"Join Celestial Peak?"
Karina paused for two seconds, her eyes wide with shock, before she began to nod frantically. "Really? Working with you would be... it would be a dream come true!"
"Don't worry, there's no rush," Leo Vance said with a calm smile. "Take your time to think it over. I'll give you the direct number for our Influencer and Talent Department manager. Just tell him I sent you, and he'll walk you through the contract."
Leo handed her a business card. Karina, a statuesque woman standing nearly six feet three skipped away with the card held to her chest like a little girl who had just won the lottery.
Leo didn't expect the very next visitor to his booth to be another high-tier cosplayer.
"Hello, Gojo," the girl whispered confidently. She was the one cosplaying Miwa Kasumi, known in the community as Heno Hana. "I'm a huge fan. I currently have over 500,000 followers on TikTok. I... well, I overheard your conversation with Karina. I'd love to join Celestial Peak too. Do you think I have what it takes?"
Leo was momentarily stunned. "No way. Since when did a fan signing turn into a recruitment drive?"
However, as he looked at Heno Hana, he had to admit her Miwa cosplay was flawless. He quickly scanned her with the System and found that her "Influencer Potential" was S-rank. She was a diamond in the rough waiting to be polished.
Leo handed her a card as well. "Call the same number. We're looking for people who can bring these characters to life."
"Yes!" Heno Hana cheered, racing off to join Karina, her future colleague.
The rest of the Expo passed in a blur of autographs and fan interactions. Leo found the convention culture fascinating. At one point, he saw two male students, one cosplaying Toji Fushiguro and the other Megumi Fushiguro embracing each other. One was shouting "Son!" while the other replied "Dad!" in a display of "filial piety" that had the surrounding crowd in stitches.
As the Expo concluded, Leo treated the dozen celebrities who had come to help Maya West, Della Rose, Robert Sterling, and the others, to a lavish dinner at a nearby Burbank hotel. It served as a perfect bonding session for the JJK crew before the next big push.
A few days later, following a brief commencement ceremony, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 officially began filming in late April. Leo set a high bar: he expected to wrap production before July.
The announcement of the movie caused an immediate firestorm online. Hidden Inventory had only been out for two months. To start another theatrical film so quickly was unheard of in the industry, where a single blockbuster usually took years to develop.
However, the crew members who worked under Leo revealed his secret. Most of his scenes were shot in one take. Under his intense training and the "Aura" he projected, actors rarely flubbed their lines. This led to a new nickname for Leo across the internet: "The One-Take Man."
While the world prepared for JJK 0, the final numbers for Hidden Inventory's global run arrived.
Leo bypassed the company firewalls to check the international trends. "Gojo Satoru" was dominating the search terms on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok across every continent. He had inadvertently become a global icon.
Then, his sister Lauren brought him the official report.
"Leo... Hidden Inventory has been out for forty days. As of this morning, the total global box office has reached $2.5 Billion USD."
Leo leaned back in his chair, a silent monologue running through his mind. In his previous life, The Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame had dominated the global market. In this world, the "Superhero" blockbusters were being cut in half by the sheer momentum of JJK.
"$2.5 Billion," Leo thought, his eyes narrowing as he recalled the records of his old world. "In my memory, only 'Avatar' at $2.9 Billion and ' Avengers: Endgame' at $2.8 Billion stood higher. And those films took years to reach those heights. We did this in forty days."
The Global Film Real-time Agency officially ranked Hidden Inventory as the 3rd highest-grossing film in world history.
Critics were calling it an epoch-making shift. The Global Film Review Bureau published a lead article: "JUJUTSU KAISEN is the moment the new era of streaming media surpassed the old-guard Hollywood establishment. We are now in the Vance Era."
The success wasn't limited to the box office. Lauren reported the metrics for the Celestial Peak Global App:
New Subscribers: 110 Million in one month.
Total Revenue: $5 Billion USD.
Market Standing: Celestial Peak had become the second-largest streaming service in the world, trailing only the established giant, Netflix.
According to his original "Gambling Agreement" with the distributors, Leo was entitled to 90% of the net profit. Between the TV series royalties and the movie box office, Leo Vance had personally earned over 2 Billion in a single quarter.
In his world, the cost of special effects for a film like Avatar was over $150 Million. But Leo had the System. His VFX were essentially free, turning his profit margins into something that would make a Wall Street banker faint.
In just two days, the news of the 2.5 Billion Dollars box office hit the domestic headlines. The entertainment industry didn't just notice, it shook to its core. The "newcomer" director wasn't just a rising star anymore.
Leo Vance was now the king of the world.
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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