Time moved quickly, and before Jihoon knew it, "GETE OUT" was about to hit the theaters.
Funny thing was, the release date had been bothering Jim for a while.
Because the film were opening in one of those months that Hollywood liked to treat like an abandoned back alley—in the month of March.
Nobody really wanted to release a major movie at this month, at least not back in the year of 2008.
This was before the industry flipped its calendar around and proved that a hit could land any time of year if it was strong enough.
Back then, March was just… dead air.
See, in Hollywood, the game was built around a handful of prime hunting seasons.
Mid-May? That was the golden slot, the start of summer where the real blockbusters came to flex their muscles.
Mid-November? That was Oscar season, when studios rolled out their prestige projects, hoping to charm critics and carry that glow into the awards race.
And then you had the deep winter, January to February, where studios tried to squeeze money out of holiday leftovers before things slowed down again.
By the time you stumbled into March or April, the industry had already started yawning.
Nobody expected fireworks from the hollywood.
Technically speaking, months like March, April, and even September were often called "dump months."
Not officially, of course, but everyone used that term here in hollywood.
They were the kind of months where studios quietly unloaded movies that didn't quite fit anywhere else.
Smaller genre films, mid-budget thrillers, comedies that didn't test well—stuff like that.
The thinking was simple: toss it out when the competition was light, maybe find a niche audience, and hope for the best.
But big-budget films? Those kind of film rarely touched these months.
Even if they did, well… it usually meant something was wrong.
That was why Jim was so reluctant at first.
He didn't like the idea of "GET OUT" being released in March, not when the film had competition that looked massive on paper.
And that competition wasn't some random indie either.
It was "10,000 BC"—a prehistoric epic with a price tag of $185 million.
Warner Brothers was handling it worldwide distribution, and it had the backing of Centropolis Entertainment and Legendary Pictures.
Compared to them, "GET OUT" were just a mosquito buzzing around the head of a mammoth.
But here's the thing: if you ask people who actually work behind the curtain in Hollywood, they'll tell you straight—when a studio dumps a big-budget movie in March, it's not because they're confident.
It's because they're desperate.
"10,000 BC" was one of those cases.
Word around town was that the studio had lost faith in the film during production.
They knew it wasn't going to play well, so instead of lining it up against the summer titans—"IRON MAN", "INDIANA JONES", all those—they shoved it into March, hoping to make some quick money before word of mouth killed it.
A hail Mary, plain and simple.
And at first, it looked like maybe that gamble would pay off.
Opening weekend, "10,000 BC" raked in a staggering $95.9 million worldwide.
It shot straight to the top of the box office charts of the month, strutting like a king.
But box office success is a tricky thing.
A movie can sprint out of the gate, but what really matters is its legs—the ability to hold steady after the first weekend.
And "10,000 BC"? It stumbled. Hard.
By the second weekend, ticket sales had fallen off a cliff—down 59%.
By the third week, it was practically gasping for air.
That kind of freefall usually means one thing: audiences walked out disappointed, started talking, and the buzz soured fast.
Word of mouth spread quicker than any marketing campaign could fight against.
Jihoon kept an eye on the numbers, because that's what he do.
By its third week, he already knew where "10,000 BC" was headed, and it wasn't gonna be any different from his last life.
A total box office run of around $269 million.
Now, to most people, that still sounds like a success.
Two hundred and sixty-nine million dollars is nothing to sneeze at, right? But here's the dirty little secret of the film business: those numbers don't mean much without context.
A movie doesn't just need to earn back its budget—it has to double it to be considered moderately successful.
Between marketing, theater cuts, and all the hidden costs, the math just doesn't work otherwise.
For "10,000 BC", that meant it needed at least $370 million worldwide just to stand on solid ground.
And it wasn't going to get there.
On paper, sure, it looked like it made a profit.
Subtract the $185 million production cost from the $269 million gross and you're left with about $84 million.
But theaters take their cut too—on average around 60%.
That meant the studio only pocketed about $33.6 million in the end.
And even that wasn't the whole story.
Here's the part most people don't think about: time. "10,000 BC" had been in production for nearly five years.
That's half a decade of investors' money sitting there, doing nothing, tied up in a single project.
From a finance perspective, it's not just about what you make—it's about when you make it.
A dollar invested in 2003 isn't worth the same as a dollar in 2008.
While that money was gathering dust in caveman land, it could've been growing somewhere else.
That's why, when you run the numbers properly, "10,000 BC" wasn't really a win at all.
It was a disappointment disguised as a blockbuster.
And watching the slow-motion collapse of "10,000 BC" only made Jihoon more certain: March might not have been the sexiest month on the release calendar, but for "GET OUT", it was perfect.
A dead month for the industry could be fertile ground for a sharp little horror film that didn't need to bulldoze its way through titans.
Jim, however, wasn't fully convinced.
He still held onto his doubts, pacing around and chewing over the numbers like a man worried about betting the wrong horse. "It's one thing to survive against weak legs like 10,000 BC," he'd say, "but what if people don't show up for us at all? What if the buzz doesn't translate?"
For Jim, the uncertainty wasn't about the competition collapsing—it was whether their little film could sprint forward fast enough to catch the audience's attention.
That debate lingered right up until the premiere.
The big night arrived at Westwood Village's Mann Bruin Theatre.
The choice wasn't random.
Jim picked it deliberately, not just because it was close to Fox's Century City lot, but because it sat right on UCLA's doorstep.
College students, especially the kind who craved sharp, conversation-starting stories, were the exact audience "GET OUT" was designed for.
The Bruin Theatre wasn't the gaudy circus of Hollywood Boulevard, with its bright lights and sprawling chaos.
It was intimate, manageable, and most importantly, it had a history of hosting premieres for films with awards ambitions.
That was the plan—precision, not noise.
Every move in the release was tied to the strategy they have in-place.
The promotion had to complement the film, and the film had to fit the promotion.
Jihoon believed in that balance: get the right crowd in the right room, let the story work its way out from there.
The line outside curled around the block.
Inside, tickets were being scanned as guests shuffled to their seats.
Among them was a face every film lover in America would recognize—Roger Ebert.
Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, household name, the man whose thumbs could push a movie's fortune up or down in a heartbeat.
Ebert handed over his ticket and stepped inside.
He gave the room a once-over, noting the crowd.
"Quite crowded," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "Eighty percent, maybe more."
That was a good sign.
He settled into his seat. Ten minutes later, the lights dimmed.
The screen flared to life.
First, the iconic 20th Century Fox fanfare—the brass notes echoing with that old-school Hollywood authority.
Then, in quieter contrast, the JH Pictures logo appeared.
Simple. Modern. A hint of innovation without the bloat
Ebert nodded almost imperceptibly. Presentation mattered, and this was a promising start.
As the first critic to ever win a Pulitzer, Ebert had seen every kind of opening imaginable.
He was cautious by nature—never quick to call a good film bad or to inflate the unworthy.
But he also knew the weight of his own pen.
A single review from him could make or break a film's momentum.
A bad review, and audiences would vanish overnight.
A glowing one, and ticket sales could surge from people who hadn't even heard of the movie the day before.
The opening scene unfolded.
On the screen, a young Black man walked nervously through an affluent white suburb at night.
He kept glancing over his shoulder, the tension etched into every movement.
He tried to call his girlfriend, but the line didn't go through.
Then, a car rolled up beside him. White. Silent. Ominous.
He sensed it immediately—the wrongness in the air.
He turned to walk away, but before he could react, the car door swung open.
A masked man lunged, grabbing him from behind. In an instant, the young man was dragged into the vehicle, the door slamming shut.
Gone.
Ebert's eyes narrowed, his pen already scratching across his notepad.
"The hunt is over," he whispered under his breath, repeating the phrase as though it had just sprung from the film itself.
He jotted it down. Even in the first few minutes, he could feel it—this wasn't just another horror flick.
There was a precision to the tension, a sharpness in the framing, a rhythm he hadn't seen before.
He leaned forward, his anticipation rising. Wanting to see more of this thriller in action.