Owen managed to read the title, 'Obsession?' he thought, raising an eyebrow.
"There's something I wanted to show you now that we're done with Curve," Curry said.
He pulled out a script and placed it on the table. Then he turned it so the title faced Owen, "It's a feature film I wrote. Supernatural horror mixed with thriller."
Owen lowered his gaze to the cover and read the title again.
Curry didn't really need to explain what he was doing.
He was pitching him.
Basically, a direct presentation of a movie with the intention of finding someone willing to produce it, finance it or, at the very least, become interested enough to read the script.
Owen raised an eyebrow slightly, "Supernatural horror and thriller..." he repeated, curious. He looked at the script again before turning his attention back to Curry, "What's it about?"
The supernatural horror part could mean a lot of things.
A monster. Demons. Creatures. Complicated visual effects. Any of those could very quickly turn a horror movie from a first-time feature director into something considerably more expensive.
But the word thriller changed that.
Horror thrillers could be extremely cheap if the story relied mainly on the characters, mystery and psychological tension.
"The protagonists are Baron Bailey, though everyone calls him Bear, and Nikki Freeman, his best friend since childhood," Curry began.
From there, he started telling him the story.
Bear had been in love with Nikki for years.
He had never dared to tell her, partly because he was afraid of ruining their friendship and partly because, even if he didn't want to admit it, he suspected Nikki simply didn't feel the same way about him.
And he was right.
Until one day Bear bought something called a Wish Willow at a store.
A kind of novelty toy, a small willow tree that was supposedly capable of granting a wish when you broke it.
Bear, obviously not truly believing it would work, wished for only one thing.
For Nikki to love him more than anyone else in the world.
The wish came true.
Just not exactly the way he had imagined.
At first, it even seemed perfect.
Nikki began looking at him differently. She wanted to be around him constantly, sought out his attention and finally returned the feelings Bear had kept hidden for so long.
Until things started to change.
Affection turned into dependence.
Dependence into jealousy.
And the jealousy eventually transformed into absolute obsession.
Nikki's behavior became increasingly possessive, unpredictable and violent.
Until it reached outright psychotic levels.
Deaths.
Disturbing scenes.
Moments when it even seemed as though Nikki were possessed by something.
Hence the title.
Curry spent nearly ten minutes explaining the premise, some important points in the story and a couple of scenes he considered especially strong.
Owen listened without interrupting much.
He had to admit it.
The story grabbed his attention.
On top of that, Owen, as a producer, could already see that there was no CGI monster, no action sequences, and it didn't seem to require too many locations.
The supernatural element was almost entirely concentrated in the initial wish. After that, the movie depended on the performances, the escalating tension and a couple of deaths that would need to be executed well.
But nothing especially expensive.
If he had to make a quick assessment, Owen would say it could be produced on a budget similar to Lights Out.
Maybe even for less.
But that was only an impression after listening to ten minutes of the story. Before talking about real numbers, he would have to read the full script, count the locations, characters, shooting days, practical effects, makeup, night scenes and anything else capable of inflating the budget.
Curry finally stopped talking and waited.
"It's interesting," Owen admitted.
Curry seemed to relax slightly.
"I assume you want to direct it yourself, right?" Owen added.
"Yeah..." Curry replied, nodding.
Owen narrowed his eyes. Then a small smile appeared on his face, "Say it with more confidence."
"What?"
"It's your movie, Curry," Owen said, tapping the script a few times with his index finger, "If you take this to another production company tomorrow and you want to direct it, you can't sit in front of them saying, 'Yeah... I guess I'd like to direct it.' You have to make it clear that it's a condition."
"I direct the movie. If they're not interested with me as the director, I'll look for financing somewhere else," Owen added, "That's what you have to make clear. Not aggressively, obviously, but confidently."
There was a brief silence.
Then Curry smiled and scratched the back of his neck, "You're right, I'll keep that in mind, thanks."
Curry didn't want to sell the script, get paid for it, and then step away while someone else made the movie.
It was the first feature film he had written.
For someone whose directing experience up to that point consisted of two short films, getting the chance to helm his first movie was practically the next major goal of his career.
Owen raised an eyebrow slightly and said, "Though, preferably, keep bringing the scripts to me before you start looking for other production companies."
Curry laughed.
After all, Owen hadn't hired him to direct Curve by accident.
Owen smiled faintly before looking back at the script and returning to a more serious tone, "From some of the scenes you told me about, I'd say this is going straight for an R rating, right?"
He still hadn't read the script, so he didn't know how far Curry actually took things.
"Definitely R," Curry replied.
He didn't try to sugarcoat it. Owen appreciated that. Because Curry knew perfectly well what that meant.
In the United States, the MPA commercially classified movies into several categories.
G was essentially suitable for everyone.
PG allowed somewhat more content, though parental guidance was recommended.
PG-13 was the huge commercial middle ground: movies that could contain violence, language or more intense material, while still remaining accessible to an enormous teenage audience.
Then there was R.
An R-rated movie restricted admission for anyone under seventeen unless they were accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
Finally, there was NC-17, where no one seventeen or younger was admitted at all.
From a studio's perspective, jumping from PG-13 to R was no minor detail.
It meant immediately reducing part of the potential audience.
And by extension, potentially lowering the box office ceiling.
That was why it wasn't unusual for a studio, during production or especially after receiving an initial rating, to ask for a few seconds of violence to be cut, blood to be reduced, a sexual scene to be altered, or certain images to be removed in order to secure a PG-13.
Sometimes the changes were insignificant.
Other times, they could affect the director's original intent quite a bit.
But it was part of the business.
Paranormal Activity was PG-13.
Lights Out was also going to be PG-13.
Not because he and Matt had filmed much more violent versions only to tear them apart in editing because they wanted a higher box office ceiling.
They were simply movies built that way.
Paranormal Activity relied on suggestion, noises, night cameras and whatever the viewer thought they could see.
Lights Out worked through darkness, tension and apparitions.
Neither one needed explicit gore, nudity or graphic deaths to work.
Owen had no doubt that Paranormal Activity would have made less money if it had received an R rating.
With Lights Out, only a few weeks away from release, the exact same thing applied.
Obsession, on the other hand, was clearly an R-rated movie.
If they wanted to push it toward PG-13, the ideal approach would be to decide that before filming and modify the script from the ground up.
It wouldn't make much sense to shoot a more violent version only to start ripping scenes out in editing afterward simply because the rating came back too high. That was the kind of thing that could leave a movie full of awkward cuts, moments that felt incomplete, or decisions that no longer quite fit together.
If they were going to make a PG-13 version, it would be better to build it as PG-13 from the beginning.
Although Owen wasn't exactly the kind of producer who thought only about maximizing box office.
He knew perfectly well that, if he ended up financing the movie, he would have to think about numbers, distribution and return on investment.
But he also loved movies too much to look at a script that had naturally been conceived as an R-rated film and force its director to tone it down simply because that way they could sell more tickets.
Owen remained silent for a few seconds, thinking.
Curry didn't say anything. He simply waited.
"Alright," Owen finally said, "I'm interested. I'll give you an answer once I've read the full script and looked into a few things."
Curry nodded twice, "The script is a copy. Take it with you."
"I'll give you an answer in... two or three days. Before we leave for Texas," Owen said, picking up the script.
Curry's eyes widened slightly.
That was much faster than he had expected.
With a traditional production company, he probably would have handed the script to a producer who would then have to read it, discuss it with someone else, take it to executives, talk about financing, and wait for several people to decide whether it was worth moving forward.
Owen, on the other hand, was also the person who could decide to put up the money himself.
Which sped up the entire process.
Curry stood up from the chair, "Great. Though I also don't want to put you in an awkward position because of this," he commented.
Owen stood up as well and began walking him toward the office exit. He smiled faintly and shook his head, "You're not. The synopsis interests me and you already have a finished script, so I'm going to read it seriously. But if I finish it and don't like it, I'm not going to finance it."
"That actually makes me feel a lot better," Curry said with a small laugh.
They reached the door.
Owen remained inside while Curry stepped out into the hallway, "See you at the airport."
"Yeah..." Curry replied.
Although he still didn't seem entirely used to some things.
He stopped and turned slightly, "Thanks for everything, by the way. Curve, Tell Me Why, now the invitation to the festival..."
It had been a pretty crazy few weeks for him.
First, Owen had hired him to direct Curve.
Then he had ended up taking part in Tell Me Why as well, that musical sketch Owen posted on his Instagram featuring several actors in addition to Owen himself.
Matt had directed it, but the set had practically looked like a small professional production.
Even though none of them had been paid to appear, since it had been more of an invitation among acquaintances to spend a few hours filming something fun, Curry could hardly say he had come out of it empty-handed.
Quite the opposite.
The sketch had exploded on Instagram.
Owen had tagged him along with the rest of the cast and, within days, Curry had gained hundreds of thousands of new followers.
Exposure that was probably worth far more than any check they could have given him for a few hours of work.
Besides, it had genuinely been fun.
They had needed far too many takes because someone would sing off-key, someone else would start laughing halfway through the song, and on more than one occasion the entire group had ended up losing their composure at the same time.
And now there was Texas.
Owen had invited both Curry and Cooper to Fantastic Fest.
They would be traveling with Matt, Sarah, Tyler, Anya and the others, all on the same plane and staying at the same hotel.
For Curry and Cooper, who besides being filmmakers were huge fans of the genre, simply being able to attend the festival would already have been enough.
But they would also be at the Lights Out premiere, have access to that entire professional environment and, to complete the experience, appear in the vlog Owen planned to film during the trip.
A vlog that, in all likelihood, would end up being watched by millions of people.
More exposure and connections.
On top of that, Owen was paying for the trip and the hotel.
Owen raised a hand and gave him a couple of pats on the shoulder, "You don't have to thank me that much," he said, "You earned Curve yourself. You directed it really well. As for Tell Me Why, everyone on the internet agrees that you were clearly the best singer."
"One of my greatest accomplishments," Curry said with a satisfied smile, especially since hundreds of thousands of people online had noticed it.
"Texas isn't charity either. Having you and Cooper in the vlog is going to make it more entertaining. And therefore, it'll probably get me more views. So don't thank me," Owen said.
Curry smiled and, after that, finally left.
Owen stayed at the office for about another thirty minutes.
He answered a couple of calls, went over a few pending matters and got several things moving before finally calling it a day.
Then he put the Obsession script inside his backpack, along with the script for his next Instagram sketch and a few other things, and headed home.
As soon as he walked through the door, he placed his keys on the small hook by the entrance.
He walked a few more steps and left his backpack on top of a couch.
"Jenna?" he called as he started walking through the house.
"I'm in the kitchen!" he heard her voice in the distance.
Owen changed direction.
As he got closer, he breathed in lightly through his nose.
It smelled good.
When he entered the kitchen, he found Jenna with her back to him, wearing an apron as she finished preparing something by the counter.
"It's almost ready. Set the table," Jenna said without even turning around.
Owen smiled faintly. He walked up to her, wrapped both hands around her narrow waist and rested his face beside her neck before leaving a kiss there.
"Hello to you too," he murmured sarcastically, "Bossy. I haven't even been home for a minute."
Jenna smiled. She turned her head slightly until she found his lips and gave him a short kiss, "Hello," she said this time, "Could you please set the table?"
"Of course," Owen said as he let go of her and glanced at the clock hanging on one of the kitchen walls.
7:18 PM.
"And great timing," he added, somewhat impressed that the food was ready just as he got home.
Jenna snorted softly as she continued with the food, "I've learned to calculate your schedule better than you think."
Owen never arrived home at exactly the same time. Some days he showed up at six sharp.
Others at six-thirty. Sometimes close to seven.
Occasionally much later.
Thanks to the fact that they usually stayed in touch throughout the day, Jenna had gotten pretty good at estimating how long he had left before coming home based on where he was, what he was doing and what his last message had been.
Owen smiled without answering. He went to the dining room and set the table: plates, silverware, glasses and drinks.
Not long after, Jenna appeared with the food.
Owen sat down and looked at the plate in front of him. It was something new. Judging by the way it looked, it had clearly required quite a bit more preparation than the things they usually cooked.
Owen looked up at Jenna, "All this free time is turning you into a really good cook," he commented, "I don't know if I should be worried."
Jenna narrowed her eyes, "Why?" she asked.
"Because you're starting to look like someone who genuinely enjoys cooking," Owen replied.
Now that was strange.
Neither of them was particularly passionate about cooking.
Over the last few days, Jenna had started preparing food of her own free will.
No bets involved.
Owen knew it was because her schedule had been fairly open lately. So he suspected boredom was starting to produce some unexpected side effects.
"If I had to wait for you to come home and cook, we'd end up having dinner at ten at night or ordering pizza," Jenna shot back.
After that, they talked for a while about their day.
Although, living together and being a couple, it wasn't exactly as though they had an enormous amount of new information to discover about each other every night.
Still, Owen had two pieces of news.
The first was the sketch.
Jenna already knew he was preparing another one, but now it was finally finished and Owen wanted to show it to her.
The second was something he definitely hadn't expected that morning.
Curry had handed him a completely finished feature film script.
Owen had suspected that meeting might have some intention beyond simply talking about Curve, but he definitely hadn't expected Curry to show up with a complete script ready to put on the table.
Jenna was curious about both things, though she decided to wait until they finished dinner.
Eventually, Owen set down his silverware, "That was delicious," he said, "I'll wash the dishes."
Jenna smiled with satisfaction.
"But before that... the two scripts," Owen added as he stood up and headed toward the entrance.
Jenna rested her chin on one hand as she waited for him, amused by the obvious excitement with which he had said that.
It didn't even take him a minute to return. He was carrying two scripts and placed both of them on the empty part of the table.
Jenna looked at the smaller one first.
Two pages. Logical. If it was a sketch that probably wouldn't even last three minutes, it didn't need much more than that.
But her eyes quickly shifted toward the other one. That one had some weight to it.
"That thing with Curry was a movie?" Jenna asked.
"Yeah," Owen said, "He wants to direct it and pitched it to me to see if I want to finance it. It's a horror thriller with supernatural elements."
Jenna picked up the script and read the title, "Obsession..." she murmured, "And? Does what he told you sound interesting?"
"Yeah. Quite a bit, actually. It has potential from what he told me. I still haven't read a single page. I wanted to read it with you and decide afterward whether it's worth financing," Owen replied.
Jenna looked at the script again. Reading a feature film from a practically first-time director together with Owen didn't exactly sound like a bad way to spend the night.
In fact, it sounded pretty fun. But then she looked at him again, "Wouldn't it be too much if you finance this movie too?"
Owen blinked, "Too much?" he asked, confused.
In terms of money, the movie was probably somewhere between $1M and $10M, though he couldn't know for sure until he read the whole thing and did a proper analysis. Compared to the investments he had already made, that amount would seem very small.
"I'm not talking about money. I mean your schedule," Jenna clarified, "I'd like you to stay alive and, if possible, sleep seven or eight hours."
She said it jokingly. Only partly. Because Jenna wasn't exactly on vacation either.
September was one of her quieter periods, yes.
A lot of the preliminary work for Wednesday was already well underway: scripts, characters, creative conversations and general preparation.
But that calm wasn't going to last much longer.
Still, if she compared her schedule to Owen's, Jenna almost looked unemployed.
Currently, Owen was working with Matt on Chronicle.
She also knew about Don't Breathe. Owen had shown her the final script and, precisely because of that movie, he had spent weeks trying to turn Second Take Films into something much more serious than a production company that assembled teams from scratch for every project.
The structure was already practically defined.
Now he was in the middle of several negotiations to hire important people and fill permanent positions. On top of moving into larger offices.
That alone already consumed quite a bit of time.
While doing all of that, Owen had met with Guillermo del Toro and later signed on for Frankenstein.
He had also filmed Tell Me Why.
He had started the first conversations around Black Mirror, checking which platforms might be interested.
Now he had another sketch finished.
The trip to Fantastic Fest was only a few days away. And, apparently, he was also considering financing another movie.
"It's not," Owen said, shaking his head, "Think about it. I'm building this entire structure precisely so I can do this."
"Finance movies..." Jenna murmured.
"Yeah, and without having to personally handle every single thing," Owen clarified, "Don't Breathe was already going to be the first real test. If Obsession turns out to be good, having two projects running at the same time could help me see whether the structure actually works."
He let a second pass and added, "I wasn't expecting another movie to show up now, but I'm not going to turn down a good script just because it arrived earlier than planned."
"Good point," Jenna admitted.
It would be pretty stupid to pass on the script of a director with potential just because Owen already had other things in motion.
Of course, first the script had to actually be good.
After taking everything into the kitchen, Owen started washing the dishes. Jenna ended up helping him.
When they finished, they went to the living room.
Jenna settled onto the couch and picked up the two pages of the sketch first.
After the success of Tell Me Why, she was pretty curious to see what Owen had prepared.
Even more so knowing that he wanted her to act in it with him.
She started reading. At first, she raised an eyebrow slightly. It was an argument between a young couple.
Something relatively ordinary.
Money.
One accused the other of spending too much.
The other responded by pointing out even worse purchases.
The interruptions started piling up.
Each response was a little more childish than the one before it.
The argument stopped feeling like a normal fight and started escalating much further.
Until both of them ended up shouting insults at each other from opposite ends of the room.
And when it seemed like things couldn't possibly get any worse, it ended with an argument between neighbors yelling things at each other through the window.
Jenna eventually burst out laughing. She looked up at Owen, "How do you come up with this stuff?"
She had loved Tell Me Why. She had had fun watching it.
But she liked this even more.
The scene started as a perfectly recognizable argument between a couple and, every few seconds, became more ridiculous.
It wasn't an uncomfortable fight or an abusive scene disguised as humor.
The comedic tone was obvious, and that darker, more aggressive kind of humor fit Jenna's tastes much better than the far more universal humor of Tell Me Why.
Owen shrugged, "I don't know..." he replied, "I wondered what a couple's argument would be like because I don't think we've ever had a real one. Then I thought it'd be funnier to turn it into something completely ridiculous instead of making it dramatic."
Jenna looked back at the pages and let out another small laugh, "It's going to be really fun arguing with you like this. I'm in," she said, lifting the script.
Owen blinked, "That fast?"
"Yeah. Why?" Jenna asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't know. I thought maybe you'd want to talk it over with your manager, your agent... you know. There's quite a bit of profanity," Owen said.
Jenna looked almost offended, "If I want to do it, I'm going to do it even if my manager thinks it's bad for my image."
Owen raised both hands slightly, "I was just saying," he said.
"Besides, I'm pretty sure they're going to push me to do it," Jenna added with a grimace, "If it goes viral, and it probably will, that's exposure. And all the people who mainly know me for being Wednesday will get to see me doing something other than playing a goth teenager staring at everyone like she wants to murder them."
That, in fact, was one of the reasons the sketch appealed to her.
She would be playing an adult woman, vulgar and completely out of control during an argument with her partner.
It was very different from Wednesday.
It could help break that association a little without requiring her to commit several months of her life to an entire movie.
Besides, although most people knew her because of Wednesday, she had a considerably more adult image than people sometimes remembered. She wasn't coming only from Wednesday: she had starred in X, Scream, Scream VI, The Fallout...
As for her manager or agent, she doubted they would raise any serious objections about her image or about appearing in an Instagram sketch when she was already a professional actress.
If anything, quite the opposite.
Owen had already shown with Tell Me Why that a sketch posted on his Instagram could become a phenomenon in its own right and still be very professional.
"Well... that's great," Owen said.
He had assumed Jenna would say yes.
He had just expected a little more of a process before hearing it.
"When are we filming it?" Jenna asked.
"Soon. I want to post it sometime between October tenth and fifteenth. About a month after the first one," Owen replied.
A month between sketches felt like a pretty healthy frequency to him.
He didn't want to suddenly turn his Instagram into an account where he posted a new one every week.
Jenna nodded. Then she set the two pages aside.
The two of them finally moved on to Obsession.
Owen read aloud through the first half.
Then Jenna took over.
The script was one hundred and eight pages long and, between occasional comments, short pauses and a few moments when they went back to reread a scene, it took them almost two hours to finish it.
Then they started discussing it.
Their assessment was that it was a good script, with a voice of its own and something that could realistically be produced, but it wasn't a masterpiece.
The premise wasn't revolutionary.
A wish that doesn't come true in the way you thought it would.
That was basically The Monkey's Paw.
The Monkey's Paw was a short horror story written by English humorist W. W. Jacobs in 1902. In the story, the paw of a dead monkey is a talisman that grants its owner three wishes, but those wishes are fulfilled in disastrous and unintended ways.
Curry himself had told Owen that one of his inspirations had been The Monkey's Paw.
Although, in his case, he had first come across the idea through an episode of The Simpsons.
Owen didn't see anything wrong with that.
In fact the premise of Obsession could practically be explained in a single sentence.
Commercially, that was very good.
Bear seemed like a good protagonist to him. He started out likable enough that the audience would want him to end up with Nikki, but there also had to be small signs that he was idealizing her.
That way, when the wish worked, the movie turned against him.
With Jenna, they eventually agreed that there wasn't enough of Nikki before the wish.
Maybe they needed to add one or two scenes showing Nikki and why she had been Bear's best friend since childhood.
Because if you established that before the wish, it became even more horrifying to watch her transform afterward.
They didn't need to add twenty pages.
Just give the character a little more room before starting to destroy her.
Another thing Owen noticed was that the movie wasn't simply depressing.
There was a kind of awkward humor that became darker and darker.
It was obvious that Curry was using his experience with sketches and comedy to introduce increasingly cruel punchlines as the story grew darker.
At first, the movie almost felt like a satire or a very strange rom-com.
Until it gradually progressed: romantic, strange, uncomfortable, disturbing and finally completely violent.
Owen thought it was a better script than Paranormal Activity. On paper, it had more developed characters, a more traditional structure and considerably more dramatic material for the actors.
They had both liked it.
So throughout Tuesday and part of Wednesday, with Jenna helping him, Owen began putting together a preliminary breakdown to estimate the budget.
The conclusion was somewhere between two and four million dollars.
That was what ultimately tipped the scales.
On Wednesday afternoon, Owen called Curry.
"Second Take is going to finance Obsession."
There were a few seconds of complete silence on the other end.
Owen smiled, assuming Curry was silently celebrating, "So let your agency and lawyers know. We're going to have to finalize everything properly. Script rights, intellectual property, your contract as director, compensation, profit participation... all of that. If we can't reach an agreement, you can reject it, of course."
He knew Curry probably wouldn't want to sell the IP outright. Owen didn't want to act like a traditional studio and simply take his creation away from him, but he also wasn't going to give Curry one hundred percent ownership when Owen was the one taking all the financial risk.
So he planned on keeping the IP shared, with Second Take Films holding the larger stake.
"Okay, okay... thanks and when?" Curry asked.
"We'll probably start moving on it over the next few days. Late September or early October," Owen replied.
For Owen, the decision made plenty of sense.
The script was good.
The budget was small compared to the amount of capital he could afford to invest.
On top of that, the project already came with a director.
That would speed up getting it into production.
And it was a director Owen wasn't hiring completely blind.
From a financial standpoint, he also didn't need Obsession to become a phenomenon.
With a budget of two to four million dollars, even a disappointing result would be manageable.
Low-budget horror was particularly difficult to predict.
Owen knew that better than anyone.
There were movies that appeared practically out of nowhere and exploded.
The Blair Witch Project.
Paranormal Activity.
Tiny movies that could end up grossing hundreds of millions.
But for every one of those, there were also dozens that failed or simply came and went without making much of an impact.
With Obsession, Owen had no special advantage.
It wasn't one of those projects he remembered from his previous life and whose original performance he could use as a reference.
On Thursday, Owen finally flew to Austin, Texas early in the morning to attend Fantastic Fest.
The festival began that same day, and at seven in the evening it would officially open with Lights Out.
Fantastic Fest lasted an entire week, but Owen had no intention of staying all seven days.
Three were more than enough.
He attended the premiere, explored the festival, watched a few movies, recorded material for the vlog and left on Saturday the 23rd.
Also, although Fantastic Fest had juries and different competitive categories, not every movie in the program competed for awards.
Lights Out didn't participate.
Neither Owen nor Matt minded.
At festivals like Fantastic Fest, the competitive sections were largely designed to discover and highlight smaller genre films: international productions, indie movies and projects that didn't yet have guaranteed distribution.
For those kinds of movies, winning an award could mean a lot: press coverage, visibility and interest from buyers.
Larger productions, on the other hand, tended to occupy a different place within the festival.
Opening films, special premieres and closing films.
Not because they were any less representative of genre cinema, but because they arrived with a different position within the industry.
Lights Out was a good example.
Its budget had been only six million dollars.
On paper, it was still a relatively small horror movie.
But it no longer felt like one.
Putting it directly into competition with independent films that were still trying to secure a distributor didn't really add much to the purpose of those categories.
Besides, being the Opening Night Film carried prestige of its own.
The festival literally began with them.
For Owen and Matt, in fact, that was far more memorable.
By Sunday the 24th, Owen had already published the vlog.
Not because Owen had spent the entire night editing after getting back.
He paid a good editor who knew the style of his videos perfectly: the pacing of the cuts, the small pieces of text on screen, the music and the kind of humor Owen wanted to maintain.
During each day in Texas, Owen simply sent him the footage.
So by the time they left Austin, a large portion of the video was already well underway.
But although he couldn't afford to disappear for an entire week inside a festival, he also didn't immediately return to Los Angeles to lock himself away and work.
He went to France with Jenna.
She had professional commitments in Paris related to Dior.
Jenna was an ambassador for the French fashion house, which involved campaigns, appearances, events and various obligations with the brand throughout the year.
That time, she absolutely had to be there.
Jenna had accompanied Owen during his festivals.
So after spending three days together in Texas, this time Owen decided to accompany her.
Besides, there was another fairly important reason.
Her birthday was on September 27th.
And if her commitments meant she had to spend that date in Paris, Owen had absolutely no intention of letting her celebrate it alone.
They stayed there from September 25th to the 28th.
A few much quieter days.
On September 30th, with October only a day away, Curve's release practically upon them and very little time left before the worldwide release of Lights Out, Owen looked at his computer screen.
He had the vlog he had posted about Fantastic Fest open.
Titled: "Our Movie Opened Fantastic Fest – Lights Out Premiere Vlog"
The counter read:
26.8 million views.
Owen smiled to himself, 'Definitely another success,' he thought with satisfaction.
The video was 27 minutes and 19 seconds long.
It hadn't reached the numbers from Cannes. But he hadn't expected it to. Those vlogs had been something else entirely.
He had split them into two parts, and the second one, with everything that had happened around Good Will Hunting, had surpassed thirty million views in barely a week.
It was difficult to compete with everything that had happened at Cannes. Fantastic Fest had been much smaller by comparison. Even so, it had managed to surpass twenty-five million views.
Not bad.
It would probably pass 27 million within a matter of hours.
-------------------------------------------------
A/N: Hi, guys a small clarification regarding Obsession's budget.
I know that in our world the movie ended up costing around $750,000-$1 million, so it might seem strange that Owen arrived at a preliminary budget of $2M-$4M.
The reason is fairly simple: the real Obsession was an extremely tight production.
Curry Barker explained that the crew worked with very limited resources and several people were paid especially low rates for a feature film production.
In fact, after the movie's enormous success, there was quite a bit of discussion surrounding this. Production designer Sally Choi publicly said that she had been paid $300 per day and around $6,700 for all of her work, while also mentioning that some crew members had worked as volunteers and that she herself had ended up handling several different roles during the shoot.
There were also reports that Inde Navarrette had been paid around $20,000, which was low considering the credits she already had.
So part of the reason Obsession could be made for so little money was precisely because they squeezed practically every possible dollar out of the production.
Owen wouldn't work that way.
Second Take Films can afford to spend more, and Owen has no need to try to save every cent by paying minimal rates to actors or the technical crew.
That doesn't mean Owen's version is going to be three or four times bigger visually.
It will simply be a much more comfortable and better-paid production.
And, if the movie ends up becoming a massive success here, Owen would also avoid much of the controversy that happened in our world around a movie that made hundreds of millions while some members of its crew had worked for extremely small amounts of money.
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