Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

"We all know that one of the most anticipated superhero flicks this year is [Judgement]. It already made a lot of buzz around its teaser way back in July and every bit of news regarding it is highly positive. Are you taking it as a competition as both the movies are going to be released just a week apart?"

A blonde haired woman asked as she looked at Aiden who was sitting in front of him. A cameraman was standing on the side overseeing the whole interview with a few other people here and there. 

Wade and Tom were among them too. 

"I personally am very excited about [Judgement] too and I know there's going to be concerns since they release so close to each other but in the end, they are both very different movies. There's a chance that both won't affect each other."

"A lot of people are predicting that it's going to affect as people won't watch both the movies with high ticket prices and inflation." The blonde woman stated. "Do you really think that both movies would earn good?"

"I'm hoping they do. You can only keep a positive mindset and I believe that inflation and ticket prices are certainly things to ponder about but in the end, people are going to choose the better movie and that's completely fine."

Aiden replied as best as he could. 

[Judgment] was a superhero movie from Dream Light pictures that was made on a massive budget of 250 million dollars. It was touted out to be the biggest holiday release and starred popular A-lister John Strampton. 

From what he had seen in the trailers, the plot of it was fairly simple. It was the story of a normal delivery man finding himself in a secret vault of an Egyptian god and finding himself in the middle of a century old conflict between gods. 

The action scenes in it looked pretty great, so Aiden was expecting it to be a great movie for the families. 

"There were calls for [Agnas] to be released on a streaming platform instead in the theatres as biopics haven't been working in the recent times with a lot of them just failing badly. Do you think the genre is just following in the footsteps of romantic comedies?"

The female reporter asked again and Aiden smiled. 

"Won't we know when [Agnas] release?" He became a bit serious after that comment. "If I'm serious, then no. Biopics as a genre is vastly different from romantic comedies. There are war biopics, musical biographies and much more. It's much more diverse and I feel like people are always going to be interested in checking out stories of famous people."

Aiden explained. This was actually a question he had heard often in the media interviews he's doing. 

Hollywood had a habit of focusing on the trend too much and in some ways, it was a good thing to study the market. But it wasn't always the case. 

Even with recent flops of biopics at the box office, Aiden felt like [Agnas] could make a difference. 

"Thanks for your time."

"You too. Have a nice day."

At the end of the interview, Aiden shook hands with the blonde reporter and walked up to Wade and Tom. 

"So, what's next?"

"We have a meeting with the Zero International marketing team. So, we need to go there."

Wade said and Aiden noticed that Tom looked a bit worried. He was checking up his phone with a constant anxious look. 

"What happened, Tom?" Aiden asked and Tom frowned. 

"Nothing. Just checking up the online interest in [Judgment] and other movies. I feel like we are in a room with the walls moving closer to crush us. The walls are these movie releases."

"Well he's right." Wade remarked. "[Judgment] is a big worry. Originally, we would have released the movie in September but the release got moved, so we have no choice. There's family comedies like [Home means Chaos 4]. It's not a small franchise as all the sequels have gotten a lot of money at the box office. There's other small indie comedies too."

His voice and expressions were the same as Tom. With all these releases and a massive budget with marketing, it was going to be hard for the movie to come out on top. 

If it was a small budget movie, then Aiden would be calm as he knew that it doesn't need much to be a success.

The case was different with [Agnas]. 

'I still believe it will be received well.'

Aiden thought in his mind and put a hand on Wade's shoulder. 

"Don't worry too much. The initial critics viewing and internal viewing at Zero International was highly positive."

"Audience really doesn't care about it. We need to get audiences in the theatre, you know."

Wade said and Aiden just smiled. 

"I'm pretty sure the marketing team would have great ideas."

Only an hour after saying these words, Aiden regretted it. 

***

'They look like they are already crushed by the walls. No, they seem more like zombies.'

Aiden put a hand on his head and frowned. The whole office of the marketing team seemed depressed for some reason. 

It's like someone has sucked souls out of their bodies. 

Seeing Aiden coming through, a few people walked up to him. Leading them was a guy who looked like a middle school basketball coach. 

He was apparently the head of the marketing team. 

"What's going on here? Why are they so…"

"Low on confidence?"

"I was going to say dead but that works. What even happened?"

Aiden looked at the guy who bit his lips in frustration before opening his mouth. 

"It's mostly because our marketing campaign isn't going that good compared to [Judgment]. We don't have to worry about other movies as we have more interest from the public until they are extremely good but [Judgment] is coming out as a huge wall to climb through."

"Didn't we already give a lot of press interviews and promote it in every major city? [Judgment] is doing the same thing. I don't see anything special from them."

Wade asked and the guy smacked his lips again. 

"You can't compare it to a superhero movie. They don't even need promotions. Their fans are like the ghost under your bed constantly watching you. Every fucking movie is connected, so people watch it just to not miss out. It's extremely hard to compete with this formula."

Aiden thought back to Dream Light pictures streaming shows that aren't well made but as they are also connected, people still watch them just to not be left behind. 

If you don't watch one thing, you are anxious that you are missing out. 

"So, you called me here. You must have an idea."

Aiden said and the marketing head nodded, albeit slowly. A hesitation evident in his body language. 

"We were thinking of you doing shows as Agnas to promote the movie. Most young people have not heard him live or even his songs but you can emulate his performances. If you are okay with it, obviously."

The man said, wondering if he was asking too much. A few celebrities just didn't like promoting too much. 

But Aiden nodded. 

"Sounds nice actually." Aiden smiled thinking about it. He did something similar for [30 days of Happiness] too. "I feel like we would be able to pull it off."

"Really? It would be a lot of work though."

The man asked but Aiden shook his head. 

"No, it's fine. We need to promote it in a unique manner. Young people need to know what a real superstar is."

Aiden said and suddenly, an idea struck his mind. 

"How about if we take it a notch above?"

"What are you thinking?" Tom asked and Aiden composed the right words to explain his idea in his mind. 

"Well, I could act as Agnas on talk shows like there were few iconic talk shows episodes he appeared in. We could recreate that in modern day to promote the movie. How's it for an idea?"

"Ah, it's not bad. It's actually great."

The man's eyes shined as he heard the movie. 

"We would need to contact a few talk shows to ask about it from them. But I think it would be fine. Yeah, it's a good idea."

The last line seemed to be said to himself. Aiden didn't mind it and hoped that this marketing strategy would help them out. 

At that moment, an employee suddenly shouted. 

"Sir, there's a problem."

"What happened?" The marketing head turned towards him. 

Aiden and everyone else in the room did too. The employee who had stood up quickly replied, noticing the attention on him. 

"An interview has been out. Someone who knew Agnas from the past has given an interview regarding our movie and it doesn't look really good."

"What? Didn't we get all the permissions?"

"We did but it seems like a reporter thought that he would be able to get a great story out of it. I can't confirm anything but the article is slowly getting a lot of attention online."