The My Hollywood System

Chapter 153

Will walks into the meeting room after being guided by Marvel's assistant CEO. The old meeting room was only two steps away from becoming extremely seedy.

Amanda follows right next to Will and inevitably signals to Will that his office is too rundown. Will said nothing and followed inside.

In the medium-sized space– meeting room, about 40-50 people are sitting in messy chairs. Even the tiles in the meeting room have cracks in some places.

Most of these people were old men and women who had worked here all their lives.

As soon as Will entered, most of them put on shocked expressions on their faces. Everyone here has watched Will on TV at least once or twice, so inevitably they feel blessed.

Some of the only young employees even had faces showing signs of worship.

Most people here know that the company has been sold to someone, and they have no future here. But they still continue to work until the bitter end because they cannot leave this job. They are too old to be employed elsewhere.

Will looked around at the faces of all these people. Most of them are old and at an age where they are supposed to retire and enjoy their lives rather than working like this.

The heavy atmosphere and dark circles just show more of the work environment and how stressful these people are.

As Will glanced at the faces of the people, two people suddenly entered the meeting room, the sound of the door creaking told Will about their entrance.

A fat old man whose face was shouting 'he's a bad guy', entered the room with a lick smile on his face. His body was sweating like a pig, and his breathing was heavy from running here from his office.

"Mr Evans! What a pleasant surprise. Thinking you will personally visit this place, you should have told me earlier, and I'll come to your office with all the files and details you want to know."

Jimmy said as he pushed his fat hand forward to shake hands.

Even after a few seconds, his hand was still hanging in the air. Then, awkwardly pulling his hand back, he looked into Will's eyes not looking at him but behind him.

'Hmm, I should have expected it.'

Will thought after calming his nerves. As he advanced in his life, unexpected things kept popping up one by one without fail. So even though he was a little surprised, he also knew deep down that there was no Marvel without one particular man, like there would be no child without a mother.

Stan Lee's!

The legendary comic writer, editor-in-chief, publisher, and producer of this Marvel comic stands right in front of him.

He was called 'The Man', 'The King of Cameos', and many such names. Will's brain was currently thinking about many possible case scenarios, but seeing Stan Lee's facial expression, Will felt angry.

He recalls the past emotions he felt after learning how Stan Lee was abused by his own family and others. And his current condition does not seem to be better.

"You, sir, please come here."

Will calls Stan, who almost jumps in shock.

"Y-yes?"

Stand Lee replied, his old and tired voice flowing out of his mouth with incredible bitterness.

"What's your name, sir?"

"That's Stan Lee. Even though it's a pseudonym, I've been called like that my whole life."

Inevitably Will felt a little nostalgic when he heard it.

After a while, Will finally calmed down and sat down on the chair. Then, while looking at Jimmy, he demanded.

"Bring me the income files of the last five years and the comics and characters that are currently popular in the market."

More sweat dripped down Jimmy's face as he told Ross to bring his files.

"We are destined."

That is the current thinking that reigns in the minds of most employees. After all, there were no magic characters in the very popular market, and there were too many characters and comics that failed.

After a while, Ross has brought all the necessary files, and Will begins to check them out.

"Go back to your work. Wait what else? We'll call you if Mr. Evans needs you."

Jimmy yells at the employees, trying to impress Will that he won't let people slack off.

"Stay, everyone. No need to go anywhere."

"If you really care about their work, you shouldn't call them here. And after looking at these files, I can say that working and not working for a day won't really change anything."

Upon Will's statement, not only Jimmy but everyone from the Marvel comics became frightened. It just means that he's happy with Marvel's current condition, which is a pretty natural reaction after he bought the company.

Every current employee is just waiting for Will's final decision to expel them.

Will examines all the files in great detail for an entire hour and discovers that only comic characters such as Fantastic Four, Captain America, Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Wolverine, are slightly popular and profitable.

There were too many characters that even Will could not recognize. Not only that, the actual big shots like Spiderman, Daredevil, Iron Man and Thor are gone.

The Avengers are filled with characters Will has never seen before, and main characters like Thor and Iron Man are gone.

Wanting to know what was wrong, Will looked at Stan again.

"As far as I know, you made up these stories, right?"

Will asked, and Stan inevitably felt surprised. There is no way Stan Lee is popular or even widely known, and not many people remember that he wrote the story.

"Yes, I'm ready."

"What happened to Peter Parker? What about Iron Man, Thor, or Daredevil?"

Will asked curiously, and this time, not only Stan but also everyone in the room was shocked. How Will knows about all these characters and how he bought Marvel, some things are finally starting to make sense to them.

'He was a childhood Marvel fan!'

There could be no better reason to conclude this situation.

"Eh, Peter Parker died five years ago in the comics and never got back into trouble again. As for the others you ask, most of them never come back to life in front of people because CEOs and editors never support the decision to bring them to market. So most of these characters aren't widely used or stored."

Stan replies, thinking of a past where the characters he painstakingly created were discarded by the CEO.

Will looks at Jimmy, who seems to be shrinking every second.

Stan recounts how past CEOs and then Jimmy, who took over, both controlled the creative team process, and so not many characters were able to successfully market enough, nor does it have as much life as Stan planned to take them in.

Will rubbed his forehead for a moment, thought about the amount of change they had to bring, and inevitably saw a headache coming.

"Hey, Mr. Spark, right? Contact my secretary to collect the amount of forced termination, if any are mentioned in your contract. You can go now."

will said, and everyone in the room became frightened.

The first thing he did was expel the CEO of the company. What chance do they have of survival?

"No, sir, no. You can't do this! I have a family to run. Sir, boss, please don't do this."

Jimmy soon falls to the ground as he holds Will's feet without the slightest shaming as he begs Will to change his mind.

"But sir, aren't you a widower? You don't even have children as far as I can remember!"

Ross chimed in, putting on a plain face while trying to hold his laughter inside.

“I-it..aah, ohhhh, ughhh.”.

As he tries to figure out what to say, Jimmy suddenly holds both of his hands on the left side of his chest as he begins to groan.

"Stop there. Are you trying to mock me? I worked with A-list actors and gave birth to A-listers. Do you really think you can fool anyone with that third-rate acting? Wait, I just feel like I'm insulting third-rate actors by comparing them to you."

Jimmy immediately stops his actions and tries to suck up to Will more but to no avail.

"Ross, right? Kick him for me."

Will says as he sits on the chair again, seeing Jimmy being dragged out by Ross.

After the atmosphere of the room calmed down again, Will looked at everyone's faces while thinking about what to do next. Immediately, an invisible light bulb formed in his head as he went to Stan Lee.

"I'm a big fan, sir."