SF Chapter 178: Shares
A few days after the Super Bowl, Dani had returned from Switzerland.
Claire and Phil were sitting in chairs in one of the rooms at H&P Studio. They had come in to talk about Paranormal Activity.
"So this is your office, Dani?" Phil asked, looking around.
Besides the framed pictures, there were now a few things from the movies Daniel had made.
Dani, who was sitting in an executive armchair, spun around in the chair one more time. "Yeah, pretty cool, right?"
Jay grumpily said, "If only you actually used it..."
Dani completely ignored his dad and continued playing with the chair.
Claire was looking at the photographs on the desk. "Aww, this is when Luke was born!" she commented, looking at a picture of the whole family.
"Huh." She frowned when she noticed the one beside it. "Is this recent?" Claire asked, holding up the photo. It showed Dani and Prudence on a beach.
There were other pictures as well: of Dani and his female friends, with Monica and the rest of the gang, and all kinds of pictures with the family.
"Yep. This week. Prudence and I went to the Canary Islands," he confirmed. "Then we did a Eurotrip!"
"Boy, some countries are freaking cold this time of year. My balls almost froze. I don't know how Leonard and the others are surviving the North Pole..." he remarked.
Claire stared at him. "Didn't she have school? Isn't that why she went back?"
Dani dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. "Don't mind the small stuff, Sis."
Jay interrupted before Claire could start lecturing him. "Can we get this done?"
He handed her some papers, but it was Daniel who explained them.
"The movie might make, like, a million dollars in net profit. Maybe. Possibly," he stated.
"So here's my proposal: 50% for Claire and Phil, 10% for H&P, 10% for Mitchell and Cam, and the remaining 30% for me."
Claire stared at him. "I think we should change our percentage."
"Fine! You and Phil can have 70%, and I'll have 10%!" he said immediately.
"Not that!" she admonished him. "I mean, 50% is too much for us!"
"Oh, come on, Sis. You and Phil were in the entire movie. You were the two leads. It was recorded in your house. Furthermore, this whole thing started because it was your wish!"
"I can't accept you getting less than 50%," Dani said, crossing his arms.
"Just accept it, Claire," Jay said, wanting to get this whole negotiation over with.
"You know how your brother is. Besides, we don't even know if it'll make a million dollars."
"And we won't disclose that the movie was written by him," Jay added. "Since we're releasing Juno, we don't want to confuse people."
[Jay commentary]
"Our marketing and PR team was against using Daniel's name in Paranormal Activity - for now," Jay revealed.
"Not only because of Juno, but also because they said Daniel's brand was becoming strongly associated with comedy, with Mean Girls, Superbad, and Easy A all being hits."
"So they proposed that we only reveal it after seeing the audience's reaction to the horror film, so it doesn't damage his brand."
[Commentary ends]
Dani continued, "Come on, Sis. Your percentage in the second one will be smaller, then."
"Like: 40% for Charlie and Lisa, 10% for H&P, 10% for Haley, 5% for you, 5% for Lily, and the remaining 30% for me."
"Okay, fine," Claire finally gave in. "We just have to sign it, right?"
Claire and Phil signed the paperwork outlining the film's profit-sharing agreement.
"How's filming on the second one going?" Dani asked.
Claire didn't have that many scenes, but she was always going to the shoots. "We're almost done," she revealed. "Lisa took a few days off so we could finish it as soon as possible."
[Dani commentary]
"I lowballed the estimates so my sister wouldn't push back as much," Dani remarked.
"I already have the okay to use Mischa, Lexi, Lindsay Lohan, and Amanda's reactions when they watched the movie for marketing," he revealed.
"I'll ask Penny too - to watch it and film her reaction. Maybe I'll call Hilary Duff to do the same. She seems like someone who'd have funny reactions," he said with a smirk.
Dani would ask Prudence too, but she would mostly help because she was an incredibly hot girl. Her reaction itself probably wouldn't be as useful as the others since she wasn't famous.
"So I think this movie could make around five million at the box office! On a fifteen-thousand-dollar budget, that's more than 300 times the budget."
"That would be legen - wait for it - dary! Legendary!"
To be fair, he had no idea how much the movie could actually make. But he knew that just using the girls as part of the horror marketing would attract people.
[Commentary ends]
After the four of them talked for a while longer, someone knocked on the door.
"Mr. Pritchett," Melissa said, appearing after they told her to come in. "The people from Warner are already here."
"Come on, Daniel." Jay stood up and said goodbye to the other two.
Jay and Daniel joined a few other H&P employees and began the negotiations with Warner.
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A few hours later, Daniel returned home.
Lexi was standing at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee and flipping through a magazine.
Dani walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her neck before taking a good sniff.
He was about to continue, but she pulled away slightly.
"Can you at least let me finish my coffee?" Lexi said flatly.
Dani stayed pressed against her from behind and revealed, "We basically closed the deal with Warner to adapt Percy Jackson!"
Lexi's eyes widened. She put her cup aside and jumped into his arms, kissing him. "Congratulations, Dani!"
"Thanks, Lexi!" He made a very happy face. "But don't you want to finish your coffee?" he asked with a smirk.
She shot back, "Do you want to provoke me, or see how happy I am for you?" She rubbed herself against him.
"Totally the second!" He pulled her back into an intense kiss.
They made love in the kitchen and all the way to his (their) room.
Afterward, she lazily rested naked on top of him while he had his arms wrapped around her waist.
"Lexi."
Lexi, who was almost asleep, slightly turned her head toward him. "What?"
"Nothing. Just wanted to say your name..."
"Dummy."
[Daniel commentary]
"There are still a few details left to work out, but the deal is basically done," Dani remarked.
"We'll make it a joint production, with a 40/60 split: 40% for H&P and 60% for Warner. We'll split the costs that way, as well as the financial returns."
He went on, "That's mainly because we'll be using Warner's infrastructure for most of the production."
"It'll be a blockbuster, probably around 110 million of budget! And I'm the one who will write the script!"
[Commentary ends]
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