My Hollywood System

Chapter 79: [Bonus Chapter]

The next day, Will directly went to Foxstar’s office in the morning. He wanted to see the box office data for [Sherlock Holmes] for himself.

Reaching the building, he directly went up to Spencer’s office. The old man had told his secretary to call Will directly to his office.

It seemed like he had already taken a look at the box office numbers.

Either it was a failure, or it was a big hit. There was no scenario where Spencer would call Will to talk to him, and he was sure that it would be the latter.

“Hahaha, Will. Come in.”

When he entered his office, the old man was laughing.

Will guessed the results from his tone and walked up to him. Sitting in front of him, he said.

“It seems like the box office numbers are not bad?”

“They are certainly not bad. In fact, they are way over our estimates.”

“How much are they?”

As he asked, Spencer just put forward a document. It was the sheet of a file containing various data of the collections in theatres all around the North American box office.

Taking a peek at them, Will’s mouth couldn’t help but curve up.

“15 million dollars on the first day itself.”

That number was far above the estimates made by Foxstar, which were 10 million dollars for the first day.

“Yeah, and the foreign box office numbers are great too.”

As Spencer said that, Will turned over the page and was stunned to see that [Sherlock Holmes] had made over 9 million dollars in the foreign box office.

Particularly in England where more than 6 million dollars business had been done.

“If it continues like this, the movie will recover the marketing and production cost just this week.”

“Yes.” Spencer nodded his head. “The box office figures are just going to improve with word of mouth, and I am sure the box office numbers will cross 300 million dollars.”

Will just smiled hearing that. Three hundred million dollars might be the estimation of Spencer, but he knew that the movie would earn more than 500 million.

Maybe even more thanks to the lack of good [Sherlock Holmes] movies in this world.

“Anyway, I called you here not just because of the box office numbers. But also, I wanted to talk about signing the sequel rights. I think we should announce the sequel two or three weeks from now when the box office numbers are dying to create interest again. After all, the first film hinted at a sequel.”

Will shook his head hearing those words. Spencer might be right, but a sequel deal now would happen, keeping the estimated box office of the first movie in mind.

If that happened, Will would lose out since the estimation wasn’t as much as what the real box office turn out will be.

“No, I think we should wait a while. I think the box office numbers won’t be below in just a few weeks.”

“But a contract won’t hurt.” Spencer said, “I am just saying it to fuel the hype the audience has for this franchise, and with the announcement of the sequel, I am sure more viewers will be interested.”

Will shook his head, “No, now is not the time to sign a contract. And the hype that you’re talking about won’t turn out as it did just now in your head.”

Spencer pursed his lips; suddenly, a thought flashed in his mind, which made him change his expression.

Without any hesitation, he asked Will, “Are you… looking for any other studio?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Spencer cleared his throat, “Are you looking for a different partner for the sequel…?”

Will shook his head, “No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just not the right time yet to sign the contract. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh…” Spencer reluctantly nodded. Though he couldn’t quite understand what Will meant ‘the right time.’

‘Shouldn’t he make the best use of the moment and secure a deal…?’

***

It was the next day, and once again, Will was in the office to see the box office data updates.

By now, things were looking much better, and the hype for Sherlock Holmes had begun even more.

’19 Million Dollars in Northern America’

’11 Million Dollars in International.’

About 30 Million in total.

“Nice.” Will smiled. The hype was beginning to increase; with just two days, they had crossed the 60 Million mark.

‘If this goes on, we might touch 150 Million in the first week.’

Will thought. 150 Million was his first-week goal, to begin with. After removing the cuts of the other distributor and other shares, 150 million would bring back all of the initial investment he had given in his movie.

And after that, the rest was going to be pure profit.

And to make this possible, Will didn’t leave any stone unturned.

He had taken the help of the keyboard warriors once again and had begun to influence the online trends.

The Sherlock memes had taken over the internet, putting the online trend in Will’s favor.

In fact, even some of the quotes of the movie were now famous, like the one between Sherlock and Watson that happened in a carriage near the climax of the movie.

“You have a weird gift of silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”

Even more infamous than this was the scene when Lord Blackwood faked his death, and there was someone else’s corpse in Lord Blackwood’s casket.

“That’s not Lord Blackwood.” Said Police Officer Lestrade.

Sherlock Holmes nodded while replying in a semi-monotonous response, “Well, now we have the firm grasp of the obvious.”

Such marketable dialogues were used to pique people’s interests, and these worked like a charm.

On the fourth day after the worldwide release of the movie, the movie crossed the eighty million mark – three times more than the expected figure for the Opening week – and this didn’t even include the foreign box office, which added about 47 Million, more than half of which was from Europe alone.

By the fifth day, grossing 27 Million domestically and 12 Million internationally, the movie had reached break-even from the profits and gotten back the millions of invested money back from the box office. Not to forget that this movie had crossed the box office mark of Will’s last movie [The Blair Witch Project] of the initial 165 Million by the fifth day.

The initial expectations of 300 Million dollars by Foxstar, which seemed quite preposterous to many, now seemed like an underestimation.

But this just felt like the calm before the storm because the next two days were even more intense on the box office numbers.

And on the morning of the eighth day when Will woke up after a good night’s sleep, he saw the text message from Spencer about the opening week’s box office earnings.

The total box office hit reached 252 Million – 173 Million in North America and 79 Million worldwide!

Now, many believe that at this rate, by the end of the box office run, Sherlock Holmes will become this year’s first movie to hit the $500 Million mark – a seemingly impossible number to many.

It was an insane figure. With hundreds of movies releasing yearly in Hollywood and thousands worldwide, [Sherlock Holmes] had received the biggest opening week turnover for the year.

The Sherlock Holmes movie had officially kickstarted the start of a franchise and made everyone expectant of this new storm that had taken the world by surprise.

Robert’s fame had skyrocketed, and he was instantly among the B rank celebs from being a nobody in the industry.

The fans loved his quirky acting, and his live-show appearance and fan meetings made it seem like he was literally the exact person of how he acted in the movie.

There were two other people in the spotlight, one of them being Levi Richards, who had played Dr Watson. His role as the famous detective’s sidekick received critical acclaim, and it was said, and I quote, “Levi Richard’s Dr Watson was a breath of fresh air, and the chemistry he held with his partner, Sherlock Holmes, played by Micheal Robert Elrod, put the movie on a whole new pedestal. It won’t be wrong to say that without this Watson, this movie wouldn’t have felt ‘complete.'”

The last person who was under the limelight was the Director and Producer of the movie – Will Evans, now nicknamed, The Biggest Gambler and Hollywood’s New Face!

It was no secret that he had gambled everything he had to create this movie, and he had won this gamble.

Will Evans, the young director, had now solidified his position in the ruthless industry of showbiz and was now the centre of attention.

Even his role in the movie [17 Again], though simple, was praised by many fans – however, it was hard to say whether it was because of his acting or the current hype he had around him.

There were many baseless rumours about him sprouting every day.

Some articles said that he was a playboy and would give actresses roles if they slept with him, while others said he was already done writing down the script for his next movie.

There were even rumours about him and Robert.

After all, it was strange as to why Will had cast an unknown face in a multi-million dollar movie. Many people thought that Robert had actually given him money to cast him, and others thought that he was gay and Robert had slept with him.

Obviously, Robert had clarified his first meeting with Will in talk shows, but that still didn’t stop people from thinking about weird things.

In the end, even Dream Vision had to post a statement talking about the reasons behind Robert’s casting as Holmes.

…

//DreamNote//

This was this week’s bonus chapter 🙂

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