Chapter 025: Promotional Push
Chapter 025: Promotional Push
“Yesterday, a shocking gambling agreement was signed at Columbia Pictures headquarters. The two parties involved in the bet are the recently rising genius youth Eric Williams, who gained fame through Jurassic Park and Back to 17, and the Columbia-TriStar film group.”
“It is reported that after completing filming for Back to 17, Eric Williams used his salary from the movie along with part of the advance royalties from Jurassic Park to independently write and direct a one-hundred-minute low-budget comedy titled Home Alone in only fifteen days.”
“Setting aside the quality of the film itself for now, the mere fact that Eric Williams managed to complete such an achievement at only eighteen years old fully justifies calling him a genius.”
“After several twists and turns, Home Alone ultimately received unanimous approval from Columbia executives. According to insiders, Columbia president Blount Cohen once offered ten million dollars to buy out all rights to Home Alone. However, Eric Williams rejected this tempting offer that could have made him the youngest multi-millionaire in Hollywood and instead proposed a gambling agreement that is both crazy and foolish.”
The article then went into detail regarding the contents of the gambling agreement before analyzing Eric’s chances of winning the wager.
The author was obviously an industry insider. He listed the box office data of numerous similar comedy films and, combined with the currently revealed information about Home Alone, pessimistically arrived at the conclusion that Eric Williams had more than an eighty percent chance of losing the wager.
Because Home Alone neither had actors with proven box office appeal nor belonged to the category of major investment blockbusters, comedies of this type generally only reached twenty to thirty million dollars at the box office even if they were of decent quality. Most earned only several million.
Therefore, the possibility of Home Alone surpassing fifty million dollars was very low.
Furthermore, the author ended the article with a conspiracy-style speculation, concluding that Columbia itself would not “allow” Home Alone’s box office to exceed fifty million dollars.
What did the public love discussing the most?
One type was geniuses so far above everyone else that jealousy disappeared entirely.
Another type was tragic heroes.
And the last type was conspiracy theories.
The Los Angeles Times article had, either openly or subtly, blended all three elements together.
Public excitement instantly exploded.
Originally, because of Fox’s early promotional campaign for Back to 17, the public had already developed an interest in Eric. This could clearly be seen from the steadily rising sales of Jurassic Park.
Now, Home Alone exploded like a bomb in public opinion, instantly pushing public interest in Eric to its highest point.
Public interest meant sales. It meant ratings.
Very quickly, Eric received more than a dozen interview invitations within just a few days.
Meanwhile, Jeff, whom he had not contacted for some time, suddenly called him to say that people had been asking about him at their restaurant.
Eric immediately sensed that paparazzi had already started paying attention to him.
At the same time, after the Los Angeles Times article was published, Fox and Columbia very tacitly began intensifying their promotional efforts for both Back to 17 and Home Alone simultaneously.
Although Fox distribution department head Carta Hunt regretted rejecting Eric’s Home Alone without even watching the film, his professionalism as a corporate executive quickly made him put those emotions aside.
After negotiating with Columbia executives, he revised the promotional plan for Back to 17.
The effect of two major studios pushing together was naturally obvious.
…
“Annie, how’s the situation? Can I go home yet?”
Hiding out in Aniston’s tiny apartment, Eric hurriedly asked as soon as he saw her walk through the door.
He had not returned home for an entire week.
Aniston shook her head and placed the convenience store bag in her hand onto the coffee table.
“I drove past your house and saw at least seven or eight paparazzi still camping nearby. Luckily they don’t know I’m driving your car. Otherwise they definitely would’ve followed me. It’s terrifying.”
Eric sighed at the utter madness of paparazzi.
Because of the aggressive promotion from the two major studios for both Home Alone and Back to 17, Eric had become a trending public figure across North America within only a single week.
Even newspapers across the Atlantic in Britain had begun publishing information about him.
After all, Eric had been an insider in the entertainment industry in his previous life. After receiving Jeff’s phone call and realizing the situation was going bad, he immediately hid himself inside Aniston’s apartment.
The two film companies were already doing enough publicity for his movies.
From this point onward, everything depended on the films’ actual quality.
So Eric simply could not be bothered going outside and giving paparazzi more material to work with.
Besides, who knew what kind of nonsense those reporters would end up writing.
Although Eric hid himself in time, he had still completely become a transparent person in the public eye.
Unable to interview him directly, the paparazzi dug through his entire life story from childhood onward.
British immigrant.
High school transcripts.
His experience working at Jeff’s Italian restaurant.
Aniston read everything with great interest and frequently commented on it.
Until several days later, a tabloid published a story involving a love triangle between him, genius child star Drew, and some unknown actress.
The writer had clearly obtained insider information from members of the Back to 17 production crew, so the story in the newspaper was vividly written as though the author had witnessed everything personally.
The article even made the extremely close-to-the-truth speculation that Drew Barrymore entered rehab because of Eric.
As a result of that article, the “unknown actress,” driven by jealousy, forced Eric to sleep on the sofa for two entire days.
…
Michael Krause had become unbelievably excited lately.
Because of the intense promotion by the two major studios for both films and for Eric himself, sales of Jurassic Park, which had already surpassed one hundred thousand weekly copies, skyrocketed once again.
During the second week of November, Jurassic Park finally reached first place on the New York Times North American bestseller list with sales of 250,000 copies.
Judging from the current sales trend, breaking one million copies before the end of the year would not be a problem at all.
After repeatedly failing to reach Eric through calls to his home, Michael Krause finally learned Eric’s whereabouts through Penny Marshall and directly showed up at Aniston’s apartment.
“Hey, Michael, how did you find this place?” Eric asked curiously as he let Michael Krause into the apartment.
“Don’t even mention it. If I still couldn’t find you, I was about to call the police. Hiding here like this…”
Michael Krause was about to continue when he noticed Aniston walking out of the bedroom wearing a light nightgown. He immediately stopped speaking in surprise.
“Michael, this is my girlfriend, Jennifer Aniston. Annie, this is Mr. Michael Krause, the manager from my publishing house.”
Michael and Aniston greeted each other briefly before Aniston casually headed toward the bathroom.
“Hey, Eric, is this that little actress? Honestly, I still prefer Drew more. She was just too adorable in E.T..”
The moment Aniston disappeared from sight, Michael could not help gossiping.
Eric poured Michael a cup of coffee and lowered his voice as well.
“Michael, if you want Annie to throw you out, then keep talking about this topic. Even I don’t dare mention Drew’s name right now.”
Michael Krause could clearly tell Eric was not joking and decisively changed the subject.
“So here’s the thing, Eric. Jurassic Park is selling so well right now. Don’t you think you should strike while the iron is hot and write a sequel?”
Eric immediately shook his head.
He already had the film rights to Jurassic Park in hand.
Although they had been used as collateral with the two firms overseeing the gambling agreement, he was not worried.
At the same time, he had no intention of wasting more time writing some sequel.
“The novel is already a complete story. I don’t think there’s anything left to write, Michael.”
Michael Krause was not discouraged and continued, “Then do you have any other works right now?”
Eric shook his head again.
He had been so busy recently that he practically could not tell day from night. After finally completing Home Alone and signing the gambling agreement with Columbia, Eric had directly given himself a vacation.
Besides, he would not even be able to rest for many more days.
One week before the movie’s release, Eric would once again have to follow the production team around nonstop to promote the films.
Fortunately, the two companies had already reached a cooperative agreement, and the schedules for the promotional tours were mostly synchronized.
Otherwise, Eric felt like he would need to split himself into two halves—one stationed on the East Coast and the other on the West Coast.