My Hollywood System

Chapter 213:

The Brown Baker coffee shop was busy as usual. Regular customers, new customers, people who wanted to spend time, people who were bored, people who wanted to get a sip of delicious coffee and among them, Will and Terry were seated in the corner of the shop.

Terry Warden was the owner of Warder Books. The same publishing house that published Harry Potter, both volumes which were written by Will Evans in this universe.

The coffee shop was located near the Dream Vision office building, and was known to have the best coffee in that area.

In Terry’s hand, there was the manuscript of [The Hobbit]. Terry was going through the manuscript and Will, who sat across from him, sat silently, sipping on his tea.

Moments of silence passed. The only noises were heard through and from the other people around them. Their gossip, chit chats, and different conversations were audible to Terry, yet his focus was firmly gazed upon the manuscript in front of him.

After a while, Terry looked up from the papers in his hand.

“This is pretty good, might be your best work. I just read 30 pages but this looks well thought out. And uh- I think this may be better than Harry Potter,” Terry implied.

“Do you like high fantasy more than a children’s fantasy novel?” Will questioned, acknowledging Terry’s response for his manuscript.

Terry nodded as if to answer his question. “Children’s fantasy is selling way more after Harry Potter but I still prefer high and epic fantasy novels as a reader. Just the thing is, there are too few in the market,” Terry said.

“Yeah, couldn’t agree more,” Will replied.

“And the thing with epic fantasies is that, due to the less number of fictions from them, many authors are trying to start a new trend with the genre. But as far as I’m aware, not any book has the potential of being that great of a story to start trends— and the few books that are written on the genre…. Are literally dearly adored by the readers.”

The talk went on further with them discussing more about the manuscript, story and the current trends in the novels.

“I’ll contact you again after completely reading this. And my thought is that we can get this to publish after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” Terry said.

“Why hasn’t that been published yet? It’s already close to March,” Will questioned.

The question was something Terry had expected to be asked long ago. Yet, he wasn’t surprised that the fact didn’t slip Will’s mind considering how sane Will was—all the time.

*Sigh*

Terry sighed.

“It’s just because the first two books are literally selling a lot. It will take time for things to settle and reach the peak before we can fully gear up for the third book.” Terry explained.

Hearing that, Will nodded.

After the stating of reasons, Terry changed the topic pretty quickly and easily.

“I’ve been wanting to ask something from you,” Terry said.

“Go ahead,” Will commended.

“Uh- could I get two tickets to the premier of Spiderman? My daughter… April is crying to watch it even though it’s not out yet. She’s a very big fan of the cartoon, and it honestly would make her really happy,”

Will smiled at what Terry said.

“She sounds like a sweet kid. But the thing is, we’re currently not holding a premier for press and critics,”

Hearing the words Terry was visibly surprised. His eyes raised in question and in his mind, he was thinking to himself that the premier for critics and press was normal.

Normal enough that it was almost a tradition.

Due to how confused his face looked, Will knew that he might have to explain what he just meant. And he was more than aware that the reaction he just got was totally normal—normal enough that any person who worked in the industry would have known that inviting the critics and press was the norm.

But Will had a different perspective.

“I can already see wheels turning in your mind right now,” Will chuckled. Terry smiled trying to hide his embarrassment. “Well, it’s mainly because how [Darklow Wizards], the movie by Allen would-be releasing at the same time as [Spiderman]”

An ‘oh’ formed in Terry’s face.

“Yeah, so if we hold a premier alongside them, the critics and the reporters would be divided. That won’t do any good for any of us, especially not us,” Will said, taking another sip from his tea.

“Ah yes, that makes total sense. But why don’t you hold a premier sometime later. Maybe on a different day? And premiers really attract a hell lot of crowd, so, for such a reason, letting it go is stupid in my book,” Terry was straight with his answer.

Will shook his head and answered, “That would not work. The situation is honestly kind of serious that you imagine. Allen Pictures wants to go head to head against [Spiderman]. For that, they’d even go so far as to change the premier date to exactly match ours. If I think, theoretically, it’s better to not have a premier and let the audience see the movie for themselves rather than give space to pull up a stunt from our competitors–” Will muttered.

Taking a sip from the tea, he then continued, “Nevertheless, we are pretty confident that it’s better like this. And we already have a few more marketing tactics to use after the release itself. So from what I see, it won’t be a problem, not at all,” Will said and took a pause. “What are we going to do about April?” He questioned.

Terry had been nodding along the way to understand what Will was saying. Hearing the last question he sighed again.

“Well then, I guess she will have to wait a bit more. It won’t be much of a problem, she’d get to watch the movie anyway,”

Although Terry said this, inside his mind it felt like he just missed a great opportunity, and a great chance to surprise his daughter.

Noticing his face and how his focus shifted suddenly, Will cleared his throat with a smile.

“It would be nice to meet little April. If it’s okay with you, I can get a small premier in the office of Dream Vision for her. She’d be the guest of honour,” Will added and chuckled.

–

As the month of February slowly started fading away, the movie [Catch Me If You Can] had already surpassed the milestone of two hundred million dollars in box office. Considering how well it had been doing, an OTT deal was already signed, which gave them 20 million dollars more to their hands.

Apart from all the good side of the movie, it had its own bad side affected by the company Dream Vision itself.

It was because of [Spiderman]. [Catch Me If You Can] had been overshadowed due to the trailer release of [Spiderman]. The focus of the people had turned to the trailer pretty quickly just because the way it was brought to the readers were totally different from what anyone had ever thought.

But that in fact, was the case for any movie releasing. As [Darklow Wizards] and [Spiderman] were the only movies that people were talking about.

On the other hand, the audience was excited to see a clash between them. To make the situation much spicy, the movie analysts had mentioned that this situation might harm both the movies.

Nevertheless, the release date was fixed.

–

3rd March, 2013.

Finally, the date in which the big movie release would happen had arrived.

After a lot of turns, turnovers, questions, doubts, successes and failures… the day in which one of the biggest movie attempts from the Dream Vision was finally in the top 3 headlines of Hollywood!

Outside the theatres, not just posters from [Spiderman], but also posters from [Darklow Wizards] were sticked and set.

At one look, both the posters could be taken as attractive and everything that an average viewer would get attracted to. Which also meant that, from the scratch of the movies, the competition with one another was high.

In the poster of [Darklow Wizard], a wizard who had an intense look and around him, there was fire. The wizard was scary looking—yet the poster was well-thought and planned, so that anyone who watched the movie and returned on the same way they went insidez they’d notice the subtle things that had been hinted at in the poster.

On the right hand side for that poster, there was the poster of [Spiderman]. In that little promotion banner, the Spiderman which looked heroic was in it, clear and looking astonishingly admirable. Behind him, with a creepy smile, the Green goblin played its role. The paint had been accurately taken and since it was a colour combination of red, blue, green and a bit of yellow– it stood out among the two posters.

A bunch of male friends walked right closer to the theatre and were discussing among themselves as if doubting what movie they should watch next—just like every other movie fan who walked in the same lane does.

‘What should we watch?’ This would have been a great tagline if presented in front of the theatre.

“No, don’t be a lady, what do you think we should watch today? That shit movie you chose still makes me wanna throw up, yikes!”

One friend yelled in disgust thinking about what his friend had picked the last time they were here. Although there were many new released for them to pick,

“[Darklow Wizards] has good ratings from the critics. I think we should watch it!”

“Yeah, I agree with him!”

“Same, same! Let’s just go and watch this,”

“What? No!”

“Yeah, a big fat no. A massive one. That’s not really something I wanna watch!”

The other three-four people from the same group booed and shouted “no!” With so many other reasons.

“Guys, guys, guys! Y’all are late! But, have y’all even watched the trailer of [Spiderman]?! That’s most likely one of the two movies we have the opportunity to watch today. And–” another friend came and joined them on their way.

“I agree with him, I honestly love Will’s movies and I’m sure this shall be the best f*cking thing you ever watch this year!”

“I don’t think it would be that great! It’s a superhero movie I heard.”

“You don’t even know shit. I’m down, who else?!”

“Alright alright alright, let’s watch [Spiderman] then.”

“Yeah, I already booked the tickets anyway!” The guy who joined last said making everyone laugh in annoyance considering how long they fought to select a movie.