[Chapter 80: Diehard Fanboys & Unseen Heroes.]
[Alternative Title: The Billion Dollar Blueprint.]
Last Time on Chapter 079 of From Shadows To The Spotlight —
His friend had always talked about creating movies that would be a seamless marriage of both spectacle and substance. And after watching the Fellowship, John Wick and now Spider-Man: First Swing.
He was happy to say that his friend had finally succeeded in his goal.
He couldn't help but smirk at that thought as he had made up his mind on the film, and Eisner would be especially cross with his decision but he didn't care as he would do what he had always done:
Let the truth flow from his pen's ink.
Now continuing —
~Thursday Evening, Two days later~
~L.A. Downtown Multiplex~
The sun dipped behind the skyscrapers as a surprisingly long line snaked toward the ticket counter window of one of L.A's popular cinema halls. It was a weekday—Thursday evening—but the crowd in the line looked more like a weekend rush.
Four friends, all in their late teens to early twenties, stood halfway through the queue. They were clutching onto their backpacks and sodas, craning their necks to catch a look at the illuminated marquee: NOW SHOWING —SPIDER-MAN: FIRST SWING.
One of them, a shaggy-haired kid in a vintage Jurassic Park hoodie, whistled low. "Dude, look at this line! I can't believe it's Thursday. Am I in line for Spider-Man or Star Wars? I thought the people would wait for the weekend."
Another, taller and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, shrugged with a grin. "Are you surprised? It's a Monarch film. Plus it's Alex Masters." He was a cinema buff and loved following the Hollywood news stories.
"He already dominated the summer file with Fellowship and John Wick back-to-back? And we watched both of them three times, easily."
The shaggy haired kid nodded and replied, "I know I just hoped we could beat the crowd by coming out on a weekday. But I guess Monarch is way too popular now."
"I know, right? I still remember the times when we would sneak into the hall after lying about our age to see the cool horror films they used to make?"
The third, who was chewing gum, elbowed the fourth who was wearing a formal dress shirt. "What do you mean used to?"
"They still make 'em fool. It's just you who wants to watch it with your girl, instead of us, so you get handsy with her."
"Hey, she doesn't mind." The fourth replied, in his defence, he was trying not to crease up shirt as he still had an early morning shift tomorrow, and he couldn't afford to ruin his one good shirt that was left.
"No, I know she likes it." The one chewing on his gum replied placatingly not wanting for his friend to take his words the wrong way. "I just don't know why you too bother acting so shy and not just do what you want to do."
The guy in the dress shirt sighed and replied. "She wants to hold out till marriage."
"Damn. I.." The three sucked air through their teeth, sad about their friends' dry sex life.
But they were also glad that he had already found himself such a loyal girlfriend that still wanted to adhere herself to traditional values.
"Did any of you hear that first swing is going to kick off a series of superhero movies from Marvel that Monarch will be making?" The shaggy haired guy asked, wanting to move on from the awkward topic.
"I did!" The cinema buff would raise his hand with a grin like he was in a classroom. "You know that is also why I'm especially excited to watch First Swing. After all, do you think Alex would half ass his first movie? No chance."
The fourth nodded, he adjusted the collar of his shirt as he added on. "Exactly. If he can make an adaptation of the Lord of the Rings which was considered to be quite literally impossible to be adapted into a movie, I can't even imagine what he'll do with Spider-Man."
The line shuffled forward — murmured laughter and the smell of popcorn drifted through the air. When their turn came, they leaned in eagerly and ordered. "Four tickets for First Swing, please!"
---------
A rush of people spilled out of the screening hall, eyes wide with excitement and satisfaction, they were chattering amongst themselves like a buzzing like a beehive.
Amongst them, the four friends stepped out as well, they were all grinning ear to ear. They paused near a Spider-Man poster, their faces glowing with post-movie adrenaline.
The shaggy-haired one was practically giddy with happiness. "Best. Superhero. Movie. Ever. Hands down!"
The third one took out a new piece of gum and started chewing on it as he turned to his cinema buff friend. He threw an arm over his shoulder and asked, "hey, brainiac, how much did they drop to make this masterpiece?"
The stat geek who was checking his T-shirt for any popcorn stains looked up and replied with a smug grin. "Nobody's officially said anything, but the trade mags pegged it to be around 130 million bucks. Give or take."
The dress shirt guy let out a low whistle in awe. "Damn! No wonder it looked that good. Every penny on screen."
The gum-chewer was about to reply when a polite voice cut into their conversation. "Hey there! Sorry to interrupt…"
A young man stepped up to them with an earnest smile, he had a CinemaScores badge around his neck and held up a clipboard and some flyers in hand. "Would you guys mind filling out a quick survey?"
"It's for CinemaScores — we're gathering feedback for Spider-Man: First Swing. Takes two minutes, and you get this—"
He flashed a small stack of discount coupons.
"Ten percent off your next three Monarch movie tickets. Good for a year, terms and conditions and all that. Sound good?"
The four friends exchange knowing grins—veterans of this game. "Dude, we used that for Fellowship and John Wick! Thanks a bunch for these. Let's do it."
They crowded around the clipboard, scribbling quick answers, filling out their favourite moments and highlights from the movie.
Monarch's team of expert analysts had curated this specific group of questions to be asked so that they can get the right information and tweak their future films just right to scratch just that neglected 'itch' for a major chunk of the cinema viewing audience and make bank while doing so.
"A+ for entertainment."
"Definitely recommending it to everyone."
"Worth every dollar."
As they swiftly handed the forms back, having already thought of the answers while leaving the screen hall. The CinemaScores rep beamed as they got done so soon, and tore off four fresh coupons for them to enjoy.
"Thanks so much! Enjoy the discount—and hey, keep an eye out for Monarch's next surprise! I heard they are about to start filming it soon."
The four friends bumped fists, and stepped back into the night, the happy buzz of watching Spider-Man: First Swing still filling their minds.
----------
~A Few Days Later, Saturday Night~
~Monarch HQ—Marketing War Room~
The marketing bullpen on the top floor of Studio MONARCH HQ still buzzed with activity, even though the sun had set hours ago and the distant city lights of LA glowed through the wide ceiling-to-floor glass windows.
The desks were cluttered with manila folders bursting with theater reports, fax printouts curling in wire baskets, half-drained mugs of gas-station coffee, and the occasional blinking pager or bulky cell phone charging on a desk corner.
A single boxy TV perched on a high shelf, volume low but displaying the latest Entertainment Tonight ticker.
In the middle of this semi-organized chaos stood John Garcia, Head of MONARCH Marketing. His tie was draped around his neck like a war tag, with sleeves rolled to his elbows, a legal pad in one hand and a cheap ballpoint in the other.
His eyes flicked from one exhausted but gleaming young face to another, pride quietly swelling in his chest.
He cleared his throat, voice steady over the hum of the old computers and the whir of a nearby copy machine spitting out the latest box office data.
"Alright, team. Let's break it down. Charlie — hit me with the Tuesday numbers."
Charlie, a scrawny and perpetually fidgeting young man in his twenties adjusted his glasses, as he swiftly flipped through a dog-eared binder.
"Tuesday was an experimental early release premier night. We opened with only 616 screens, doing three shows each, evening to midnight. But the occupancy rate reached an astonishing ninety-eight percent. The Box office take was $4.4 million for Tuesday."
A low whistle from one of the interns in the back drew a few chuckles. John just allowed himself a faint grin. Hunger Marketing 101. He knew well just how to turn scarcity into gold, though what he truly appreciated was how much Alex valued their ideas.
His friend who was in Disney's marketing team, almost lost half of his hair out of the frustration because most of their ideas and inputs went unheard by the upper management.
"Good. Maya, walk me through the rest."
Maya, a sharp-eyed Indian junior analyst with a stack of highlighter-marked spreadsheets balanced on her lap, turned a page and traced a finger down the column.
"Wednesday we went wide with the full release: 4,100 screens, six shows per day. Our occupancy rate started at 69%— that's $21.89 million. On Thursday, it climbed to 77%—and we earned $24.43 million."
"On Friday, because of the positive word of mouth effect and repeat watchers from the previous days must've bolstered the theatre chain's confidence in us."
"Because they removed some of their less profitable entries and around 350 screens were added onto our 4100 bringing our total to 4450 screens. Also the occupancy rate spiked to a shocking 91%, earning us $33.1 million for Friday."
"On Saturday, it rose even higher to.. 95%, almost a full house and while final numbers are still trickling in by fax, so far we're tracking around $34.56 million at the box office."
"Sir, we've had a miraculous first week at box office, till date we've already made 118.38 million dollars and that's without including Sunday's number."
"But that's not important, sir, First Swing has the potential to break a historical record."
"If we can maintain these numbers then Spider-Man First Swing will be the first movie to make over a 100 million dollars in its opening weekend at box office."
Maya had an excited gleam in her but she was surprised when instead of joy all she saw in her boss' eyes was cautious trepidation. He exhaled slowly and said, "If we were able to come to that conclusion then it stands to reason that other studios will do the same."
"I must inform the PR department and Alex about it so that they can be prepared for a smear campaign or some other shit they might pull to drag us down."
His subordinates shared the same look but only more severe, he couldn't allow that fear to set so he decided to congratulate them on the good job done.
"We made over 118 million dollars in our opening week with Sunday still remaining. Maya what was our CinemaScores rating?"
"Tracy what are the trade mags saying about us? Does it feel like the other studios have reached out to them yet?"
Maya tapped her pen against her teeth, eyes dancing.
"And the CinemaScore survey results from last night's stacks are all 'A+.' Seventy percent repeat watchers — mostly Monarch loyalists and Marvel fanboys. They're doing half our marketing on the streets for free!"
John barked out a soft laugh. Alex will be smug as hell for the free promotion.
"Good. That's damn good," he said, voice lowering a notch, letting the pride show. His eyes then went towards Tracy silently urging to make her report.
"Sir! The articles are positive in their perspective of our film. This is Variety's headline: Young Monarch of Hollywood:
Spider-Man: First Swing breaks September opening records with $120 million at the box office, putting Studio MONARCH shoulder-to-shoulder with Hollywood's Big Six.
— By Elizabeth Ross, Senior Entertainment Editor, Variety.
At just 35, Alex Masters is crowned the heir to Spielberg and Lucas after defying naysayers with a record-shattering $120 million dollars opening week for Spider-Man: First Swing with sunday numbers still remaining to be seen. Insiders say buying Lucasfilm and its distribution pipeline might be the final piece to push Monarch into Hollywood's elite club."
John let out a sigh of frustration. "I know that we wouldn't be able to keep the buyout of Lucasfilms a secret but to think that they will find it out so soon. Alex won't be too pleased, but at least the articles are in our favor rather than against us."
"Are there any more?" He asked again.
"Yes sir, there's one for Entertainment Weekly, it's headline: "MONARCH Spins Into Gold:
"Spider-Man's First Swing Makes September Hollywood's New Summer."
— By Samuel Patel, Senior Pop Culture Writer.
Following a triumphant summer with Fellowship and John Wick, Alex Masters defies studio logic yet again — owning the 'dump month' with a superhero epic fans are calling better than anything Warner ever managed. Insiders say MONARCH's new Lucasfilm pipeline cements it as the new king among the big boys."
"Excellent," John exclaimed, slapping his palm on the desk. He then turned to Tracy and said, "Remember to push Sam to the top of our guest list and add on a gift hamper the next time he comes in for a press release."
"Yes, sir!" She replied as she pulled out a notepad from her pocket.
"Good." He said as he let his eyes sweep over his crew—Charlie with his calculator, Maya hugging her folders, Tracy jotting down his instructions and a dozen more hunched over charts, numbers, phone call notes—every one of them sporting faint smiles now despite the exhaustion etched into their bones.
"You, ladies and gentlemen, pulled a miracle out of a hat again. Alex can bet big on movies like Spider-Man because he knows you never fold, so stand proud." He set his legal pad down with finality.
"Listen up — all of you. I know you've worked yourselves into the ground since last month. Alex knows it too. He told me personally: once First Swing crosses 300 million domestic, every one of you is getting a fat bonus. That's a promise."
Charlie whooped, Maya's eyes widened, and even the quiet ones cracked into relieved laughter.
"But tonight—" John said, a sly grin finally breaking through the weary lines on his face, "—I'm not waiting for that milestone."
"Tonight, we close shop. Put your phones away. We're hitting that chinese steakhouse downtown — drinks, sides, desserts, the works. Tab's on me, for this one."
"You've earned it. You're the best damn unit in this building and don't you forget it."
A ragged cheer went up, someone clapped John's back so hard he nearly dropped his pad. Laughter and half-sincere threats to drink him dry echoed down the hallway as the team shuffled to grab jackets and slap each other's shoulders in giddy camaraderie.
John lingered behind, staring at the latest fax still feeding through the machine — a line graph showing the occupancy rates across the different cinema chains. The red ink line shot upward with impossible confidence.
'You're one crazy gambler, Alex. Looks like this MCU will be worth all this trouble we'll be going through.' He thought to himself as he flicked the switch off, pocketed his pen, and followed the laughter into the night.
Ready to toast his team, his studio, and the unstoppable juggernaut of a film that had their hopes and dreams riding on it.
— To be continued…
{2,526 words}
{TRL: This is the new Hollywood story that has been bouncing around in my head. I really need to get this out so here's another chapter.
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