155 [Mass Release] / Chapter 155

As [30 days of Happiness] was doing so well in the festival, the management organising it was completely in pressure to increase its shows.

It was because a lot of people have complained that they weren’t able to watch the movie because of no seats and too few screenings.

On 14 September, a long line of people were standing outside one of the screenings of [30 days of Happiness] and in the end, they didn’t even get to watch the movie as the screening ended.

They were all left disappointed.

Because of this, a lot of people complained about it on the website of the Toronto film festival.

Seeing the public interest towards the movie and Omar, the producer of the movie also requesting for additional screenings, the management was unable to refuse.

It was a bit unfair to the other independent and low budget movies that were screening at the festival but they all understood that [30 days of Happiness] was only getting more screenings due to it getting widespread recognition.

It had managed to strike a chord with the audience and that was undoubtedly the way of success for a rom com movie.

At the same time, a lot of people were discussing the movies being screened at the Toronto film festival on online forums that focused on movies.

One of these forums was ‘Gossip sub’.

A very popular member of the forum ‘Young master no 69’ posted a discussion thread on the forum, titled “Is [30 days of Happiness] screening at Toronto worth watching?”

Alongside it, he posted a screenshot of one of the reviews by critics for [30 days of Happiness].

He also posted a link to the whole review.

<This movie is one of the worst you would see. Though the technical aspects of the movie are good, the story and cast don’t match each other at all. The songs randomly come up and make no sense. It’s like the movie is confused if it wants to be a musical or a rom com. Aiden Silvereye isn’t convincing as a high school student and his character seems like the guy who will fail at music and become a serial killer. He certainly has the looks of it. Aiden should seriously consider focusing on singing more as acting is sadly not his forte.

-Gordon Lee, Vanity Magazine.>

His post quickly garnered a lot of comments as people who have heard and watched the movie came out.

[Heaven defying Crocodile: I haven’t heard of the movie. Don’t really watch festival movies.]

[Great Young Uncle: It’s the movie that features ‘Lost in the Sky’ right? I wanted to check it out but it looks like the reviews are pretty bad.]

[Manually sick: Don’t listen to reviews. I watched it with my girlfriend last week. It’s a top class movie. We are going to watch it again after it releases at the box office. It’s really good.]

[Only grandma: Yeah, I watched it too. It’s pretty good. The critical review you posted is one of the few bad ones. I saw tons of good ones. Don’t listen to it.]

[Hulk is dead: Dude, never listen to Gordon Lee. He’s not that good of a critic. I never saw him criticising certain actors while he has problems with every actor with no booking. I work as an intern in Vanity Magazine and he’s not well liked.]

[Doraemon’s girlfriend: I say, go watch the movie for yourself and decide. I don’t trust reviews or ratings. You can’t trust anyone even if they are a critic.]

[Aiden’s wife: Damn, that bastard of a critic dared to say that Aiden doesn’t have a forte in acting. Well, that critic doesn’t have a forte in reviewing movies, it seems.]

Like that, people talked and on the website, the post became one of the highly talked about in just a short time as everyone gave their own opinion.

***

“Gordon Lee just posted his review in the morning. He wrote very bad things about the movie and you. He focused on you a lot.”

Aiden, who was typing on his laptop, raised his head to look at Wade who was going through reviews on his phone when he said that. He still remembered Gordon Lee and how he had been rude to Katie.

“What did he say?”

“He wrote, ‘It’s pretty clear that Aiden Silvereye came to America to find work as he was probably rejected by every director in India because of his acting.’

Aiden wasn’t able to stop himself from chuckling hearing that while Wade just clicked his tongue.

“That bastard is clearly paid.”

“Paid? I thought he just hates me after I talked back to him during the press conference.”

“There’s that too but most of the critics and reporters who watched the first screening gave good reviews. He’s also from a very big magazine, so even if he hates you, he would have given it 3 stars out of 5 and had just downplayed your performance and praised everyone else but he wrote a fully negative review. It’s very easy to tell which review is paid or not.”

Wade had a lot of experience in the industry and as he mainly handled actors, his eyes were very proficient in finding out which review was paid or not.

It was an ability he had gained after years of experience.

“So, what do you want to do about Gordon Lee? He’s a senior reporter and critic in Vanity Magazine. From now on, he will be after you. Should we send a press release out about him and talk about what happened at the press conference?”

Wade turned to look at Aiden and asked. Personally, he didn’t like people getting away from doing things like paid reviews but that’s just how the industry ran.

There were too many immoral things.

“No, let’s not do anything.” Aiden said. “At least not yet. I don’t think it’s the right time.”

“Why?”

“Because Gordon Lee would want us to call him out or talk about what happened at the press conference, even if we have the upper hand. He doesn’t fear a fight. People like him want it. Moreover, if there are paid reviews going on against us, then it means people are shaken by how good our movie is doing.”

Aiden very well knew that critics are also people and have their own biased opinions. Even if they tried to judge a movie purely on quality, it wasn’t easy.

As for Gordon Lee, he felt that it was better to wait for an opportunity to say anything back against him.

‘I need to play the waiting game here. It’s not good to be rash.’

That was the thought in Aiden’s mind.

It wasn’t wise to start something in the middle of the festival, especially when it could shift the attention from the movie to the drama.

“You are right. Let’s handle this bastard later on.”

Wade said and at that moment, his phone vibrated a bit as he got a message on it.

Reading the message, he looked at Aiden.

“We should go meet up with Omar and Leo. They want to discuss the distribution offers they have received.”

***

One of the main reasons why [30 days of Happiness] was registered in the Toronto film festival was to find a good distributor for the movie. It was a tactic a lot of independent movies would go with.

Omar and Green finance were reliable in investing but that was it. Having a distribution channel was a completely different thing.

It was a privilege that only some studios in Hollywood had.

“Well, we got 8 offers from different studios for distribution in North America. We need to decide on one soon.”

Omar said, looking towards everyone who was present in his hotel room.

“That’s a lot. It seems like a lot of people are interested in the movie.” Aiden said, a bit surprised.

“A lot of them are also after the selling rights of the soundtrack but that deal has already been made. Anyway, [30 days of Happiness] is way more commercial than the other movies in the festival. It gives us an edge.”

Omar explained as the meeting went on. All of them were in this movie from the start, so them talking about distribution rights seemed like they have achieved a lot from where they have started.

They talked about different distribution companies and which ones were better to make a partnership with.

It was a one time thing, so they needed to be really careful.

In the end, they all decided on three studios that were better than everyone else.

“Searchlight media is the biggest studio out of the three we have decided on. They are masters in distributing independent movies and have a lot of success with it. They are a very safe choice in my eyes.”

Omar said, looking towards everyone. Searchlight media was actually a studio that only focused on independent movies and they would generally pick up movies from festivals every year.

As their PR team was pretty good, the movie would reach their potential audience.

“They are good but Searchlight has already picked up a few other independent movies like [Dark] and [Before or After] from Toronto. Even if they are a safe choice, they won’t divide all their resources towards us. We will actually have a disadvantage as the director of [Dark] is pretty successful with indie movies. They would surely give him more resources.”

Wade gave out his opinion and Omar pursued his lips, thinking seriously about it. Only Leo didn’t speak as he was not good at business deals whereas Aiden silently listened.

“That’s true.” Omar said. “Then, should we go with Owl studios?”

“They are risky though…”

“Yeah, but the studio is pretty good and we would have more control as they would cooperate well with us.”

Like that, both Omar and Wade talked but their discussion would always end in confusion as there were good and bad aspects about all the studios.

In the end, Omar looked at Aiden who was just silently listening.

“Aiden, what do you think?”