Rise To Stardom - Chapter 91

Chapter 91: Center of Attention
Usually, in Hollywood, there was a certain, mutually beneficial relationship between the media and talent agencies.

Whenever a movie was successful, the talent agencies would try to embellish things and sell their talents to the media as either the sole reason for the movie’s success or one of the major reasons for it.

This was usually done in an effort to make the public perceive their stars as the next big thing or make the public feel as if their stars drew a big audience to the theatres.

It would also ensure that whatever project their talent worked on next, he or she would have a higher pay or have enough star power to have a say in how some things in the production of the movie played out.

Due to this practice, aspiring actors without any talent agencies, usually didn’t have a lot of articles or star power to their name.

However, in the case of [Epoch One], things were vastly different.

The success of the movie was already quite dependent on many other factors.

Bruce, who wasn’t in an agency anymore, still, literally owned an even share of their production company and, was still very popular among the millennial demographic.

Jeffrey whom had already etched his name into Hollywood as one of the best of the best, thereby bringing people to the cinema with his name alone.

And Mark, who just like Bruce, had an even share of the company and also, had a nice standing as a good director that had expanded his repertoire with this action movie.

Simply put, the public already knew quite enough about these three so what more was there to sell about them.

This was why, when the marketing and PR employees of the Dot Productions were looking for someone else they could sell the movie off of and use to draw more crowd to the theatres, they settled on one, peculiar, young man amidst them who was slowly getting pretty famous.

Considering how presently, a good chunk of the internet, despite Kyle having shared a bit more about his personal life via StarSpotter Magazine’s viral interview, still wanted to know more about him, the young man was basically fresh meat to Hank and the employees of Dot Productions.

He was currently also very young, and the most sought after by the media even amidst his co-actors.

As a result, Kyle became the one they decided to sell as one of the biggest contributors to the movie’s success.

That was how the young man, without the backing of any agency, became the headlines of many articles in the coming days.

This, was Hank’s and Dot Production’s plan.

This, was their ‘supposed’, secret weapon.

* * *

– Kyle Kestis trained intensively for his role in [Epoch One]! That definitely explains his recent buff figure! Rumors are also circulating that the movie may be going for a franchise…

– A short clip of [Epoch One’s] ‘Behind The Scenes’, shows actor Bruce Gunn and Kyle Kestis, actually trading real blows! Reports from a few outlets also show that a lot of the best scenes in the movie was improvised!

– Did you know, that Kyle Kestis was only payed $30,000 for his role in [Epoch One]! That barely even qualifies as enough pay for all the stunts in the movie he had to pull off by himself!

– Reports from insiders, shows that Indie Singer and Actor Kyle Kestis, actually dislocated an arm whilst filming! [Links to the videos attached below].

– The crane scene and bar-fight scene in Epoch One, were only shot once! In long, singular takes! And so was the car chase scene!

– An insider just revealed that no stunt doubles were used in the making of [Epoch One]! Save for Hollywood legend Jeffrey Dickson, which frankly, is very understandable considering his age.

– From learning Jiu Jitsu and a few other martial arts, to hitting the shooting range, to learning how to drift a car expertly, all in the span of a month whilst still hitting the gym, a few behind the scene moments from [Epoch One], showcases that the young star, Kyle Kestis, is completely dedicated to his craft!

As a plethora of articles hit the internet, a few videos expertly leaked by the movie’s marketing team itself, the action movie started spreading heavily like wildfire!

If before the general public were already quite interested in the movie due to its great reviews, now, most were actively looking for a way to watch the movie.

Having seen most of the ‘Behind The Scenes’ clips that had ‘apparently’ being leaked, the internet gobbled it up like a juicy tomato.

This was Hollywood after all and people, loved to hear about stories like these as it elevated the actors in their minds and garnered them a lot of respect.

And at the center of all this was Kyle, garnering a lot of fans, especially from the male audience this time.

If before, most of his major fans had been females, right now, he seemed to have become a source of motivation to the males, thus making him a hot topic in the social media space.

This was mostly because people had realized that asides from having a disciplined work ethic, along with the balls to go to great lengths to make a singular scene in a movie superb, it almost seemed as if Kyle Kestis was on a constant grind.

Literally, they felt as if he was jumping from one thing to the next and killing it every, blessed time.

It even became more obvious when people realized that he had literally written [Strange Canvas] just a month and a few weeks short of finishing up [Epoch One’s] filming!

And just a few months before that, he written the hit song [No Clue] too!

Add that to the fact that he was also a charming and witty fellow as evidenced from his talk shows and interviews, Kyle quickly began to have both male and female fans in equal measure.

All these asides though, if there was another added benefit to the outburst of articles and leaks on the internet regarding Kyle and the action movie itself, it was the exponential box office number increase which [Epoch One] had seen.

By the movie’s third and fourth day run in theaters, it earned a whopping $13 million and $18 million respectively!

That was literally $49 million in total when all their gains were summed up from the first day! More than double the investments by the fourth day alone.

These were some phenomenal numbers and even Hank and the marketing team who had been aiming for this sort of result, were understandably floored by it numbers.

This was even more so because they never really had the funds to distribute the movie internationally so, basically, all of the returns they were seeing were mostly from the domestic earnings!

That was insane!

As a bunch of big studios and investors noticed this, they quickly dug up info on the small studio.

The moment they found out that the movie was made on a budget of $20 million only, they instantly began to contact Dot Productions, hoping that the studio had any plans for a franchise.

Some even offered to acquire Dot Productions under their branch.

After all, they all wanted a share of the big pie from a movie that could go on to earn some big returns in the long run!

Considering Mark, Bruce and Hank never even had any ideas of such from the very beginning though, they simply gave a vague answer entailing there might or might not be a sequel.

Not that it was going to stop the greedy corporates from pulling out all the stops to persuade Dot Productions into accepting their offers though.

As box office analysts on the other hand, watched the movie’s upward trend, a lot of them predicted that it was easily going to finish around $200 to $250 million by the end of its month-long run.

And then, overshadowed by this overwhelming success, was [Bohemian Days].

Having believed they were on the path to at least making their budget back, a bucket of ice cold water instantly doused BlackBox Films when the fourth day of their movie’s run in the cinemas, came along.

Exponentially, the movie’s returns dropped from its higher $17 million on the third day to an abysmal $8 million.

This immediately spelled bad news for the movie studio and they knew it.

Quickly, they tried to turn it around with some heavy PR again but, even after increasing the returns to $10 million on the fifth day, it was nowhere close to [Epoch One’s] $20 million fifth day returns.

And so, in an effort to not waste more money on marketing a film that had already lost against a smaller budget movie, BlackBox films reeled in their funds.

Considering the heavy PR marketing they had employed, they had further increased the movie’s originally high budget of $100 million to an even higher $135 million.

Truly, they just hoped their movie would at least return their investment back as they simply sat still, watching as [Epoch One] became a resounding box-office success.

However, the most affected by these turn of events, were three individuals.

Producer John Woods who was currently in a depressed state of mind as the executives kept bashing him and the investors kept bombarding with calls and threats.

Director Ava Wilde whom was currently blacklisted from directing any movies in a long while from a lot of major studios as this was her third flop in three years.

And Austin Wilde, who was currently breaking a few things around his room in fury as critics and audience alike, bashed him for his lackluster acting.