On the night of October 30, the same question seemed to be appearing everywhere online: Have you seen Jaws yet?
People who had already watched it excitedly shared reactions, argued over their favorite scenes, and described the enormous great white shark, while those who hadn’t seen the movie were suddenly searching for information about the animal itself.
Within hours, great white shark had become one of the most searched entertainment-related topics in the country.
Online interest rapidly crossed several million searches and mentions.
A popular marine-science website that normally handled only modest daily traffic was suddenly flooded by people reading articles about great whites, shark attacks, teeth, size, and behavior.
The site slowed badly enough that its technical staff initially suspected a cyberattack before realizing the traffic was coming from moviegoers frightened by Jaws.
The people under the greatest pressure, however, were CrownStar theater managers.
Almost overnight, advance ticket sales for Jaws filled many of the available sessions for the coming week.
At several locations, the number of tickets sold for Mark Anderson’s low-budget shark movie was already rivaling or exceeding the combined demand for other new releases playing in the same buildings.
CrownStar’s internal manager channel quickly filled with messages asking headquarters for permission to increase the movie’s showtime allocation.
Daniel Reed was having dinner with his family when his phone began vibrating nonstop.
After seeing dozens of messages from theater managers, he finally excused himself and opened CrownStar’s live booking dashboard.
The moment the sales data appeared, his expression changed.
He had expected Jaws to perform well.
He hadn’t expected this.
Nearly every available evening session in the strongest markets was sold out, and even daytime screenings that normally struggled were filling rapidly.
Daniel stared at the numbers for several seconds before realizing that CrownStar might have a breakout movie on its hands.
It was already late, so there was no point waiting for the next morning’s formal programming meeting.
CrownStar directly operated only part of its network, while many theaters were managed locally under broader corporate booking rules, and experienced general managers still had flexibility when demand suddenly changed.
Daniel had spent enough time running theaters himself to know that national scheduling models couldn’t react faster than people standing in the lobby watching customers get turned away.
He sent a simple instruction through the management channel.
Increase Jaws showtimes wherever local demand supports it.
Protect existing contractual commitments, but use available screens aggressively.
That was all the theater managers needed.
Schedules began changing immediately.
A weak late-night comedy session was replaced by Jaws.
Then another.
A poorly selling drama lost an auditorium.
Those tickets sold too.
Managers added more.
Their enthusiasm was easy to understand because theater revenue depended heavily on putting customers into seats, where many of them would also buy popcorn, drinks, and other concessions.
“Add another one.”
“Move it into the larger auditorium.”
“The 10:40 is sold out too.”
“Open the midnight session.”
Across CrownStar’s network, Jaws expanded at an astonishing speed.
Its original three-percent showtime allocation climbed toward twenty-three percent in the strongest participating markets.
The sudden surge naturally attracted attention from competing theater chains.
The following morning, Mark received a call from Grandview Cinemas, the largest theatrical chain in this parallel American market, operating thousands of locations and tens of thousands of screens nationwide.
Grandview had been Mark’s preferred exhibition partner from the beginning, but before release its booking department hadn’t considered Jaws important enough to give him a serious meeting.
Mark still remembered spending most of a day trying to get through to one of their senior film buyers.
He had eventually given up and focused on CrownStar.
Now Grandview was calling him.
Mark looked at the caller ID for several seconds before answering.
The executive on the other end suddenly sounded extremely friendly, congratulating him on the opening and casually asking whether Silverline might be interested in discussing additional theatrical opportunities.
Mark found the change amusing, but he understood that business was business and there was no reason to create an enemy he might need later.
He politely explained that Silverline’s opening-week arrangements with CrownStar were already locked and that expanding immediately would create unnecessary logistical complications.
The Grandview executive didn’t push very hard; his real purpose was obviously to repair the relationship and make sure Mark remembered that Grandview existed when his next movie arrived.
“There’ll be plenty of opportunities in the future,” the man said warmly.
“When things calm down, let me buy you dinner.”
“Absolutely,” Mark replied just as politely.
Whether that dinner ever happened was another matter.
Mark had no time for it now.
The morning after release, he walked into Silverline Pictures and immediately noticed that people were looking at him differently.
Employees who had once whispered about the director who lost twenty-four million dollars now watched him with a mixture of curiosity, surprise, and uncertainty.
The project-development staff looked especially uncomfortable because several of them had already written Mark off as a finished director and had quietly distanced themselves from him after his previous failure.
Now Jaws was exploding.
Those same people suddenly had to reconsider whether isolating Mark Anderson had been a particularly intelligent career decision.
Mark noticed the looks.
He simply didn’t care.
He walked straight through the department and entered Evelyn Parker’s office.
“Morning, Ms. Parker.”
Evelyn was on the phone, so Mark casually pulled out a chair and sat down without waiting for permission.
He had never been especially respectful of formalities when he owed her twenty-four million dollars, and now that Jaws was performing well, what little restraint he possessed seemed to have disappeared completely.
She finished the call, placed her phone on the desk, and looked at Mark with a strangely complicated expression.
Mark raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
He leaned back comfortably.
“You look like you’ve never seen me before.”
For a moment, Evelyn genuinely felt that way.
The man sitting across from her looked exactly like the same shameless director who had begged her for another seven hundred thousand dollars only a few months earlier, yet the numbers on her computer screen made him feel completely different.
She had just checked the latest theatrical tracking.
Jaws had already generated several million dollars in actual opening-day business, but the far more important number was advance ticket sales.
With CrownStar rapidly adding sessions and customers purchasing seats for the following days, cumulative reported gross and presales were already approaching Silverline’s $14 million benchmark.
That number mattered more than ordinary profit calculations.
Their agreement was simple.
If Mark’s new movie reached $14 million at the box office, Evelyn would wipe away the approximately $24 million debt created by his previous disaster.
Yesterday, that condition had still seemed ambitious.
Now it looked dangerously close to inevitable.
If Jaws maintained even a fraction of its current momentum, Mark would soon stop being the director who owed Evelyn Parker twenty-four million dollars.
And once that happened…
Evelyn suddenly realized something uncomfortable.
Her favorite threat would disappear.
Even when she had technically been his creditor, controlling Mark had never exactly been easy.
Once the debt was gone, Evelyn wasn’t entirely certain what leverage she would have left.
Mark watched her expression change and smiled.
“Still processing the fact that I might actually know how to make movies?”
Evelyn ignored him.
Instead, she calmly changed the subject.
“Get ready.”
Mark blinked.
“For what?”
“A media crew is coming to Silverline later.”
Evelyn folded her hands on the desk and looked directly at him.
“They want to interview the director of Jaws.”
(End of Chapter 20)