August 22nd.
The air at the 20th Century Fox headquarters didn't feel like a movie premiere. It felt like a funeral. Or maybe the nervous quiet of a hospital waiting room.
Zane and Victor arrived a full half-hour early, soaking in the atmosphere. Everyone they saw—executives in expensive suits, assistants scurrying with clipboards—looked pale and haunted.
"Boss," Victor whispered, his voice full of a kind of morbid awe as they took their seats in the private theater. "They're really in trouble. The scuttlebutt is true. The production cost alone is over 200 million dollars."
Zane let out a low, almost silent laugh. "Two hundred million on the production," he murmured back, "and at least another hundred million just to promote it. Three hundred million, Victor. Even for the Big Six, that's not a 'gamble.' That's a 'bet-the-company' moment."
His analyst brain was already crunching the numbers. Waterworld had almost sunk Universal at $170 million. This was so far beyond that, it was almost absurd. This one film had a budget that could crush a studio, and Fox had gotten so scared they'd forced Paramount to get in the sinking boat with them.
Zane knew the stories. He knew the president of Paramount was having night terrors, regretting the "small" $20 million investment that had ballooned into nearly $100 million as the production spiraled. He knew the Fox executives were probably drinking heavily, wondering how director James Cameron's promise of a $110 million movie had turned into this... this monster.
And at the center of it all was Cameron. A notorious, brilliant, money-guzzling tyrant. A man who had to voluntarily give up his own $5 million fee just to keep the cameras rolling.
"Boss, did you see the news a few days ago?" Victor asked, his eyes scanning the room.
"You mean the razor blade?" Zane said, a small, genuine smile playing on his lips. "Yeah, I saw it."
It was a hell of a story. Cameron, at a press conference, hounded by reporters already calling the film the biggest disaster in history. He'd apparently pulled out a razor blade, filmed it, and told them that if the movie flopped, he wouldn't need them to hold him accountable. He'd "deal with the consequences himself."
Zane had to respect the sheer, insane theatricality of it.
It wasn't long before the man himself, James Cameron, walked in, looking like a ghost haunting his own execution. He spotted Zane and forced a smile.
"Hi, Mr. Blackwood, Mr. Jones. Welcome." He'd met Zane at a reception once.
"Cameron," Zane said, standing to shake his hand. The man's grip was firm, but his hand was cold. "You don't look great."
A dry, harsh laugh escaped Cameron's lips. "Oh? Not good? You know the reason, my friend. The whole of Hollywood is sharpening their knives, just waiting to see me fail."
He was dressed well, but his eyes were sunken, dark pits in a face that was thin and haggard. He looked like he hadn't slept in a year.
"It's okay," Zane said, his voice suddenly firm, cutting through the self-pity.
Cameron looked up, surprised by the sudden change in tone.
"They want to see you fail," Zane said, looking him dead in the eye. "So let them. I think you won't fail this time. In fact..." He leaned in, a conspirator's glint in his eye. "Maybe the box office will exceed a billion dollars. How's that for slapping them in the face?"
Cameron just... stared.
"A... a billion?" he stammered. "Man, what did you say?"
Even Victor looked at his boss, dumbfounded. Boss, I know we're supposed to be supportive, but you don't have to just make things up. A billion?
Cameron himself was clearly, utterly shocked. Zane knew that, in his heart of hearts, the director was just praying to hit $600 million so he could keep his house and not have to go back to being a truck driver.
A billion, Zane thought, suppressing a smile. If only you knew.
He knew why the ship would work. It wasn't just a movie; it was a phenomenon. It had a release schedule clear of any real competition for months. It would win the box office champion for more than ten weeks straight, breaking records in every single country it touched.
It wasn't just a film. It was a cultural juggernaut.
...
Soon, the lights went down. The film began.
For three solid hours, the theater was silent. When the lights came back up, Zane could see theater representatives and film critics, men who had come in with their arms crossed, surreptitiously wiping their eyes. They had to admire it. The craft, the scale, the sheer audacity... it was magnificent.
But...
"The film is incredible, Jim, truly," the AMC theater representative said, his face full of professional sympathy. "But it's three hours long. It's a bladder-buster. The audience will get drowsy."
The guy from Regal Cinemas nodded, looking even more pained. "And a long runtime kills our daily ticket sales. The time for one screening of Titanic is enough for me to show two screenings of something else. From a purely business perspective, the benefits just... aren't there. Plus, let's be honest, all the big water-themed movies have bombed. It's a cursed genre."
Waterworld. Hook. He was right. They all flopped.
Another critic chimed in, "And the ending... it's not the happy, celebratory, all-American ending people want. It's a downer."
One by one, the theater reps and the critics gave their verdict: "We're not optimistic." "We can show it, but we'll need to discuss a reduced number of screens." "We just don't see the box office."
The blood drained from the faces of the Fox and Paramount executives. Cameron looked like he'd been physically struck. All that work. All that money. And the people who actually put the movie in theaters were telling him, "No thanks."
They all felt the hurt, a crushing, public humiliation.
Zane, however, was trying very, very hard not to laugh. He leaned over, his voice a barely audible whisper in Victor's ear.
"They're short on funds, right?"
"Desperately," Victor whispered back.
"Good. Later, go find the guy from Paramount. Tell him Wald Pictures is willing to contribute to the promotional fund... or maybe even participate in a joint distribution deal."
Victor's head snapped around, his eyes wide with confusion. "Huh?"
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