31 Ch 31: Scarlett Johansson - Part I
22nd March, 2008
A few hours after the events of last chapter
{1st Person POV}
"Making my way downtown. Walking fast, faces past and I'm homebound." I hummed to no one in particular as I made my way through a pretty busy part of the city.
Large number of people were around me in all the directions; behind me, ahead of me, on my left and on my right.
Why hadn't I taken a taxi? Because I thought 'Why not just eat outside?'
My reasoning? It was around 20:30 P.M and I felt too exhausted to cook myself some food.
And yes, I use the 24 hour clock, and no, I'm not trying to be quirky.
Moving on, there was this feeling or thought, if you would, that I made a mistake by giving 'Gladiator' to Mr. Bird.
I mean, he didn't seem to be that happy about creating that film, so I guess I should give him some other Sci-Fi screenplay and get back 'Gladiator'. Maybe 'Gravity' or 'Arrival'?
Though, I'm not sure if Mr. Bird would be willing to use 3D cameras.I did tell Mr. Bird about me wanting to use digital cameras for 'The Prestige' and he went on a rant of sorts about how much better film is over digital and how I shouldn't switch over to digital cameras.
'Gravity' was heavily dependent on 3D which made it one of the most immersive films of all time, and without it, it's really a nothing burger of a movie, and that would make it really hard to sell as a film.
And on the icing on the cake, or well, in this case, the turd on the cake, would be the fact that 'Gravity' was highly scientifically inaccurate and had a pretty bad plot that was carried by the acting of Sandra Bullock.
'Arrival' on the other hand, is a pretty cheap film, costing around $47 million and was highly acclaimed.
But yeah, no. It'd be too similar to his most recent film, 'Signal'. He'll get backlash for it when the marketing starts, or he'll reject it when I give the script to him.
That leaves 'The Martian' and 'Interstellar', both of which I wanted to do at some point. So I guess those two are crossed out.
*Sigh*
A sigh escaped my lips as I wandered around the streets of L.A.
I then remembered something, or more specifically, a film.
"District 9…" I whispered.
'That's it!' I excitedly thought.
'District 9', a film that was cheap, highly praised AND was different from Mr. Bird's recent works! And it was a film that I had no qualms over giving to someone else!
This was perfect!
My steps quickened, as I excitedly went around looking for a Mexican restaurant, which I had started craving.
I walked past a small magazine shop, and then immediately stopped a few metres ahead of it.
I quickly walked back to the magazine and looked at the front cover of one magazine.
"The hell?" I muttered.
On the cover of the magazine was a woman, a woman who was extremely popular and well known back in my world.
Clad in a black jacket, with the hood and its fake fur protecting her head from the cold. The woman looked exactly like the one from my previous world.
"Scarlett Johansson…" I muttered in shock.
It wasn't that I hadn't anticipated her being in the world; No. In fact, I was waiting for this exact moment.
But what I hadn't thought would happen was the fact that I would see her this quickly, and that too on a magazine cover.
From the looks of it, Scarlett Johansson was doing commercial modelling for a clothing brand.
This seemed like a God-given miracle, at least for me. After all, Scarlett Johansson played Olivia, one of Borden's lovers in 'The Prestige'.
It would be perfect if I could sign her up for the film.
Not wanting to waste any time, I quickly looked her up on the internet, and sure enough, I found stuff about her.
It seemed like the Scarlett Johansson of this world started modelling around two years ago, and while she was popular, she wasn't THAT popular.
Her age was also 24 years, or basically the same as in my old world.
And of course, I searched up the contact info of her agent, which I quickly saved.
After I copied the agent's phone number, I walked away from the magazine shop with quite possibly the largest grin known to man.
And just 2 blocks down, I found a sweet looking Mexican restaurant.
'This was a great day!' I thought.
***
25th March, 2008
{3rd Person POV}
A camera was stationed on top of a tripod, while white foam boards were placed ahead of it, leaning on the wall of the room.
Between the camera and the foams was none other than Scarlett Johansson, wearing a mint coloured gown with a cut on her left leg. Her right hand was on hip, as she looked to her right for the pose.
The photographer quickly and efficiently took the photos. After every few clicks, he would tell Scarlette to change her pose.
After a while, Scarlett went into the changing room. A few minutes later, she came out wearing an aqua blue coloured evening gown.
And like that, her photo shoot continued.
And only after continuous photography for nearly 2 hours did the photo shoot come to an end.
Scarlett walked into the changing room and sat on the chair, while taking a relaxed pose.
She felt very tired after continuously going to photo shoots for the last month or so, and her comfy chair made her feel like she was melting into the chair.
However, as she was relaxing, a knock came from the door.
Scarlett looked at the door's direction with one eye, and said,"You can come in."
As the door opened, it revealed a man in his late 20s or early 30s, with a shaved beard and chestnut coloured hair with clear, white skin.
This man was Aiden Lewis, Scarlett Johansson's agent.
Aiden hurriedly walked to Scarlett's side, and said, "Scarlett, I have some important news!"
"What is it?" Scarlett asked in an exhausted voice.
"Someone contacted us and said they had a job for you."
Hearing Aiden's words, Scarlett got up from the chair. "What job? And who was it?"
While Scarlett may have been tired, she wanted to do more than just modelling for the rest of her life, and that's why she was taking on many photo shoots. Every job was important, unless it was for an underwear photo shoot.
"Uh, it was from someone called Oliver Knight, and he said the job was for a role in his next film." Aiden explained.
Scarlett's eyes sparkled at the word 'film'.
She had always loved acting and wanted to be an actor, but she wasn't able to get into film school, and the acting jobs that she did get were only due to her looks, and her roles were almost always limited to dumb comedies or horror films.
Because of that, she decided to start a modelling career, and then re-enter the movie business after she had gotten more popular.
However, not much had changed since Scarlett started modelling. She still mostly got roles for comedies, and now romance too. At least she wasn't getting offers for horror films anymore…
And that is why, the sparkle that formed in her quickly faded away. Scarlett's face now was filled with scepticism.
"What type of film and role is it?" Scarlett asked.
"Mr. Knight said the film was a Victorian drama, and that your role would be the lover of one of the two protagonists."
'Lover? And that too in a drama? I'll surely be sidelined and have no personality. But I think I've heard of this guy's name before.' Scarlett thought.
"I'm not sure about this job, but it does sound promising." Scarlett said.
"So, what should I say to Mr. Knight?" Asked Aiden.
"Uh, that I'd like to know more about my role, or something along those lines."
"Alright." With that, Aiden quickly called Oliver, who picked up the call immediately.
"Hello? Yes, yes. It's me, Aiden. Abo-" What Aiden said was cut off from Scarlett's mind, as she once again started thinking about the acting gig offer she got.
'A Victorian drama sounds good, plus, it'll be a nice change from the usual roles that I get. But a lover in a drama film sounds a bit "eh"'. Scarlett thought. 'I guess I'll have to wait till that Oliver Knight guy tells me more about the role.'
As Scarlett was thinking all that in her head, Aiden hung up the call and said, "Hey Scarlett, Mr. Knight said that he'd like to meet you personally and talk about the role. He said the meeting place would be in SkyMount's main building."
"Thanks." With that, Aiden left the changing room, leaving only Scarlett in the quietness of the four walls.
"SkyMount, huh? Maybe this Oliver Knight guy is bigger than I thought."
~~~
A/N: There it is! Ch 31!
Fun fact: I conceived the events of this and last chapter (30) at the same time while taking a dump around a week ago.
And now that I've said that, quite a few of you would probably be asking "AuThOr, WhY dOn'T yOu PlAn AhEaD?"
The thing is, I DO plan head, just not something like the specifics or stuff like this chapter. I do have a very rough outline of the evens that would happen to lead to other events/films being created, it's just that the middle part is empty as fuck.
Anyways, this chapter was the most fun I've had while writing in a while. The last few chapters felt like a chore to write because while I liked the idea, I had no clue as to how to actually write them properly. That's why the last few chapters feel very silly, bloated and overly long for no reason other than me not knowing how to write them and trying to write larger chapters even though the stuff I'm writing is just not big enough to have 1.7k+ words dumped on it.
This chapter is one of the best ones in this novel so far, mostly because it's not bloated, badly paced or silly, instead it's pretty well paced (by my standards) and on the shorter side for Vol 2 (1.5k words). The ending sets up Part II pretty well, unlike the stuff from the last few chapters.
And I guess you've already figured out just how much I want to edit this novel, which I'll do after Ch 32 and 33 have been released.
Oh, right, this novel crossed 300 collections (still barely any comments 😭) and 50k words last chapter. Just gotta repeat that twice and we're probably looking at like half the length of the novel (probably).
Anyways, see ya later!
