The system panel dropped the nuke on a random Tuesday morning.
[New System Funds approved: $150,000,000 transferred to SkyHigh Pictures]
[Personal Cash: $11,184470 + last cycle leftovers ≈ $12.3M]
[Next settlement: 180 days]
[Note: Congratulations on crossing ten figures in cumulative revenue. Film division unlocked. Budget scaled accordingly. Try not to have too much fun.]
Peyton stared at the one-hundred-and-fifty million until his eyes watered.
*One hundred and fifty million dollars.
For a single movie.
That's not a budget. That's the ransom demand for a small European country.*
He slammed the laptop shut so hard the entire office went quiet.
Thirty-six heads swiveled toward him like meerkats sensing a predator.
"Emergency all-hands," he croaked. "Now."
They gathered around the ping-pong table shrine. Someone had added a tiny plastic panda wearing a noose made of red tape. Peyton didn't ask.
"New project," he said, voice hollow. "We're making a feature film. Full theatrical. Budget one-five-zero million. And we're going to make the most expensive, pretentious, audience-repelling disaster in Hollywood history."
Dead silence for three full seconds.
Then Dylan whisper-screamed, "We're making a MOVIE?!"
Cody started hyperventilating. "I can I code the clapperboard?"
Ashley actually teared up. "I've waited my whole life to write a 40-minute monologue about the futility of balloon animals."
Peyton raised a hand. "Rules. Listen carefully, because I'm only saying this once."
He wrote on the whiteboard in huge red letters:
NO COLOR
NO MUSIC
NO HOPE
NO REFUNDS
The film would be called **Tomorrow's Star**.
Logline he delivered like a death sentence:
"A terminally ill children's birthday clown discovers he has six months to live and decides to spend them teaching inner-city kids that joy is an illusion, dreams are lies, and balloon animals are just rubber reminders of mortality."
He watched their faces cycle through confusion → horror → pure, unadulterated awe.
*Perfect. They think I'm a genius. This is how it always starts.*
Budget breakdown (designed to make studio execs spontaneously combust):
- $28M – Shoot entirely in black-and-white on real 70mm film stock that expired in 1987 "for texture."
- $22M – Hire Jean-Paul LeFarge, the French director whose last movie was six hours of a man buttering toast and somehow won Cannes.
- $15M – Lead actor: actual New York party clown "Joey Balloons" Moretti. Zero acting experience, thick Brooklyn accent, real tears guaranteed.
- $18M – Build a single set: one gray room with one cracked wall and one folding chair.
- $12M – 23-minute unbroken take of Joey staring at that wall.
- $9M – Hire homeless extras for "authenticity." Pay them in sandwiches and SAG minimum.
- $40M – Marketing: 5,000 billboards nationwide that say only "Tomorrow's Star" in 10-point gray font on black. No images. No date. Nothing.
The remaining $6M went to "miscellaneous despair."
Filming started in August.
Day 1: Joey walked on set, looked at the gray wall, and asked, "So where's the kids and the cake?"
LeFarge screamed "ACTION!" and Joey froze.
They kept it.
Day 4: the fly landed on Joey's nose during the wall scene. LeFarge sobbed, "C'est parfait! The fly is God!"
Week three: Joey's real dog died. He cried for real. LeFarge printed it and declared it "the soul of cinema."
Peyton watched dailies every night and laughed until his ribs hurt.
*This is it. This is the one. No one will sit through two hours and forty-seven minutes of this. We're talking negative ticket sales.*
Test screenings were apocalyptic.
- Pasadena: 63% walkout rate by minute 38. One woman screamed "My childhood is dead!"
- Santa Monica: a film critic threw his notepad at the screen during the wall scene.
- Internal team screening: Cody fell asleep, drooled on the desk, woke up, whispered "I feel cleansed," and went back to sleep.
Peyton took notes titled "Success Metrics."
Release plan:
- October 31, 2010 – Halloween weekend (because nothing says family fun like existential dread).
- 38 theaters nationwide. All arthouse venues with velvet seats and overpriced wine.
- Zero trailers. Zero posters with faces. Just the gray billboard.
- Press junket: one photocopied sheet that says "A film."
Opening Friday numbers:
38 theaters
41 tickets sold
Box office: $41,337
(Yes, three people bought tickets twice just to hate-watch it again.)
Peyton threw a private party with $12 champagne and cried happy tears.
*Thirty-eight theaters. Forty-one tickets.
This is the most beautiful failure of my life.*
Then Sunday night rolled around.
Old Joe uploaded at 11:59 p.m.
**"I Paid $18 to Sit in an Empty Theater and Watch the Worst/Best Movie Ever Made – Tomorrow's Star (Full 167-Minute Silent Reaction)"**
He live-streamed the entire film from the only theater in Seattle still showing it—at 2 a.m., completely alone.
No commentary for the first 23-minute wall scene. Just Old Joe staring back in perfect silence while chat spammed crying-laughing emojis and "blink if you're dead inside."
At minute 19, when Joey's single tear fell, Old Joe's tear fell in sync.
The clip hit 100 million views in 18 hours.
By Monday:
- A24 begging for distribution rights
- Cannes emergency invitation for "Un Certain Regard – Special Midnight Screening"
- #WallStareChallenge trending #1 worldwide
- College kids filming themselves staring at walls in libraries, grocery stores, job interviews
- TikTok: "POV: you just watched Tomorrow's Star and realized life is meaningless" sound hits 10M uses
Actual box office after viral resurrection:
Opening weekend real numbers: $214 million domestic
Global: $842 million and climbing
Critics: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes ("A masterpiece of anti-cinema" – The New Yorker)
Settlement day arrived like God personally kicking him in the teeth.
[Tomorrow's Star – Worldwide gross: $1,942,447,003]
[SkyHigh Pictures profit: $1,389,221,447]
[Personal conversion (100:1): $13,892,214]
[Money you will never touch: $1,375,329,233]
Peyton sat in the back row of the Chinese Theatre at a 10 a.m. screening, the only person in the entire building, watching Joey whisper "Why are we even here?" on the biggest screen in Hollywood.
He was now personally worth twenty-six million dollars.
The company had crossed twelve billion in total revenue.
And Jean-Paul LeFarge was on the cover of Variety calling it "the death and rebirth of cinema."
Peyton requested new funds.
Five hundred million this time.
The universe didn't even bother hiding its laughter anymore.
To be continued…