SCENE: INTERIOR, HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION OFFICE, RUN-DOWN. MONDAY MORNING.

Executive Assistant: Hey, Brett?

Director: Morning, Jennifer. What have you got for me?

EA: Well, we have the opening weekend numbers.

D: And?

EA: They're ... mixed. There's some bright spots overseas. Australia did fifty.

D: Fifty million?

EA: Uh, no. Fifty. Fifty tickets.

D: All weekend? The whole country?

EA: Ya. I know.

D: You said there were some bright spots, though?

EA: That was a bright spot. It was worse elsewhere.

D: How can it be worse than 50 tickets for a whole country?

EA: Well, some open-source intelligence type people on the 'net proved that almost every single ticket sold in the UK was to a movie reviewer, because we wouldn't give them advanced access to it.

D: "Almost"? So at least a few regular folks bought tickets?

EA: ... maybe. Those were tickets where no-one showed at the theatre, so they couldn't determine if it was film critics or not.

D: Damn. How were the reviews?

EA: Uh, let's just say "not good" and leave it at that for a bit.

D: ... Okay. Well, how about here at home? Surely we sold some tickets here, at least in MAGA states? What's the news here in the good ol' USA?

EA: The Director's Guild took out a hit on you.

#Hollywood #HappyEnding #StoryTime #OnceUponATimeInMAGAstan #BoxOfficeBomb #sycophancy #Trump #Melania #MAGA #critic #FilmCritic #MovieCritic #BoxOffice #director #PuffPiece #USPol