Rewind With A Superstar System

Chapter 218: Plan Backfired

<🎧 Song Recommendation: Overnight by Richard Carter, Qveen Herby>

...

"Von, I owe you an apology for doubting you."

Griffin Tyler’s voice came through the phone speaker, sounding earnest and completely amazed.

"Genuinely speaking, I was flabbergasted by your performance as Aiden. It was so captivating."

Von let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. The past day had been stressful with the sudden influx of negative critic reviews, so hearing this directly from the creator of the story meant everything.

"I did my best," Von replied with a genuine smile forming on his face.

It felt really good hearing the praise. It helped a lot to know that there were still many people, maybe even the majority, who had really loved the movie during the premiere.

The harsh criticisms from the top publications were just so unexpected and jarring. It felt like a coordinated attack, completely detached from the reality of the theater room.

"Please, don’t be humble," Griffin insisted on the other end of the line. "You brought my character to life in a way I didn’t think was possible. I’d even prefer I call you Aiden from now on, that’s how much you pulled me in."

Von chuckled lightly at the author’s praise, but Griffin wasn’t done.

"And about those critics I’ve seen dragging the movie... they’re hard to believe. Honestly, I don’t think they even watched the movie either. But don’t worry about them, I don’t have much power but I’ll do my part to help clear the air."

Von was surprised hearing that he was willing to help. Usually the author would rarely be involved in such public relations or industry politics battles.

They would prefer to stay on the sidelines and collect their royalties, while being completely uninvolved with the entire process.

The fact that Griffin was willing to publicly step into the crossfire for him was shocking. It made Von respect him many more times over.

"Thank you so much, Griffin," Von said sincerely. "That will go a long way for us."

They continued with their discussion, talking about several other topics regarding the adaptation, the fans, and the future of the trilogy, until they finally hung up.

***

Meanwhile, just a few hours after the call, Griffin proved he wasn’t throwing empty words around. He immediately went ahead to make a post on X and sent a direct message to the official book fan club as well.

{The movie adaptation is the best thing I’ve seen in years! Very well done @DirectorMarcus and @Leviathan. Special thanks to @VonVarley for playing Aiden perfectly, you left my mouth hanging for most of the movie XD}

After making the post, it took some hours, but very soon it began gaining massive traction.

By the 10th hour, it already had 700,000 views and many reposts. But by the second day, that number had exploded to over 21 million views!

It had created some sort of a massive internet debate. The battle lines were drawn mostly between those who had actually seen the movie, those who were planning to see it, and the casual onlookers who had no idea about what was going on but loved the drama.

[DontQuitHey: he was definitely paid 🫩 we saw the reviews, old man 🥀]

[R3dingAddictSendHelp: hey @DontQuitHey watch your tongue. You’re not even a fan of the book and I bet you didn’t watch it either. So let the people with their independent judgement do the talking 😊]

[amtheyesguy: Yes, exactly! The man himself has said it! 😤 I haven’t seen the movie but those reviews were sus asf... Now I’m definetly going to see it tomorrow]

[needSomeSpace: I mean... it’s Von 🙃 None of us believed those ass reviews, we all knew the movie would be great!]

[LOWERCASE GUY: ATTENTION EVERYONE! IGNORE THE REVIEWS, I REPEAT! IGNORE THE REVIEWS! I SAW THE MOVIE YESTERDAY AND IT’S THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED THIS YEAR!! (WOULD HAVE BEEN FAR AWAY BUT THAT CAME OUT LAST YEAR). BTW, GO WATCH IT NOW!!! VON WAS INSANE!]

[imma_rage_quit: yo, bro... why are you screaming 😭 but he’s right tho, the movie is worth 6 stars out of 5 😮‍💨]

[THE PRESIDENT 😏: Man you guys are killing me, but I’m happy to hear the critics were a bunch of ass holes... Now I can’t wait for the cinema premiere /+_+\ 😭]

Everyone in the industry initially thought the early bad reviews would do Perfect Ruins a lot of bad damage, completely ruining its chances of securing a good distributor.

But that strategy quickly backfired. It rapidly evolved into a Critics vs. Consumers type of situation.

And naturally, those who were actually watching the movie had the upper hand.

For the first few days of the festival, the negative effect of the reviews were visibly shown as many people didn’t come to see the subsequent Perfect Ruins screenings.

The theaters were only half-full. But in just two days, following Griffin’s viral post, the entire dynamic changed.

Word of mouth has begun to spread like wildfire.

The fans who had attended the premiere took to every social media platform available, and many only told loud praise about how epic Von’s performance was.

They posted spoiler-free reactions, praised the intense chemistry between Von and Chloe, and mocked the critics for being so out of touch with reality.

The festival screening tickets for Perfect Ruins suddenly sold out completely. The tables had turned.

***

On the day before the major award ceremony, the Toronto weather was cool and breezy.

Von and Emily were standing outside on the private balcony of his hotel suite, looking out over the busy city skyline.

Emily was tapping away on her tablet, a look of pure excitement on her face as she reviewed the latest festival data.

"As it stands now, Perfect Ruins is among the favorites to win the People’s Choice Award," Emily announced, looking up from her screen. "Second favorites, actually. But Blood Money is trailing behind us at third!"

Emily had a wild, victorious grin as she told Von the new information.

Even though it was just a statistical prediction and might not affect the true, final results, it still went to show exactly how much genuine support the movie was eventually getting from the public.

The targeted sabotage attempt by the critics had failed to kill their momentum.

And the People’s Choice Award, exactly as the name suggested, was chosen directly by the viewers and festival attendees, not just the elite panel of critics.

So this was something to be highly positive about.

"Do you think we can win?" Von suddenly sat next to Emily on the outdoor lounge chair and asked. "Or can they buy their way into this one as well?"

Emily adopted an ambitious look hearing his question. She set her tablet down on the small glass table and leaned back.

"Maybe... just maybe it’s possible," Emily said thoughtfully. "You might not win the Breakthrough Actor award with all the shady stuff going on behind the scenes with the jury, but they can’t buy out the main audience award. There are simply too many regular votes to manipulate. So let’s see how it goes tomorrow night."

Emily’s words gave Von solid advice. She was right. He couldn’t control the corrupt critics, but he had already won the fans over. Now all he had to do was wait.

In his mind, Von pulled up the blue holographic interface.

The System’s movie score for Perfect Ruins was resting at a solid 72. So the System itself had already acknowledged it was a lot better than Blood Money, which sat at a disappointing 61.

Now it was entirely down to what the viewers thought themselves. He felt a deep sense of calm settle over him. He was ready for whatever happened at the ceremony.

***

Meanwhile, in the same hotel, Sammy Howkins was pacing aggressively in his own bedroom.

He held his phone tightly to his ear, in the middle of a call that was about to completely ruin his mood and derail his entire master plan.

"Tell me some good news, Kelvin," Sammy Howkins demanded as he paced the length of his lavish hotel bedroom, his other hand rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Tell me the reviews did their job and completely buried that kid’s movie."

"I don’t have any good news," Kelvin finally replied with a flat voice. "In fact, there is absolutely none. Things are not looking good at all."

Sammy stopped pacing. His heart skipped a beat, and a cold feeling washed over his chest. "What are you talking about? Did the critics back out? Did they delete the reviews?"

"As usual, you’re so out of touch with the outside world that you don’t even look at the numbers yourself," Kelvin sighed heavily.

"But I’ll inform you. Your master plan didn’t work. The negative reviews actually backfired. The original author endorsed the movie, the fans rallied, and the tickets are sold out. And now... Perfect Ruins has a much higher chance of winning tomorrow’s People’s Choice Award than even you do."

"What!! That’s impossible!" Sammy screamed, the veins bulging visibly against his temples. "I saw the standing ovation! It was barely a minute long! The VIPs we paid walked out and it worked!"

"No amount of screaming is going to save you right now, Sammy," Kelvin shot back. "I told you before you did this that it was a stupid, reckless idea! I don’t know what smartpants tricked you into believing this scheme would actually work, but you’ve played a losing hand. You handed them the underdog narrative on a silver platter!"