[Late April] [X-Men Pre-Production]
Alex spent less than fifteen minutes at the first complete X-Men cast meeting.
The gathering was held inside one of Titan's larger rehearsal spaces, where Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Jensen Ackles, Emily Blunt, Kelsey Grammer, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Tennant, Zac Efron, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Romijn, Charlize Theron, and the rest of the ensemble met properly for the first time.
Alex welcomed everyone, reminded them that X-Men: Protocol Zero depended on the team functioning as an ensemble rather than orbiting a single character, and wished Joe and Anthony Russo luck before leaving.
From that point onward, the Russos controlled the room.
Table reads began, physical training schedules were established, costume fittings continued, and the directors started working closely with the cast on the relationships underneath the larger mutant conflict.
Jensen trained heavily for Scott's physical discipline and command presence. Emily spent time with Patrick developing Jean's early telepathic relationship with Xavier. Halle worked with the stunt and visual-effects departments on Storm's movement so Ororo never appeared to struggle against the scale of her own powers.
Hugh Jackman's Wolverine preparation remained separate from much of the central group because Logan entered the story from a very different place.
Alex reviewed reports occasionally and otherwise stayed out of the way.
He had already chosen his directors.
Now he expected them to direct.
...
[May 1, 2009] [Ben 10 Season Two]
Ben 10 returned at the beginning of May and immediately became one of Titan Youth's strongest programs.
The second-season premiere climbed to the top of youth television charts during its opening weekend, while repeat broadcasts remained unusually strong throughout the following week.
Reviews praised the larger mythology surrounding the Omnitrix, the improved action sequences, and the decision to let Ben gradually mature without stripping away the personality that had made the first season popular.
The introduction of additional alien transformations generated exactly the reaction Alex had expected. Within hours of the premiere, fan sites were cataloguing abilities, arguing over power levels, and trying to predict which forms would become permanent parts of Ben's rotation.
Vilgax also received stronger material, becoming less of a distant threat and more of a looming presence across the season.
...
[May] [DC: Gods & Wonders]
By the middle of May, DC: Gods & Wonders entered full production under Guillermo del Toro.
Alex had wanted Guillermo from the beginning. After the massive success of Maleficent, he trusted him with the mythological scale, strange creatures, ancient gods, and darker corners of Diana's world. Guillermo also understood that the series couldn't survive on spectacle alone. Paradise Island needed to feel like a real civilization with history, traditions, political disagreements, and relationships that existed long before Diana became Wonder Woman.
For Guillermo, the project offered a much larger canvas than Maleficent. He worked closely with Titan's production designers to give Themyscira its own architecture and culture rather than treating it as another polished fantasy kingdom. Practical sets were mixed with enormous environmental extensions, while creatures and ancient beings were developed through the same combination of prosthetics, animatronics, and visual effects he preferred whenever possible.
Angelina Jolie's schedule became brutal almost immediately.
The twelve-episode production demanded far more from her than a normal feature film. Early filming concentrated heavily on Diana's life among the Amazons, her relationship with her mother, her training, the politics surrounding the old gods, and the gradual development of the woman audiences would eventually recognize as Wonder Woman.
Angelina spent hours each week training with swords, shields, spears, horseback combat, wire rigs, and choreographed hand-to-hand sequences. Guillermo also pushed the quieter material hard, particularly scenes exploring Diana's compassion and her growing curiosity about the world beyond Themyscira.
The Golden Eagle Armor sequence shown during Titan's annual presentation represented only a fraction of what was being built.
Guillermo had already begun preparing ancient battlefields, mythological creatures, ruined temples, and environments connected to the gods themselves. Several episodes required feature-film-scale production work, which was exactly why Alex had approved the series without imposing a conventional television budget.
By the end of May, Angelina was spending most of her days moving between costume fittings, stunt rehearsals, soundstages, location work, and performance sessions with Guillermo.
Between Gods & Wonders, her responsibilities at Titan, family life, and the attention still surrounding Maleficent and her Oscar victory, Angelina had become one of the busiest people in the household.
...
[May] [Gordon Ramsay Holdings]
Rachel and Jane handled the Ramsay deal without needing Alex involved beyond final approval.
Titan's financial team completed a detailed review of Gordon Ramsay Holdings, including outstanding loans, restaurant performance, liabilities, licensing arrangements, expansion commitments, and the financial pressure created by the recession.
The company had problems, although the core business remained valuable.
Rachel approved the acquisition structure after renegotiating several protections around future borrowing and major expansion spending.
Titan acquired forty percent of Gordon Ramsay Holdings and provided enough capital to stabilize the immediate financial pressure while restructuring several obligations on more manageable terms.
The new restaurant and media venture remained separate.
Titan and Ramsay Holdings formed a fifty-fifty company responsible for future restaurants, television formats, publishing projects, and international hospitality concepts developed together.
Los Angeles became the first planned location.
Jane began early development work on The Pressure Test at the same time, although no announcement was made. Producers started quietly approaching potential contestants while Gordon's team developed the competition format and training structure.
...
[May] [Angela and Jennifer]
Alex's personal life kept moving alongside everything else.
He went on two more dates with Angela White after their first late-night dinner in Los Angeles.
Neither date involved cameras, corporate meetings, or modeling work. One remained deliberately simple, with dinner followed by a walk along the beach. The other became a quiet evening built around food, music, and conversation.
Alex didn't rush anything.
Angela became increasingly comfortable around him once she stopped treating every interaction like an impossible career milestone.
The attraction remained obvious, although the relationship developed slowly enough for both of them to understand what existed beyond it.
Jennifer Lopez also spent more time around Alex during May.
Titan scheduled four separate photoshoots involving both of them, ranging from fashion material to promotional work connected with music and Titan lifestyle campaigns.
Outside those shoots, they had several casual outings together. Sometimes they ate after work, sometimes they attended small industry functions, and on a few occasions they simply escaped the attention surrounding Titan and spent time talking privately.
Alex noticed the interest.
He also noticed that neither Jennifer nor Angela seemed interested in being treated like another addition to an expanding household.
That suited him.
Anything serious would have to grow naturally.
Alex also wrapped up Ironman filming by the end of May and thus began the editing and all. Scarlett also wrapped up Alien 2 filming, and Hobbit 2 shooting was far from over. Due to a sudden weather change, the shoot got a little delayed.
...
[June 1, 2009] [Man of Steel]
Man of Steel opened worldwide on June 1.
The response was immediately strong.
Critics praised Henry Cavill's performance, Zack Snyder's scale, the film's visual identity, and the decision to let Clark Kent feel uncertain and human even while presenting Superman as something almost mythological.
Rotten Tomatoes settled around 87 percent during the first week. IMDb audience ratings averaged approximately 8.3 out of 10, while Metacritic reached 79.
Reviews weren't universally enthusiastic. Some critics considered sections of the film too serious, while others questioned the scale of the destruction during its largest sequences. Then everyone loved Alex's cameo as Bruce Wayne in the movie, which they shot a few weeks before the final editing.
He had 2 cameos. The first one was Bruce witnessing Superman fight Zod while causing massive destruction while saving as many civilians as possible. The second one was Bruce training in the Batcave while the Batcomputer tracked Superman. Alexis also had a small cameo after Zod's fight that connects Superman to the Supergirl film, showing what he was doing and why he failed to assist Kara during her fight.
The overall response remained clearly positive.
The box office reflected that enthusiasm.
Within its first seven days, Man of Steel earned roughly $375 million to $380 million worldwide.
Titan considered the result excellent.
Supergirl had established the first pieces of the live-action DC universe, and Man of Steel proved audiences were willing to follow another branch of it immediately.
Henry Cavill's public profile changed almost overnight.
By the second weekend, Superman, Supergirl and Batman merchandise was disappearing from stores almost as quickly as Titan could replace it.
Zack moved directly into post-release meetings concerning the next phase of the DC universe, although Justice League: Doomsday remained some distance away.
...
[June 12] [Titan Hardware Expansion]
Titan's second hardware wave launched eleven days after Man of Steel.
Titan Memory, Titan Flash SSDs, Coreboards, Titan Power supplies, Frost cooling products, and the Titan Vision display entered retail together.
Pricing once again became the center of discussion.
Titan had deliberately positioned the products aggressively against existing competitors, offering unusually strong performance for the cost while still maintaining profitable margins.
The strategy worked almost too well.
Retail inventory disappeared within hours in several major markets.
Online stores shifted rapidly into preorder systems, while Titan opened additional manufacturing allocation to meet demand.
Scalping appeared almost immediately.
Titan responded aggressively through purchase limits, retailer agreements, suspicious-order reviews, and legal action against organized groups attempting to circumvent quantity restrictions through fraudulent accounts or coordinated bulk buying.
Individual customers were limited in how many high-demand units they could purchase during the first release window.
Rachel had no interest in watching Titan hardware become inaccessible because resellers had cleared warehouses before ordinary buyers had a chance.
By late June, preorder queues stretched across several regions.
The larger concern had already shifted toward July.
Nova was next.
...
[July 3]
Titan's first console arrived in the market.
The Titan Nova officially launched alongside Mass Effect.
Retail stores across North America, Europe, and parts of Asia opened for midnight events while Titan's online infrastructure handled the largest simultaneous consumer launch the company's technology division had attempted.
Nova boxes disappeared from shelves almost immediately.
Most launch locations had already distributed reserved inventory through controlled preorder systems, although lines still formed hours before stores opened.
Inside Titan headquarters, engineering teams watched server traffic, activation numbers, account creation, downloads, and hardware telemetry climb across enormous monitoring walls.
Then Mass Effect unlocked.
Players saw the Normandy.
They created Commander Shepard.
They stepped into the galaxy Titan had spent months using to demonstrate impossible-looking technology.
For the first time, nobody was watching Mass Effect through a technology presentation, trailer, journalist recording, or carefully controlled demonstration.
Millions of people could finally play it themselves.
--[AN: The ending is getting closer. Just added the final Harem members to the story. You'll get that in 6 chs. So, let's say roughly 20-30 chs left.🤔🤔]
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