Chapter-33 : As time passes

After the busy year of 1987, the schedule for 1988 didn't seems any better in fact turned much worse with four movies shooting with two being release this year two in the next, top it off due to huge resonance of the singles, he also going to released an album next year whose recording will taken place from this year.

All this work is for is upcoming puberty. Hitting puberty equivalent to getting hard to do a film, not only will have unusual growth, his voice will be cranky, worse of all he will have spots in his face.

{A/N: Narcissist much.....}

That means taking a break from filming. So, in-order to take a break silently and can come back smoothly is the reason he is flooding the theaters with his films as he can maintain a certain degree of popularity even if his work doesn't come next few years.

Beside the album he is releasing because, the singles are hot right now and he doesn't know how much out of tune he will be after the growth spout so, he is not taking chances.

Such reasons and conditions pilling up resulted Ric to have a more tighter schedule than last year.

The films he will be working on this time is <Spy kids 2>, <Rookie of the year> , <August Rush>, <Flipper> with first two shooting scheduled for later half of the year and will be released next year and later two shooting scheduled for first half of the year and will be released in this year.

Among this four movies, three are produced by <Feather studio> and will be distributed by Paramount, Colombia and 20th Centenary respectively while last film will be produced combined by <Feather Studio> and MGM and later will distribute it.

All the film is a low budget film between 10-20 million, except for <Spy-kids 2> which has a budget of 30 million.

Due to the tight Schedule, Ric had to drop his last year of high-school for next year. Not only that the time he spends in Broadway also reduced to almost none. All this time he have spend in either in Shooting or in recording studio.

Recording a song takes time, recording a album even more so, with a high efficiency i.e spending a lot of time in recording studio and no interface from other things or works it at least takes 2-3 months to finish a album.

But Ric have to shoot 4 films and the time in between them is used for recording the album, worse of it all except for the film <Flipper> all the films have multiple shooting location.

With such a tight schedule with less time for taking rest even his Parents Hanna and David is worried about his heath and that his body might not take the workload and collapse.

Among all the bad things all good thing is his companies and its subsidies are all self reliant and he have to rarely intervene or check out all the daily operation.

In fact the daily operation of the companies are running so smoothly that it saved Ric from all the additional hassles, all he does is check the annual report and few occasional meetings regarding the development of the companies.

Three years passed since the start of that hefty schedule. Ric not only successfully completed he films but also finished his recording of his album before hitting puberty.

Not only that, they where released as scheduled and had very good success leaving Ric to have a break with much less worry.

As for the films and the album,

Lets start with <Flipper>,it is a comedy film centered around a dolphin, it was an incredible experience for Ric to perform up-close with a dolphin.

It was released in march of 1988 in 1200 theaters across US. It earned a total of 250 million with a 15 million first week gross. From domestic market it earned 140 million while 110 million came form international market. A fun fact Heather Graham played the role of main leads love interest in the film.

The last movie released in 1988 was <August Rush> a musical drama centered around a orphan boy with a perfect pitch and a savant like musical talent and is quest of searching for his parents.

The film grossed only 205 million dollars with 100 million coming from north America and rest 105 million came form world wide. Despite its box office it received critical acclimation from award season with wining 3 golden globe awards out of 5 nominations. Giving Ric's his first acting award for Best Supporting Actor and also best original screenplay.

While in Oscars it won 2 out of its 3 nominations with Ric getting the Oscar for Best original screenplay.

Next year in 1989 the film <Spy-kids 2 > released in June with 1900 theaters across US. It grossed a total of 600 million, out-grossing his predecessor with a whooping record breaking 70 million in first week.

It grossed 298 million in domestic market and 302 million internationally making Ric's first movie to out-gross the domestic market but also the second film to enter 600 million mark.

Despite the fanfare of the previous film, the film <The Rookie of the Year> didn't do much less of a fanfare while entering the market.

As the film is centered around a baseball club and a baseball tournament. A lot of clubs bid for the films main baseball club as well as few clubs they play against. The winning club being Chicago club made a huge bid of 2 million followed by the clubs taking the opponent clubs of the film with a total bid of 3 million.

Beside that few famous baseball players also played roles in this film creating a lot of fanfare and the role of Ric's mother in this film once again played by Jodie Foster.

The film made a total 350 million box office with 200 million from North America and 150 million from overseas.

While the movies was burning the market in this two years, The album was successfully completed by the later half of the year 1989 and it was released in the market in November.

The Album contained 12 songs and before its release, Ric released 2 more singles in the market both received quite the attention, technically they were songs of his movies.

The Album after its released sold 200,000 copies in a week making it in the billboard char's top 20. But three weeks later it reached no.1 position and stayed for another 3 weeks.

By the time the album removed from the billboard, it sold 10 million of its copies.

When all this going on Ric seemingly vanished from media raider. No body have clue where he went.