My Hollywood System - Chapter 208:

Will and Jeffery were in a discussion about [Catch Me If You Can] in his office.

“The movie would easily recover its budget, and we would again have a great profit,” Jeffrey said thinking about how the movie would earn a lot in the upcoming days and the many more days to come.

“I expected this, and to be honest the marketing plan attracted more of the fans, and then everything else just flowed smoothly,” Will said.

“Yeah, I heard that Leo and Alan are already getting calls and so much exposure. Leo talked to me in the morning, and he wouldn’t stop talking about the reaction he got from the public. It was wholesome,” Jeffrey said with a smile on his lips.

“That was expected, and the motion of thinking he was a one time wonder should finally go away with time. I hope he makes the right choices. With that, Leo can actually go up and above in the industry,” Will said with the thought considering what people had talked about him before.

“Yeah, he is talented indeed….”

The conversation kept continuing and they talked about the movie, and everything else related to it.

“…And, does it mean that you’d not attend the success party of the movie again?”

“Yeah, I’d let Alan and Leo get the spotlight. They deserve it,” Will said and shifted the topic by saying, “I don’t have time for parties anyway. Two huge projects need attention for the next two months… [Spiderman] release and the Oscars.”

[Spiderman] was currently under the supervision of the VFX department as they were going through major edits of the movie and whatnot related to it. The time at which they had predicted its release was the same time as the Oscars.

With everything that was supposed to happen during the time span of months, there was another event that could possibly have the chance to happen, which was the release of [Hitch]. But Foxstar did not want it to release a month after [Catch Me If You Can]’s release. The decision was confirmed especially considering how good the reviews came out in [Catch Me If You Can]. Foxstar didn’t want to create competitions that didn’t exist.

And another reason was that Foxstar felt as if both movies being from Dream Vision might affect the box office numbers of [Hitch] instead of [Catch Me If You Can]. Due to that, the release of the movie was postponed even after [Spiderman].

During the meeting when they were discussing the movies, release dates and the plan to postpone the movie release, Will had mentioned to Foxstar that since both the movies have different genres and with [Hitch] being a full-fledged rom-com movie, it would be alright and won’t harm the numbers as they assumed. Yet, they didn’t want to take a risk. Due to that, [Hitch] was postponed till later.

“You might actually win your first Oscar this year,” Jeffrey told Will.

Will’s lips curled up listening to his words, “Rather than me, you have better chances with the nominations,”

The nominations were announced last week.

[1917] was nominated for seven categories. Among the seven, it had been nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay alongside Best Cinematographer for Jeffrey. Also, Lucas Amspoker had been nominated for the Best Director Award. And Will was nominated for the Best Screenplay as [1917] was written by him.

Jeffrey was nominated for the Best Cinematographer Award and Will was confident that he’d win. As for the Best Picture, the chances were low as the Best Picture award was mostly given to the movie whose producers had good connections with the Jury of the Oscars.

Will thought that regardless of the world, corruption still existed. In the Oscars, the connections with the Jury changing the actual results still existed in this world. Which was mostly why in Will’s world the Oscars were almost irrelevant later on.

But in this world, considering people still looked upon the Oscars, it was important that Jeffrey gets the award he deserves.

“Well, it’s just so so,” Jeffrey said.

“Well, I’m pretty sure you’d get an award. Since every other award show gave you the award, now Oscars won’t look beyond you,” Will mentioned as a matter of fact.

During the past two-three months, the award shows have also happened but Will and Jeffery haven’t attended as they were busy with the [Shooting] of Spiderman.

During the time, Jeffery had mentioned to Will that he wanted to attend but Will had told him that he should focus on work because, in the end, Will was sure that Jeffrey would receive an Oscar award.

The reason for Will’s confidence that Jeffrey will get an Award was because he knew that the technical categories generally did not have a lot of politics and corruption. It was proved when Will had checked about the previous awards and the winners. Moreover, both the Dream Vision and Foxstar pushed [1917] to get an Oscar, no matter in which category.

For the movie’s success, it was nominated for several awards, but Will’s focus was on the Cinematography Award considering how unique it had been in the movie itself. Jeffrey in fact had nailed his skills in [1917].

“Yeah but I think you have the chance of getting the award for Best Screenplay,” Jeffrey said, turning the topic back to Will.

“I just don’t care about it a lot, but if I’m eligible for the award, I’d happily take it in,” Will said and changed the subject. “The Super Bowl is today by the way.”

Jeffery nodded with his eyes raised. “Yeah, today is the big day. You have worked very hard in the editing process and the VFX itself looked great. I hope the people like it, considering I personally loved it a lot,” He said.

Back with a nod, Will said, “Yeah, they will.”

***

Tommy: And the words were?

Dave Smith: And the words were, and Victor Fountain is sacked. And he didn’t say that. And you can hear him say Victor Fountain and he’s about to say it and waiting basically for Manning to go down.

Donald Pickerel: pressure from Jason off the end. Victor Fountain stays on his feet-

Dave Smith: And there’s just that little bit of hesitation. But he can see that it was going to happen and yet, somehow or another, like, you know, a grape he just sort of squirted out of the pile, rolled to his right, found Kelley. Kelley jumps up, catches the ball up against his helmet, and makes the catch.

Buck: And Victor man I don’t know how he got out of there. I thought he was on the ground and then he came out of the pile and just slings it.

Dave Smith: And again they had just this absolutely beautiful poetic shot of this. And it was about, you know, again, its they didn’t it was a matter of taking the cameras-

Tommy: Well there were so many times when that could have gone wrong. When you think about Donald Pickerel almost saying something that would have had him the butt of jokes for years to come. But then you think about the camera too. They had absolutely every reason to sit back on their heels as they watched Manning go down. But instead, somebody was watching Kelley.

The voice of the commentators erupted around the stadium.

In the huge stadium, there were two male friends. The common thing both of them had was how burly their bodies were, and the tattoos that ran down their neck and their hands.

Both of them were fully focused on the game. They were excited and even shouting things from afar. Good grief they were supporting the same team, if not it would have been a wrestling match in the stands and football in the ground.

“Ah fuck!” “Shit!”

It was the half time, and more than half the stadium cussed inwardly considering how the game was getting heated.

As things settled,[Spiderman] teaser began to roll on the big screen. And instantly, all ears and eyes locked in it. This was the first time that people who came for the Super Bowl every year watched something like that in the middle of the game.

Far away, in the studio, everyone went silent for a brief moment when Stan Lee’s voice came over with a suspenseful piece of music in the background and the pictures which came over made everyone even more curious about the clip.

“A hero is special. All of us need one at some point in life, someone who could give us hope. Someone who makes us believe that one day things are going to be fine no matter how bad they seem at the moment. One day, it will all be fine and a hero gives that hope. But in the bigger picture, I see a hero in everyone. The one who does a good thing, not because of any reason but only because it should be done is a true hero. This is the story of such a hero.”

On the screen, is the scene of Peter chasing after the bus. Then, Uncle Ben talks to Peter about great powers, which changed the slides with a blacking out in the between.

Then a few seconds’ worth of clips of Peter meeting Norman Osborn, and Spiderman with his clothes jumping on top of buildings came up. It all happened within seconds, and in the end with the music changing dramatically, it revealed Spiderman which made people amazed!

“Is that Spiderman?! No way this is happening!”

“Did you see the end! Oh my God… I can’t believe I just saw that! Is this the first time?!”

“What the fucking hell?! When will the movie be out?! Oh, Lord…. Spiderman?!!!”

Everyone started talking about the teaser they had just seen. They all were astonished, surprised and positively horrific. That. was. A. first.

The two muscular guys, who were stunned by the teaser, looked face to face with their eyes raised.

“Goosebumps!” They both said in sync.