[Owen POV]
Inside my house, Elena organized some documents from the banks while I read through the back-end split report.
Micheal walked into the room and said, "You have another interview—"
"I'll reject that interview request. With Universal painting a target on my back, I'm going to lay low for a while," I interjected.
"Don't you think it's time for you to find an actual manager?" Micheal grumbled. "You're famous enough."
I shook my head. "If I have a real manager, they'll force me to do things. So I don't want to. I'll lay low until next year comes."
After the Envy battle, I'd been laying low and fixing up the array. It had been a week since then.
Now, we were in late November—just a few days till December. It has been almost a year since I got here.
Elena asked, "You know, nothing really changes even if you're famous."
"That's because the paparazzi culture and online tabloids don't exist yet," I replied.
With the death of Princess Diana in 1997, paparazzi would later be labeled as dangerous and invasive, since they basically caused her death.
But paradoxically, that same event would globalize paparazzi culture, since media demand for celebrity photos skyrocketed afterward.
Before that happened, most celebrities could still live their lives with a degree of privacy. Studios actually loved that—it gave a sense of mystery to celebrity life.
I already knew what would happen in the future when celebrities began opening up about their thoughts and gaining instant access to fans through social media.
Keeping the mystery alive was definitely the right move.
"Okay then," Micheal said before getting nosy. "Did you already see how much money you made from the movies?"
The Sixth Sense had made five hundred and fifty million worldwide by now.
Divide that by two for the theater's cut, then take twenty percent for the distributor.
That meant 4CLOVER got fifty-five million from distribution alone.
The remaining amount—around two hundred and twenty million—was split seventy-thirty between the investment company and the production studio.
So the investment fund got one hundred fifty-four million.
George's studio—JOI Production Company—took sixty-six million home.
The studio gave five percent each to the writer and the lead actor as backend.
That meant Jessica and I got about three point three million dollars from the backend split.
"Three million from The Sixth Sense. Plus the two hundred fifty thousand actor's fee, he got 3.25 million from that alone," Elena said.
"For Hold On Tight, it made over two hundred forty million worldwide. Owen's cut is five percent, so that's 1.2 million."
She added, "The singles went platinum with one million cassettes sold, which gave him another two million. Plus a two hundred fifty thousand actor's fee, that's 3.45 million from that."
Elena concluded, "So from movies and his album, he made around 6.6 million."
"Damn." Micheal was impressed.
"You should hear how much money he made from his company," Elena giggled.
"I don't want to know." Micheal looked aghast.
From The Sixth Sense, I made one hundred ninety-one million from my return on investment and the distributor's cut.
From Swingers, which made one hundred thirty million worldwide, I made fifty-four point six million.
From Hold On Tight, which made two hundred forty million worldwide, I made one hundred point eight million.
From Fantastical Halloween, which made around seventy-five million worldwide, I made thirty-seven point five million.
In total, I made around three hundred eighty-three point nine million from the movies without subtracting P&A costs, budgets, or company upkeep.
So, around three hundred million in pure profit.
And that's not even counting the two hundred million I borrowed from the bank.
"What about your book?" Micheal asked.
Phantom Masquerade had sold 500 thousand copies after a great word of mouth and selling in the UK.
My royalty rate was 15%, since I was already a famous actor with The Sixth Sense at the time of negotiation, which meant I made 1.5 million from it.
I have finished the second and third books and left it with the publisher to decide when to release it.
From Jessica's children book split, I got a total of 1.7 million.
So from book sales, I made around 3.2 million.
My personal wealth as Owen Chase, I made around 9.8 million this year.
"I should do something with the money." I muttered.
"Tax evasion?" Elena asked.
I gave her a weird look and said, "No… well, kind of. I planned to use all of it to make a stop-motion movie."
"But you're going to make it with us for cheap, and funnel the money into an off-shore account, right?" Agustin suddenly walked into the room.
I grinned and said, "Definitely."
Elena rolled her eyes. "You still need money for the VA fee." She added.
"Besides, stop-motion takes a long time. If you come out with a movie in a month, then people will start to ask questions." Agustin said as he handed me a thick piece of paper.
"Did you find what I said?" I asked.
He shook his head and said, "Sorry. I have no clue about the Asian Financial Crisis you're talking about. But I will keep an eye on the stock exchange to see if anything changes."
I leaned back on the chair, rubbing my chin. "I'm sure it happened in 1997… I don't remember the details, but I know it started with Thailand."
"Their currency collapsed—the baht, I think—and everything just spiraled from there. Once that happened, foreign investors panicked and started pulling out of every Asian market.
"Stocks crashed, currencies lost half their value, and even solid companies went bankrupt overnight."
I paused, thinking. "It spreads fast. Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea… all of them get hit. The IMF steps in later, but by then the damage's already done. If only I could remember how it happened and the exact time."
My eyes lit up as I remembered something. "George Soros. He's a hedge fund guy I think. He's the biggest winner of the crisis, so just find him, and copy what he does."
Agustin said simply, "Got it."
"There's also the dot com bubble. IPO stocks for Google, Facebook, Amazon. I will make sure to keep an eye on all of them." Agustin said.
I nodded in satisfaction. I barely remember the details of it from the history books and the Youtube videos I watched.
My future knowledge was quite useless here since it was deeply entrenched with pop culture knowledge instead of financial information.
So I decided to leave all of the work to Agustin instead.
…
Scream was released in theatres earlier with my involvement. It was released in mid-November, and we finally saw the numbers.
It got 7 million on its opening weekend, and 10 million the subsequent week.
The strong word of mouth pushed 4CLOVER's name into a great height right now, which made the other big 6 studios begin to make their move.
They started sending offers—lavish ones, to the talents we worked with before.
Warner wanted Wes Craven for a two-film horror slate with a budget up to 50 million.
He rejected them though since he was sure he would make money from Scream and could fund his next project himself, thus keeping all of the profit except distribution cut.
Paramount dangled a comedy-romance trilogy in front of Jon Favreau and Doug Liman. They accepted it.
Alexander Payne got a "first-look" deal with Universal, and Stephen Chbosky was offered to direct his own coming-of-age adaptation at Fox.
Both of them also accepted the offer.
They were poaching everyone we had worked with.
Except George Burnett.
I didn't hold it against them to be working with another studio.
Major studios meant bigger paychecks, awards campaigns, exposure.
I didn't have a solid roadmap for them since I acted simply as a distributor.
4CLOVER was still just a distribution company with one homegrown production by the Lucky Clover studio – Fantastical Halloween. I couldn't really control the talents if they wanted to go somewhere else.
Even Claire got another job offer at Paramount to become their head of acquisition there. It has better salaries and perks, but she rejected them since she knew what they were like.
"Just to let you know. They are offering me a 200% salary increase. Just. To. Let. You. Know."
She stood in front of me and made sure to enunciate her points.
I sighed and said, "Fine. I will give you a 20% salary increase next year."
"Yeay!" She giggled excitedly.
I became Jack Kennedy again as today, I was buying all of the IPs from the degenerate director who killed Micheal's sibling– Charlie Majors.
He was formerly from N.V talent agency, and now wanted to sell off his IPs for 1 million dollars, and he wanted it all in cash.
It was actually Gael who came to the meeting with the prosthetic mask on his face. He managed to mimic the signature of the man, and let 4CLOVER take everything from him.
The true director was already dead. His body was melted with my corpse dissolving fluid.
Then, the man disappeared completely. I hired a completely new latino director from Mexico to make the sequel for The Scaled One.
The director was actually Micheal in disguise.
It would be titled, The Scaled One: Legacy.
To completely ruin the director's name, Micheal decided to create a movie with his IP that was 1000% times greater– his words– from the Majors' movies, which would let people see how much of a fraud he was.
Majors has 5 million in his account, all of it was drained by Micheal, and he would use that to make the movie.
Of course, I was actually the one who had to do it since Michael has no idea how to make a movie. Even I only had two completed movies in my filmography.
But I had the dreamscape which would help me with the project.
"Oh, Bob the Builder is finally finished," I told Claire while flipping through the production notes.
She grinned excitedly. "Yeah, and I've got news about that," she ran outside my office and returned immediately.
"BBC's children's division picked it up for weekday morning broadcast starting next spring."
She placed the document on my desk.
"They paid about a hundred thousand pounds per episode for first-run rights. That's roughly three million dollars upfront for all thirty episodes."
She flipped another page. "And PBS wants to co-air it in the States under a joint educational deal. It won't pay much—about half a million for the U.S. rights—but it keeps the show visible on both sides of the Atlantic."
"The best part is, we kept everything else, so we can sell the complete season without even waiting for the tv release."
"Not bad. Not bad." I smiled in amusement.
I made the entire thing for 250,000 dollars. Most of the money went on the film tape since it was a stop motion and I had to take ten of thousands of photos every one season.
Claire smirked. "It's better than not bad. Merchandising inquiries are already coming in—picture books, VHS compilations, toy prototypes. Even if the series itself breaks even, the licensing will make it profitable."
"So the network's happy?" I asked.
"They're thrilled. They called it 'wholesome, constructive television for children.'" Claire said with a small laugh.
"Our factory finally has something to do!" She said excitedly.
…
Three weeks passed by in a flash while I was working with Michael on the DTV movie filming.
We managed to rehire the actress from the first film. She'd been twenty-five at the time, playing a teenager. But now, at twenty-eight, with a daughter and a more mature look, we had to make some tweaks.
So the sequel was set ten years after the first movie. Luckily for us, the original was set in the '80s.
"Tomorrow's Christmas," Claire said with a heavy expression. "Deck the Dads will be on TV, and then we can sell the video."
"What's wrong?" I asked, looking at her closely. "Feeling lonely spending Christmas alone?"
"I'm spending it with my parents—not that," she sighed. "I just watched Serpent's Son yesterday. It was really sad."
"And controversial," I muttered.
The controversy came from the film's ending.
Religious groups went ballistic, calling it blasphemous. They protested outside theaters, demanding it be pulled. Ironically, that only boosted ticket sales.
The film dealt with faith and guilt, and the "serpent" was revealed to be the protagonist's split personality—interpreted by religious groups as a portrayal of the devil.
"Does it feel Oscar-worthy?" I asked her.
She nodded. "It might get nominated, but I don't think it'll win. It's too controversial. It has a kid's suicide in it, after all."
…
Three weeks passed by in a flash while I was working with Michael on the DTV movie filming.
We managed to hire the actress from the first film. She had been twenty-five at the time, playing a teenager. But now, at twenty-eight, with a daughter and a more mature look, we had to make some tweaks.
So the sequel was set ten years after the first movie. Luckily for us, the original was set in the '80s.
"Tomorrow's Christmas," Claire said with a heavy expression. "Deck the Dads will be on TV, and then we can sell the video."
"What's wrong?" I asked, looking at her closely. "Feeling lonely spending Christmas alone?"
"I'm spending it with my parents—not that," she sighed. "I just watched Serpent's Son yesterday. It was really sad."
"And controversial," I muttered.
The controversy came from the film's ending. Religious groups went ballistic, calling it blasphemous. They protested outside theaters, demanding it be pulled. Ironically, that only boosted ticket sales.
The movie featured a religious theme, and the split personality was the serpent—interpreted by them as the devil.
"Does it feel Oscar-worthy?" I asked her.
She nodded and said, "But I don't think it'll win. It's too controversial. It has a kid's suicide in it, after all."
…
[General POV]
A male dorm room in Caltech.
"I got it!"
Jeremy, a kid from Mississippi, showed the VCR box to the others in the room.
"HEY!" Everyone cheered with excitement.
There were two women among the group of eight people. All of them were waiting to watch the bad movie—except the girls.
"Can we not? I don't want to watch another movie where a woman gets objectified and then gored," said a white woman with a blue streak in her hair.
"Mikayla, this is Bad Movie Night. Of course all of that's going to be there," her boyfriend Jeremy said playfully.
"I'm more curious to see what the new director's doing," said a Latino man with a grimace. "Please don't be bad. This is now a matter of pride for us Mexicans."
Everyone laughed. Another white man with glasses was sitting in front of a computer.
"I'm reading reviews on the bulletin board. It's supposed to be great," he said. "Also, I'm checking the RizzMaster Studio site. Get this—they're part of... you guessed it? Dun dun dun... ThunderCow— I mean, 4CLOVER now."
Everyone jeered.
"Hey, I like 4CLOVER movies," said the other woman while rubbing her boyfriend's shoulder. "Owen Chase is hot."
All of the men groaned.
"Are we going to talk, or are we going to watch the movie?!" the Latino man asked.
"Luis, pop this in the VCR," Jeremy said, tossing him the tape as he sat down with his girlfriend.
The plot was simple.
The sheriff's daughter, traumatized by the cult and the lizardman from years before, had followed in her father's footsteps and become a police officer.
"Is that the same woman?" Luis asked in surprise.
Mikayla said, "I think she is. Wow, she's learned how to act now."
"Where's the boob shot?" Jeremy shouted, giggling while his girlfriend gave him a dirty look.
"Here it is!" the Latino said.
A group of college students arrived in town—one of them was killed near the same lake where the protagonist had almost drowned in the first movie.
As the girls took off their shirts and jumped into the water, the college students cheered.
"BOOB SHOT! BOOB SHOT! BOOB SHOT!"
They were soon disappointed when the girls were wearing bikinis.
"Damn it. No boobs," Luis said flatly.
There were some hot scenes with them swimming and making out in the water, adding to the classic slasher feel.
The four of them were holding their breath underwater. But when they finished the game, only three surfaced.
When the killings began again, the sheriff's daughter realized the creature had returned. But this time, instead of waiting for it, she hunted it down.
"Hoo! Rambo style!" Mikayla said excitedly. "Finally, a woman who's not a damsel in distress with no agency of her own!"
She set up traps—minefields, spiked pits, the works. It became a Rambo-style pursuit, which the actress genuinely enjoyed performing.
As the protagonist leveled up, so did the monster. Kendrick, wearing the heavy prosthetics, moved fast and fought several cops before the heroine arrived.
"Ohhh!!!" Everyone gasped at the action scene.
"Holy crap, what was that?!" The geeky kid nearly spat out his drink as the lizardman's face came into view.
Jeremy's face turned serious. "They really upgraded the visuals this time."
"Babe, I'm scared," one of the girls said, hugging her boyfriend.
"Babe… me too," he deadpanned, and everyone laughed.
There was a small romance subplot too. The protagonist was still haunted by her boyfriend's death in the first movie, and she became suspicious of a blue-collar worker in town—thinking he was part of the cult, though he was just interested in her.
"Oh, he has a wound on his hand," Jeremy pointed out. "He's the lizard."
"No, the lizard can regenerate. Why would he bandage his arm if he can just heal himself as the lizard?" Mikayla argued, now fully invested.
"I think the deputy is the lizard," Jeremy guessed.
"Why?" Luis asked.
Jeremy said, "He wasn't there when all the cops got attacked. He claimed he was looking for Jody—the main character—but we saw the lizard's hand turn human after the fight. That's why he ran."
"That still doesn't make him the lizard," Luis argued.
The blue-collar worker was brought to jail by Jody. She suspected it was him.
{"Okay. I'll go into the jail cell," the man agreed easily at Jody's request. "But if I'm not the lizard, you're going to make it up to me by buying me dinner."
Jody furrowed her brows, wondering if he was telling the truth.
"If you're really not the lizard," she said.
"I'm not," he replied sweetly. "If spending time in jail will ease your worries, I'll gladly do it."}
"Aww, he's actually quite sweet," Mikayla said.
"He's the lizard. Manipulation technique," Luis interjected.
While the man spent time in jail, he was watched by the deputy sheriff as the woman went to investigate.
But when she returned, the jail cell was ripped apart, and blood covered the floor.
"I called it!" Luis said triumphantly.
"Wait, is the deputy dead?" Jeremy asked, watching as Jody picked up a bloodied badge.
"Jody's going to be traumatized again," Mikayla said with sympathy.
At the final battle, Jody went to the altar of the evil god after receiving a note to come alone.
She thought she'd meet the blue-collar guy there—but he was chained to the altar.
Meanwhile, the kind, soft-spoken man she trusted turned out to be the real mastermind—the deputy.
"I KNEW IT!" Jeremy yelled, pumping his fist.
The cult remnants still worshipped the dead lizardman as an avatar of their "Scaled God," and they wanted revenge for their fallen idol.
Owen rewrote the dialogue to sound more natural a couple of times. The banter flowed, and the actress finally delivered a strong emotional performance under proper direction.
It took only three hundred fifty thousand dollars to make the movie since they used limited sets and no-name actors.
It was released on DTV, and the cult following of the original director watched it skeptically, convinced no one else could replicate his work.
However, it turned out even better. They loved the suspense and the monster's new physicality.
Because Kendrick could partially transform, the scene where the lizardman screeched at the camera was realistic—and terrifying.
Even though it was mostly night scenes, with better film stock and Cahaya's lighting, the footage looked far more expensive than it was.
Compared to the first film, where the monster was mostly hidden, this one showed the true horror of the lizardman—sharp teeth, long snout, red eyes, and the fact that it was unkillable until the altar was destroyed.
"That was even better than I expected," Mikayla said.
"Yeah, with no bare-boob shots too," Luis added.
"They could've released this in theaters. I wonder why they did VHS instead," Jeremy muttered.
The geeky dude, Max, went back to his computer and checked the 4CLOVER website.
"There's some trivia here," Max said. "Apparently they released it on DTV because Charlie Majors wanted to retire—finally!"
Mikayla asked, "Is the website good?"
Max nodded. "Yeah. It's really advanced. There's a future project schedule, posters, pictures from upcoming movies—and if you click on an actor's name, it takes you to their biography so you can see what else they've done."
"Oh, for real?" Jeremy was intrigued and walked over. He saw the release date for Deck the Dads on Fox TV tomorrow, and also the Upload movie poster with Jeremy Renner and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"4CLOVER got the Terminator? Sweet. We're watching that."
Mikayla joined in, and she was more interested in the box office tracking.
"Wait. All of their movies have been so successful. Except for this one. Serpent Son." She pointed out.
"It only made 1.5 million on its opening weekend." Max said. "Oh, it's rated R. I guess that's why."
He clicked on the movie's bulletin board and saw the reviews from the people watching it.
His eyes flashed astonishment. "I think we should definitely go and watch it."
The 4CLOVER brand has penetrated deeply into the youth culture in the country. And they were slowly building up a cult following for their films.