My Hollywood System

Chapter 95:

April Warden, who was engrossed in reading [Harry Potter: The Philosopher’s Stone] didn’t realise when the time ticked by as it was almost evening by the time she finished the manuscript. Her eyes were already a bit hazy because of her young body continuously reading for hours, but her face was lit up, and her expression spoke volumes of her excitement.

She stood up and put the manuscript between her hands as she ran off towards the living room. Her father, Terry Warden, was sitting on a sofa, doing something on his laptop. Terry Warden looked to be in his late 40s and had a white trimmed beard.

“Papa!”

April climbed the sofa from the side sneakily and threw herself at her fathers, strangling his neck with her arms as she happily rubbed her face against his.

“Oh, my little angel. How was your day today? Did you do your homework? You didn’t annoy your nanny, did you?”

Terry laughed as he said that. He immediately closed his laptop and stopped what he was doing. For him, his daughter mattered more than anything or anyone in this world. He took her in his arms and made her sit on his lap as he looked at her with affectionate eyes.

“Uh-huh. I was being a really good girl; you can ask Carla.”

April said as she stroked Terry’s beard with her little fingers while she held a manuscript.

“Is that so? What’s this? You were reading from the new manuscripts again?”

Terry asked as his gaze finally landed on this daughter’s other hand, which was holding a manuscript. He was well aware of his daughter’s interest and love of books and couldn’t be happier about it. He saw that she was holding one of the drafts that he would take home so his daughter, who loved books, could read it.

“Yes!! I came to ask for the second volume from papa. Please give me.”

April asked with puppy eyes that melted Terry’s heart.

“There is no second volume. It’s one of the unpublished drafts.”

Terry informed her, and April’s eyes shined like she had gained enlightenment. April was a very smart kid for her age and already knew the process of drafts being selected for publications or getting rejected. Her non-existent dog ears and tails wiggled as she snuggled onto Terry and asked.

“Papa, please publish this . Pretty please? I love you so much.”

Terry was surprised. Although he knew that April liked reading, he knew she was a very picky reader and mostly threw away these drafts after reading the first chap if they weren’t good enough. He would tell his junior editors to pay special attention to such books.

Although most of the work was done by the junior editors, this was the case with the drafts he brought home for April to read.

“Do you like this book?”

Terry asked to confirm once again, and April’s expression lit up again.

“I absolutely love it. Harry Potter is so cool.”

Another shock. This was the first time Terry saw April being this happy about reading a book. After all, she only got this happy either when she had ice cream or when they went to visit her grandmother.

Originally, he wasn’t going to give much thought to any of the manuscripts he bought for his daughter to read. He usually brought many and then sent them back to the junior editors who would take care of everything else.

But right now, his daughter’s reaction towards this certain book piqued his interest.

Terry has been in this business for almost 20 years now. For the first ten years, he worked in a big book publishing company in America, and later after he had learnt many things, he started his own publishing company. Over the years, he slowly climbed his way to success.

Last year, two of his author’s ’s got into the top ten of the New York Times best-seller list. One of the books was even offered a chance to become a movie from one of the big six studios, and it was currently under pre-production with Z studios.

As he kept climbing higher on the stairs of success, the time that he spent reading books or drafts was seriously becoming non-existent. Hence, as he had less work for today, he decided to give a try to the that his daughter had taken so much liking to.

***

Everyone from the auditioning staff was still quite shocked after seeing Will’s preferential treatment of Natalie. After all, Will was known to be impartial and even as someone young, he didn’t lose his head around beautiful people.

Not to mention that Natalie wasn’t particularly beautiful. Heck, Will’s secretary was enough to outshine every other woman Will had met. Yet, Natalie succeeded in getting preferential treatment from him.

Although there was a lot of room for gossip and rumours to spread, they would all be absurd as long as the fact remained that there were more beautiful and curvy people in the auditions than Natalie unless Will had a particular preference for women.

As everyone was busy discussing what had just happened, the topic of the discussion had an extremely satisfied expression on his face.

Will was currently pleased. He was able to find another good actor for the role of Blake in [1917]. His name was Elijah Thomas, and he was a native American actor who was still young and looking for his break. He had a great vibe about him and was very proficient in acting. Will didn’t even have second thoughts as he made a note for him being one of the leads of [1917].

Will was able to secure three lead roles for his next two productions and couldn’t be happier about it. The fact that was mostly the reason for his smile was the surprising yet pleasantly welcomed acquisition of Natalie Bergmann.

Will had decided that Natalie would play the role of the female lead in [500 days of Summer]. Jennifer and Jeffrey didn’t object to it as every actor Will selected today had some kind of special trait with them that was marketable. Jeffrey was kind of unsure about Natalie, but Jennifer was able to tell that Natalie was an extremely good actor. She just got nervous and ended up messing up the first time.

That’s why everyone from the staff was just talking about her messing up and Will giving her a second chance instead of talking about how well she did the second time around.

***

“Have you thought of any good directors for your next movies? And what about distributions deals?”

Jeffrey asked from where he was seated. He was right in front of Will, in his office. Will and Jeffrey were discussing the future of his upcoming two movies, and Jeffrey had asked an important question related to that.

“I have a director in mind for [1917] at least.”

Will said as he thought about the sleepless nights he spent researching all the important people of this world’s Hollywood. He can finally say he had at least caught up to most of the people. He watched a lot of movies from this world and now knew about most of the accomplished directors and their work styles.

“Oh, is that so? Which director are you talking about, though?”

Jeffrey asked with curiosity flickering in his eyes.

“I am talking about Lucas Amspoker. I want you to contact him and give him a proposal from me, asking him if he is interested in directing the movie. And don’t worry about DTA now. I think Jenny would be ready to take over as head sooner than I expected.”

Will spoke out his thoughts. Jennifer was taking her job quite seriously, and although she was a senior agent, she was doing most of the things an agency head should be doing and keeping his eyes on. As she already had expertise in this field, she was obviously a better choice than Jeffrey, who was from a completely different faction of Hollywood.

“Lucas Amspoker? Alright, I will give him a proposal from you. I have wanted to work with him for a long time. Ahaha.”

Jeffrey seemed excited by the name that Will had given. After all, Lucas was an Oscar-nominated director. He was quite popular and hadn’t directed any movie this year.

“Take this too.”

Will handed over a document to Jeffrey, which he accepted with confusion in his eyes. But as he kept on reading, his eyebrows that were knit together slowly eased up, and soon his eyes were wide with surprise and excitement.

“T-this…?”

“It’s an analysis of the ways that [1917] can be shot in. The movie isn’t easy to shoot, so I would recommend reading what I have analysed so far for its cinematography.”

Jeffrey kept reading the document and his eyes just became wider and wider as he exclaimed.

“Will, this is genius!”

“Give a copy of this document to Lucas too. This might make him interested.”

Will said without reacting much to the praise.

“Will…. Don’t tell me you have a talent for cinematography too..”

Jeffrey acted as if he had sensed hidden danger and looked apprehensively at Will, to which Will just laughed.

“Don’t worry. I am not going to take over your job.”

“Yeah… you have much better and more important things to do. Phew.”

Jeffrey continued on with his fake act of apprehensiveness as he sighed in relief that Will wasn’t going to take over his job.

After a while, both Will and Jeffrey laughed together at his act. If anyone saw them right now, they would be genuinely perplexed seeing this friendship that transcended all social norms of age and levels.

…

//DreamNote//

Read next 12 Chapters on -patreon

visit: -patreon.com/dreamthree

..

Discuss plot and share ideas for fic: discord.link/dreamthree