Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

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After the Franco Li news had broken out, Aiden really wanted to go get good food and celebrate. Franco was like an annoying thorn on his foot that would sting a lot. 

But now, he is gone for good and there could not be better news for Aiden. He had even heard his team was already celebrating in the office and had ordered pizzas, donuts and whatnots. 

Tom had even sent him a text saying he was calling strippers but he doubted Sasha would let him do that. 

Ignoring the urge to celebrate, Aiden had headed straight towards Sean’s office as the more important thing here was to show him his script and ask if he knew what he could do with it. 

But before he could even ask that, Sean had asked his script to read and it had been an hour since then. 

‘I hope he likes it.’

Aiden said as he looked in front of him. It had been over an hour since Sean had started reading the script he had given him. At first, the old professor looked like he just wanted to read it a bit but even after an hour, he had not put down the thick script. 

In the past hour, Aiden had only been able to observe Sean’s expression as he had nothing else to do. He can’t leave without his script and Sean didn’t look to be putting it down anytime soon. 

The most annoying thing was that Sean’s face had barely changed in the last hour, so Aiden didn’t even know if he was liking it or not. But at least it was engrossing enough to keep him hooked for so long. 

Finally when Aiden was on his 4th yawn and was pondering the consequences on his back if he decided to sleep on a chair, Sean blinked his eyes and put down the script. 

Aiden immediately looked at him and asked. 

“You read through it all? That early.”

“No, I finished two thirds of it and I was reading at my top speed. I just remembered I had other work to do and can’t spend more time than necessary on a script. I do plan to bring it home though.”

Sean said as he looked like he was gonna ask Aiden to print him a copy of the script. 

“So, you liked it?” He asked and Sean looked at him for a moment. 

“It’s certainly interesting. You have used a lot of concepts I have only seen in books before. With philosophical elements already present, I don’t know why you even added elements like a robot trying to find his humanity but no matter what, that kind of suits the crazy, ecocentric world. You did a good job on your first script.”

Sean smiled as he looked at him, like he was looking at a bright student. 

Although he felt like the script could be improved as it had a lot of interesting elements but no depth in certain things, it was probably one of the better works from a rookie screenwriter who was writing his first script. 

He knew Aiden would deliver on the story but even his dialogues were good and he made sure to give every character a certain way of speaking.”

“So, is it good?” Aiden asked again. 

“Yeah, it’s certainly good. Why do you think I was engrossed in reading it? It’s because it was very interesting for a time travel movie. You used science and philosophy in just the correct way.”

Hearing that, Aiden got a bit of courage and asked. 

“Is it good enough to be made into a movie?”

“No one is crazy enough to spend on a movie like this. Even if it’s successful, it will be successful as one of those cult classics who bombed at the box office. It’s too crazy and out of place for a producer to show his faith on this.”

Sean said clearly like he was a judge announcing his judgement. It was clear and his tone was sharp. 

Aiden hadn’t expected it, so he was a bit shaken but he still continued the conversation. 

“I’m pretty sure there will be someone.”

“Not really. Maybe if you use your face as the lead but the thing is there’s gonna be robots in it, there’s gonna be supernatural powers and time travel. It’s a high budget concept that’s very crazy. In one scene, a literal sea monster came out of nowhere. If I was the producer, I wouldn’t put my money on it due to the unclear plot and fast-paced story. You do know just creating an environment like that will require a huge amount.”

Aiden nodded his head hearing that slowly. 

It was not like he hadn’t thought of these things before. He had multiple times during the writing of the script but he didn’t have to worry about these things back then. 

He understood that the world of his story was very vivid and hard to make. It wasn’t based on old architecture or a sci-fi world like in the ‘Space War’ movies. It was a world that seemed very deformed in its nature and gave a feeling of mysticism. 

No one would expect such a strong vibe from a world but in this story, the world was a character in itself. 

Making that would obviously be extremely hard for the VFX artist and would cost a lot. Not like it was going to be a [Hex] level movie, so he doubted any studio would wanna work on this. 

‘I really can’t sell it to a studio.’

Aiden thought in his mind and frowned inwardly. 

If there was really no production house for this, then the script was just going into the dustbin. He could just sell it to a studio for a good amount of money as studios are always looking for rights to scripts that they could try to make in the future. 

But Aiden didn’t really have patience nor did he want to give up here. 

Seeing the emotions on his face, Sean couldn’t help but say. 

“You know you could try to look for studios yourself. I’m pretty sure you know a lot of them, so they will be happy with a meeting. At least try your luck even if the chances are low.”

“I can do that but really, I can already imagine what every studio spokesperson would say to me.”

Aiden imagined every type of scenario in his head and none of them were what he wanted. 

‘The script is good but there’s a lot of risks. I’m very sure we could get more investors if you decide to star in it.’

‘It’s a tricky script but I like it. Maybe in ten years, it will be a great movie.’

‘I’m sorry but unless you are an investor and leading it, there’s no point in making it. No one will come to watch dancing robots and confusing time travel nonsense.’

These responses rang loud in his head even though they hadn’t happened yet. Seeing Aiden like this, Sean smiled and glanced at the script. 

‘What can one even do here…? I don’t have 100 million dollars or I would help… Ah yes!’

He suddenly got an idea in his head. 

Looking at Aiden, he wondered if he was even going to like it but well, in the end it was an idea and there was no harm in saying it out loud. 

“Aiden, why don’t you just forget about a full featured movie in your script?”

“What do you mean?”

“How about making up a short movie based on this script? You know to lure investors. Sometimes, short films become famous and end up becoming full featured length movies. Although there’s a lot of scenes that will require VFX in your script, I think you can do one with a lower budget.”

Sean’s idea wasn’t bad. 

That’s what Aiden felt when he first heard it. A short film based on his story sounded good and most importantly, achievable for the time being. 

But there were still problems. 

“I can go for a short film but who will direct it?”

He asked and Sean smiled. 

“Who else but you?”

“Me?” Aiden put a finger on his forehead. 

“Yes you. It’s your story. You know the world. You are studying filmmaking. Why not try it? It can’t go much wrong anyway.”

Sean laughed, throwing Aiden into a path of no return. 

His mind started to turn. Sean wasn’t wrong. He had studied filmmaking to get better as an actor and someone who works in the movie business. It would be wrong to say that directing wasn’t in his mind. 

Getting a new skill was always on his mind. 

But directing his own script so early? He had not expected that but was it really a bad thing? Sean was telling him to do a short film and that won’t take much. 

The robots and other things would need some thinking but Aiden was sure he could pull it off. 

That’s why he accepted. 

“Okay, I will try it.”

Though, one thing he hadn’t expected was just then, system notifications came in his front view.