Santa Monica is a beachfront city in California, and it is approximately 15 miles away from Los Angeles. Will had already rented out the building after talking to the owner and got all six floors of the building for the rate of $2.25 per square foot per month after negotiation.
Will rented the whole building for a year, and the total amount came to $9 million, including the maintenance cost. Will had checked other real estate and found out that it cost him really low as no one was going below $31 per square foot annually. To Will, it had only cost him $27 per square foot annually, which was quite the deal.
As Amanda handled the renting process, they were currently in the middle of moving Dream Vision Studios to this new building.
Will had tasked Jeffrey with buying new and top-end equipment as there was minimal equipment in the existing Dream Vision Studios.
Amanda had gotten busy with hiring new staff as there was a lack of staff after kicking out almost 15 people, and they needed more staff than ever when they wanted to expand the company now.
As all this was going on and everyone was busy doing their parts, Will had gotten busy writing down the first Harry Potter book. As he had the whole series in his inventory, he had decided to write down every book slowly and publish one book at the gap of half a year and then another one after another half a year.
But it was taking time to write down everything as Will was changing a lot of things in the book. By a lot, he meant a LOT. He had basically changed 'Harry Potter' the protagonist of the book. Although he was the same character, his situation was changed a lot from the actual book.
He still had the mysterious past of the Potter family, but he wasn't a naive 10-year-old bullied his whole life and was still pure and naive. He had been changed into a cunning yet caring character, which gave a different feel altogether.
Will had even changed Hogwarts itself. The whole Hogwarts was turned into something that was like a modern academy structured and run over by magic science. Although most of the story plot still remained the same, most of the character settings had been changed or at least tweaked a little.
Some would say that he was changing the whole point of the legendary masterpiece, but that masterpiece never existed in this world, so it was Will's fan fiction that would come out as the actual Harry Potter of this world. Not to mention that it was not the 2000s but the 2010s; the reader base is different.
His plan was to keep releasing a book every half a year, and when its popularity reached its peak, he would start the production of the first movie, hopefully much better than the original due to the time gap and technological advancements.
Will decided to give a more profound character to Ron and made sure that his character or dialogues won't get stolen by Hermione, like in the originals where his character was pretty good in the books, but they changed it in the movie where all his dialogues were played by Hermione, making him look like a dumb bloke.
Dumbledore's character was revised again, and Will was confused as to what to make out of him. Dumbledore came off as a character who was incredibly nice for an old man but wasn't nice enough to decide where he would sacrifice everyone just for Harry. In the end, Will decided to leave Dumbledore as it is and decided to leave hints in the story that Dumbledore wasn't as simple as he made himself out to be.
As Will finished his first draft of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, he re-read it to find any errors.
"What are you doing so early in the morning?"
Will felt something squishy rub his back as two soft arms hugged him from behind. The owner of the voice was June, who had woken up and seen that Will was busy on his laptop.
Will smiled as he turned back slightly and kissed June lightly on her lips, after which June cooed and snuggled into his embrace. She was wearing white-coloured a lacy nightgown and looked quite the feast for Will's eyes.
"What do you think?"
Will asked with a smirk, to which June raised an eyebrow as she had rarely seen Will being smug about something.
"Are you writing another script for some movie?"
June asked curiously.
"Close, but Nah. I'm writing a children's book."
Will replied, to which June made a shocked expression.
"Are you kidding? There must be a catch."
June asked after seeing that the smugness still hadn't left his face.
"Well, it's not exactly a children's book, I guess? It's suitable for all age groups, but yeah, mostly would target young teens, and it's a teenage fantasy after all."
Will's reply again stunned June. She was confused as to why Will was an author when his popularity was already reaching a new height just because of his directing.
"Why are you writing a children's book? You do know that writing a novel and writing a script are two totally different things, right?"
"I know that. I have had the idea for this book for a while now, and don't worry, writing a children's book would positively impact my reputation as long as it is good."
"You sound pretty confident that your book would be 'good', eh?"
June said teasingly, and Will just closed the laptop and threw her on the bed as he pinned her hands with his and looked deeply into her eyes.
"What do you think? Is my confidence bad?"
June felt a shiver run down her spine, looking at Will's dark black eyes as she said.
"No, it's something that I find sexy."
She bit her lips seductively after saying that as if inviting him to come and eat her.
Will let go of her hands, stood up and cleared his throat.
"Well, last night's session was enough. We both have our share of work to do and have busy days ahead of us."
June just pouted at that, and Will laughed. After a while, he printed out 2-3 drafts of the book and gave one to June.
"Read and tell me how it is. I'll go shower till then."
After that, Will went to shower. After freshening up, he came out with a towel tied to his waist.
"So… How is it?"
Will asked while blowing his hair with a hairdryer.
"I have read the first chapter, and the start is at least interesting. Yet again, I've discovered another layer of my onion. How much more are you hiding in that brain of yours?"
Will just chuckled at June's pouty remark and started dressing up.
"By the way, do you have a publisher in mind for this?"
June asked as she, too, was preparing to go for a bath.
"I won't be hard with my current reputation. I'll take Amanda's help to introduce me to some publishers. And even if it doesn't work with them, there is always the option of self-publishing."
"No, no, don't do self-publishing. It will cost a lot if you do that, which would be a waste of money."
Will just shook his head as he replied.
"I won't be wasting money if I eventually earn more money from the book."
June just stared at him for a while, thinking where he gets his confidence from, after which she just smiled bitterly and kissed him on the cheek before entering the bathroom.
Will knew where she was coming from, but he also knew what Harry Potter was in his world. Even if some people call it a lucky fluke for JK Rowlings, it was still a great book.
To be honest, it was one of the best-planned book series. JK Rowling had the whole story planned before she sat down to write the series. For example, in the first novel, there was a scene where Snape would ask Harry some questions during his class.
Years later, many people had found out that his questions had a hidden note in them.
It was pretty shocking to Will when he found this out, but this is just one thing that makes the movies so good.
Since this world didn't have many masterpieces in the literature and Hollywood industry, he was confident that the book and movie would earn almost the same as the original world, unless there was a factor he forgot to take into account.
Moreover, if his plan worked, he was sure that he would have yet another series that would cross 1 billion dollars at the box office. Just thinking about so much money was enough to make him feel like his efforts were worth it.
Sometimes, he feels like he's being greedy, but the truth is that human society was formed around money, and the only way to reach the top was to have money.
'I need to write scripts and go through the audition tapes for DTA too.'
Jeffery had already posted a notice that they were recruiting actors and actresses from all age groups, and more than 1500 resumes had come in the short span of 2-3 days through the online portal.
Thinking of his tough schedule, he sighed. But at this point, he was already a workaholic.
Yikes! Changing hogwarts into a modern academy? That's a big red flag.
One of the major reasons Harry Potter became so popular was due to it's mystical and magical environment that JK built. Why do you think movies like Frozen, Aladdin, and so forth are so popular with children? It's because it tells a magical story that you would otherwise not find in other genres.
I think making hogwarts into a modern academy would make the book enter the sci-if genre rather than the fantasy genre. But then again since it's a mix of magic and science, so maybe not? I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it.
No, I agree. It completely strips away the problems and bigotry that the wizarding world stuck to. There was a reason there wasn't a high level of technology in the wizarding world, and that was because science was a muggle concept that they disdained.
Half of the problems harry and the people in that world face wouldn't be there with the changes Will made to the book. Will might as well have said 'Let there be no racism!' because that's basically what he did...
I also think that it is a risky move, but we must not forget that it is a different universe and also around a decade later. Let's see how it plays out. Thanks for the chapter though.
@GioBlaze9239 @Khoesis Exactly! Introducing modern technology would run counter with the wizarding world's society. I hope Will realizes this fact soon and change back the setting. Maybe after June finishes reading the script that Will just gave to her, she would point out this suggestion.
It could be "Science Fantasy" but that refers more to the unexplainable hyperdrives or other FTL travel systems. Also, you know i like weird iterations of known stories. Also, Will is not perfect. Maybe someday he will do an mistake, which will ruin his work, or at least lesser its quality? Maybe. But this is an immaginary world.
You have to concider the changed audience. The original series was posted in 1997. And here, he is starting this series in 2010. The audience has changed, since the youth is more accustomed to the interned and has wighter, sometimes unusually different views from the 1997.
@Beta02 I am affraid it's too late for that. Since there are at least 10 more chapters written on the Patreon, there is little chance for an change. Maybe if he starts shooting the series he will change some things? Who knows.
I sort of agree that it massively changes the vibe of the story and possibly its point, but HP coming out today or even in 2010 wouldn't work anymore. Even in our world a lot of the tropes in HP didn't make sense, because they harken back to the genre of British boarding school novels that nobody read anymore even in the 2000s.
While children (as in the intended audience) don't care for the plausibility problems in HP (they didn't in our world at least) and won't notice the neoliberal undertones, the main draw of the series, that is the escapism of leaving your drab real school life and going to a magic school where you're rich and famous and have adventures and friends, seems to be preserved in Will's version.
@Partysan Hell yes! That's the main reason of this sort of entertainment: escapism. Being or feeling someone, who you can't be every day.
@Partysan
Have you read harry potter? Because I feel like you haven't...
That book is pretty gritty and not at all an 'adventures and friends' novel. One, though harry had wealth, no one in school knew about it and he never used it. Two, famous yes, but famous for all the wrong reasons. He wasn't popular in the slightest, and almost everyone actively tries to push him down through out the book.
Half of the struggles he goes through -- the active hate club he had, the villain of the whole series, the way houses are set up, the black family lineage, pureblood supremacist in positions of authority -- are all because of muggle racism and pureblooded supremacism, and Will has basically gone 'Nah, let us take out one of the core driving plot devices.'
you can say that the audiences have changed as much as you want but, in the end, Will still took one of the -- if not the biggest -- driving plot devices out of the novel. Honestly, while escapist fantasies are a huge portion of today's written works, they were not are prevalent as they are now back in 2010. Will really had no need to change a book like harry potter in the way he did. I feel like the author put little thought behind what he was actually doing and just wanted to make it look like Will had actually used his own talent for once to produce something instead of relying on system skills and freebee it give him.
@Beta02 yeah it would ruin a lot about the series as a whole but even if he goes forward with the change it will sell better because reasons
@Sneekyjake
Of course.
@Beta02 honestly with those desicions i can see him failing and that should be a reminder that overreaching also has consequences
I can also see him releasing the original just slightly modified for the plot holes and becoming more sucessful
Now, from my perspective, as someone that read plenty of hp fanfics, I can say without doubt that I personally would much prefer this 'revised' harry potter Will is planning.
That said, what I look for in books and what is actually popular is not the same.
I'm no expert in literature, so I will not make a fool of myself analysing why it succeeded the way it did and how it would fair if it released a decade later and whatever else is involved here, but the plain simple fact is that Will went from making relatively minor alterations that can easily be seen with a positive effect (showing the blair witch vs not showing, something he got from knowing the original reactions), to reworking a series totally.
Considering the fact he didn't get himself a writing talent or whatever from the system, he is effectively going in blind.
@GioBlaze9239 Yes, in comparison to the books, in the movies Ron for example was just shown as a bloke because Hermione got his lines and many things were changed. Because I agree, Harry Potter is not such a happy book like it was shown in the movies. So we have to see how far it goes. But one of the driving factors was the fantasy in which there is no such things as in the muggle world. Which changes the whole atmosphere.
@GioBlaze9239 Yes, I have read all the books both in my native language and the original English. I think you're sort of missing the point - which may partially be my fault for being quippy in my description, but nonetheless: Harry's fame becomes more of a burden later, but in the first book he certainly is admired by many. (Harry's money is actually a plot hole that comes from JKR wanting him to be both poor and rich at the same time.)
But the important part is that Harry is special. He is "The Chosen One (tm)". The books can't really decide how dark they want to be, considering Harry is technically the victim of 11 years of severe physical and psychological abuse but that's never really acknowledged as the trauma it would be. In fact, not being as traumatized as he should be is sort of the superpower that makes Harry the chosen one. And he gets to leave that world he hates behind and go to a better one, which, for all of its trials and tribulations, he loves and feels at home in. And it's exciting and full of new and interesting stuff and he actually has people there who like him. Yes, he also has enemies, but that's the adventure - he may not enjoy that part, but the readers do.
Speaking of, the wizarding world as a whole not being as mugglephobic or scientifically illiterate (which also makes no sense anyway) doesn't mean that there can't be wizard nazis who are - that's how the real world works after all, complete with them being rich and in positions of authority despite everyone knowing better. Certainly it doesn't eliminate the possibility for such villains and possibly an acknowledgement that systemic problems require systemic solutions, which JKR would NEVER do.
That having beem said, I don't necessarily believe that Will's HP will be better than the original - just that it isn't as doomed as you seem to think it is.
@Partysan I see, thank you for the elaborate explanation. I did miss a few points, thanks for pointing it out for me.
@Partysan spot on