Chapter 157:

“I am a big fan, sir.”

Will said as he held out his hand for a handshake in front of Stan.

Stan was bewildered. He had always liked watching television, and recently, he would just dig up the channels that talked about Will Evans and watch them.

For him, watching Will was like watching himself. People often like imagining themselves as the protagonist of the novel they read, the hero of the movie they watch, and such, and that’s why people can successfully relate to the joys and sorrows of the character.

In this way, Stan watched Will from the time he had made [Sherlock Holmes]. Stan was a big fan of the original Sherlock Holmes novel, and when he saw Will’s recreation of the same character, he couldn’t help but jump in joy.

Stan was often depressed and overworked, and the bitterness inside him kept growing. But he was a positive man. Watching Will’s meteoric rise, he motivated himself to do better. Because one day in the future, he wanted his dreams to shift from ‘being able to pay monthly rent’ to ‘being able to watch his characters come to life.

Now, suddenly hearing ‘I am a big fan’ from a man he himself admired, a sense of accomplishment washed over Stan. His heart shivered, and he couldn’t control himself from getting emotional, as eventually, droplets of tear formed in his eyes.

This was the first time in life anybody had ever acknowledged him. Although Stan was the type to brighten others’ days with his smile, there was no reason for him to smile otherwise till now. All he had were scorns from his family for dedicating his life to a lowly job, his office that treated his previous characters like replaceable characters.

As Stan grew old, the hope of one day getting recognized by everyone for his work was slowly diminishing.

“Sir, why are you crying? Don’t do this. I am not lying, I am genuinely a fan of all your works, and I couldn’t be any less happy to meet you.”

Will suddenly got agitated after seeing the man that always appeared with a smile on the screen. He didn’t know what to say, so he started saying things like how he was a big fan of the man.

“Ah, haha. Don’t worry about it. I just got a bit emotional there, I guess? Sorry for showing you such an unpleasant sight.”

Stan said with his old voice, now a bit scruffy due to his emotions rampaging inside of him. He wiped the tears on his wrinkled eyes as he grinned with his teeth.

“No, no. It’s totally fine. It’s really a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been waiting for this day for years.”

Will said, and he wasn’t even lying at this point. He loved all the characters and stories Stan had made since his last time, and he couldn’t be any happier to meet this legend in person. It was already hard enough to keep his blood from boiling.

After a while, Stan finally calmed down, and Ross was back after kicking out Jimmy from the office.

“Sir, I love all the characters you have created, and the company’s characters didn’t give any value. As a fan, I would love to recreate these characters and bring them into life.”

Will said, and this time, Stan really couldn’t control his trembling lips. He had just calmed down when Will dropped another euphonious bomb.

Will didn’t want to wait any longer, so he turned around and looked at everyone before announcing.

“My next movie will be related to Marvel characters and their stories. But before that, we have a lot of work to do. For starters, making Marvel comics available online.”

Hearing Will’s words, everyone in the room was dumbstruck as a feeling of suppressed excitement filled the room.

“I-”

Stan Lee’s current expression was worth watching. Will, who saw everybody getting excited, continued.

“Before that, I want to announce something about the company’s employee retention. Since I’ve taken over the company, I have full rights to keep or kick any employee at Will. But, of course, that also means you have full rights to leave as you please in the next one week.”

Everyone listened in on Will’s words and couldn’t help but take their thought train in a positive direction. Till now, they had only thought that Will would kick them out because of the current status of the comics. But after seeing the event with Stan Lee, they couldn’t help but be a bit hopeful.

“I will keep everyone who doesn’t want to leave on a trial period of three months. If you prove your worth in that time frame, your current wages and commissions will increase. I’ll also be renting an office near Dream Vision Studios so that Marvel can officially join in as a company subsidiary.”

Everyone almost jumped in joy from their seats after hearing Will’s words. As every single one wanted to keep the job, especially after Will was taking over, they couldn’t help but be more excited. Not to mention that they would be shifting to a new office!

“And I appreciate that the old people here have a lot of experience and talent in the industry, but overworking you guys at this age would be the last sin I would want to commit. So I’ll start hiring more young and capable employees for Marvel Comics to lend you all a hand.”

“Apart from that, the first character whose movie I am going to create would be Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spiderman. So I would love it if Mr Lee could reboot the whole comic and bring back Spiderman. Not only him, but I’ve also prepared a list of characters which I want to return to the comics. I hope you can do something about it.”

Will spoke as he looked at Stan at the end of his sentence.

Stan was currently bubbling with joy, and he had had so many joyous in one day that he felt he hadn’t been this happier anytime before in his career. Not to mention Spiderman was one of his most beloved characters. Bringing him back to the series was something that he always wanted to do but couldn’t because of the old CEO.

“I would gladly reboot all those. It won’t be a much hassle as I always wanted to bring them back, and I have the stories already prepared in the draft. It’s better to do a reboot in the timeline than to bring them back from the dead.”

Stand started talking excitedly. It was common to change timelines in comics, and Stan Lee was someone who could easily pull all these off. Will smiled as he said.

“You can do whatever you think would make the comics better, and I won’t be interfering with the creative team. Apart from that, we need to scanlate all the current popular comics and bring them to an online platform, where they can be exposed to a much larger audience.”

Will said, and Ross nodded his head from beside well. As a young man and someone from the online generation, he always wanted to make this suggestion to the CEO, but the CEO was such an asshole that he couldn’t gather the courage for it.

Amanda, who had just been watching everything till now, finally spoke.

“Maybe we can make a separate website for it? But that way, we would miss out on many mobile platform users.”

Will rubbed his chin hearing that and finally shook his head.

“We can always make a multi-platform app. Although it’s just going to cost more, it would increase the revenue and exposition of the comics in the long run.”

Amanda nodded, hearing that. She said,

“Maybe we can make something like a Netflix for comics?”

“Nice! Something like that might actually work. We can discuss the details later after we have settled down the immediate problems first.”

Will commented, thinking it was a really nice idea. Maybe, later on, they can officially get translators for Mangas, Manhwas, and Manhuas too, and get them on the app.

“But first of all, releasing the movie directly would be a big risk. So I have got a better plan for it to gain a base audience first.”

“What is it?”

Stand asked after hearing Will’s remark.

“To make Marvel characters popular amongst kids and teenagers, Spiderman alone won’t be enough. So we will start an animated series on Marvel characters first.”

Will commented as he thought about all the old animated marvel series before the movies.

***

Jixar Animation Studios, Los Angeles, California.

It was a mid-sized animation studio in LA making enough profits to not run out of business. But what they currently lacked was capital.

This studio was just four years old and had grown rapidly due to the CEO of the company. It was a young 24-year-old boy named Jerry Leopard. He had started this company even before he graduated from animation school and succeeded in getting an investor to invest in his company. The investor became one of the company’s major shareholders because the company was in the initial stages and got the right to vote on matters of the company.

“I am telling you, making a short film is much more profitable right now. You should listen to me, kid. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t recognize your talent early on.”

Jaidyn Smurf, a 54-year-old African-American man, remarked. He was the major shareholder of the Jixar Animation Studios. Currently, the CEO and chairman of the company, Jerry Leopard, and Jaidyn were in a heated debate.

Jerry insisted on raising more funds for the company to get investment for a big animation movie, and Jaidyn refuted this by saying it was better not to take risks and invest in short films. Both were right from their point of view, but they had to conclude this debate because the company’s next projects were getting delayed because of this.

…

//DreamNote//

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