As Aiden was busy contacting Omar and trying to get him to invest in [30 days of Happiness], his fan group, which had slowly increased in numbers, was pretty bored.
They were getting nothing new from Aiden for a few weeks. There was no announcement for any new movie or even a hit.
There was nothing about a new song either.
In his fan group, Aiden was very well known as a workaholic who would move from one thing to another, not taking a lot of breaks, but now, it seemed like nothing new was going to come from him for a short time.
His fan group treated it as a break for Aiden as, since the start of the year, many things happened, and his popularity was never so high.
[Skyneves: How's everyone? My job is becoming stressful these days because I'm not getting time for myself. I never thought being an adult would be so hard with all the bills and pressure.]
[Aiden's wife: It's harder to go through the day because my watchlist ended. I don't even get a good novel to read these days and feel like Aiden is on vacation.]
[April on Roof: If you want a good novel, there's a mmorpg about a guy becoming a monster that you can try.]
[Young Fruit smiley: @Aiden's wife, I don't think he's a break. He's still doing shows. Just not putting out new content. Though, I'm pretty sure he will be in a few movies from now on.]
[Swagrid: Yeah, after [Black Saints], he should really try to get himself in a few movies. Just for the visibility, it will give him. Although I want another song as I think he's a way better singer.]
[Cliche Harem protagonist: I don't think we can expect him to do something new every other month. It takes a hell lot to pump out new creative things, especially if it's something like composing songs. It's better if he just gets another role. I don't mind him doing something like Kai again.]
[Broke Island owner: Doesn't someone know what he's doing next?]
As a member of the fan group texted, everyone realised that Hollywood Insider was nowhere to be seen for the past few days.
The user had already become a myth because he almost always knew Aiden's every next move. Sometimes, he would even predict how his career should go and what he should do next.
For the people in the fan group, he was already akin to Nostradamus or the octopus who had predicted the world cup.
Many in the group had predicted that he was surely Aiden's agent or someone from his team. Someone who works with him.
But these were only speculations as nothing can be confirmed about the man - Hollywood Insider.
[Hollywood Insider: Someone missing me?]
As soon as people started talking about him, Hollywood Insider, who was lurking, suddenly came out.
[Skyneves: Insider, do you have any idea about Aiden's next project?]
[Hollywood Insider: Yes, I do know a bit. Want to know?]
That sentence reeked of a smirk, but everyone in the group was too curious to ignore his tone.
[Moaning Frodo: Tell us.]
[Ed Siren: Is it a song? Please tell me it's a song.]
[Aryna Stan: Let him talk. He's typing something. I'm just hoping it's something big. There were rumours of Aiden getting a big-budget superhero movie.]
In the end, Hollywood Insider finally replied.
[Hollywood Insider: He's going to be the lead in a romantic comedy.]
A commotion started in the fan group seeing that.
***
In Aiden's apartment, four people were sitting on the couch, and he had put the script of [30 days of Happiness] on the small table in front of him.
It had been a week since Leo had broken off ties with Rodrigo, and after that, he had contacted a few other studios, and even Wade had called his connections, but nothing good had come out.
In the end, only Omar replied after reading through the script.
There was a tense atmosphere in the apartment, like a very important meeting was going on, and no one wanted to be the first to open their mouths.
"So, I read the script. It's a fascinating idea."
Omar finally opened his mouth, looking at the three people in front of him. Wade, Aiden and Leo nodded, hearing his words.
Seeing that everyone was paying attention to him, he continued.
"I think that the market these days has a very big hole of feel-good romantic comedies that you would often see in the early 2000s. There's just too many superheroes, fantasy, adventure, war and thriller movies these days, and a gap has emerged because of that."
"You feel like [30 days of Happiness] could fill that gap?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know about filling the gap, but it would be different in the current market. But for a movie like this to work, it needs to be different than what people had seen before."
Omar was strictly speaking in the business sense. However, he could sense the pulse of the audience going around currently.
In the next few months, there are going to be a lot of very serious themed movies being released, and sooner or later, people are going to get exhausted. Or they would just stop going to the theatre to watch a serious drama because there are already too many depressing things going on in the world.
Inflation, recession, a guy invading countries and another guy breaking the stock market on Sparrow.
In that case, no one would want to watch a serious, dramatic movie or even a bloody thriller in a theatre. They would either want something like a spectacle like a superhero movie or a light-hearted romance.
It was one of the reasons why Omar had liked [30 days of Happiness].
"[30 days of Happiness] isn't your ordinary rom-com. It has a lot of themes going for it." Leo said, his breath a bit rugged due to his nervousness.
"A lot will come down to execution, too," Omar said, smiling before asking. "Tell me, how are you going with the movie's release if I decide to invest in it? Do you have a plan? Any distributors?"
It was Wade who nodded his head this time.
"I don't think we should get any distributors currently. We won't get a good deal."
"So, you must have plans to get a good deal."
"We do have. We are going to target the film festivals."
Omar said, being curious, and Aiden replied with a confident tone.
After deciding to be a part of the project, he discussed with Leo the best way for [30 days of Happiness] to work at the box office.
In the end, they decided to go with sending the movie to film festivals. Sundance, Venice, Toronto, Cannes — There were a lot of famous film festivals in which movies would be shown, and a lot of distributors would also come there.
If a movie got a good response, it would be easy to get a distributor.
The best thing was that [30 days of Happiness] was not a complete artistic movie and had a lot of commercial elements, so it would be easy to get a lot of screens for it if they got a good deal from a distributor.
"Targeting the film festivals is a good strategy. Especially if the movie manager bags some awards. The script is good enough to do that. You are the only actor cast currently?"
Omar asked the last question looking at Aiden, who promptly nodded his head.
"Yeah, for now, it's only me."
"Your reputation is good enough in teens, so the movie gets a bit of a benefit from that, and the best part is the musical theme which is the soul of the movie. So we need to get it extremely on point.
He stressed the last part a lot. Everyone in the room understood the reason too.
"If the music gets popular, the movie gets a lot of publicity," Leo said, leaning on his seat.
"Yeah, and if it doesn't work, we could get Aiden to get stabbed again. I don't think the trick will stop working anytime soon."
Omar chuckled, and Aiden just glared at him. Then, they talked a bit more about the script, the marketing, the budget and casting.
In the end, Leo couldn't help but ask, looking at Omar.
"So, are you on board?"
Before Omar could reply, Aiden chipped in.
"He's already talking like he's a part of the movie. I'm pretty sure he already decided to invest in the movie."
His words surprised Omar, who couldn't help but chuckle, but in the end, he nodded.
"Yeah, I think the movie is interesting enough for me to be a part of it. I believe in the script, and you all have a good plan. I think this venture might work."
"Really?" Leo asked, just to be sure.
"Yeah, I actually prefer to reject it on the phone if I'm not interested in the movie. So, I had already decided to invest when I came here."
In his words, a surge of happiness overcame Leo, who took a sigh of relief. It was tough for him to sleep in the past week, and he had dreams in which a voice would tell him that his career in Hollywood was over.
But now that they finally found another investor, he could relax.
"Thank you. I won't disappoint you."
Those were the only words that Leo was able to say.
...
