse talent, seamlessly anchoring the biggest blockbusters in the world and transitioning into gritty, Oscar-bait dramas without missing a beat.
They weren't just surviving the brutal, highly-publicized machine of Hollywood anymore. Together, it seemed like the three of them had completely monopolized it.
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A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS