"What?" Owen muttered in disbelief.
Larry was slightly caught off guard by Owen's tone.
"You didn't get the role of Superman," Larry repeated more carefully. "They called me a few minutes ago. They said it was extremely competitive and that the decision was very difficult."
Owen slowly frowned. He stood up from his chair and began pacing around the office. "That's it?"
"No, they also said they want to stay in touch with you and would love to find something for you later on within the new universe."
This was Hollywood.
Especially with someone like Owen, you didn't want to burn bridges with such a valuable figure just because he lost a casting. The new DCU was only just beginning. There were still countless potential characters Owen could fit into: Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, among others.
"What an honor," Owen said with obvious sarcasm.
Larry immediately noticed something off. This wasn't playful sarcasm. It was real anger. Something fairly unusual for Owen.
"Who got the role?" Owen asked.
"David Corenswet."
Owen stopped dead in his tracks. "That guy?" he blurted out with genuine surprise.
Honestly, he was the last person Owen expected to win. In his mind, the real competition had been Nicholas Hoult.
"Did they give reasons?" Owen asked immediately.
Because the more he remembered the audition, the less any of this made sense to him.
They had put him first in the final screen test.
The reactions.
The silence after the scenes.
The looks from Gunn and the executives.
Everything in his head had pointed in a completely different direction.
"They said you had too dominant of a presence," Larry explained, trying to remember the exact wording. "That they were looking for an energy that felt more naturally Clark Kent."
Owen clenched his jaw.
'Dominant presence? What the hell does that even mean?' he thought as he dropped onto one of the office couches.
His leg started bouncing on its own, tapping impatiently against the floor.
"I see…" he muttered.
A few seconds of silence passed before he added, "Fine. If that's all, I've got work to do. Bye."
Before Larry could say anything else, Owen hung up.
Larry stared at his phone for a few seconds from his office after the call ended. It was strange seeing Owen like this. In fact, it was probably the first time he had ever heard him react that way.
Owen had always had an ego. But it was an ego backed up by real results. He never presented himself as someone insecure about his abilities. He spoke confidently about his acting, festivals, auditions, premieres, or awards as if he could already visualize the outcome before it happened. And the most impressive part was that he was usually right: Sundance, Oscars, Cannes, box office hits, critical prestige...
For a long time now, he had barely failed at anything.
That was why this felt different. It wasn't just losing another audition. It was rejection after genuinely investing himself in the project. Three stages of casting. Hours inside the Warner lot. Suit tests. Full scenes. Creative conversations with Gunn. Chemistry reads with the potential Lois Lanes. All of that creates an inevitable sense of hope, even for actors who are already successful.
And Larry had felt the odds were incredibly high too. When he received the call from DC, he had been surprised as well.
He hadn't expected Owen to lose either. He had grown so used to watching Owen get exactly what he set out to achieve that, at some point, he stopped seriously considering the possibility that things could go wrong.
Until now.
He slowly leaned back against his chair and let out a breath as he started thinking about the next move. Almost immediately, his mind went to Marvel.
Because one thing was crystal clear: Owen genuinely loved superheroes. It wasn't a branding strategy or some façade to land franchises. He had loved them long before any of this. So maybe having another major opportunity on the table could help soften the blow of losing Superman.
And the Johnny Storm offer was still huge. From everything being said, Fantastic Four would probably end up becoming one of the central pillars of the future MCU, especially now that Marvel needed to regain stability after several recent misfires.
Thinking about the reasons DC had given for rejecting him, Larry realized those same issues simply wouldn't exist with Owen as Johnny.
Owen fit the character's natural energy far better: charisma, arrogance, quick humor, movie-star presence, and youthful energy. Superman required a certain restraint that was almost impossible for someone like him.
…
Owen was still in his office. Barely twenty minutes had passed since the call with Larry. But he hadn't been able to focus on work again.
His laptop screen was still open, displaying Black Mirror pre-production documents: budgets, casting lists, potential directors, and schedules.
The series was already entering a much more serious stage of execution and there was an enormous amount of work to do. But Owen kept thinking about Superman, and the more he replayed the situation in his head, the more irritated he became.
He had lost. And on top of that, to an actor he honestly didn't even see as a real rival.
Not in fame. Not in acting range. Nor in momentum within the industry.
DC had chosen a relatively up-and-coming actor who was still fairly unknown to the general audience to lead a two-hundred-million-dollar film and become the face of the entire new universe.
The idea still wasn't fully registering in his head.
At that moment, the office door opened.
Owen immediately looked up, clearly annoyed that someone had entered without knocking first, but his expression softened the moment he saw who it was.
"Jenna? What are you doing here?"
Jenna closed the door behind her as she set her bag down on one of the office chairs.
Owen knew she was pretty busy with all the pre-production for Wednesday season two, so honestly he hadn't expected to see her there at that hour.
"I left early because you sounded weird on the phone," Jenna replied, looking at him closely.
Jenna had called him shortly after Larry. She had also gotten news from her agent: she didn't get the role of Lois Lane. And during the call where she found out Owen hadn't gotten the part either, she immediately noticed something strange in him. Anger, which wasn't normal for him.
"I'm fine," Owen answered automatically.
Jenna narrowed her eyes slightly. "You don't look fine. Your tone sounds irritated and you've been frowning since I walked in."
Before Owen could respond, Jenna simply grabbed one of his hands, led him over to one of the couches, and practically forced him to sit down.
Then she settled herself on top of him without much ceremony, sitting across his lap while watching him closely.
"Are you seriously okay? Because you look angry," she said.
Owen looked at her silently before finally sighing. "I'm a little angry…" he admitted.
Jenna immediately raised an eyebrow. "Only a little?"
That pulled a small frustrated smile out of Owen, and he eventually admitted that yes, it was probably a lot more than "a little."
Then he started telling her everything DC had said to Larry.
The "too dominant of a presence."
The part about David Corenswet naturally carrying the Clark Kent energy they were looking for.
And the more he talked, the more obvious it became that Owen wasn't really sad.
He was frustrated.
Because in his head, he honestly felt like he had won that audition.
He had left Gunn, John, and several others completely speechless after some scenes, and he genuinely didn't believe anyone else had reached that level of acting during the screen tests.
Jenna listened without interrupting much until she finally said, "They don't always choose the best actor."
"I know…" Owen replied immediately.
Even so, he kept talking. Trying to justify why he thought it was a mistake.
Jenna simply kept listening calmly while he emptied out all that built-up frustration.
Until eventually Owen fell silent and looked at her. "You're not angry?" he asked when he saw how calm she was.
She had also lost a role she had invested time into and genuinely liked the project for.
Jenna shrugged slightly. "Of course I am. But I know how to handle it."
Owen narrowed his eyes a little. "You literally spent an entire day inside Warner. You could at least show a little more anger."
Jenna let out a soft laugh. "I've been getting rejected from auditions since I was ten years old. I'm pretty desensitized to it by now. That's why I don't react much."
Owen could understand that.
Jenna had spent more than half her life auditioning. Since childhood she had gone through dozens and dozens of tests, callbacks, and constant rejection. It was a normal part of the profession for her.
Yes, she had invested time and emotion into the role of Lois Lane.
Partly because she genuinely liked the project, and the confidence she saw in Owen had eventually rubbed off on her too.
But with the amount of experience she had dealing with casting rejection, she handled it far better than Owen did.
Eventually Jenna slowly started changing the subject little by little so Owen would stop thinking about it.
…
Meanwhile, back at the Warner Bros. offices, James Gunn, Peter Safran, Pam Abdy, and John Papsidera were still talking about the casting even during one of the day's breaks.
They had made the final decision on Superman last Monday after the final screen tests.
They stayed inside the Warner lot until fairly late, reviewing footage, discussing scenes, and comparing impressions over and over again before finally deciding on David Corenswet.
After that came calls with his agent regarding availability and contracts. The same process happened with the actress chosen for Lois Lane: Rachel Brosnahan.
Only once everything was practically set in place did they begin making rejection calls to the other finalists.
Safran adjusted himself in his chair while looking through something on his tablet. "Only Lex Luthor is left."
Everyone nodded.
They had already done a few tests for the character, although the process was still far less advanced than Superman or Lois.
Unlike Superman, none of the actors had fully convinced them yet.
Gunn spoke with a thoughtful expression. "I saw an energy in Hoult that could work really well for Luthor."
He started explaining some of his impressions from the screen tests.
The rest agreed with his reasoning.
They would probably offer him specific Lex tests soon.
Then Pam spoke up. "What about Owen as Luthor?"
Gunn shook his head immediately. "I don't see it."
Safran nodded almost at the same time. "Me neither."
There were several reasons behind that.
The first one was fairly simple: sooner or later, it was practically inevitable that the identities of the Superman finalists would leak.
It always happened.
Months later there would be articles, leaks, photos, or insiders revealing the entire process.
If the public discovered that Owen had lost Superman only to end up playing Lex Luthor afterward, the conversation around the film could become awkward very quickly.
Especially because the comparisons would be unavoidable.
Fans saying Owen should have been Superman.
Constant debates between him and Corenswet.
And the most dangerous risk of all: Owen ending up overshadowing Superman himself inside his own movie.
Something incredibly delicate for a universe that was only just beginning.
Besides, although they had always seen him as extremely professional, they also seriously doubted Owen would accept something like that.
Because losing a role was one thing.
Playing the villain who loses against the actor who beat you for the main character was something entirely different.
When they told Larry they wanted to keep working with Owen in the future, they weren't thinking about secondary roles or antagonists defeated by Superman.
They were thinking about a different class of characters:
Batman.
Flash.
Aquaman.
Roles that could place him at the same level as Superman within the DCU.
The real reasons behind rejecting Owen were far more complex than what they had communicated to his manager.
The problem was never his acting. In fact, for Gunn and a large part of the room, Owen had delivered the best performance out of all the tests.
And it also wasn't entirely true that he had too dominant of a presence for Clark Kent.
That was more of a diplomatic explanation.
Yes, it was true that Owen had an aura that felt overwhelmingly strong even when trying to tone himself down. There was something naturally magnetic about him. But with his acting ability, he could absolutely portray a clumsier, warmer, or more vulnerable Clark Kent if he genuinely wanted to.
The real issue was something else.
Owen arrived to the project as a force of his own.
And inside massive superhero franchises, that could become extremely dangerous.
Historically, Superman, and in general most leads in superhero franchises, tends to go to semi-unknown, emerging actors, or actors at vulnerable moments in their careers.
That's not accidental.
Casting lesser-known actors allows studios to keep budgets far more controlled.
But there was another reason that mattered even more: creative control.
An emerging actor will usually sign enormous seven-, eight-, or even ten-year contracts without much resistance, committing to multiple films, spin-offs, cameos, and endless promotional obligations.
Meanwhile, actors who are too established rarely agree to become "tied down" to a franchise for an entire decade.
And when they do, they usually demand significantly more power.
For example, Christopher Reeve, the famous Superman from the 1978 film that grossed $300 million back then, was a complete unknown before that movie.
The same was true for Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Holland (Spider-Man), and Henry Cavill (Superman in 2013), all of whom were relatively low-to-mid-level supporting actors before landing those roles.
If a studio chose a bigger star, there was usually a very specific reason behind it.
The classic case was Robert Downey Jr.: an extremely talented actor, but one at a professionally vulnerable point in his life, someone who needed to rebuild his image and stability.
That also made it easier for the studio to maintain control over the overall machine.
But Owen was the complete opposite of all of that.
He was at the absolute peak of his career, with momentum that kept rising thanks to the overwhelming box office and critical success of Good Will Hunting.
And on top of that, he wasn't just an actor with a level of talent that already had part of the industry viewing him as a future serious Oscar contender. He also wrote, produced, and made creative decisions himself.
For some people within Warner and DC, bringing Owen into the universe wasn't simply hiring an actor.
It was almost like inviting another small creative studio into the DCU itself.
Because even during casting, he had already shown certain signs: asking highly specific questions about motivations, analyzing scenes, suggesting subtle changes in pacing, and discussing certain lines from a deeply creative perspective.
Gunn normally enjoyed working with actors who were invested and passionate about the characters.
But there was also a limit.
Franchises of this size functioned like enormous industrial machines coordinated from the top down.
And while Gunn wanted actors who were genuinely committed to the comic-book world, he also didn't want someone so big and creatively powerful that they might eventually start pulling too hard on the steering wheel themselves.
…
The days passed, and Sunday arrived.
Good Will Hunting reached its third week and third weekend. On Friday, it expanded to 1,500 theaters.
Its domestic day-by-day results were the following:
Monday 19: $2.1M
Tuesday 20: $2.0M
Wednesday 21: $2.2M
Thursday 22: $2.4M
Friday 23: $9.5M
Saturday 24: $12.0M
A domestic total of $61.3M through Saturday.
And on Thursday the 22nd, it opened internationally in: the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands.
In those three international days, it earned:
Thursday 22: $2.0M
Friday 23: $3.6M
Saturday 24: $5.0M
European total through Saturday: $10.6M
The film had already accumulated $71.9 million worldwide.
The most impressive part was that it was still growing.
Jenna was at her apartment enjoying one of the few relatively calm days she had had lately while scrolling through news, social media, and articles about Good Will Hunting.
At that point, the film was no longer being seen as simply "a successful indie."
It had officially become one of the biggest cinematic phenomena of the year.
It had already made back more than five times its budget before July had even ended, and it was still expanding into more theaters. On top of that, it was only just beginning its rollout in several major international markets.
The headlines kept appearing everywhere.
"Adult dramas are back."
"The surprise phenomenon of the year."
"The next great modern classic?"
For years, the market had been dominated almost exclusively by sequels, shared universes, superheroes, live-action remakes, reboots, and giant franchises.
That was why the impact of Good Will Hunting was drawing even more attention inside Hollywood.
It wasn't just a movie performing well.
It was an adult drama slowly turning into something close to a cultural blockbuster.
And that was incredibly rare in the modern industry.
Many critics and journalists were even beginning to compare it to exceptional cases from the past like Manchester by the Sea, which had been considered one of the last relatively recent major commercial successes for a serious drama, earning around $77 million worldwide.
But Good Will Hunting would probably surpass that number that very night once the final Sunday numbers came in.
Projections were already talking about far more ridiculous totals: $200 million or more.
Something that would have seemed completely impossible for a movie like this just weeks earlier.
The internet had exploded around it too.
Emotional clips constantly circulated across TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube: edits, dialogue scenes, analyses, reactions, and moments between Bryan and Owen.
The "It's not your fault" scene had practically become a viral phenomenon on its own. The more the conversation grew, the more people felt they needed to watch the movie so they wouldn't be left out.
The film had become the movie you had to see and couldn't miss. An accessible drama that never felt heavy, but would still completely wreck you emotionally.
In barely three weeks, the film had already established itself as an extremely strong Oscar contender.
Probably within the top three of the entire cinematic conversation of the year.
Jenna stopped looking through all the chaos surrounding Good Will Hunting and looked over toward the apartment couch.
There was the person responsible for a huge part of that media frenzy: the actor and creator of the film. Her boyfriend.
Owen was sprawled across the couch in a very unglamorous way, scrolling through TikTok while watching videos that were probably cancelable memes or dark humor.
Jenna had noticed something over the past few days.
Owen was happy about the movie's success.
Very happy.
It was almost as if he had finally been able to relax after confirming that the gamble had paid off: the movie was a success, the investment had been recovered, and now everything else would be massive profit.
But after the Superman rejection, something in him had shifted slightly.
He was still working, supervising the post-production of Lights Out and focusing on the pre-production of the two Black Mirror episodes.
He was still functioning.
But he had become noticeably grumpier and quieter at times.
Honestly, Jenna even found it a little cute. Because she was so used to seeing him almost too perfect.
Too competent and too used to winning.
Watching him get frustrated over something made him seem more human.
Closer to the Owen Elizabeth had described to her: the hyper-competitive guy who got incredibly irritated whenever something didn't go the way he wanted.
Though it wasn't like he was reacting in a toxic way or anything close to that.
He wasn't mistreating anyone. Nor had he dramatically shut himself away.
He was simply a little annoyed.
Jenna eventually walked over to the couch while watching him swipe through another video. "Watching this many TikToks is going to fry your brain."
Owen lowered the phone slightly to look at her. "A risk I'm willing to take. You leaving already?"
Jenna nodded. She was going to spend time with her family. Owen didn't want to go since he had already had dinner with them two days earlier and preferred to procrastinate in peace instead of socializing.
She understood, and it didn't bother her at all.
They said goodbye, and soon Owen found himself alone in the apartment.
Not for long.
Barely fifty minutes later, someone knocked on the apartment door again.
It was Matt.
Owen barely opened the door before immediately walking back to the couch, dropping onto it again while automatically going back to his phone.
"Come on, man! You've gotta improve that mood! I brought beer," Matt said as he entered the apartment.
He sat down on the couch and moved Owen's feet aside since he had practically monopolized the entire thing.
"I can't," Owen replied without taking his eyes too far off the phone. "Today the news literally came out about who the new Superman is, and it should've been me."
With almost anyone else, he probably wouldn't have said something like that so directly.
But Matt was Matt.
His best friend.
'He's still in the denial stage…' Matt thought while opening a beer can.
The news had already exploded online.
The internet was full of comparisons between Henry Cavill and David, endless debates over the new casting, and of course the army of SnyderVerse fans attacking everything related to DC's reboot.
Business as usual.
Matt took a sip of beer before speaking again. "Think about it this way… DC didn't choose you precisely because they couldn't control you."
Owen slowly looked up.
Matt continued, "I already explained to you how that industrial machine works inside superhero franchises."
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
At first, Warner probably saw Owen as an incredible possibility: the face of the moment, prestige, talent, gigantic free marketing, and the perfect actor to launch a reboot.
That was why they got so close to him and why he made it so far in the process.
But then they started analyzing the bigger picture: his personality, his salary demands, his level of fame, his creative influence, and how deeply involved he became even during auditions.
That was probably when the real doubts started.
Too risky to become the lead face of the very first film in a cinematic universe that didn't even exist yet.
Owen finally sat up a little on the couch. "Are you saying my own success became my failure?"
Matt tilted his head slightly while taking another sip of beer. "You could say that, yeah…"
Owen didn't respond immediately.
He simply sat there staring ahead with that very specific expression Matt knew all too well.
That look where it seemed like Owen's brain was connecting ideas at absurd speeds.
Owen stayed like that for several more seconds before finally speaking. "We need revenge."
Matt blinked. "Revenge? And since when am I included in your post-Superman crisis?"
Owen suddenly stood up from the couch and started talking faster and faster. "We're making our own superhero movie."
Matt let out an incredulous laugh. "Those aren't cheap, man."
"Not a generic superhero movie," Owen continued as he walked into the office area of his apartment. "Something more realistic. Show people the genre isn't dead."
His energy kept growing the more he spoke. Matt followed him with the beer can still in his hand.
"People talk about superhero fatigue like the problem is superheroes themselves. No. The problem is that lately they've been making mediocre movies. Marvel and DC included. Let's prove that even with an indie budget, you can still make something incredible that people love."
Matt was already recognizing that tone perfectly.
It was the same tone Owen always had before becoming obsessed with a new project.
Owen stopped in front of the large whiteboard he used for ideas, structures, and projects. He grabbed a black marker and wrote a single massive word in the center:
CHRONICLE.
-------------------------------------------------
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