"Ms. Adler, your next appointment would be with Mr. Silvereye. Then, at night, you need to attend the party hosted by Zero International CEO."
"Okay."
In her office room, Ava's assistant was currently going through her schedule for the day. She was an average looking woman with dyed red hair.
Ava simply nodded hearing that but the assistant knew that she wasn't in a great mood.
The corners of her mouth were a bit stiff.
Ava didn't really like these parties. It was full of an old, cunning man talking about everything going on in Hollywood in a haughty manner. It wasn't a fun place for her.
But it was her life.
To change the subject, her assistant focused on something else.
"Ms. Alder, do you really think you should meet Mr. Silvereye? He's coming to talk about the distribution rights of his next movie. The studio doesn't really distribute indie movies."
She asked and Ava gave a small smile.
"I know but we don't have any slots for the next two months. [Stars on the Ground] was going to be released but we fell out. Anyway, we are in talks with more studios to get some movies out. Otherwise, we would need to release some movies from our backlog."
"You are not meeting others personally."
Ava didn't answer the question straightaway. Leaning a bit against her chair, she took time to think of an answer and smiled.
"He's special."
Her assistant didn't know in what sense Ava was telling this. Although she knew that the equation between the two of them was quite good and there was some sort of partnership going on, she didn't know the true nature of their relationship.
It made her mind form some strange scenarios in her head.
"You know what are the components that make a good actor?"
Suddenly, Ava spoke and the assistant blinked her eyes before replying.
"Good acting? Looks? charisma?"
"These things do count but one of the most important things is script sense. A good actor always chooses a good script and it's one of the hardest things to master as you would need to know what type of movie is more likely to succeed in the next two years. Obviously, you need to see your resources too."
Ava explained. A thing that was often said for mediocre projects was that the script was bad but the acting saved it. It also meant that the actors have not chosen that great of a script but have given their all.
"Are you saying that Mr. Silvereye has a great script sense."
"Yeah, even with limited resources, every script of his has made an impact. He managed to get a rom com to earn 100 million dollars in this age and his second project had him play an iconic character. He probably never had a choice in scripts yet he got great ones. He's both lucky and talented."
Ava didn't know about Aiden's skills. So, in her mind, it was all talent and luck.
One more thing that she didn't tell her assistant was the conversation she had with Aiden some months ago.
'I will support you to be the face of a franchise. So, prove that you are good enough to lead one with your projects.'
She wanted to know if [Action Hero] would be one such project that would help him prove his mettle.
"His talents warrant me meeting him personally."
With that, the conversation ended and the red haired assistant bowed her head and left her office.
As soon as the assistant walked out, she squinted her eyes and frowned.
'So, it's really a business meeting. I was hoping for something way more than that considering how chummy they were being. But well, I would actually be happy if she got together with Aiden. He's much better than that blonde idiot in that party last week who was hitting on everything that was moving. Anyway, I got something to update tonight.'
The red haired assistant's name was Zarya Cook. She ran a secret gossip Hollywood sub named 'Zenya'.
***
"Hey Aiden."
"Yeah?"
"You know the first time we met. You needed me to help you get Tyler Reed out of the movie so you can play a role. You remember how you called me, requesting a meeting."
"It didn't exactly happen like that. You are giving yourself too much credit."
"Still, from that one little guy lost in Hollywood, how do you suddenly have good relations with a top executive from Titan studios. You called once and got us a meeting and a screening."
Omar looked at Aiden with a strange look. He was walking here and there in Los Angeles and New York for a long time, trying to make good connections with the top brass. It took him 10 years to get somewhere.
Now, the person in front of him had suddenly gotten a connection that was worth diamonds in just two years.
"Hey, Wade. You are with him 24/7. How did he do it?"
Omar looked at Wade who was driving the car. Sitting on the front seat, Tom was smiling and scribbling down something on his notebook while his ears were perked up.
"He sold his body. How else?"
"Really? Can you tell me how I can do tha—"
"Don't listen to his nonsense."
Aiden quickly butted in the conversation as Wade and Tom laughed. Shaking his head, he looked at Omar.
"It was out of nowhere. I was at the right place at the right time. Ava likes me, especially because of [Sherlock of the Shadows]. I also helped her not invest in Florence's movie."
"Your relationship with her would help us get a deal with them."
Omar smirked, already thinking of ways to impress everyone present in the screening. It was a golden opportunity for him to get close to Titan studios top brass.
"Just be professional and it will be fine. I'm pretty sure Asano would be able to convince them. He's very passionate while talking about [Action Hero]."
Aiden said and after a while, the car stopped in the parking lot of Titan studios. Asano and a few other crew members were going to meet them at the reception.
Asano's car was already present in the parking lot. So, they headed straight to the reception.
At the reception, they found Asano and were told that they needed to head to the screening room on the 7th floor.
There, Ava was already present with a few other people. A lot of them just looked insignificant but some of them have a different aura about them.
They were important people. Aiden could tell.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Omar Aslaikh, the sole producer of the movie."
"You don't seem to be from America."
"My family is from Dubai."
Omar quickly introduced himself and started chatting nicely with a few people. He was very good at social interactions while Asano was relaxed.
He was in the industry for a long time and didn't fear these types of situations. At his peak, he had seen enough executives.
Aiden also relaxed seeing the two and just stayed in the background. As he was just the actor, he thought that Omar and Asano would handle this better.
After the introduction, Ava opened her mouth.
"We think it's better to have any discussions after watching the movie."
"I think so too." Omar said in a confident tone and they headed in.
A theatre room was installed in the building for these types of screenings. All of them sat down and coincidentally, Aiden sat next to Ava.
"I wanted to say thanks for getting us this screening. All the other distributors cancelled even before seeing it."
"The others were very suspicious too but the director has good experience. Just if the movie is good and we deem it commercially viable, it's going to be okay."
Aiden nodded his head hearing that. Before he could say anything else, the lights dimmed and the movie started.
For the next one and a half hour, no one said anything.
Throughout the screening, Aiden felt like an audience member watched a random voice and he had to say it was good.
The sound design and the overall feel of the movie was top notch. Some of the scenes were very hard to shoot but they looked great on the big screen.
Though, the characters weren't given a lot of background with even good supporting characters not having a lot of information about them. A lot was cut out and it was clear.
Fortunately, the personalities were good enough to make up for it.
The one thing that made Aiden pumped were the fight scenes. Each of them looked gorgeous and smooth. It was like he was watching a high budget spy thriller but it was just teenagers fighting it out.
Several great action sets made it to the final edit and some didn't. But what was shown was truly good enough.
Though, he did see the weak points.
Some scenes looked like they needed better editing while some dialogues seemed out of place and needed dubbing. The colour palette was a bit darker for his taste and there were other such small issues.
He knew that the movie would be edited more, so it wasn't a problem. Every director does screenings and then tries to make his movie better.
At the end of the screening, there were complex faces all around.
Some of them seemed to like the movie while others had expressions like they didn't understand what they had just seen.
It was the perfect iteration of mixed reactions.
