“Mr. Hamill, how do you feel now that you have finally appeared as the leading role in a large-budget movie?”
“Exciting! I appreciate the opportunities given to me by the producers, director, and crew, and the trust they have placed in me for this role. I really look forward to the future.”
“Mr. Lucas, is it true that you expect the movie to gross more than $100 million at the box office alone?”
Mark ignored the pestering flood of reporters who were peppering the cast and director with questions. This was good for the movie, since it was effectively free advertising, but Mark knew almost 3/4th of the reporters here were ‘invited’ to the premiere by 20th Century Fox through various means.
Normally, a large-budget movie would not receive this kind of enthusiasm until it crossed some benchmarks in the box-office collection.
Alex did not go home, since he did not have one in Los Angeles, and instead made his way to Elise’s house.
“Tomorrow, we go for the movie after you are off work. I have the next three days off, so we can spend all the time we want together.” Mark hugged Elise while giving her a kiss on her cheek.
“Oh! That’s good. I don’t have anything tomorrow either,” she lied through her teeth. But it did not matter, it was a non-mandatory practice session, so she would just skip it, “Let’s go first thing in the morning.”
“If you are free, then let’s go in the night. You’ll be too tired in the morning.” Mark grinned as he lifted her up from her waist, using the back of his leg to close the door behind him. It had been a long 3 years, and with Mark spending all his holidays with Elise, and often also visiting Eddie, his relationship with her had progressed considerably, and due to agreement from both of them, they still remained girlfriend and boyfriend without moving any further.
Still, he made sure to be careful with his own suit while undressing, since he did not have any replacements.
…
“Elise, I need to go. The Box office results will be revealed soon, and I need to be at the office.”
“Hmm… you know… you look better with the beard. I think it really suits you.”
“Yeah… you’ve told me that at least 6 times already. It’s why I am growing it out… but tell me, do you really dislike my face that much that I have to cover the lower half of it?”
“Hehe, of course. Who would fall in love with, and stay together with an ugly man like you~?” Alice snickered while Mark just smiled, leaning in to kiss her cheek before freeing his hand from under her pillow, and putting on his clothes.
…
“Good morning, Mrs. Butler!”
“Mornin’ son. You look… refreshed.”
“Haha, how can I not be when I get to see you everyday before work?”
“Oh you~ enough with the flattery. Go on in. The results have not been revealed yet, but they will be faxed directly to us from 20th Century Fox.”
“Sure thing,” Max smiled and went inside without further delay.
‘I cannot say I’m not nervous despite knowing this movie would be incredibly successful. After all, this is a different world, and perhaps Star Wars might end up in the drains like so many before and after it. It all depends on the audience reactions to it.’
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Time ticked by as the anxiety in the room gradually rose, making the seconds feel longer. Nobody was in their respective team rooms, and instead everyone was crowded outside Mr. Lucas’ office, awaiting the release of news.
‘Everyone hopes for good news… but I’ve learned… it’s best to keep your expectations as low as possible, and then go a little lower,’ Mark sighed as he cooled his nerves.
*Bang*
The door to Mr. Lucas’ room was swung open again, with Mr, Lucas’ shoe hanging still in the now open air for a moment, before landing down with a heeled click, clearly audible in the pindrop silence of the room as all attention was laser-focused on the man himself.
“Thursday night box office collection is $497,000!”
There was silence in the room as everyone noticed the incredibly serious expression on the curly-haired man’s face.
‘We only screened in like 25 theatres…’ the thought crossed everyone’s minds as the astonishing figure finally wrapped itself around their heads, simultaneously causing an evil grin to plaster itself onto Mr. Lucas.
“20th Century said that since it was in the summer release, if the premiere box office crossed 300,000 despite being only in 24 theatres, they would increase the theatres to 500 for a week, and marketing budget to $2 million! We’ve done it boys! We’ve done it!”
Immediately, the entire room burst into applause as everyone cheered for the success of the movie they had all worked so incredibly hard on for the past 3 years. This was not a small amount of time, as generally movies took around 1 year at most to film and produce, with a few months of delay.
Finally, they were going to get the fruits of their success. Many of the people here would likely use this opportunity to immediately jump ship to more renowned production companies, as long as the movie was a success.
George knew this, but he did not mind. He knew this was how the world worked, a capitalist world where money was almost equal to absolute power, the source of greed for countless, and the ultimate doom for equally as many.
Mark on the other hand just sighed in relief. He had not chosen wrong. Until now, a slowly creeping sense of inferiority has also been forming in Mark as he compared himself internally to Eddie; who had already starred in 3 movies in side-roles, two of which even had speaking lines, and not just appearing on screen for a few seconds.
He had spent countless nights waking up from nightmares involving him realising all this was just a dream and he was still in his old world, moping around for being a useless waste on society and his family.
Only Eddie’s support in his free time, and the assurance of Elise proved that he had indeed existed here. In the past three years, with the growing sense of inferiority looming aver him, Mark had shifted his focus. No longer did he want to just live his life to the fullest.
‘No, I want to leave a mark on this world. Life is as fleeting as a simple ember in the darkness of the night. But I want to make it so that I land on extremely flammable materials, enough to leave a permanent mark in the history of the world of my existence. And now… perhaps I can finally being.’
Mark’s expression flickered from a growing satisfaction, to a depressing sadness, to a reminiscent melancholy, and finally settled on grim determination.
“Why so serious? Come on, Mr. Lucas is ordering, the bill’s on him!” Luke put one arm around Mark while using the knuckled on his other one to rapidly scrip Mark’s head, but making sure to do it softly. However, this sudden interruption to his thoughts caused him to lose focus and balance at the same time, causing the two to stumble over onto the floor.
Since everyone was in high spirits and celebrating in the same crowded room, people began falling like something from a Takeshi’s Castle episode, resulting in almost 80% of the people in the room now laying on the ground in confusion.
“Pfft,” the first voice burst out laughing, igniting a round of hysterical laughter at the comical scene, returning the atmosphere to its joyous state from before without a hitch.
…
‘$3.2 million in the opening weekend. I don’t know the figures from before, but from what little I can remember, it definitely took a week or two to get the ball rolling and start earning millions per day. But based on this speed, when next Friday comes along, it will already be at that height,’ Mark analysed before coming to s scary conclusion, ‘This should be from my interference, or perhaps my very existence. But that begs a question… just how high will it go?’
Mark munched a hole in the thick stack of papers that he had just spent a considerably amount of his savings to sign with the Writer’s guild as an official script by him. He had to hand over two copies of it to the guild, which was more than he had expected, but thankfully he had made a total of 5 copies. Thus, before heading over to Mr. Lucas, he went back to his apartment and organised two of the remaining three scripts and tied them in order.
“It’s time…” he smiled as he left his house, heading straight of the LucasFilms Productions office with two thick, but neatly tied and presented scripts inside his small briefcase.