He had a feeling that Liem and Travis were trying to confuse him with these vague possibilities. Draft bills don’t always see the light of day, especially in Brussels, and especially when it involves going against Big Tech. But his partners were confident that they needed to act quickly, swearing that Netflix and Amazon would have to invest in France and diversify their catalogue by at least twenty per cent with local works. In other words, all the American tech giants would be forced to produce in France, and they would soon need French professionals to take on these local productions, if only to meet the quotas. That was the big opportunity. He should move quickly, positioning himself as the executive producer everyone needed, especially as the bosses of most French production companies were on holiday.

‘We need to make a move, Franck; we’re gonna overtake them all.’

‘God, you’re naïve! Remember that Big Tech, like all large companies, always think they’re above the law, always; they’ll get round the rules one way or another, and believing they’re trustworthy would be the bloody stupidest thing to do.’

Franck could sense they had an ulterior motive. What Liem and Travis weren’t saying was that they eventually wanted to produce series. They were only interested in short formats, not feature films; for them, cinema was part of a romantic, completely outdated perception of the profession; in the future, people would watch films on tablets and mobile phones, but not in cinemas … Franck refused to believe the battle had been lost. Above all, he didn’t want Netflix or Amazon to get shares and buy into the company – he had never needed them to make films before. He knew Liem and Travis wouldn’t stop twisting his arm about renegotiating their partnership agreement and so suddenly he tossed out a proposal that had come to him in a flash of inspiration that surprised even him. He spoke with the confidence of someone who had been thinking about it for months.

‘All right, OK, we can do that, but on one condition: you give me a budget of five million to make the film I want to make.’

‘No, Franck, we can’t do that. The three of us work together now, so no personal projects, not for you or any of us.’

‘Five million a year.’

‘Look, you need to come back to Paris so we can talk about this calmly.’

‘Talk? We can do that just fine on the phone; we’re doing it now.’

‘But we can never reach you … No, we really need to see each other face to face to sign, and, come on, you’re not really going to spend three weeks in that hole!’

‘I’m doing very well in this hole, as you call it. Very well indeed. I don’t think it would do either of you any harm to take a step back—’