Warner wasn't stupid. They weren't about to throw away a $300 million movie just for a $100 million investment. So while they did agree to try to sabotage Laila's box office numbers, they still opted to release Green Lantern two weeks before her film, rather than on the same day.
They understood Laila's position in Hollywood. Even if she made a total mess of a film, she could still easily rake in a few hundred million. That's inertia—when everyone believes you're incapable of making a bad movie, even if you do release something incomprehensible, people might still second-guess themselves, wondering if maybe they just didn't get the artistic meaning.
And besides, their goal was to make money. That $100 million investor would still be entitled to a share of the profits. If the investment had been a donation with no strings attached, maybe Warner would've gone further. But $100 million wasn't exactly a fortune in their eyes—not compared to the profits from a successful blockbuster.
They figured two weeks was enough. With luck, they could bring in over $200 million in that time, then keep collecting revenue slowly after that. The investor wasn't asking them to beat Laila's movie—just to interfere with her numbers enough to keep her from breaking the box office record.
Warner didn't think Laila had any real chance of doing that anyway. But if someone wanted to hand them money to try, why not? If nothing else, it made the investor happy.
What they didn't expect… was for Green Lantern to collapse entirely before they even got a chance to compete.
Now, they had no energy left to think about whether their film would hurt Laila's box office at all. The only thing on their minds was: Can we recover our costs? If they really lost that much money, heads would roll—someone would have to take the fall.
As for who that investor was—well, anyone could guess, even with their knees. It was none other than Faaris, still lurking in the shadows, always looking for a chance to make Laila "suffer."
For Faaris, $100 million was not a small sum. He was no longer the man who could tap into Dawud's deep pockets and casually move hundreds of millions. This $100 million was money his company had gradually retrieved after no longer needing to launder funds back home.
He hadn't wanted to go all-in like that, but if he offered too little, Warner wouldn't even consider his proposal. After probing their attitude through intermediaries, he finally chose $100 million—the maximum he could afford.
Most importantly, he was genuinely optimistic about Green Lantern.
Before investing, he'd had his team conduct a full evaluation, and they believed it had high earning potential. Even Cooper, his trusted advisor, thought the film was a solid bet. If he could both humiliate Laila and turn a profit, Faaris believed it would be well worth it.
And who could blame him?
The superhero genre had been on a years-long hot streak. Nearly every film had made good money—even the worst ones turned a small profit. No one expected their investment to vanish into thin air.
But then reality slapped them all hard.
And it made them furious.
That $100 million represented nearly every liquid asset Faaris's company could muster. If they couldn't recoup it, bankruptcy wasn't far off. Under Cooper's guidance, Faaris hadn't suffered a major loss in years. Losing that much money in one blow? Unthinkable.
You can imagine how livid he was when he saw the box office numbers.
To him, it wasn't just the money—it was the humiliation of being bested by Laila yet again.
If the earlier "a slap in the face" was metaphorical, then for Cooper, it was literal.
His face bore two actual handprints, red and swollen, one on each cheek—perfectly symmetrical.
Faaris needed someone to blame. And there was no way he was going to admit it was his own poor decision.
So Cooper was the scapegoat.
And he knew it.
He understood the rules of the game. In the past, he'd made all the right calls, made Faaris a lot of money, and was rewarded. But now that they'd lost so much in one go, how could Faaris possibly let it slide?
As furious as Cooper was, all he could do was grit his teeth and endure it.
He had zero ability to stand up to this terrifying man. Faaris wasn't just ruthless—he was dangerous. In the years Cooper had worked for him, he'd seen several people mysteriously "disappear" after angering him.
And those people weren't just nobodies—one of them had even been a fairly well-known B-list celebrity. They vanished without a trace.
So after being slapped twice, Cooper wasn't just upset—he was scared. He feared that Faaris might kill him in a fit of rage, toss his body into a concrete drum, and drop it into the sea.
He stayed silent.
Faaris, breathing a little easier after venting, growled, "If it weren't for you saying that film was worth investing in, I wouldn't have lost $100 million. You'll pay it back."
Cooper's face turned pale. "Where am I supposed to get $100 million?!"
He'd been in Hollywood for years and had only earned around $10 million in total—most of which wasn't even liquid. Things like his house, for example.
A hundred million? Even if you sold him, he wouldn't fetch that much.
"I don't care how you get it," Faaris said with a cold smile. "Steal it. Rob a bank. Kidnap someone. I don't care.
You've been with me for a few years, so I won't rush you—I'll give you one year. A year from today, I expect the full amount. Got it?"
Cooper tried to protest, but Faaris wasn't the type to listen. He waved his hand, and a few men stepped forward to force Cooper to sign an IOU:
—A debt of $100 million.
—If the full amount wasn't repaid one year from today, no matter how much he'd already returned—even if just $1 short—he would still owe the entire $100 million again the following year.
—Plus interest.
Of course, this kind of contract would never hold up in court. No legal system would uphold such terms.
But this was Faaris. A man who could make people disappear. What use was the law against someone like him?
The smart thing would be to stay as far away from him as possible. Unfortunately, Cooper was already tied to his ship of thieves, with no way to jump off.
So, clutching a copy of that heavy IOU, Cooper stumbled home like a ghost.