On the first week of the new month, inside the JH Pictures office, the atmosphere was buzzing with energy.
Papers stacked neatly on the desk, phones ringing in the background, assistants rushing about—everything moved forward like a well-oiled machine.
Jihoon sat at his desk with a serious expression, his eyes fixed on the latest box office report for 'GET OUT'.
His brows were furrowed, his posture stiff, giving off the air of a man buried in work.
Yet across from him, Mara sat with an entirely different aura.
Her blue eyes sparkled like jewels, wide with disbelief as she leaned forward to peek at the numbers in Jihoon's hand.
Her fluffy blond hair bounced gently with every movement, and her lips parted slightly in awe. If Jihoon's face was all business, hers was pure astonishment—almost cartoonishly so.
"So high!" she gasped, blinking as though she were seeing dollar signs.
Jihoon finally raised his head, calm and measured. "It's not that high, actually," he replied.
"If you compare it to last year's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, that film earned over $309 million in its opening weekend alone. Get Out is just a small-budget horror. It can't be compared to a juggernaut like Pirates."
Mara blinked again, still stunned.
To her, $88 million in a single week felt astronomical.
But Jihoon's perspective was different.
He wasn't simply measuring numbers against themselves—he was measuring against history.
From his knowledge of the industry, Jihoon knew that analysts were already projecting 'GET OUT' to top out around $150 million worldwide.
That was impressive enough for a $15 million film, but he also knew what lay ahead.
This very year, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight would shatter records, crossing over $1 billion globally and rewriting expectations for what blockbusters could achieve.
Against titans like that, Jihoon's modest ROI would barely register in headlines.
And yet, Jihoon wasn't discouraged.
His strategy was never about competing head-to-head with massive franchises.
Big-budget films could dominate the box office charts, but they also carried enormous risks: sky-high production costs, bloated CGI expenses, and the constant pressure to appeal to a broad, global audience.
Horror, on the other hand, was lean, focused, and resilient.
With the right script, a horror film could be produced cheaply, attract a loyal niche audience, and deliver consistent profits.
Jihoon thought of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which in his previous life had seemed unstoppable.
Yet by the end of its Phase Four, even Marvel had stumbled into a production crisis.
Bigger budgets had not guaranteed better films.
Instead, they often restricted creative freedom.
Jihoon recalled back to how the 'CAPTAIN MARVEL' series had stumbled.
The first film success had ridden on a wave of anticipation.
It wasn't just another MCU movie at that point, it was the studio's first female-led blockbuster, arriving at the height of Endgame hype.
Audiences who saw Captain Marvel swoop in like a one-woman army, turning the tide of battle with ease.
That single appearance was enough to cement her as a hero fans expected to see more of, and when her standalone film finally hit theaters, people were willing to forgive its slower pacing.
After all, even the strongest characters needed space to grow, and the first movie framed itself as an origin story.
The balance of character growth and limited action worked well enough at that point, making the film a commercial success.
But the sequel was a different story.
By then, audiences already knew what Captain Marvel was capable of.
So they wanted spectacle, deeper conflicts, and a character arc that matched the immense power she'd displayed in Endgame.
Instead, what audiences got was a film bogged down by heavy-handed politics and uninspired action sequences, all wrapped in an oddly silly, musical-show tone.
Jihoon could see where they were coming from, because at that point in time, Disney had already acquired Marvel, and knowing Disney, Jihoon knew that the targeted audience had shifted from the actual Marvel fanbase to a family-friendly spectrum.
The disconnect between what fans hoped for and what the film delivered was too wide to ignore.
That's why what should have been a triumphant continuation turned into one of the MCU's most glaring disappointments.
And for Jihoon, the lesson was clear: success in cinema wasn't about who spent the most, but who planned the smartest.
Low-budget horror might never reach a billion dollars in sales, but it didn't need to.
By combining steady profitability with strong storytelling, he could build something that even the giants would one day envy—a cinematic universe with longevity.
Back in the office, however, that grand vision was interrupted by the sound of Mara's voice.
She was practically glowing, her eyes sparkling as if they were already made of dollar signs.
Being Mara, her mouth often moved faster than her brain could keep up, and before Jihoon could even set the report down, she blurted out the question burning in her mind.
"So… how much can we earn this time?"
Jihoon leaned back in his chair, thinking it over for a moment. "According to Fox's estimates, Get Out could ultimately gross around $150 million globally."
"With my 2% scriptwriting fee and JH Pictures' 43% stake in the HCU, that would put our profit at over $40 million."
He scratched his chin, then added with a small smile, "And that's just from the theatrical release."
"Because the real beauty of films is that they keep earning even after their box office run—through DVD sales, streaming rights, and TV broadcasts."
"So every year, JH Pictures would still continue receiving dividends from this sole project."
He knew well that films weren't one-time products.
Even after their global theatrical cycle ended, the revenue streams never completely dried up.
DVDs, online platforms, television syndication—each one added another steady trickle of income.
That was why even something as disappointing as 'Captain Marvel 2' couldn't be called a total loss; it still made money eventually.
The problem was the timeline.
For big-budget blockbusters, recouping investments could take years—sometimes even a decade—before real profit was seen.
Marvel could survive only because Disney's deep pockets buffered the blows.
If not for that, the MCU might have already collapsed under its own excess.
'CAPTAIN MARVEL' was only the beginning of their losing streak, and more titles are lining up with the same issues—'CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD' was to among them.
The problems are familiar: scripts that fail to capture interest, CGI that doesn't impress, and above all, production budgets that have ballooned to unsustainable levels.
Once the costs rise beyond a certain point, every project carries an overwhelming risk.
And that kind of risk wasn't really acceptable to the production team and its investors.
Jihoon, on the other hand, played a different game.
His low-budget, high-ROI films were practically guaranteed to return profit quickly, and after the theatrical run, they still enjoyed long tails of income.
It was a business model built for speed and stability.
Mara, meanwhile, nearly fell out of her chair. "Forty million!? And according to the company's profit-sharing system, the team gets ten percent of revenue, right?!"
The imaginary slot machines in her eyes were already spinning wildly, like a casino game trying to match three glowing dollar signs for a jackpot.
Jihoon laughed. "Haha! Yeah. Maybe you should start looking for a good real estate agent now."
"YEAH!!! I'm gonna be a rich lady soon!!!" Mara jumped up in pure excitement, her whole body bouncing like she was celebrating a lottery win.
The two flesh in front of her was also bouncing in delight, the two round C-grade melons going up and down in front of Jihoon's eyes, making his face instantly blush like he was in a sauna.
Noticing his flushed face, Mara suddenly froze, her excitement shifting into genuine concern.
She leaned forward quickly, her words firing off like a machine gun but at a rate of gatling gun.
"Boss, are you okay? Are you sick? Do you need me to call a doctor? Should I get some water?!"
Her barrage of questions had nothing to do with noticing Jihoon's embarrassment.
To Mara, Jihoon wasn't just a boss—he was basically her own Warren Buffett, the Buffett that is treating her to a buffet in wall street style.
And the last thing she wanted was for something to happen to him. At least not before she became rich enough to enjoy her cut.
Just by the numbers Jihoon had casually mentioned, a ten-percent revenue share—excluding all the post-theatrical revenue streams—would already amount to at least four million dollars in bonuses for the LA team.
Considering that the JH LA branch had only about fifty employees on its roster, that meant the "pie of happiness" wasn't being divided among a massive crowd.
If it were split evenly, each staff member would be looking at a payout of around eighty thousand dollars.
To Mara, that was life-changing money, the kind of bonus that could pay off debts, buy a car, or even serve as the down payment for a small house.
Which is also why her sudden effection for Jihoon, cause she wasn't about to let fate mess up her chance at tasting that level of success.