It was late September, but Los Angeles was still warm even after midnight.
The moment Mark Anderson walked out of the airport terminal, he checked the time and sent Evelyn Parker a message.
“Ms. Parker, I’m back in Los Angeles. Are you still awake? Will you be at Silverline tomorrow? I need to talk to you about Jaws.”
His phone rang less than a minute later.
“You’re already back?” Evelyn’s voice sounded tired and slightly hoarse as she asked, “Did you actually finish shooting the movie?”
“Wrapped yesterday.” Mark collected his luggage and headed toward the exit with a smile.
“I figured I should report in as soon as I landed. I mainly need to talk to you about the marketing budget, but we can discuss it tomorrow.”
Evelyn remained silent for several seconds before suddenly saying, “Come see me now.”
“Now?” Mark glanced at the time again.
“It’s almost midnight. Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“I’m still awake.”
“Should I come to the office?”
“Come to my house. I’ll send you the address.”
Mark paused.
“Your house?”
“I’ll text you.”
Before he could ask anything else, Evelyn ended the call.
Paul Stevens walked over while holding his own phone.
“Mark, I called Kevin to pick us up, but apparently the idiot forgot. He’s only leaving now, so we might as well grab a rideshare.”
“No need.” Mark thought briefly before pushing his luggage toward Paul.
“We brought too much equipment and baggage. Wait for Kevin and take my stuff back with you.”
Paul looked confused.
“You’re not coming?”
“I have something to handle first.” Mark patted him on the shoulder and walked toward the rideshare pickup area before Paul could continue questioning him.
Evelyn’s address led to an upscale gated community outside the busiest part of Los Angeles, conveniently closer to the airport than downtown.
Mark arrived sooner than expected and noticed that many of the large homes nearby were dark, suggesting the development was relatively new or sparsely occupied.
Only Evelyn’s house had several lights still glowing.
Mark rang the bell.
A short while later, the door opened.
Evelyn stood there wearing a loose silk robe and simple house slippers.
Her hair was still slightly damp from a shower, and without the sharp makeup and formal business clothes she wore at Silverline, she looked considerably softer and younger than she did in the office.
Mark hesitated for half a second.
He was so accustomed to seeing the cold, commanding studio president that the difference almost made him wonder whether he had come to the wrong house.
“Come in.”
Her familiar voice immediately removed that doubt.
Evelyn turned and walked inside.
“Close the door behind you.”
Mark did as instructed and followed her toward the living room.
For someone who usually seemed extremely cautious, she appeared surprisingly unconcerned about inviting a male employee into her home near midnight, but he wisely kept that thought to himself.
“Sit.”
Evelyn dropped onto the couch, yawned, and rubbed her face before gesturing toward the kitchen.
“There are drinks in the refrigerator if you want something.”
“I’m fine. I drank enough water on the flight.”
Mark sat opposite her and noticed how tired she looked. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“If you’re exhausted, I can come back tomorrow. This isn’t urgent enough to keep you awake.”
“It’s fine. Get to the point.” Evelyn looked directly at him.
“You said you wanted to discuss promotion. I already gave you seven hundred thousand dollars to make the movie. What exactly is left to discuss?”
Mark immediately adopted a wounded expression.
“Ms. Parker, that sounds incredibly heartless after everything I’ve been through. I spent the last two months shooting during the day and working on footage at night. I even ended up replacing the male lead and playing Martin Brody myself just to keep production moving.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow.
“Making movies burns money faster than almost anything,” Mark continued seriously.
“I squeezed every possible dollar, controlled equipment costs, kept accommodations cheap, and finished principal photography without going over the budget. But finishing a movie and convincing people to buy tickets are two different things.”
A faint smile appeared on Evelyn’s face.
“Should I give you an award for being responsible with the money I lent you?”
“That really isn’t necessary.”
Mark waved generously, then leaned forward with a much more shameless smile.
“But if you happen to have a little more money available for marketing, I wouldn’t refuse it.”
Evelyn stared at him.
Mark continued before she could interrupt.
“Think about it. If nobody knows Jaws exists, theaters won’t care and audiences won’t show up. Spending seven hundred thousand dollars to make the movie and then refusing to promote it would be like buying a car and refusing to put gas in it.”
“Hm.”
Evelyn crossed her arms.
“Interesting argument.”
Mark’s smile widened.
“Except,” she continued, “I heard your crew was celebrating on a boat yesterday, and then everyone had a rather expensive wrap party at one of the better hotels on Martha’s Vineyard.”
Mark’s smile froze.
“Who told you that?”
Evelyn merely looked at him.
Mark immediately changed tactics.
“That wasn’t wasting money. The crew had been working long days for more than two months, much of it around boats and open water. We spent roughly forty thousand dollars from what remained of the production allowance and final crew expenses, which was reasonable considering how much overtime and hardship everyone had put up with.”
“Forty thousand dollars for dinner and drinks?”
“It was team morale.”
“It was a party.”
“Strategic team morale.”
Evelyn stared at him for several seconds before shaking her head.
“Your mouth really is unbelievable. You could probably convince someone that setting money on fire was a heating expense.”
“Everything I do is for Silverline Pictures.”
“Of course it is.”
Mark ignored her sarcasm and straightened his expression.
“Seriously, Jaws is different. I’ve finished something that this market hasn’t really seen before.”
Evelyn said nothing.
Mark continued, “A friend of mine in postproduction has been experimenting with a proprietary sound-processing technique. It creates extremely precise spatial audio and makes the underwater sequences feel much more intense, which is perfect for horror. I incorporated a version of it into the movie.”
That explanation was deliberately vague.
He certainly wasn’t going to tell Evelyn about the system or the Instinctive Perception enhancement.
“I’m confident about the result,” Mark said.
“There’s roughly a month until the Halloween theatrical window. If we start marketing immediately, we can position Jaws as the horror movie people need to see before Halloween.”
He leaned forward.
“If we get enough screens, I believe it can lead the horror market.” New chapters come out on g.com first.
Evelyn sighed.
“You said almost exactly the same thing last time.”
Mark’s confident expression stiffened.
She looked at him calmly.
“You walked into my office, promised that your science-fiction movie would change the industry, and convinced me to finance nearly twenty-five million dollars. We both know how that ended.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“This time I’m right.”
Evelyn stared at him.
Mark cleared his throat.
“I realize that probably isn’t the strongest argument.”
“At least you’re learning.”
She leaned back against the couch.
“I’ve already spoken with acquisitions at VistaStream. Once you finish the movie, we can prepare the necessary deliverables and decide whether to submit it for an MPA rating before approaching theatrical partners. If theaters aren’t interested, VistaStream is willing to evaluate it for digital distribution.”
Mark frowned.
That wasn’t what he wanted.
A streaming deal could recover some money and perhaps even produce a respectable profit for such a cheap production, but Evelyn’s condition required $14 million at the box office.
More importantly, Mark hadn’t made Jaws so audiences could discover it quietly on a streaming homepage.
“Ms. Parker, you still don’t trust the movie.”
“How am I supposed to?” Evelyn asked.
“You wrapped yesterday. Halloween is only about a month away, and normally you’d still need weeks or months for editing, sound, visual effects, color, deliverables, and distribution preparation. You might not even have a finished cut in time to market properly.”
“Who said I don’t?”
Evelyn paused.
Mark smiled.
“The first cut is finished.”
For several seconds, she simply stared at him.
“Finished?”
“Yes.”
“You wrapped yesterday.”
“I know.”
“That’s impossible.”
Mark shrugged.
“Then watch it.”
Evelyn’s expression became increasingly strange.
Mark looked around the living room.
“Do you have anything decent for playback? Large TV, projector, home theater—whatever gives us the best picture and sound.”
She studied him as though trying to determine whether he was joking.
Finally, Evelyn stood.
“There’s a screening room downstairs.”
Mark immediately rose from the couch.
Evelyn headed toward the hallway without another word.
“Bring the movie.”
Mark picked up his phone and followed her.
(End of Chapter 11)
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