Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood
chapter-169

"I'm telling you. Divorced women are something different. Especially the ones who are recently divorced. They are trying to enter the free market again and most of them aren't even looking for a relationship. They just want to let off some steam."

"You seem to have a lot of experience in it."

"You bet. At your age, I wasn't just fooling around. I was studying for the Agent exam but it was pretty stressful, so whenever I will get a chance, I will go to a bar and try to find a divorced woman to release some stress."

Wade said like he was reminiscing about his past. For the record, the Agent exam was a special qualification test for people who wanted to work as an agent in Hollywood, taken by the guilds.

[A/N: Agent Exam is something I came up with for both mhs and vs. So, it doesn't exist in real life.]

"How do you even know if a woman is divorced?"

"Experience."

Wade shrugged and Aiden shook his head, not wanting to hear about his agent's playboy lifestyle.

They have started this conversation just because Wade had seen Katherine giving Aiden her business card. When he had heard she had hit on him, he had started to talk about his adventures with divorced women.

"Anyway, we are here."

Wade said, pointing at a door as they stopped.

"Let's go in. We are a bit late." Aiden said and Wade opened the door, revealing a conference room filled with people.

They were currently in the building of Eternal life movies to attend the marketing meeting for [30 days of Happiness]. Omar apparently wanted Aiden to attend the meeting.

"Sorry, we are a bit late."

Wade said and Omar turned to look at them. Besides him, a woman that Aiden recognised as Sofia Spencer, the CEO of Eternal life movies was sitting. He had met her once during the Toronto film festival.

"It's fine. We are just starting."

Both Aiden and Wade sat down and a brawny looking guy with a calm expression stood up to talk about the plans they have made to market the movie. A female employee next to Aiden told him that he was the Marketing head.

"Let's start the meeting now. I would give a brief as to how things are going."

Saying that, the Marketing head gave a detailed explanation on the ways they were promoting the movie. From posters on social media sites to billboards, Eternal life movie was trying their best to make people aware of the fact that a good rom com was going to release soon.

At the same time, they were trying to sell the movie by focusing more on the fact that it won an award in the Toronto film festival. As the trailer was cheerful and the album was a big hit, it was working too.

For the record, the trailer which was released two weeks ago already had 5 million views. It was a good amount no matter how one sees it.

Eternal life movies was even in talks with talk shows and other reality TV shows like 'Good morning America' and 'Family Fight' for the cast to appear there to promote but they didn't have a lot of success there.

But even without it, the movie was getting a lot of interest, especially from teens and young adults. Aiden's new image as a playboy due to the sitcom was also working in favour of the movie.

The studio had really invested their all in the movie as they desperately wanted it to be a hit.

The problem was their competition, particularly [Leap in the Sky] from Night Hawk studios.

"Due to Night Hawk studios having a better relationship with the theatre chains and being a bigger studio, added with the fact that Harold Wood is like one of the big stars in a rom com genre, [Leap in the Sky] would probably open up in more than 2500 screens. They are seriously going for a wide release in America."

"How many screens is our movie getting?"

"Around 1000. Mostly thanks to it winning in Toronto."

A silence engulfed the room when people heard that.

Compared to [Leap in the Sky], they were getting way fewer screens. It was a very big worry as that means that even with a better occupancy rate, [30 days of Happiness] might not even earn half of [Leap in the Sky].

But the bad part hadn't ended here.

"And as Harold Wood is more established, the talks shows and reality TV shows are more likely to ask him to come on it. His chemistry with the female lead had also been praised a lot, so he might go on those dating shows with her according to rumors. A lot of kids watch it."

The Marketing head said and a male employee raised his eyebrow.

"With Aiden's current popularity, I'm pretty sure talk shows won't reject him appearing."

A few people glanced at Aiden.

"Yeah, you are right but the interest in them going with Harold is way more. Though, it would be easy to send Aiden to singing shows. Those would be pretty open to Aiden appearing on it. Anyway, if you have any ideas, you all could pitch in."

Like that, the meeting went on with people trying to chip in a few ideas to promote the movie way more.

There was no solution to the problems of them getting allocated less screens, so they could only focus more on getting as many people interested in the movie as they could.

'I don't really think these ideas are really going to work. They are too generic. Marketing a movie is really not something easy these days. Most of the things have already been done, so it really needs something that could pique people's interest.'

Aiden thought in his mind, seeing people talk about different ideas in front of him.

At that moment, an idea struck his mind.

He thought about it for a second before deciding that it was not bad.

"I think I have an idea."

He said and everyone looked at him, wondering what idea he had. Omar looked at him with interest.

"What?"

"Let me explain…"

***

After the marketing meeting ended, Aiden didn't really have time to rest as in the evening, a special event was taking place.

The season finale of [Searching for the One] was going to be broadcasted. For that, Producer Brandon Carell and the Director Amelia Fryman wanted the whole cast and crew to watch it together because of how big of a moment it was.

One of the reasons was also because there was a lot of chance that this episode was going to be the most watched episode till now.

The possibility of it had only increased because the social media team of the sitcom had spread rumours that something special was going to happen at the end of the episode.

The media sites had been used to spread it around, getting the curiosity of a lot of people.

It was a great strategy used by them.

When Aiden reached the restaurant that was booked to watch the screening, everyone swarmed him with smiles on their faces.

"Our star is here!"

"We thought you wouldn't come but it's great to see you here."

"Thanks to you, our show is back on track."

"Hey Aiden, my friend was talking about how good [30 days of Happiness] Is. He watched it in Toronto. It seems like you are going to have another achievement under you."

"You are looking more handsome tonight. Let's have a drink together."

Seeing his popularity, Aiden was surprised for a minute but he understood that it was because everyone on the internet who had watched the show was talking about Alan Geller.

Thanks to that, Aiden's popularity among the crew of [Searching for the One] had also increased.

"Aiden, you are finally here."

Amelia Fryman came close to him as Aiden was replying to the swarm of people around him. She looked a bit tipsy but there was a soft smile on her face.

"It looks like everyone is very excited." He replied, giving her a small hug.

"Yes, they are. It's all thanks to you. Your character brought back the fans for us and it's being received greatly. They also like the fact that the main characters are realising the wrong things in their life and becoming the same as before. You must have seen the comments online."

"I did."

"Anyway, we can talk more at the table. You don't mind sitting with the cast right?"

"No."

He said and for a second, his eyes roamed the restaurant, trying to find Harley but he wasn't there. Probably because no extra actors were invited.

When he reached the table, Ellison and Jason greeted him.

"So, you are finally here. I thought you would be too busy doing magazine shoots and interviews after your success."

Jason, the actor who played the lead role of Frank Russel said while Ellison glared at him.

"Don't listen to him. He's just jealous because your name is trending so much on social media."

Jason just shrugged at that as Aiden sat down. They talked a bit more about how their lives were going and how happy they were with the reception of the recent episodes.

As the cast had come back to reshoot the last three episodes, they were pretty happy that their efforts weren't for nothing.

It was then that a guy suddenly said,

"It's starting!"

"The episode is finally here. Keep an eye on the real time ratings."

"Let's hope it's good."

"Ah, the logo and theme song is here."

...