Dubois Studio was quick to contact as many distributors as possible.
"Of course, you are our number one option! We've worked together for several years, you think I'd just forgotten about all that?"
"Yes, we called you first, we know you guys have the best distribution chain in the country."
"How could we call anyone else, when you guys are the biggest distribution chain in the country? What price? Well actually, I don't think that'll cut it. I think if we called so-and-so, they'd do it for this price. Did I already call them? No, I said we called you first. Yes, but I'm just guessing that's the price they'll give me. I think my guess is pretty accurate too, so don't lowball me."
Eventually, they came in contact with a distributor connected to 20th Century Fox, often they acted as a representative to them if they felt the movie was good enough. In this case, this distributor decided it was a good idea to directly put this movie underneath their banner.
Fox would then get to put their opening first in front of their studio when the movie started, This was an ego thing, wanting to take credit, as much as it was them taking advantage of the monopoly that the big three agencies had in the movie industry.
Dubois studios did get to have more favorable conditions though, as they had a good reputation with all the major studios and their ability to lobby the 3 against each other. Once each studio found out that one of the other 3 wanted this movie, it became a small competition to see who would get it before anyone else.
These big studios all had an interest in the movie Alien as soon as they saw it. The filmography was very advanced and there was no other alien movie that came close to its level of realism. The horror aspect of it was also done in a very neat way that didn't cause too much aversion.
And, if they could take this movie away from their competitors, then it was worth giving a tiny bit more in profits. At least the other studios wouldn't get anything, and with the profits, they were all currently making, this small "loss" was negligible.
James was not involved in any of the negotiations except for a small piece of advice the Dubois ended up using. James warned them to make sure there were no loopholes or loose ends when it came to their share of the profits. In his past life, he remembered big movie studios would find ways not to pay producers by hiding film revenue and using made-up accounting expenditures.
This was something that was exposed later to James in his past life and was starting to ramp up around this time period.
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Anyways, 20th Century Fox would promote this film for 3 months, handling all the movie theatres this would be distributed to before finally releasing it in March 1979.
It was not met with critical acclaim as the grotesque nature of the film was not seen in a favorable light by many movie critics. The critics of this age were very conservative and often critical of all things, especially towards those movies that strayed from the norm.
James decided to ignore these critics and pleaded to Catheryn that she "pay" reporters to write "better" articles on the movie. He asked her to have these critics use words such as "thrilling horror," "suspenseful twists," and "most realistic/unique alien depiction." James felt that if they propagated these keywords enough, more people would be inclined to see Alien. The people of the 21st Century would grow numb to buzz words, but in this time they did serve the purpose of giving the audience a generally good impression.
Catheryn would ask around and mention this to her connections at 20th Century Fox, leading other critics to change their reviews to match what they believed to be the consensus. This would manufacture a slightly better review for Alien than in James' past life.
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After a month, the domestic box office weekend was $4 million and by the end of the month, it had reached $37 million.
For being the scriptwriters, James and Dan were entitled to 2% of the box office. From James and Dan's prior agreements, James got a majority (70%). That gave James $245,000 by the end of the month. James also got a small salary for the work he did behind the scenes, around $7,000. For helping in the editing he also got $4,000.
James was very grateful for Dubois deciding to pay him a sizeable amount of what he was owed. They had yet to pay everything and it might even be a while until he got most of it, but for now, he was feeling good.
The most important thing was that he was able to get a successful movie made and that he was able to put his name on it. This would hopefully open up other avenues and allow his ideas to get more notoriety within bigger studios.
Still, there was no way James could relax. Sooner or later this movie would be forgotten, maybe not in the next few months, but in Hollywood, this success could be short-lived. People will move on and if he doesn't give himself another opportunity-who knows how long it would take to get another production up and running?
He had to talk to Catheryn again to see if there was anything more that could be milked out of the Alien franchise in the recent future or if the Dubois studios wanted to work with him again on a different project.