Owen stopped looking at the scripts and turned his attention back to the laptop. He switched tabs, opened YouTube, and went to the channel's latest video.
His eyes went straight to the numbers. More than 8.5 million views and over one million likes.
Not bad.
Owen slowly scrolled down the page until he reached the comment section and started reading.
@feelifee:
Owen went from: "I do everything and sleep whenever I can" to having an actual company.
Character development.
@elysian_artemis:
The structure is basically Owen's answer to "I want to have a life."
@1225sember:
Matt asking if they can make more movies every year now with the excitement of a kid asking if he can get another toy lol
@october6sixoctober2023:
OCTOBER 6.
@kimtradess (replying to @october6sixoctober2023):
bro…
@echotansey77:
TELL ME WHY!
Sorry, I can't listen to that song normally anymore.
@annhagiraffe2:
OWEN + JENNA
I already want it to be October thirteenth!
@jaycemacgregorx:
Owen trying to make us wonder if it's comedy, romance, or horror...
Bro, it's Friday the 13th, horror month, and Jenna Ortega is in it.
You're not fooling us!
@lilygiraffe2 (replying to @jaycemacgregorx):
Plot twist: it's romance
@DecayingAnt:
Curry going from YouTube videos to a feature film financed by Second Take Films before turning 25 💀
@gracevigas:
The Chair -> Curve -> feature film.
As a young director, that would literally be the dream.
@lilycampbell7994:
CHRONICLE
WE FINALLY HAVE A TITLE AND SYNOPSIS
@awesomedude177:
"I don't have 200 million to spend"
Proceeds to spend 30 million like it's nothing
@stellareal2:
There are no investors.
Just Owen looking at his bank account and saying "yeah, let's do it."
@Maxmyd2 (replying to @stellareal2):
After Good Will Hunting and Lights Out making more than 90 million, he can probably afford to do crazier stuff than before.
@SecondTakeNews2000:
2024 recap confirmed so far:
🎬 Chronicle — Tentatively May/June
🎬 Curry Barker horror movie
🎬 Secret project
📺 Secret series
👀👀👀
@jenniferclutchs2 (replying to @SecondTakeNews2000):
now the Internet has months to go completely insane
'Enough…' Owen thought as he stopped reading.
The last few months had been crazy. Especially since he had finished filming San Junipero with Kogonada, Sadie, and the rest of the crew.
That had been in mid-August.
Since then, he hadn't had another major shoot as an actor.
In theory, that should have given him some free time.
In practice, the exact opposite had happened.
First came the new structure for Second Take Films, and not just planning it out on paper.
He had to decide which positions he needed, look for candidates, interview them, and finally hire the right people.
Then came the move: new offices that were much larger and more modern.
He had also signed Frankenstein with Guillermo del Toro and Netflix.
Then there was: Curve, Fantastic Fest, the Lights Out premiere, the Black Mirror negotiations, Tell Me Why, and Curry's Obsession also came along.
Owen decided to finance it, which meant adding another project to review, budget, and get moving.
Then there were the two scripts he had written himself that Second Take would produce in 2024: Smiling Friends and Knives Out.
And of course, there was Chronicle.
He was probably forgetting something.
Owen let out a slow breath.
Yeah.
The last few months had definitely been pretty busy.
Second Take's new offices were over 5,000 square feet.
With help from his father and Larry, he had eventually found a space in the Burbank Media District, a perfect location for a production company.
A large part of the industry was nearby: Warner Bros., Disney/ABC, Universal, among others.
On top of that, the Los Angeles office market was going through a favorable period for anyone looking for space.
There was plenty of availability, and landlords were willing to offer incentives if it meant closing deals.
The place they ended up choosing had practically everything they needed.
The rent was around 23,000 dollars a month.
A considerable amount. But that was only one part of the new fixed expenses.
The other was the people.
As many had understood from watching the video, that entire restructuring had a fairly simple goal.
Delegation.
Owen liked producing.
He liked having control over his movies and understanding what was happening behind the camera.
What he did not want was to become the person who had to solve every problem on every production Second Take Films made over the next few years.
In the end, he had hired eight permanent employees. Although during the video, he had forgotten to mention one of them.
His secretary.
By that point, Owen had too many things happening at the same time: his acting career, brand deals, YouTube, his production company, meetings, travel, among other things.
Trying to personally manage his schedule had become another job in itself.
So now he paid someone to handle exactly that. To keep his calendar organized, remind him of commitments, and so on.
He had never thought he would need one.
But it was incredibly useful once your schedule started looking like a puzzle.
Between all those permanent positions, Second Take now had approximately 1.5 million dollars a year in fixed salaries.
Around 125,000 dollars a month.
Adding the 23,000 dollars for the offices, the base cost came to roughly:
148,000 dollars a month.
That was before adding insurance, utilities, maintenance, and other smaller operating expenses.
For any young production company, it was a significant amount.
For Owen, it barely made a dent in his finances.
His net worth had increased wildly over the last few months.
In mid-August, when he finished shooting the final episode of Black Mirror, he had approximately 16 million dollars available.
Since then, between sponsorships, YouTube, and other income, that figure had risen to around 18 million.
That was already an enormous amount.
Especially considering that Owen had financed Good Will Hunting, Lights Out, and Black Mirror.
All three projects were finished. The money had already been spent.
The work was already done.
Now came the pleasant part.
Recovering the capital and collecting the profits.
Good Will Hunting had already finished its main theatrical run, and Neon had completed the corresponding box office settlement.
The movie had grossed 336.5 million dollars worldwide.
Approximately half had remained with the theaters:
$168,250,000
The other half was the share coming back from exhibition.
Under the agreement, 60% of that amount belonged to Owen and 40% to Neon.
That left Owen with approximately:
$100,950,000
But naturally, not all of that was profit.
First there were the 13 million dollars Owen had originally invested to produce the movie.
So:
$100.95M - $13M = $87.95M
Those 87.95 million represented approximately the profit before taxes.
Between federal corporate tax and California taxes, Owen estimated around 28%.
About 24.6 million dollars set aside for taxes.
That didn't mean he had already sent that money to the government that very afternoon. The tax obligations would be prepared and paid when the time came.
But Owen already considered it money that wasn't his to spend.
After setting that amount aside, approximately 63.3 million dollars in net profit remained, and if you added the 13 million that had simply returned as recovery of the original capital:
$76,350,000
That was approximately what Good Will Hunting had returned to Owen up to that point after accounting for production costs and taxes.
There was still plenty more to come.
Because a movie leaving theaters didn't mean it stopped making money.
Good Will Hunting was only just entering the next stage of its commercial life.
On September 26, its digital release had begun.
PVOD / Digital Purchase.
Basically, after its theatrical window, the movie started becoming available for audiences to rent or buy from home through digital platforms such as Apple TV/iTunes, Amazon Prime Video Store, Google Play/YouTube Movies, and Vudu.
Neon had set the digital purchase price at $24.99 and the PVOD rental price at $19.99.
For a professionally distributed movie, a significant portion of that money went to the studio and distributor, while the platform kept its commission.
In the case of Good Will Hunting, Owen and Neon received approximately 80%.
The advantage was that Neon already had professional agreements in place with those retailers.
That meant that, for example, out of a twenty-dollar rental, around four dollars might stay with Amazon.
The other sixteen went to Neon and Owen.
Keeping the same split as the theatrical agreement, 60% belonged to Owen.
Approximately:
$9.60 per rental.
That was one of the major advantages of the digital market.
In theaters, a huge portion of the price of every ticket ended up in the exhibitor's hands.
In digital, there was no intermediary taking such a large piece of the pie.
Apple, Amazon, or any other platform still took its percentage, yes, but the studio could retain a much larger share of what the consumer paid directly.
Good Will Hunting was performing very well.
By October 9, according to the latest figures Neon had sent him, the movie had already generated approximately:
$15.3 million in digital revenue.
An excellent performance.
Though not particularly surprising considering how well it had done in theaters.
Of that amount, Owen's share came to around:
$7,344,000
It still wasn't money sitting directly in his account. But the revenue had already been generated.
It had only been two weeks.
According to the projections they had sent him, that digital window would last approximately seven weeks.
If it maintained a good pace, Owen could end up receiving between 12 and 14 million dollars from this stage alone.
And there was still more after that: the physical release in 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD, additional international sales, and finally, the rights for the movie to arrive on a streaming platform still had to be negotiated.
But leaving aside any future projections and counting only money that had already been generated, the situation was fairly clear.
Of the 7.3 million dollars currently owed to him from Good Will Hunting's digital market, after setting aside taxes, approximately 5 million would remain net.
That left the numbers like this:
$5M — net digital revenue from Good Will Hunting
$76.35M — net money earned so far from its theatrical run
$18M — wealth Owen already had before receiving those profits
Total:
$99.35 million
That was real money. Not projections, or estimates based on future sales.
Money tha the could already treat as net worth. But there were still a few things left.
Owen had already signed his contract with Netflix for Frankenstein.
After deducting his agency's commission, he was left with approximately 5.2 million dollars in personal income.
That changed the tax situation considerably.
Unlike the money generated by Second Take Films' movies, this was personal compensation earned by Owen as an actor.
High personal income could end up carrying a much heavier tax burden between federal taxes, state taxes, and other obligations.
In this case, approximately:
Taxes and related charges: $2.74M
Net money for Owen: $2.46M
More than half disappeared before it truly became money available for him to use.
The difference compared to Good Will Hunting was important.
The profits from his movies were generated inside Second Take Films, which was structured as a C Corporation.
That allowed the money to remain inside the company and be used to finance new productions, pay salaries, rent offices, hire staff, and cover the rest of its business expenses.
Economically, it was still his.
Owen owned one hundred percent of Second Take.
But from a tax perspective, it was much more efficient to keep a large portion of that capital inside the company instead of immediately converting it into personal income.
His acting salaries were a different story.
That money went directly to Owen and, as a result, the tax burden was much more aggressive.
Adding what he had earned from Frankenstein as well:
$99,350,000 + $2,460,000 = $101,810,000
For the first time, Owen's net worth had officially surpassed one hundred million dollars.
But there was still one more thing: Black Mirror.
Of course, Owen had not sold the IP.
Netflix had purchased exclusive distribution rights for five years.
The total deal was worth 27 million dollars.
Of that amount, 20 million would be paid upon signing the contract and delivering the three completed episodes.
The remaining 7 million would arrive once the series premiered.
In other words, it was not money Owen had in his account yet, but it was money already guaranteed by contract.
Considering that he had spent approximately 14 million dollars producing the three episodes, the deal was excellent.
He was practically recovering his entire investment immediately and, once all the payments were completed, he would end up receiving almost twice the production cost.
Compared to the insane amount of money Good Will Hunting was generating, it might have seemed less impressive.
But it was still a great deal.
Especially because Netflix did not own Black Mirror.
It only had exclusive rights to it for five years.
After that period, Owen could negotiate with Netflix again or sell a new window to another platform.
After taxes, Owen estimated that the net proceeds from the deal would come to approximately:
$23.4 million
That brought the total to:
$101,810,000 + $23,400,000 = $125,210,000
With more than one hundred and twenty-five million dollars in net worth, paying a little over one hundred and forty thousand a month in salaries and office costs really was not a concern.
As for the release of Black Mirror, Owen had decided to split the promotion.
The teaser on October 27 would be released directly on Netflix's official channel.
The full trailer, meanwhile, would be published on November 10 on the Second Take Films channel.
The series would premiere on the first Friday of December.
December 1, 2023.
One episode per week.
Every Friday.
Until all three episodes had been released before Christmas.
With all that money available, it was now time to do the opposite of hoarding it.
Put it to work, and all of the 2024 projects had already begun moving forward.
On one side, there was Obsession.
Curry's movie would ultimately have a budget of 3 million dollars.
Second Take had paid Curry 150,000 dollars for the script and another 250,000 to direct.
On top of that, he would receive 5% of the backend.
The intellectual property had not ended up entirely in Second Take's hands either.
Owen had agreed to retain 75% of the IP, while Curry would keep 25%.
For someone directing his first feature film, it was almost a dream deal.
For Owen, the project also served as the first real test of the company's new structure.
This time, he did not have to build the movie personally from the ground up.
Once the deal with Curry was closed, he simply handed the project over to Lianne, the new President of Production.
Owen already knew her.
She had worked as a producer on Good Will Hunting, so he had had months to watch her work before he even offered her the permanent position.
She had more than enough experience, and she had accepted.
From there, Lianne began working with the Head of Physical Production and the rest of the new team.
The result was exactly what Owen had wanted to achieve.
Important information and decisions made their way up to him.
Over the last few days, he had practically limited himself to receiving major updates and giving the green light to the decisions that genuinely required his approval.
For example, Obsession's first preliminary budget had come in at around 3 million dollars.
The team had suggested that they could reduce it to approximately 1.5 or 2 million if they adjusted certain things.
Owen decided against it.
He preferred to shoot in Los Angeles.
They had the money.
He did not see much point in making the production more complicated just to save a million dollars.
They had also presented him with the preliminary schedule.
Between 24 and 27 shooting days.
The casting director had already been hired. That meant they were practically ready to begin looking for Nikki and Bear.
Curry already had a possible candidate in mind for Nikki: Inde Navarrette.
He had really enjoyed working with her on Curve. Her professionalism, her attitude on set, and also her acting talent.
She was good.
Even so, he did not want to simply hand her the role.
He preferred to hold a traditional casting process and look at several options now that he had the chance.
Nikki was important.
The chemistry between Nikki and Bear was important to the movie.
So it made sense to test different combinations of actors before making a final decision.
'They can probably shoot it in December...' Owen thought, surprised by how quickly everything was moving.
If they really started filming that month, they could finish in early January 2024.
That would leave approximately nine months of post-production before Halloween.
An excessive amount of time for a movie of that size.
In fact, there was a very real possibility that they would finish the movie much earlier and simply have to keep it on the shelf for months while waiting for the right release window.
Not exactly a bad problem to have.
Then there were the two projects that were still mysteries to the public.
The first was Smiling Friends.
An adult animated series Owen had seen in his previous life and that, as a result, did not exist here.
He had already written the entire first season. Nine episodes. Each one around ten or eleven minutes long.
A short season, and completely different from anything he had produced before.
That was exactly why he liked it.
Owen had been thinking about entering the world of animation for a while, but he also did not want to start by immediately trying to put together some enormous animated movie costing fifty, seventy, or a hundred million dollars.
Smiling Friends seemed like a much more logical way to do it.
A small comedy series with dark humor and strange but memorable characters.
If it worked, Second Take would gain its first real experience producing animation.
All of that could be useful later if Owen ever decided to do something much more ambitious, like making an animated feature and trying to compete with Disney in that area.
He certainly did not lack ideas for movies. In fact, he already had a perfect animated trilogy in mind.
There was also something else that had been circling around in his head for a while. He wanted to voice one of the main characters himself.
Owen leaned back against the chair. 'Is it too greedy to want to do that too...?' he wondered.
Probably.
But he also could not deny that the idea excited him. He had already handed the nine scripts over to Second Take's new team.
Now all he had to do was wait: estimated budget, schedule, a good animation studio or team to hire, production timelines, and everything else.
He was starting to like delegation quite a bit.
Then there was Knives Out. A mystery detective thriller. Owen had seen it in his previous life and had loved it.
The story followed private detective Benoit Blanc as he investigated the death of the patriarch of a wealthy family, which occurred shortly after a gathering held to celebrate his birthday.
From there, practically everyone ended up becoming a suspect.
The movie was built around an ensemble cast, with several important characters and secrets that were gradually revealed.
In his previous life, it had been a huge success.
It had cost around 40 million dollars and ended up grossing more than 311 million in theaters.
For a completely new detective mystery IP, that was an impressive figure. It had also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
The true value of the property became even more obvious a couple of years later, when Netflix paid around 450 million dollars for the rights to produce two sequels.
That said quite a lot about the franchise's potential.
Owen had ultimately chosen Knives Out after changing his plans.
Originally, the other feature film he intended to produce for 2024 was Don't Breathe.
But then Curry came along with Obsession, and producing two horror movies relatively close together felt redundant.
So he decided to save Don't Breathe for later. Not cancel it. Just wait and replace it with Knives Out.
It was a more prestigious movie, bigger, more commercially viable, and above all, a far more valuable IP for the company.
It also allowed Owen to act. But without making himself the lead. He had not changed the script to turn Benoit Blanc into a young detective or anything like that.
His role would be Hugh Ransom Drysdale.
In his previous life, Ransom had been played by Chris Evans. At first, he simply seemed like the black sheep of the family.
The typical family member who enjoyed provoking everyone else.
Later on, however, he ended up presenting himself as the only real ally of Marta Cabrera, the female lead, and gradually earned her trust.
Only for the truth to finally be revealed. Ransom was the true villain of the story.
That was exactly why Owen liked the role. He did not have a gigantic amount of screen time.
Less than twenty-five minutes in a movie that ran for more than two hours.
That meant Owen could shoot practically all of his scenes in a relatively small number of days.
Take part in an important movie.
Play a character who was crucial to the ending and, at the same time, avoid once again giving himself the lead role in every script he wrote.
Just like with Smiling Friends, Owen had already handed the complete script over to Lianne.
Now all that remained was to wait for the machinery to start moving. He wondered who Benoit Blanc could be in this world.
One of the decisions that made him the most curious.
Owen could simply have tried to repeat the original casting choice and gone after Daniel Craig.
He would have been an excellent option. But he was not the first person Owen had in mind.
There was another actor he was thinking about.
The only problem was that he would probably be considerably harder to hire and quite a bit more expensive than Craig.
Owen remained there for a few seconds, staring at the laptop screen, lost in thought.
Then he heard the door open, making him look up. He saw that it was Jenna, who began walking toward the desk.
-------------------------------------------------
You can read 15 chapters in advance on my patreon.
Link: https://[email protected]/Nathe07