America: Child stars start with The Shining

Chapter 47 Charles' Counterattack

Morgan stared at the box office report on the table, his face gradually darkening.

He originally thought that the first day's data was good, so the box office on the second day should continue to grow and rise even higher.

While it's true that the market is still rising and the overall trend is upward, the problem is...

"Fuck, what the hell are those movie theaters in Los Angeles doing?!"

Because of the outstanding box office results on the first day of "Friday the 13th", Paramount struck while the iron was hot and reached further cooperation agreements with more theater chains.

In just two days, the film's release has expanded to more than a thousand theaters across the United States.

With such a level of publicity, Paramount has clearly gone all out, pouring in almost every resource they could.

It's likely that Paramount's entire publicity department has been working around the clock lately.

However, even so...

Morgan's eyes were glued to the box office charts in the Los Angeles area.

The curve representing box office data is plummeting, with a drop of 10% in just one day.

This is completely unreasonable!

It was absolutely terrible. In all his years as an agent, he had never seen a movie with a stellar opening day box office that experienced such a drop in numbers on its second day of release.

But Morgan can't do anything right now except stare at the reports and worry.

Because WMA is not qualified to interfere in Paramount's business, they know nothing about the specific marketing details except for the data in this report.

besides......

Morgan slowly raised his head and looked at another stack of documents on the table, which were film critic reviews he had collected over the past two days.

Mark was complaining to him with a gloomy face:

"Morgan, didn't you say you'd already taken care of the film critics? What's going on here?"

"Hey, listen, this is normal..."

"Fuck, you're kidding me! Take a good look at how those film critics are bashing me!"

The Boston Globe: "A disgusting exploitation film. Unless viewers are interested in witnessing characters having their heads chopped off with an axe or being impaled on doors with arrows, I advise everyone to avoid watching this film; it's easy to get into trouble."

The Los Angeles Times: "A stupid, boring horror film clearly aimed at a young audience, attempting to replicate the success of Halloween, but filled with disturbing violence, and especially the acting of the cast, which is utterly terrible; they can't even convincingly portray dead people..."

Mark's face turned bright red as he looked at the line of blatant criticism, because the character he played was killed at the very beginning, yet this guy was criticizing him as utterly worthless!

Bullshit! Has this Los Angeles Times reporter ever been dead? How dare he speak so rudely!

Fake!

He slammed the newspaper to the ground.

......

Charles is unaware that Morgan is already overwhelmed by the box office reports.

On the contrary, he seems very calm now, filming his scenes for today on the set of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial".

This scene depicts the protagonist discovering E.T. and hiding him in his room. However, since such things are bound to be exposed eventually, he decides to confess to his brother first.

The room he is currently in is a semi-open set. The view through the lens is a very realistically decorated room, but in reality, there is only half a wall in this place, which is convenient for filming.

If certain camera angles are difficult to capture, special effects will be applied in post-production to prevent any mishaps.

Ciel stood in the middle of the set and glanced down at the few inconspicuous duct tape marks at his feet.

Those were the shooting locations that the film crew had marked out in advance. They had to figure out exactly where the camera would zoom in, from what angle the lights would cut in, and which shadows they should avoid when turning their heads.

Not far away, the actor responsible for controlling the ET costume was already in place.

The alien model was quietly huddled to the side, its neck slightly forward, its eyes moist and bright, looking very lifelike.

Compared to the unpretentious and realistic filming style of "The Shining," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" is the other extreme, representing the pinnacle of the film industry in this era.

"Action!"

Charles stood by the door, as if hesitating whether or not to bring it up.

His shoulders tensed slightly, his fingers twitched quietly on the door frame a few times, and his eyes briefly glanced towards the bedside.

The camera slowly zooms in, and the sound of Mike going upstairs grows closer.

Without hesitation, Charles hurriedly opened the door and shouted to Mike standing outside:

"Hey Mike, come in!"

Mike strolled in from outside, casually tossing the newspaper he was holding onto the table beside him.

He was used to his younger brother's exaggerated reactions. These past few days, he had been saying that he had discovered aliens, but he hadn't even seen a single one.

"I have something very important to do..."

"Hey, Taylor said he got 69,000 points in a game yesterday!"

Mike interrupted Charles, as if he didn't care about any of this.

"Listen! Do you remember that alien, Mike? He's back!"

The camera tilts slightly to the left, and Ciel pulls Mike to the middle of the room, so they stand face to face. This allows the camera to capture both of them completely without needing to switch to another shot.

This is a very standard one-shot film.

Charles looked at Mike very seriously and said:

"Mike, you have to swear an oath, the absolute oath you can think of! As my only brother, I swear on our lives that you cannot reveal the existence of aliens!"

"Hey, don't be so formal!"

After some back and forth between the two, Ciel finally let Mike go, allowing him to walk to the corner of the room and stand next to the camera.

The camera swayed slightly, focusing on Mike's face.

The advantage of doing this is that it makes the audience feel very immersed, as if they are really in the room as a third party.

"Alright, Mike, you can turn around now!"

"Hey kid, how long do you want me to keep playing with you...?"

Mike raised an eyebrow, a grin on his face, and turned around.

He didn't care at all about what his younger brother had just said, because in his mind, there was no way that aliens could exist in this world!

Then, he saw this scene before him.

Mike stood there, stunned, his mouth agape, revealing his prominent buck teeth.

Just then, Jennifer suddenly burst in from outside:

"Elliott, look what I've done for you!"