Chapter 61:

Just like his Will’s world, many prestigious awards showed existed in this parallel universe too. Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTA were the same.

All of them existed in this universe and were the global awards that everyone over the world looked up to. Every actor, director and anyone who worked in Hollywood dreamed of one day standing on the stage and receiving such an award.

Although Will felt that sometimes the awards weren’t fair, he still understood their importance. After all, if a movie earned the best picture, then it would basically make its way into the history books.

It was the best way to get recognition for your work.

“The Academy gave me an invitation?”

Will asked, just to confirm. He hadn’t expected the Oscars to invite him. After all, many people in the industry were biassed towards [The Blair Witch Project], saying that it was not cinema since it was not even shot on a proper film camera.

Many film awards were also the same. Even the Golden Globes, which had happened a month ago, didn’t give him an invitation.

“Yeah, it’s a formal invitation too. You can bring a date to it too. What do you think? Will you go?”

Amanda said and looked at him for an answer.

Initially, Will thought to reject the invitation. Not like his movie was nominated, and he was still busy in the pre-production of his movie.

Oscars were just going to take his mind off when all he wanted to do was focus on his movie.

Although it was just a one-day event, the preparation will take too much money and time. He can’t look shabby after all.

He would need to get the best outfits and find makeup artists of the highest calibre to match everyone else in the event. Like Amanda had told him before, he was the face of Dream Vision, so he needed to look his best in the most prominent award ceremony in Hollywood.

And in the end, he agreed to the invitation.

“Yeah, I will go.” He said, thinking of the reason behind his decision. “It’s better not to piss off the Academy. If I didn’t go and they thought I was rude, I’m pretty sure none of our movies would be nominated in the future.”

“Yeah, the Academy tends to act petty from time to time.”

Amanda agreed to his reasoning. Once, a famous actor had not attended the Oscar ceremony due to him not having any nominations. There were rumours that he had angered the Academy, and after that, he never received any nominations even after giving out great performances.

Both Will and Amanda didn’t want Dream Vision to go the same path.

“Now that you are going, I will prepare your outfits and book the makeup artists. Your date will be June, right?”

Amanda listed down some points on a notepad and raised her head before asking.

“Yeah, obviously,” Will replied with a smile.

Due to [Sherlock Holmes], he would be swamped for a long time. Maybe, he and June wouldn’t even be able to see each other, so he felt like going to the Academy awards together was a nice compensation.

After all, it was basically announcing to everyone who hasn’t been aware of their relationship yet that they were a couple.

***

As Will agreed to go to the Oscars, Amanda took up the work to prepare him and June for the event. She got busier because she was handling the casting calls too.

Will also began to go through various details of the movie with Jeffrey and his crew. After [The Blair Witch Project], it was going to be their first movie together, and this one was even a periodic movie.

It was based in 1890, and due to that, there were many things they needed to get right. Two of these things were the costumes and the film set.

Currently, Will was in discussion with Jeffrey about this particular topic.

“Will, I’m telling you. We need a good costume designer, and Andy is good, but he doesn’t specialise in periodic British clothing. We need to get someone else to do it.”

For the record, Andy was the costume designer in Jeffery’s crew.

Hearing Jeffery’s concerns, Will also nodded his head and replied.

“Yeah, I agree. His style suits modern-day movies way more, and I don’t want to mess up the costumes. Do you have anyone in mind?”

Jeffery thought about it a bit before shaking his head.

“Unfortunately, I don’t. I know people have worked on periodic movies, but they weren’t set in Britain. I can ask, but I think it’s better to hire someone from London.”

“London?”

“Yeah, there are tons of theatre groups there, and many of them show Sherlock Holmes. I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of designers there who are already experienced.”

Will nodded his head and decided to take a flight to London after the Oscars. There was no use delaying something like this.

He wanted [Sherlock Holmes] to be in the theatres as soon as possible. He was planning to shoot the whole movie in around two months and release it in early May.

That was a spot that even Foxstar agreed with as they have no prior movies releasing at that point.

“I was planning to go to London to finalise the filming situation anyway. This will be on my to-do list now.”

“Are you sure about shooting the movie in London? Technology has gotten pretty good now, and we can save some money by shooting it in a studio in Los Angeles.”

Jeffery suggested, but Will stayed firm in his decision.

“I want the movie to be more authentic. London provides scenic locations, the exact ones I have in my mind. I’m pretty sure I won’t be satisfied with computer-generated buildings.”

Like many directors, Will believed in shooting in real-life locations as much as he could. He felt like the true nature of a movie can only be shown this way.

“Okay, I don’t think I can change your mind on that.”

Jeffery laughed, and they continued discussing various things for a long time. They didn’t really have much time, and many things needed to be considered.

Because of that, both of them kept working till two at night.

***

In the office of ICM, one of the biggest agencies in Hollywood, a prickly looking man with a moustache was sitting right across from a middle-aged actor who had an intimidating aura about him.

They were sitting across a table, and on it, he had put a script titled [Sherlock Holmes].

“Jared, what do you think?”

The prickly looking man asked. His name was Perry Hopkins, and he was the agent of Jared Morgan, an actor in his mid-30s who was famous for his negative roles in various movies.

“Umm, I really liked the script. I didn’t know Foxstar was trying to make a Sherlock Holmes movie.”

“It’s not exactly Foxstar, but yes, they are the distributor of this movie. I heard that they are collaborating with an independent studio to make this movie.”

“What studio?” Jared asked.

“You know about Will Evans, right?”

Jared nodded his head.

Everyone in Hollywood knew about the wonder kid who had struck gold with his first movie. Jared was no exception.

“It’s his studio, and he’s the screenwriter too. Obviously, he would be the director of this movie.”

Jared’s eyes widened hearing that. It was not because he found out that Will already owned a studio. It was because of the fact that he found it surprising that Foxstar was letting someone so young direct such a big production.

“Didn’t you say that this is a nearly 50-60 million dollar production?”

[A/N – Jared here is referring to it as 50-60 million production cause it doesn’t include the cost of actors.]

“Yeah, I didn’t lie to you.”

“Then, why is Foxstar investing so much in a kid?”

Perry shook his head, hearing that and explained.

“They are not investing in anything. The sole producer of the movie is Will Evans himself, and he’s betting all the wealth he got from his first movie on this one. It’s a huge fucking gamble!”

Jared’s mouth hung open upon knowing this. He had felt like Will was pretty lucky before, but now he thought of him as an idiot.

Even if he was talented in directing and scriptwriting, he was a complete idiot in money matters.

Perry began to explain to him that this piece of news was still new and the only reason he knew about it was that one of his friends in Foxstar had overheard this when they were signing the distribution contract.

“Anyway, I don’t think we should care too much about who is producing the movie. This is a good chance to make you a more popular actor, and I think you should take it. After all, movies with a production budget of over 70 million are rare. They are even offering you one of the main roles – Lord Blackwood, the main antagonist.”

“Yeah, but what about the Director?

Jared showed his concern. If he was honest, he was not really confident in the directing ability of someone who was so much younger than him.

“We will know more about it once we begin discussions with them. But I don’t think Foxstar would have agreed if they weren’t confident in his skills; you know they are pretty picky.”

Perry shrugged his shoulders. Contrary to his confident expression, he was not really confident in the project.

The only reason he was trying to persuade Jared was that he could smell money from this project. If Jared got a big paycheck, he would also get a good enough commission.

Although he was a senior agent, Perry saw Hollywood as a business and rather than suggesting only projects he was confident that would succeed to his actor, he believed in getting his actor the highest amount of money.

“I understand all that, but I’m more interested in the role of Holmes.”

Jared had a pretty good build and aura to be a villain, but he was kind of sick of such roles. This time, he wanted to play the iconic character of Holmes.

“Holmes? I don’t know if they have finalised someone for that role yet.”

Perry said, and Jared insisted.

“Then find out. If he’s not a more popular actor than me, I’m pretty sure they would be more than happy to give the role to me.”

…

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