Chapter 27 - Shocking Everyone

November 18th, a day after Eric flew to New York, Home Alone and 17 Again had officially premiered. Home Alone was projected on 1000 screens, while 17 Again had 1279 of them. It was being screened in 279 more screens than Home Alone since the Fox hadn't signed any gambling contract and could just put all its efforts into making it a success.

They were released simultaneously along with Universal Pictures' Land Before Time on 1395 screens, and Disney's Buena Vista International Release animated Oliver & Company with its 952 screens.

Three children-oriented movies were released at the same time. This made the media feel that Eric's chances to win the bet were growing thin, but the concerned party wasn't worried at all. Those two might overshadow Home Alone a little at the beginning, but they wouldn't be able to compete in the long run. After all his past life's Home Alone had screened for 36 weeks.

After attending the two premieres, it was already past 11 pm, when Eric and the crews returned to the hotel. This era's technology wasn't very advanced, so they could only wait until next week before getting the Home Alone and 17 Again box office data.

Back in his room, Eric took a bath and was planning to go to sleep, when the phone suddenly rang. Calling so late, it could only be Annie.

"Hey, Eric, were you sleeping ?" she asked with a tinge of excitement.

Eric sat on the bed drying his wet hair with a towel and said: "No, I just showered. Annie, did something good happen?"

"Care to guess?"

Eric quipped: "Oh, I know, you must be pregnant, don't worry, I'll take responsibility."

"Bah, you bastard, joking about such a thing!" Aniston followed: "I just went to see Home Alone, and encountered something very interesting, hehe."

Eric smiled: "What is it?"

"Well, I came out of the cinema earlier, and a five-year-old boy was shouting that he wanted to see Kevin again. The parents refused, saying that they had just gone to see him, and the result was that the kid lay on the ground and started to cry. Some people mistakenly thought that his parents were child-traffickers. The poor parents were even beaten up, and several police cars came, it was really funny, haha."

Aniston was just viewing it as a funny anecdote, but Eric could see the bigger picture. They chatted for a while before hanging up, and Eric laid on his bed, slightly excited.

Things were going in the same direction as his past. Home Alone had been able to achieve such an amazing box office thanks to a big wave of naughty children who begged to watch it over and over. They imitated Kevin's every move, and ultimately, helped promote the movie like never before.

Indeed, things were as Eric had guessed. On the first day of releasing Home Alone, nothing really major happened. But with its reputation spreading at an alarming rate among children, Home Alone's entries doubled the next day, and on the third day, the growth was such that some popular theaters were having a queuing situation.

The children had seen comedies before, but nothing like Kevin's weird encounters. Home Alone, from a child's perspective, portrayed what the majority of them couldn't or didn't dare to do in reality.

Groups of children in North America stirred up a wave of imitating Kevin. A San Francisco newspaper even reported on a real Home Alone event, where a nine-year-old who had seen the movie, secretly locked himself in a room as the family got ready to go on a vacation to Hawaii.

When the parents of six kids realized they couldn't find him, the whole family had already flown to Hawaii. The boy's parents had to give up on their vacation to go back to San Francisco, to find the boy had made a mess of the house as he prepared to battle the 'robbers' but was met with his anxious parents instead.

A week later, the box office's numbers were finally out. Although the various spikes in popularity had prepared some people psychologically, when they saw that Home Alone had reached a staggering 27,550,000 $ in its first week of running, everyone was shocked.

Perhaps more than 20 million $ at the box office in its first week was nothing compared to those blockbusters from Eric's past era. But in this day and age, this result had completely overshadowed all the movies in recent years. Even Spielberg's E.T hadn't had such a stunning start! Only George Lucas' Star Wars could compare to Home Alone, but its production cost was a hundred times more than the latter!

Meanwhile, 17 Again had also achieved good results with 13,120,000 $, landing second place. Land Before Time and Oliver & Company had however only made 7.12 million and 3.98 million $ respectively, far below the two companies' initial estimates, no doubt caused by Home Alone miserably pressuring them. Universal and Disney executives deeply regretted releasing their movies at the same time as Home Alone while also feeling envious of Columbia's good fortune.

Columbia Pictures' luck was indeed really good, but when he received the first week's data from the box office, President Blount Cohen's mood hit rock bottom, and his cup would often slip from his hands.

Columbia reassessed Home Alone again, according to the first week of box office data. The result was that the North American box office alone would certainly reach 200 million $ and was even likely to exceed the three hundred million mark. Blount Cohen was bitterly regretting the bet now. If he had kept trying to buy Home Alone's copyrights rather than signing that dog shit gambling contract, then Columbia's profits this year would have been in the hundreds of millions.

But now, according to the bet, if Home Alone made a box office of 300 million $, Columbia would have to pay Eric 120 million $, while they would only receive around 45 million $ after the cost of distribution was taken into account. What Columbia would earn might only be a fraction of Eric's share.

Blount Cohen wanted to tear the agreement apart many times, however, the whole nation now knew about the bet. If he hastily tore up the contract, not only would Columbia have a difficult lawsuit on its hands, they would also become the laughing stock of the country. As the president, he would definitely become the scapegoat.

"No, we must find a way to recoup our losses, we must…" While Blount Cohen kept muttering, an assistant knocked on his door and said: "Mr. Cohen, everyone has arrived, the meeting can start."

Blount Cohen rubbed his temples as he rose and left for the conference room.

After sitting down at his seat, Blount Cohen directly asked the one responsible for the Home Alone project: "Lester, how was the data analysis?"

Lester Reed had been about to return home alongside the Home Alone crew when he received a call from headquarters urging him to return. He immediately took a flight back to L.A ahead of everyone else. Once he heard about the numbers for the movie's first week of running, Lester had instantly felt ill.

He sweated as he looked at Blount Cohen, although the final decision to accept the agreement was his boss', he had been the first to voice his consent at the original meeting. According to Blount Cohen's headstrong character, it was highly probable that he would vent his anger on Lester.

"Mr. Cohen, according to the data department's analysis, and under the gambling contract, we can only get about 50 million $ out of the estimated 225 million $ of the North American box office."

Blount Cohen took the analysis file. Looking at the red curve that represented Columbia's profits going down, as well as the green one representing Eric's going all the way up, his temples started to twitch.

Bang –

Another one of Blount Cohen's cup fell on the mahogany floor with a dull thud. Everyone else in the room was startled, they subconsciously looked down and became silent.

Under normal circumstances, making 50 million $ at the box office was enough to let those old foxes laugh out loud even in their dreams, after all, even for the six giants, the best yearly box office profit was about 200 million $.

However, when compared to the over 100 million $ that Eric might receive, Blount Cohen couldn't bring himself to be excited in the least.

"Well, you were in charge of signing the gambling contract, what now ?" Blount Cohen coldly glanced around the room, and his eyes fell upon Lester Reed.