Kristen popped the whole fried egg into her mouth and gave Cassius a thumbs-up. "This egg is actually really good."
Right then his phone buzzed. He picked it up. It was Kevin Feige, voice so loud even Kristen could hear it from across the table.
"Cass! You see the numbers yet? Holy shit!"
Cassius put the phone on speaker and kept eating. "Not yet. Just woke up."
"The Ancient One opened to a hundred and twenty million in North America, a hundred and sixty overseas. Two hundred and eighty million worldwide! You know what that means? Best Marvel solo origin opening after Iron Man. And we only had twenty-two percent of the screens. Per-theater average is almost double Doomsday Collapse."
Kristen pointed her fork at the bacon on his plate with big eyes. "Split that with me. We're celebrating."
Cassius sighed and slid her the bacon. She was turning into a total foodie lately. He'd been cooking nonstop just to keep up with her appetite.
Once she'd eaten it, he asked the phone, "What about Doomsday Collapse?"
"They did a hundred million," Kevin said after a short pause, tone mixed. "Forty-five domestic, fifty-five overseas. Honestly better than we expected, but next to us it looks like they got steamrolled."
"Warner's probably crying right now," Kristen muttered.
"They already are," Kevin said. "Word is Michael got dragged into an emergency meeting at headquarters this morning. Supposedly slammed the table. Their marketing budget went way over, and these numbers make the return look ugly."
Cassius opened his phone and checked the full breakdown. The Ancient One was steady in North America but exploded in Asia. China alone gave fifty million in the first week. Japan and Korea were number one in their markets too. Europe was softer but still solid.
Doomsday Collapse was the opposite. Flat in North America, but they'd dumped money into Europe, Latin America, and Australia. Dwayne's global name and the disaster-movie formula carried them to a hundred million.
Kristen scrolled through comments and read a few out loud. "People saying the magic effects look insane in IMAX. Already bought tickets."
"My grandma wants to see it. She thinks the bald sorceress's hand signs are badass."
"Came from the ice bucket challenge. Movie's actually good. Cassius has something."
"Doomsday Collapse was fine. Standard popcorn. Dwayne's still Dwayne. That's about it."
She looked up. "You don't seem that excited."
Cassius sipped his coffee. "Numbers are good, but Warner won't take this lying down."
"They can add more screens? We'll just match them."
"It's not just screens," Cassius said, shaking his head. "They opened to a hundred million. For a disaster movie that's actually decent. But they spent so much on marketing that this isn't enough to break even the way they need. Michael just took over and his first big project is getting crushed by Marvel. He can't afford to look weak."
Kristen thought about it. "So he's going to get reckless."
"Cornered animal," Cassius said.
Warner headquarters.
Michael stood in front of the projector. On screen were two bar graphs. Blue for The Ancient One stood tall. Red for Doomsday Collapse looked shorter.
"A hundred million opening weekend," he said, voice dangerously calm. "We spent a hundred and twenty million on marketing. Global push, early tours, block bookings, ticket subsidies, influencer campaigns. And this is what we got?"
He turned to the room. "Somebody tell me why."
Nobody spoke.
"Because Cassius poured a bucket of ice water on his head? Because Marvel did a cute little charity stunt?"
He laughed once, short and bitter. "Because audiences now think seeing The Ancient One counts as supporting ALS patients?"
He walked to the window and stared out at the L.A. skyline.
Sarah spoke carefully. "From a pure numbers standpoint we didn't lose that badly. The Ancient One has Marvel's built-in audience and Asia. We're a disaster movie. Different crowds—"
"I don't want to hear that," Michael cut her off. "The board sees the comparison. Same weekend. We got beat. That's a loss."
He came back to the table and leaned forward on his hands. "I want a reversal in week two. I don't care how."
Someone muttered, "Screens are already set."
"Theaters adjust based on actual attendance," Michael said. "The Ancient One is moving up to twenty-eight percent. We're dropping to thirty. The gap is small now."
"So we make the attendance numbers look better," he continued, voice low.
The room went quiet.
"You mean—" Sarah started, face paling.
"Ghost screenings," Michael said. "Seat blocking. Review manipulation. Do I need to spell it out?"
"But the risk if this leaks—"
"Then don't let it leak," Michael snapped. "Spread the buys. Different accounts. Different IPs. Focus on overseas markets, especially Europe and Latin America. Make week-two attendance look strong and the theaters will give us more screens."
He looked at the data team. "On the review side—IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic—push the narrative that The Ancient One is confusing, too Eastern, too abstract. Disaster movies are simple. Explosions. Heroes. That's what people want."
"Budget for that—" the finance guy started.
"Take it from the rest of the marketing spend," Michael said flatly. "We're not saving money right now. We're saving the project."
After the meeting he kept Sarah behind.
"One more thing," he said quietly. "Find me a hacker."
Sarah froze. "A hacker? For what?"
"Dig up some dirt on Cassius. Something we can leak."
She looked sick. "That's illegal. If it traces back—"
"It won't trace back to us. Let the hacker post it themselves. We just need the story out there. People don't need proof. They need something to talk about."
He patted her shoulder. "Get it done. We're out of moves."
That night Kevin called Cassius.
"Second-week presales look weird," Kevin said. "Especially in France, Germany, Brazil. Doomsday Collapse is seeing huge blocks of tickets for morning and late-night shows, but social buzz isn't matching."
Cassius frowned. "Seat blocking?"
"That's what it looks like. We also noticed The Ancient One picked up a few hundred sudden one-star reviews on IMDb overnight. New accounts. Same language about it being confusing or too Eastern."
"Can we push back?"
"We're already talking to the platforms about cleaning fake reviews," Kevin said. "But it takes time."
Later that night the data team confirmed it. Multiple overseas cities showed sold-out shows with almost no actual foot traffic. Classic ghost screening play.
Kevin stood in front of the big screen. "It's confirmed. They're faking attendance to protect their screen counts."
Someone in the room asked if they should do the same.
"No," Kevin said immediately. "That kind of thing blows up in your face. We don't need it."
Cassius looked at the social data on his tablet. The Ancient One's score had dipped a little from review bombing. Normal audiences were starting to hesitate.
"So we expose them," he said.
Kevin looked uncomfortable. Even if they had proof, going public carried risks.
That evening Cassius went live from his home office. Simple gray hoodie, bookshelves behind him. He'd only posted ten minutes earlier.
The stream jumped to fifty thousand viewers fast.
He answered questions casually, like he was just talking to friends.
People asked about the movie feeling confusing. He explained that some cultural stuff needed a little patience, same way he didn't get Lord of the Rings the first time.
Someone asked if the hand signs were real. He showed one and explained what it meant in the story.
When people brought up the sudden bad reviews and Doomsday Collapse suddenly climbing, he stayed measured.
"Box office is a marathon," he said. "Some movies sprint at the start. Others pick up speed in the middle. We'll see who's still standing at the end."
He kept it light but clear. People in the comments started shifting. A lot of them said he sounded real, not like he was reading PR lines.
Right after he ended the stream, Kevin called again.
"We submitted everything," Kevin said. "Written statements from theater managers in three countries plus our data analysis. Sent to the MPAA and regulators this afternoon."
"Any movement?"
"AMC and Regal just paused any screen adjustments for Doomsday Collapse pending review. German media already has the story. Warner's stock dropped three percent after hours."
Cassius turned on the TV. CNBC was already talking about it. Warner stock sliding on allegations of inflated box office data.
Warner put out a statement full of corporate nothing: they took the concerns seriously and were reviewing internally.
Cassius wasn't worried. The evidence was out there now. The machine was moving.
Kristen came out of the bathroom in one of his old T-shirts and shorts, towel-drying her hair.
"You saw the news?" she asked.
"Yeah."
She sat next to him and changed the channel to entertainment news. The anchor was outside Warner's building talking about the investigation.
"Michael's probably done," she said.
Cassius nodded. "He'll try to throw the team under the bus. Protect himself."
His phone buzzed again. Kevin.
"Warner just responded," Kevin said. "Vague corporate speak. They're launching an internal audit and blaming any mistakes on the marketing team."
"Classic," Cassius said.
"Stay off social for a bit if you can. They'll probably try to spin this as Marvel attacking them."
"I know."
He hung up and leaned back on the couch. Kristen was still watching the screen.
The game was dirty now. But the truth was out. And in Hollywood, once the numbers and the evidence started talking, it was hard to shut them up again.