"Chronicle," Matt read, raising an eyebrow as he looked at the whiteboard.
Owen nodded and began explaining the idea to him. Obviously without going into overly specific details.
He couldn't just casually hand him an almost fully completed script. He needed to sell it as a recent inspiration, something that had been developing in his head for a while and that, after everything that happened with Superman, had finally exploded into place.
The reality was quite different.
Chronicle had been on his mind since even before finishing Good Will Hunting.
From his previous life, he remembered a massive number of movies that didn't exist here. And one of the films that had always seemed most interesting to bring into this world was Chronicle.
In his original reality, it wasn't based on any preexisting IP or famous comic books. It was a completely original idea.
That made it far more appealing. In his first life, the film had earned a total worldwide box office of 126 million dollars with a budget of only 12 million.
More than ten times its budget. A huge success, not only commercially but critically as well. The film had eventually become something close to a modern cult classic within the genre.
The central idea was simple: what would happen if real teenagers obtained powers?
Not from the classic perspective of heroes putting on costumes and saving people the moment they gain powers because it's the right thing to do. But from a much more realistic perspective.
Maybe that was exactly why, at first glance, Chronicle didn't even feel like a traditional superhero movie.
The protagonists never really go out fighting crime.
They don't want to become heroes.
Nor do they initially want to commit crimes that turn them into villains.
And yet, the film still contains clear elements of the genre: powers, progressively escalating abilities, moral conflicts, fights, and eventually a kind of hero-versus-villain dynamic.
The main character, Andrew, is a socially isolated and emotionally broken teenager whose life begins to warp even further once he gains absolute power.
For Owen, playing him was perfect because it wouldn't be easy. The character had many layers: vulnerability, repressed anger, humiliation, euphoria, violent outbursts, and a slow intoxication with power.
There was another advantage too: the film was found footage. The entire story was shot through cameras that existed within the world itself: camcorders, cell phones, security cameras, and most importantly the personal camera Andrew used as a video diary.
That fit perfectly with Owen and Matt's current image.
After Paranormal Activity, the two of them were practically seen as the people responsible for reviving modern found footage within Hollywood.
That alone was automatic marketing.
Matt kept listening while Owen walked around the office explaining the premise: three teenagers discover an unknown object and begin developing telekinetic abilities.
From there, the movie explores how real teenagers would react to something like that. Especially Andrew, who is the protagonist and the center of the story.
Matt loved the idea. He saw the potential immediately and no longer had the doubts he'd had before. It could be a superhero movie that was actually achievable without needing a hundred-million-dollar budget.
And in a way, he also saw it as a return to both of their roots.
A return to found footage, like when they made Paranormal Activity.
Although honestly, it wasn't like they had been away from that style for decades either. They had only done a couple of projects since then. But even so, the feeling was still there: returning to the style that had practically put them on the map.
The two of them kept talking about the movie for quite a while.
Owen listened to the ideas Matt contributed, now just as excited and talking as fast as he had been when he decided to make the film.
Even though Owen already had the complete script in his head, there was always room for improvement: a stronger climax, better-developed characters, more solid supporting roles, and emotional details that would make Andrew's downfall even more painful and realistic rather than just another cliché villain blaming society.
That was why listening to outside ideas was still useful.
That was exactly Owen's intention: to take the foundation of the film from his previous life and make it even stronger here. Make it more solid and memorable.
That would increase the chances of success both critically and at the box office.
Owen had already decided that Matt would direct it. He didn't have many doubts about that.
He already knew perfectly well how Matt worked. His obsession throughout every stage of production. The seriousness with which he approached every project and, above all, the genuine enthusiasm he had for making films.
It wasn't worth taking the risk of hiring an outside director Owen didn't personally know and with whom he had no idea what it would be like spending months working together.
Besides, Matt already had real experience.
Yes, they were films financed by Owen and produced under Second Take Films, but he hadn't been given those jobs out of friendship.
He had been hired because he genuinely had talent and an enormous work ethic. And now making the jump to a movie with a budget between twelve and twenty million dollars felt completely logical for him.
The conversation slowly calmed down after all the initial excitement.
Eventually, both of them ended up sitting down, each holding a beer, staring at the whiteboard in silence for a few minutes while they processed the idea.
Until Matt finally spoke again, "Oh… it's called Chronicle because of Andrew's downfall…" he said, as if he had only just connected the entire concept.
Owen nodded slowly. "Yeah. It can be seen as the chronicle of his powers, his psychological deterioration, or his fall."
Matt looked back at the word written in black on the whiteboard, and the more he thought about the idea, the more he liked the title.
Because it sounded almost documentary-like. That fit the found footage style perfectly.
"When I finish the edit on Lights Out, we can start pre-production," Matt said, taking the last sip of his beer.
That would be in early August.
By then, Lights Out would already be completely finished. After that, the next steps for the movie would be releasing the trailer, entering a film festival, and finally securing a distributor for a Halloween release.
"Good. I'll probably have a preliminary script ready by then," Owen commented.
Preliminary was a pretty gentle way of putting it. Owen already had practically the entire movie playing in his head.
Chronicle also wasn't a particularly long story. The original runtime was eighty-four minutes. It worked well for found footage pacing, sure, but it was still short for a standard film, which usually runs between one hundred and one hundred twenty minutes.
So by the time Matt actually joined the creative process, Owen would probably already have the script finished, the weak points identified, and multiple rewrite ideas written down.
There was room to expand certain things: more emotional development, better interactions between the protagonists, more gradual tension, and an even more powerful climax.
They could improve the overall depth of the movie compared to the version from his previous life. That was where Matt's help would be key.
Matt nodded without looking particularly surprised.
He was already used to the absurd speed at which Owen worked.
His friend was literally finishing the post-production of Lights Out, still supervising the edit and helping in the editing room; about to enter pre-production and filming for two episodes of Black Mirror; possibly joining season two of Wednesday as well, and yet he was already thinking about writing and moving forward with the pre-production of another film.
At that moment, a voice from the living room made both Owen and Matt jump slightly.
"Owen, I'm back. Where are you?"
Owen immediately recognized Jenna's voice. "I'm in the office," he replied, still a little disoriented from the small scare.
After that, he looked at the clock. Almost three hours had passed since Matt arrived.
Time had flown by.
The half-open door swung fully open and Jenna walked into the room carrying the fat orange cat. She first looked at Owen and then at Matt.
"Hey, Jenna!" Matt greeted confidently, raising a hand.
"Hey, Matt," she replied before looking over at the whiteboard covered in words, arrows, ideas, and black scribbles.
There wasn't much need to ask what they were doing. She knew them. Especially when they were together.
"I'm guessing you guys are working," Jenna added.
"Yeah!" Matt replied, jumping up from the chair with way too much energy, probably fueled by the beer he'd had. "We're gonna get revenge on DC!"
Jenna immediately looked at him cautiously before turning toward Owen.
Because when she had left, Owen had been sprawled on the couch watching TikToks with low energy, almost depressed, and now he looked like he was planning his next cinematic move alongside Matt, who always seemed to operate at a thousand miles an hour.
"Get revenge on DC?" Jenna repeated slowly.
It wasn't like they actually hated DC or Gunn. But the revenge narrative sounded good.
Almost like creative fuel and automatic marketing for what they had just started building.
"Exactly!" Matt said, pointing at her enthusiastically. "We're making our own superhero movie!"
Then he paused briefly. "Well… technically not exactly a traditional superhero movie. It has elements of the genre, but also a lot of weird psychological thriller and science fiction stuff."
Jenna looked back at the whiteboard.
One single word stood out in the center:
CHRONICLE.
"A movie?" Jenna repeated, tilting her head slightly. "'Chronicle'? What's it about? And wouldn't it be too expensive if it has powers and all that?"
The questions came out almost automatically. After all, Jenna was just as obsessed with work as they were. And ever since she had become more involved as a producer, she automatically analyzed things in terms of cost, feasibility, production, and logistics.
"That's exactly the good part," Owen replied, crossing his arms. "It won't be that expensive because it'll be found footage."
He said it almost as if he had just revealed the key piece of the puzzle.
Then both he and Matt began explaining the general idea to her, along with the concepts that had emerged over the last few hours of conversation and the more realistic, psychological approach.
After listening to them for several minutes, Jenna eventually sat down in another chair with the fat orange cat resting across her legs while she absentmindedly petted him.
Finally, she nodded slowly. "It has potential," she said.
If they managed to build a really solid script, the movie could become something huge.
Especially because it also gave Owen the perfect lead role to show off his acting abilities: a complex, emotionally broken, violent, tragic character with an enormous range.
And beyond that, the entire narrative surrounding the project was practically writing itself.
An original IP.
A grounded superhero thriller.
An indie budget.
The indie filmmaker of the moment.
And on top of that, the actor who had just been rejected by DC Studios making his own vision of the genre.
The internet was going to lose its mind over that.
And there were probably still more layers to come. Because if Good Will Hunting kept growing at its current pace, by the time they announced Chronicle, Owen would probably already be seen as one of the new major filmmakers of the moment.
First of all, nobody yet knew exactly how far Good Will Hunting could go. The movie kept growing week after week, the word of mouth wouldn't slow down, and the headlines surrounding it were getting bigger and bigger.
But another conversation, an even more important one within Hollywood, was already beginning to take shape:
The Oscars.
Many outlets were already openly calling it a strong contender for major awards.
The big question now: How many nominations could it get? Three? Four? Five? Maybe more.
That would completely change Owen's status. He would no longer just be the guy who made profitable movies and acted well enough to win Best Actor at Cannes.
His critical prestige would reach an even higher level, and with it, his institutional recognition.
All of that would inevitably carry over to Chronicle. The movie would stop feeling like simply Owen's next project and would instead start to feel almost like an event, attracting more attention than ever before.
"Will you even be able to do all of this at the same time? I don't want my boyfriend ending up like a corpse," Jenna said, looking at Owen with concern.
She knew Owen's routine and how many different fronts he was working on.
The first front was Lights Out.
Even though the movie was already in post-production and Matt was carrying most of the weight alongside the editor, Owen still constantly stepped into the editing room to help.
Matt and the editor had already admitted several times that his input was extremely useful.
Still, that was probably the project consuming the least amount of his time at the moment because he could delegate a lot to Matt and the editor.
The real problem was the other two fronts: the new episodes of Black Mirror.
Both were already entering a fairly advanced stage of pre-production. The scripts were practically locked. The directors and producers had already signed on.
In fact, the following day, Monday, the serious casting phase would officially begin. Nothing in person yet.
But the offers, agency contacts, and actor lists sent to agencies like CAA, WME, UTA, and several respected mid-sized agencies would begin.
From there they would start narrowing names down, requesting self-tapes, doing callbacks, and eventually moving into in-person tests.
Owen's plan also made everything even more complicated: he wanted to produce both episodes at the same time.
He didn't want to finish one and only then move on to the other.
He wanted both productions moving in parallel.
He would be far more involved with San Junipero. It was the more expensive episode and he himself would star as the lead.
Because of that, he planned to be heavily involved creatively in casting, editing, music, visual tone, everything.
Meanwhile, on Shut Up and Dance, he could function more as an executive producer: delegating much more, supervising from a distance, and making sure the episode stayed faithful to the intended tone and respected the script.
Those two projects were already consuming most of his time.
And that wasn't even counting all the other secondary fronts that constantly kept appearing: interviews for Good Will Hunting, famous podcasts, magazines, photo shoots, YouTube, brand deals, and meetings with studios such as the DC casting process that had just ended; the possible meeting with Marvel Studios for Fantastic Four; and now also Netflix for Wednesday.
That was why Jenna was genuinely worried.
"I'll be fine," Owen replied, standing up from the chair and walking over to her. "I'm going to reduce my workload on the edit for Lights Out. Unless Matt and Josh can't decide on something important, I'm basically going to stop stepping in."
That alone would free up a couple of hours per day. And there was one massive difference they obviously didn't know about.
For Owen, writing Chronicle wasn't really a normal process.
He wouldn't have to go through creative blocks, mental fatigue, or entire weeks spent trying to write scenes and dialogue.
Because the movie practically already existed fully inside his head.
He remembered every line.
Writing the first draft would be almost like transcribing a text assignment in elementary school.
The truly demanding part would come afterward.
When he started improving it.
That was when he would really have to think about how to make Andrew's emotional downfall more solid, how to improve the climax, or how much to extend the runtime without breaking the found footage pacing.
But that part was still far away, and he preferred waiting until Matt was more available so they could enter that stage together.
For now, he would simply keep making notes about the weak points he remembered from the original version and possible ways to strengthen them here.
And so the days passed, while Good Will Hunting simply kept growing.
On Sunday, June 25, the movie made 7.6 million domestically and 4.1 million internationally. 11.7 million worldwide in a single day.
Bringing its total worldwide gross to 83.6 million dollars.
But the truly huge moment arrived the following day.
Monday officially marked the beginning of the film's fourth week in theaters.
That was when the phenomenon fully exploded.
During the previous week, the movie had been playing in around 1,500 theaters. Now it had finally reached its maximum expansion: 2,220 theaters in the United States alone.
That same Monday, several major international markets that still hadn't opened officially launched as well: Germany, Mexico, Argentina, South Korea, Japan, and several more European countries.
The success during that week could only be described as something that had broken the internet.
TikTok was flooded with clips. Twitter constantly exploded with scenes and dialogue.
YouTube became filled with analysis videos. And interviews with the cast, Owen, Bryan, Emma, Jacob, Ethan, kept going viral one after another.
Far more than in previous weeks.
During that fourth week, Good Will Hunting made 51.3 million dollars in the United States and another 35.9 million internationally.
87.2 million worldwide in a single week.
In just seven days, it had practically doubled everything it had earned during its entire first three weeks combined.
The commercial peak came on Saturday, July 1st.
That day, the film made 14.2 million domestically and 10.4 million internationally.
24.6 million worldwide in barely a single day. Almost double the entire production budget recovered in twenty-four hours.
And all while competing directly at the box office against massive franchises and gigantic-budget films such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental, Disney's animated movie with a 200 million dollar budget, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, The Flash, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and others.
When the week ended, Good Will Hunting closed with a worldwide total of 170.8 million dollars.
An absolute insanity for an original adult drama.
That was when Owen was finally able to think something with a considerable amount of satisfaction regarding Searchlight Pictures:
Fuck them.
Months earlier, the studio had tried to buy the film outright, IP included, no backend, no percentage of the box office, simply paying an enormous fixed amount.
An offer that probably would have made many filmmakers say yes immediately, and even Owen himself had hesitated for a moment.
Because it was fifty million dollars guaranteed. No risk involved and on top of that, there was the prestige of Searchlight Pictures.
The studio had a huge reputation for handling awards campaigns and industry relationships.
That was why Owen had genuinely tried negotiating with them. He wanted them to understand something fairly simple: he didn't want to completely sell the movie.
He wanted to keep part of it.
Even if it was just a percentage. Some kind of backend similar to the deals other studios like Neon or A24 had offered him.
But Searchlight never wanted to move away from that structure. That had been their first offer and also their last.
Even knowing Owen was trying to negotiate toward a different kind of agreement, they simply never changed their position.
They wanted everything or nothing.
Now, looking at the current numbers for Good Will Hunting, Owen couldn't help but feel a very particular kind of satisfaction.
The studio was probably regretting being so stubborn.
They could have had a movie that, besides generating massive profits, would also be remembered for years and would almost certainly receive multiple Oscar nominations.
Out of the 170.8 million worldwide gross, approximately half went to theaters.
That left 85.4 million remaining.
From that amount, the profits were split between Owen and Neon.
Owen had secured an extremely aggressive 60% post-theatrical deal. Which meant his current share already equaled approximately 51.2 million dollars.
More money than Searchlight Pictures had offered him to completely sell the movie.
And the film still had several weeks left in theaters. This was nowhere near all the money it would make. And that wasn't even counting post-theatrical revenue from streaming, VOD, licensing, and other future income streams.
Meanwhile, Monday officially marked the beginning of the fifth week of Good Will Hunting in theaters and, at the same time, Owen was already completely buried in another problem:
The casting for Black Mirror.
More specifically, deciding who would play Kelly in San Junipero—the love interest of Mike, the character who would be played by Owen himself and the story's other protagonist.
They already had an initial list of twenty actresses who had submitted self-tapes, and now it was time to narrow down the names moving into the next in-person stage.
At first, Owen had seriously considered Jenna.
For many reasons.
Acting-wise, they already knew each other perfectly. They had natural chemistry. She worked with impeccable professionalism, taking everything seriously, and commercially, an episode starring both of them as a couple would increase the value of the series even more.
But in the end, her schedule made it practically impossible.
Even though filming for San Junipero was theoretically supposed to take place between August and September, similar dates to the ones she would have occupied had she landed Lois Lane, Jenna was now completely absorbed by the pre-production of Wednesday.
Especially because the production was going through a relocation of its main sets from Romania to Ireland. That alone was generating an enormous amount of logistical work, and combined with the creative responsibilities, it was taking up far too much of her time.
So after losing Lois Lane, Jenna basically decided to focus almost all of her professional energy on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, casting the lead for Shut Up and Dance was even more chaotic.
The director Owen had hired for that episode was Jeremy Saulnier, one of the most respected voices in modern independent cinema.
And Jeremy had specifically loved the system Owen used for Lights Out: creating real opportunities through Backstage instead of limiting the search exclusively to actors represented by established agencies.
So they decided to repeat the method.
The result was insanity.
More than three thousand submissions from Backstage alone, plus dozens of self-tapes sent through major agencies.
Out of all that, they had already narrowed the number down to around fifty relatively serious options.
Now they had to cut that list in half again before moving into more advanced callbacks.
A new week was beginning once again.
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