Only Sullivan was closely keeping track of Home Alone at a much deeper level than the theaters.
Alexander kept his mind off of the movie's progress because he was quite afraid of the possibility of failure. He was a normally confident guy but the constant bombardment of pressure these past few months really took a toll and made him doubtful.
"Uhm... Alexander! So-sorry to disturb your handso... I mean, your free time."
"It's okay. What can I do for you, Jessica?"
"Are you handso... I mean, Kevin from Home Alone?"
It was not until this pretty classmate shyly confronted him that he realized that Kevin's influence had grown.
"You could say so." Alexander knew that he couldn't keep the secret anymore, so he just frankly admitted it. What happened next was beyond his understanding of girls and their fanaticism.
"Aaaahh!" Jessica screamed crazily. Fanned herself with her hands and then ran out of the room with a visibly pinker shade to her cheeks.
The rest of the class didn't know what happened and it was only until asking Jessica and after taking their holidays that they caught up.
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September 18 of 1988 came into the corner. It was a Friday and the prime release schedule was to hook the traffic from the week of Thanksgiving rush.
1969, High Spirits, Buster, The Chocolate War, and a few other movies were debuting and hoping to gain momentum to take a spot on the weekly top 10.
Notable animated releases like the 'Land Before Time' and 'Oliver and Company' were expected to draw children and dry up their parents' pockets.
Screening time and the number of theaters to screen were being scrambled for by movie companies.
Each and every distribution company were busy trying to impress cinema companies through advertisements and artistic praises from critics.
Disney and Universal were head-to-head to compete against each other in animated films. 'Oliver and Company' would defend Walt Disney's specialty while the Land Before Time is there to challenge it.
All's well and all but when an unknown movie secured 1,200 theaters, they found that someone had already won.
Home Alone, which has been secretly sneaking through the gaps, won out in the end and finally blossomed into the mass.
Newspaper sections listing the audience's praise for the movie were garnering attention and attracting crowds.
Friday releases eventually ended with an unknown blur with the Home Alone factor added into the mix.
What's worse is that tallying tickets takes some time with the lack of interconnectivity bought about by the convenience of computers and the Internet.
Saturday and Sunday also called upon flocks of freed children, resting adults, and money-hogging teens.
Sadly, the exact box office is still a blur but the preliminary estimates were a piece of bad news for the established film companies.
They already knew that they were bound to be slapped by a film that only cost 300,000 dollars.
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Eventually, the week's box office was corrected and tallied up.
Fifth on the Weekly Top 10 is 'Oliver and Company' with 5.72 million dollars.
Fourth and Third on the list are the dominators of the previous week with 'Ernest Saves Christmas' at 6.4 million and 'Child's Play' at 7.8 million dollars.
Second is 'The Land Before Time' raking in about 7.9 million. This effectively beat the Walt Disney animation feud, however, victory seemed pitiful when comparing itself to the top spot.
The box office champion is Creed Film's Home Alone with a rake of 12.1 million dollars. It was a hundred dollars higher when the Wednesday and Thursday screening was accounted for.
The moviegoers were amazed by the fluctuation of the rankings as always and this data would help them gauge on what they would watch next.
Without a doubt, the one at the top spot would be their priority.
When the mass was amazed, the industry insiders were gobsmacked. They had a much more detailed review of things involving movies and the facts they gathered were frightening.
Turning 300,000 dollars into 12.1 million dollars is a great spike in profit in their view. Even with all traveling costs and printing of projection copies, the producer and distributor are near the break-even point and next week's rake is just pure profit.
The distribution company that released the film didn't even allocate funds to advertisements and propaganda. They just waited patiently, trusted its quality, and let the newspaper companies do it for them for free.
This set of data and information greatly embarrassed the propaganda departments of the major companies.
Brokerage agencies that overinflated the cost of their packaged film crews and talents need to rethink their current situation.
Their million-dollar packaged productions can't even hold a candle to an unknown production team and reassembly is a must.
In any case, they had to find the crew behind the making of Home Alone and reintroduce them to production companies as a diamond-level group.
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The CEOs and helmsmen's of the major studios also got to realize an important thing from Home Alone's championship. Rather, they were baffled at how theater companies opened up a thousand screens to a low-budget film, an unknown production company like Creed Films, and an unnamed new distribution company.
They had to figure out the quirks and details of the theater transactions so that they can snuff out the competition beforehand.
When Home Alone was released on the 16th, they dismissed it and even sneered at its 1,000 theater opening. They had already judged that the entire operation was a fad that is destined to fail.
As their expectations were surpassed, everything was already too late and the fad operation had already bridged through their lapsed blockade.
However, this wasn't the first mistake and they had already devised countermeasures for scenarios like the Home Alone insurgence.
Their spots in the MPAA are an insurmountable goal. If Creed Films continue to produce films, its manipulated ratings guarantee their lowered earnings.
Their established overseas channels would limit Creed films to North America and the company lucky enough to be chosen as the overseas distributor would be earning much more for their hard work.
Much lower in their monopolistic defense is shaky and uncontrollable one but it has great success. Their smear propaganda can make great films extremely unwatchable.
Home Alone's box office championship would just be a fluke once again... but would it really?!
