[Movie: Rocky (Scene 1)]

[The film opens in a dim, gritty Philadelphia boxing club where Rocky Balboa is fighting Spider Rico, another down-and-out boxer. Rocky fights aggressively, but it’s clear this isn’t a glamorous setting—he’s just another struggling fighter with a few fans and no real prospects. Rocky: “He hit my face! I don't like nobody hitting my face.” This line is spoken to the referee after Rocky angrily retaliates when Spider lands a cheap shot. After winning the fight, he collects his meagre earnings, which emphasise his tough financial situation.]

Mark had decide to go for this movie for two reasons. It's production cost was just under $1 million, which meant it was considerably cheaper to make than other movies, and its script was really good. Nolan was already having a hard time finding someone to spend on his movie, which already had a complete script and a director with some amount of experience... trying to get someone to put in all the money for Rocky would likely take years, and Mark found it a waste of time for a single script. Plus, the main actor in the movie, Sylvester Stallone, who was also the screenwriter, had not made the movie or a name for himself yet.

Mark had already checked with the Guild, and there was no such script registered with them yet. Which meant he could do it. Plus, he had also confirmed that Sylvester was not even registered as a writer in the guild, and only in the actors guild, having worked as a nameless person in quite a few movies, but nothing substantial. Still, unlike Nolan who was somehow born multiple years in the past, Stallone was born at just the right time, and looked exactly as what Mark expected him to. He could just cast Stallone as the actor and have an almost guarantee for success.

Getting someone to green-light this movie with an unknown writer and an unknown actor would be even more difficult despite its small budget. As such, Mark would end up having to invest whatever little he would gain from The Sixth Sense's script into making this movie. Still, he would need to source more money from somewhere, as he was never going to get $1 million for just the script of the movie.

Mark would think about it later as he flipped to a new page, energised at the start of a new story, and continued writing.

[Movie: Rocky (Scene 2)]

[After the fight, Rocky is shown working as a debt collector for Gazzo, a local loan shark. He approaches a man who owes Gazzo money, but instead of using force, he lets the man off lightly, showing a reluctance to hurt others. Gazzo criticises him for this, urging him to be more ruthless before driving off.]

Mark interlocked his fingers after dropping the pencil and stretched outwards creating multiple popping sounds from his finger-joints and knuckles before heading off to bed, editing of the chapter could be done later.

...

The next morning, on the way to work, Mark noticed a car driver at an intersection in the middle lane of three, and a cyclist in a heated argument, with the cyclist behind the one throwing out insults at his broken bike and hurt hand.

However, Mark noticed that the car beside the one one in the accident, closer to the right sidewalk, also had braking skid-marks, and it had stopped just in time to allow the biker to pass in front of it, but ended up crashing into the one to its left, which also had skid-marks for braking, buts it was a larger car and took longer to break, ending up coming into the path of the cyclist that was riding on the crosswalk.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

'The mystery of the human ego... if they did not get so infuriated and start blaming the other person, both would realise that not only did the car thy cyclist avoided had a camera recording him, but there is even a camera at the signal which most definitely captured the entire thing. It was clearly the cyclist's fault, but that does not matter. even if it was the car's fault, screaming at each other instead of rushing to a hospital to fix the clearly broken hand, or calling the authorities is definitely not helping either party. Then again, without it... without emotions... everyone would be just like me... a robot thinking and acting solely on logical reasoning and nothing else.'

Mark paused for a moment at the scene, before turning and leaving, heading straight to work.

...

While Kraig and the screenwriter's department were busy creating the script for the second instalment of Star Wars, mr. Lucas had successfully confirmed the funding was coming from 21st Century Fox, after the moderate success of his pervious movie. With that, he finally began pre-production for 'Star Wars IV: A New Hope'.

Sat in his office, he called his trusted friend and partner who owned 50% of the newly built LucasFilms.

"Hello?"

"It's me, George. Cowl, I need you to get in touch with CAA and United Artists. Whichever has the better offer for the roles, we give it to them. Remember, we only have $200,000 for all the actor's in total. The rest of the money will go to the set, costume, and mainly the special effects. Also, all of this will take time-"

"How long?"

"I'm not sure how long, but a year at the very least, perhaps more or less."

"That is a really long time. You already have a lot of permanent employees at your company, the expenses for that will be massive."

"Yes, I know, but I need the time, without it, the movie will look half-baked at best."

"Alright. I'll contact CAA and UA for actors-"

"Thanks"

"But I will only tell them the project will not begin shooting until next year, in about 7 months. The rest is up to you, I can't keep them satisfied with just the existence of a project with potential. You know how they get."

"Yeah... I guess I will need to speed things up a bit."

"Good. Now, I really need to get going or I will miss the flight to New York."

"Alright, Good luck."

"Same to you, and lord known you're going to need it."

"Heh"

The two childhood friends who opened the company together cut the call and went their separate ways. It was an odd way of working. Usually, the director would simply employ an agent who would handle everything for them, but George did not trust such agents whose loyalties did not lie with him, and considering he had already made a plan with his best friend since forever, to create movies together, he handed the business end of his company to Brody Cowl.

It was an odd set-up, but one that had worked perfectly for their first movie, and hopefully would for the current and future movies as well.

George cut the call, and stretched while looking outside the large windows of his office, at the not-so-pleasant sight of the developing city-scape.

'Things seem to be going well,' he smiled and leaned back in his chair, before springing up and heading out of his office, 'Time to begin work.'