Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood
chapter-105

The episode of 'The Rory Chamber's show' had a profound effect on Aiden's popularity. A lot of people were already looking for stuff related to him after watching [Black Saints] and when he suddenly appeared in a popular talk show, social media was bound to be erupted.

Especially the forums that often talked about celebs that appear in talk shows.

Although his stand up show was only 9 minutes long, the jokes were funny and he was already hyped. A lot of people made short clips of his jokes and circulated it on Sparrow, Skygram, MeTube and online forums.

One of the clips in which Aiden was talking about social media and the stupidness of it really resonated with a lot of people. A user named 'God Greed' posted a short clip of it on Sparrow and just in a day, it got over 200k views which was a big deal as the account didn't have a lot of engagement.

[Now, let's talk about social media for a bit as Rory here is probably already thinking that I'm on the stage for too long already. After all, he needs to pay rent by showing cereal commercials. Anyway, social media… the weirdest place on earth. I'm on it like you all but a lot of things there don't make any sense. You might post a photo of an injured dog and add the caption, 'Stop animal cruelty' and some nutjob in the comments would say 'What about human cruelty. What about man's rights? You don't speak on those' I mean, I understand but both of these things are very very different…]

The clip ended with a vigorous applause from the audience. A lot of people on Sparrow could not help but comment on the post.

[Science makes me Dope: Which is this show? I feel like checking it out? Is the comedy special on Zetflix?]

[Justin Frudeau: This is from 'The Rory Chamber's show'. They posted the whole segment on their MeTube channel you should check out. It's very funny. Probably the best stand up I have seen in a while.]

[Dreams of being number 1: I think I have seen this guy but I don't remember where.]

[Loki Funguson: He's Aiden Silvereye. Check out the bloke. He's bloody damn good. Watched him in [Black Saints]. Hollywood needs more actors like him. The Nine realms need more actors like him.]

[My readers are the best: Ain't he a singer? Saw him in X-Star just last year. He had come a long way to be featured on a talk show. I guess I will check out [Black Saints] to see what the buzz is about.]

[Bread Pitt: I saw the movie today. Would see it again tomorrow just for Kai. Hands down the best character for me in the first quarter of the year. Would love to see a solo movie on him, exploring his past.]

[Mayhem online Player: I didn't really Kai too much. Sounded like a confused character with a mental illness. Should have been played accordingly instead of making him a cool villain.]

[Rats are dads: Loved him on the Rory Chamber's show last night. Me and my kids were laughing on all his bits. Check out his songs too. They are pretty good.]

[Threesomes are complex: I reckon he can be the next big Hollywood superstar. Has charms, talent and doesn't look pretentious jerk.]

[Average Indian Watcher: Following him since X-Star days. He has come a long way and I hope he doesn't stop here. I seriously think we have seen nothing of his talent yet.]

[Griffin eggs: All this talk about him is making me curious to watch his movie.]

***

The Rory Chamber's show became the final nail in the coffin for [The Last Wolf]. They were already getting less and less collections everyday and the hype for [Black Saints] was increasing.

But after the episode of the talk show, there was a spike in the collections. As Aiden had gone to the show to promote [Blank Saints], a 15 second exclusive clip of it was shown on the show and as the movie was already dominating the trends, it had a very positive effect.

At the end of the second week, the movie had earned around 79 million dollars at the box office and was estimated to finish around 150-200 million dollars easily. Compared to that, [The Last Wolf] had basically stopped at 71 million dollars, barely getting 2-3 million dollars everyday.

It was hard to say if it was even going to get the filming budget back. Ferox Pictures have already given up on getting the marketing budget back and everyday, their executives felt depressed, thinking of the loss the company would have.

The worst thing for them was that they won't be able to milk out the franchise after this as the investors were already angry and it was clear that the public has no interest whatsoever in the franchise.

By all estimates, the franchise was done for good, making Ferox pictures future plans a mess.

There was even a report that Ferox Pictures CEO, Jordan Walsh broke his phone by throwing it on the wall after getting bombarded by calls from journalists, investors and the studio's partners.

The situation was completely different at Granite films as Anthony McCarthy was almost dancing everyday.

[Black Saints] was the biggest hit of the studio. The gamble had paid off and he couldn't be happier about it.

For context, the last movie of theirs that had made such an impact on the box office was a romantic comedy called [The Last moment]. It had earned 45 million dollars and was made on a budget of mere 6 million dollars which ensured the high percentage return.

But even that hasn't made a profound impact online like [Black Saints]. Everyday, new articles about the movie would come out, calling it an unique gangster flick that won hearts.

<[Black Saints] — A box office behemoth that gobbled up everything else and was the dominant force in March in the North American box office.>

<Ray Hardy's gangster drama creates excitement about viewers with its great storyline and characters that are becoming fan favourites too quick.>

<Kai August — The villain inspired by comic books that superhero movies these days lack.>

<The underdog at the box office which defeated a big franchise with only two things: good plot and even greater characters.>

***

As [Black Saints] popularity grew, the people who were having the hardest time were reporters. Especially the interns working in small media companies.

They were asked to write articles every hour or try to research about anyone involved with the movie. Because of that, a lot of reporters weren't even able to sleep.

Their superiors were telling them to keep working even if they needed to get vitamin tablets to keep going.

"Ah, fuck. My fingers are hurting from typing so much. Why do we need to write so many articles on a single subject? It's just a movie which got good business."

One of the interns, a sharp faced black boy muttered. He felt a headache in his head and wanted nothing to do other than to sleep.

"You are still better than me. I still have four more articles to go. One about Granite films, one about Ray Hardy, then about Kai and in the end, about the failure of [The Last Wolf]."

Another guy next to him muttered. Around them, a lot of people were just like that. Tired and frustrated from doing so much work but it was something that they were used to.

Everytime a movie would do well or something big would happen, they would experience similar situations. The regular employees were still better and it was only the interns who suffered so much.

"You asked why we need to write so many articles right?" One of the oldest interns suddenly asked and everyone focused on him. He was going to become a regular employee from next month.

"Why?" The sharp faced intern asked.

"It's a lot to do with the PR that a lot of celebs and studios have. We have written so many articles on Ray Hardy because his agency has deals with our company to keep him relevant in the eyes of people. Even if most people talked about Kai, we are writing more articles about Ray Hardy."

"The actor who played Kai. What was his name again? Aiden something, his agency didn't have a deal with our company." Another employee raised an eyebrow.

"From what I researched, he doesn't have an agency. He said that in an interview himself. That's why, a lot of reports barely mentioned his name but more would as he came on Rory Chamber's show."

Everyone nodded, properly understanding the relationship between the media and talent agencies. Both were mutually beneficial to each other and were just trying to do business.

Ray Hardy's agency was trying hard to show him as the sole reason for the movie's success. Even if it wasn't the case and Ray himself didn't want it, his agency would still do it to make the perception that he is pulling a large number of crowds in the theatre.

That way, his fees would be much higher in his next movie.

"By the way, does anyone know if Aiden had any other movies signed up? My last article is about him and I can't find anything."

Suddenly, the sharp faced intern asked.

"I don't think I know anything."

"I heard he was going to do a horror movie with a Spanish director but didn't find a source."

"I heard he's focusing more on singing."

As everyone started shaking his heads, one of the employees who was coming out from the editor's room heard the discussion and replied.

"He doesn't have any movies next. I found out about it and he doesn't have anything signed up. I heard he got rejected for Zetflix original movie recently but other than that, there's nothing."

"Oh, thanks."

"No problem but I think something will come up sooner or later. His popularity is surging for now so people would try to sign him up in some projects."

...