My Hollywood System

Chapter 106:

After his talk with Jeffrey and finally deciding [Liberty City] to be his next movie, Will started focusing on writing the script.

Unlike his previous scripts where he had just written it due to the help of his system, creating an original script was harder and more time consuming.

Will had decided to complete the script in two months time and start the movie in the first quarter of 2012.

In the meantime, both [500 days of Summer] and [1917] would be released.

In the two of them, [1917] had already begun the pre-production and most of the roles had already been casted. Due to Will’s new found influence, they were able to get some famous actors in cameo roles and the construction of the set was also moving along at a brisk pace.

Lucas was also having acting workshops with both the leads and going by the progress report that Will had gotten, he was sure they would do very well.

As for [500 days of Summer], both Dream Vision and Carson were going over a list of actors and actresses to choose from.

They already have the female lead with Natalie and the male lead Tom needed to be a famous actor to garner some interest.

Without a famous male lead, the movie would take some time to pick up its pace at the box office. Will had decided to get a male lead from MCA to appease it as there were tensions growing between them.

It was due to how Robert had become famous.

People in Hollywood had inflated egos and it was not a myth but a fact. And Will had managed to hurt the ego of the senior executives of MCA.

If he was honest here, he had not done anything wrong.

Robert’s talent was wasted in MCA and he signed him after his contract had ended. There was nothing MCA could do legally.

But as Robert had become an A lister in a couple of months, MCA, who was seriously lacking big stars at the moment, felt like Will had backstabbed them.

After all, it was not wrong to say that they have given him his first break by buying his first script. With that money, he was able to make his first movie.

Maybe because of that or because of Uncle Ben still being a part of MCA, Will didn’t want their relationships to sour.

His relationship with ICM was already not good and although unstable, MCA was one of the big players in the agent market.

There were more benefits if they continued to be in mutual cooperation.

That’s why, he had himself tried to give them something to ensure that there’s no bad blood.

Otherwise, he could just get Ewan or Robert to play the role of Tom. Though, the role wasn’t well suited for both of them.

Playing the role of Tom would be a great inclusion in any actor’s filmography. The character was relatable and although it could be argued that he wasn’t really the nicest guy, he was a great character no matter how you look at it.

For the other roles like Tom’s younger half sister Rachel, Tom’s friends McKenzie and Paul and even Tom’s boss, Vance, he was going to take most of the actors from DTA.

They could also find some actors from other agencies easily as any movie associated with Will would be something that no one would want to miss out on.

Aside from the matter of casting, there was one more thing that occupied Will’s time – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone launching was going to happen next week.

***

Just a week before Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone was about to release, there wasn’t much noise about it.

The main reason was that Will hadn’t participated in the marketing of the book due to him being occupied with other work and the entire thing was handled by Warden Books.

They have tried to use Will’s name to garner interest but their resources were limited. Another thing was that Terry was pretty confident in the book and felt like it would pick up pace by itself.

But a week before the book launch, Will posted about the release of his upcoming book on his social media and just an hour after that, Hollywood Times posted an article about it.

[After there was a reveal sometime ago about Will Evans buying Marvel comics, now there’s another interesting thing that had happened with him in the center.

Apparently, Will Evans is now debuting as a fantasy story writer with his novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone releasing next week. The director’s Sparrow account confirmed this news.

From the reports, the book is a children’s fantasy story revolving around a boy named Harry Potter who would find himself on the doorstep of a wizard academy.

This is a pretty interesting detail as Will’s previous works had been a mystery thriller and a horror movie. Now, he seems to be moving to being a children novel writer.

Hollywood Times tried to get in touch with someone from Warden books, Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone publishers and the only comment we got was that the publisher was extremely confident of the book doing well and it would exceed all the expectations.

These were very interesting comments and…]

After the article was published, a lot of other news agencies and tabloids also published their own version of it. Some even copy pasted Hollywood Times articles by changing some words.

But Warden books didn’t seem to care.

It was free publicity for the book. Just one post from Will had done more than the marketing team of Warden books.

Terry Warden didn’t even got time to think about the incapability of his marketing team. He was too busy in handling calls from media houses and newspapers for an interview.

When the media houses had got to know that Will had not cooperated with a top publisher but a medium sized publisher to publish his book, they found it a lot strange.

When Hollywood personalities would write a book, they would often collaborate with top publishers. But Will hadn’t done this.

This made people curious and as a result, Terry started getting more and more calls for an interview. Many people wanted to know how his company had gotten this deal.

But he didn’t accepted even one interview.

He was waiting for the release date before taking any interview. Saying anything at this point would just be taken as being overconfident, so he was being patience.

As someone who had complete faith in Harry Potter, he was sure that it would be a big success. It wasn’t just because of Will’s big reputation or anything.

He just trusted his gut feeling and there was enough substance for him too believe in the book.

The story was written very well and the villain was only revealed at the end and at the same time, the book was able to keep the reader interested in his identity.

Moreover, it definitely made Terry believe in the world. The mystical Hogwarts seemed to have its own history and there was an interesting take on pureblood wizards and the others. There was also quidditch, a game that helped expand the world even more.

With all these points, Terry was sure that the book would be something special.

At least Will was confident enough to already have planned an entire series on it.

Now, it was only time that was going to tell Terry if he was right or not.

***

As all this was going on, the secretary of Matthew Collins, The CEO of MCA knocked on his door.

“Sir, Senior Agent Benjamin Charles is here to see you.”

“Is it something important?”

Matthew raised his head from the pile of papers on his desk and asked. He had a lot of work today and didn’t have much time to meet anyone.

“He said it is something important.” The secretary replied.

“Then, send him in.”

Matthew sighed and glanced at the screen of his computer. Tired eyes looked back to him and he felt like the wrinkles on his face were just increasing.

He was not that old, only 53 this year and had a lot of years left as a CEO but handling MCA with an unstable management had made him do overwork. At the same time, most of their famous stars moved over to other agencies and they never improved since then.

Matthew still remembered the good old days when they were ruling Hollywood and every studio needed to cater to him for his actors to work in their movies.

Now, everything was gone.

“I didn’t disturb you, right.”

As he was thinking about all that, Uncle Ben walked in, holding a file in his hands.

“It’s fine, Ben. Just make it quick.”

Matthew said coldly and Uncle Ben took a seat. Despite knowing each other for a long time, their relationship was pretty stern.

“Take a look at this. A studio wants an actor to be the lead of their next movie.”

A frown appeared on Matthew’s face as he heard that. This was not something that would require a meeting with him.

“Then, just give them one of your actors. Why are you even asking me?”

“That studio is Dream Vision.”

“Ah, so the movie is…”

Realisation was apparent in his voice and Uncle Ben nodded.

“Yeah, it’s one of the movies Will is producing.”

…

//DreamNote//

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