The new kid on the block in terms of super hero blockbuster movies was a group of lizard-humanoids living within the lower extremities of the Earth’s mantle. Summoned to the Earth’s surface by way of a nuclear holocaust, the lizard-humanoids become empowered by a factor of twenty, and build a new world on a new planet with the human survivors of a now dead planet Earth. In the transition to the new world, only five lizard-humanoids survive. These five will help rebuild the human race in the new world and across other solar systems. They will become the human’s super hero guardians hereafter. They will become known throughout the Universe as, Sentinel Lizards 20X.
The debut feature film for Sentinel Lizards 20X out-grossed The 5th Dimension Time Protectors’ global box office sales figures by over $200 million worldwide. The sequel for Sentinel Lizards 20X was due out at year end, and would go head-to-head with the first sequel for The 5th Dimension Time Protectors. The 5th Dimension Time Protectors had struck first with their early initial release date, but now their second installment release date had been delayed by almost one year. Licensing deals for Sentinel Lizards 20X involved toys and video games that also overshadowed The 5th Dimension Time Protectors. The lizards had made their mark and were riding high through the intersection of victorious and killing it.
Three days prior to Rita’s meeting with Willis and Chandra, an outspoken actor who played one of the five lizards in Sentinel Lizards 20X — tragically confused his role as an all-powerful super hero living on a new planet out there in the galaxy so bright, with his celebrity party animal life on our pre-nuclear holocaust modern day earth. That lizard shot-up a small club in the East Village of NYC when he poured afterburner hits of his favorite premium tequila on top of his double speedball party meal. Within hours, all celebrity endorsement deals for the actor triggered their option to terminate. Within a day, the public had mobilized to trash the culture of Sentinel Lizards 20X. Licensed products were pulled from shelves and all visibility disappeared from online retailers. By day two, after the incident, the movie sequel was on indefinite hold.
This was the focus of Rita’s meeting with Willis and Chandra. The destruction of Sentinel Lizards 20X through the self-destruction of one lizard. The obliteration of an entertainment property and all that went with it — the toys, the video games, the movie sequel, and the never to be published recipe book, “What Lizards Like.” Sentinel Lizards 20X never delved into a licensing deal with appliances. If they had pursued an appliance deal, some company would have taken a massive hit, and a team of sales and marketing executives for that manufacturer would most likely be road kill.
Rita was not going to be blindsided by a 5th Dimension Time Protector freak event. She was the angelic protector of Super Ramen Nikomu and its launch. Willis and Chandra would need to be activated and rise to the level of paranoid anxiety that Rita had achieved over the last three days.
Revisiting the background files was in order. The legal department and talent clearance consultants had built detailed dossiers on each of the five lead actors with the initial proposal of connecting The 5th Dimension Time Protectors to the Super Ramen Nikomu. Step one: Willis and Chandra would request the files and comb through them — looking for any detail that may have been overlooked in the initial clearance process. Step two: they would build a matrix of characters, character flaws, and self-destructive scenarios or events. Scenarios or events that could diminish the market perception of 5th Dimension Time Protectors, or engulf the entire entertainment property in a death spiral, which would also take down endorsement affiliations and licensed products.
Actor Files for Review Legal Name Screen Name • Barbara R. Atwater • Gemma Hubble • Jenner A. Rowland • Alpha Blade • Nathan M. Meprizer • Pulsar Jones • William E. Westley • Ian Reyes • Sandra N. Bostock • Cosma Stone
Step one was straightforward. Once Willis and Chandra secured the actor’s dossiers, they enlisted a double blind review strategy. They would each review and analyze files for all five actors, glean information for predetermined categories, and only compare their notes upon completion. Then, they would merge and purge their results and begin to piece together the Matrix of Self-Destruction, which they referred to as the MSD. Once they had built the MSD, this would be their guide to understand what they needed to be on the look-out for. A key hurdle that Willis and Chandra faced was the know-how for building a workable MSD. They could examine the files and pull the essential data, but they didn’t have a clue for how to build the Matrix of Self-Destruction.
There was someone who did know how to build a workable Matrix of Self-Destruction, and this resource was already indirectly employed by the company. The resource was a someone, and that someone was Dr. Richard Carbonell. Dr. Carbonell worked at the company’s specialized agency, which performed data analysis and leveraged distribution channels. He was the lead developer of the Pervasive Invasive Paradigm Plotter, also known as PiPP. The company employed the specialized agency to utilize PiPP for distribution channel optimization and deep analysis, but the PiPP platform performed on a wide variety of analytical and statistical tasks. Modifications of the PiPP platform to perform the singular desired functions of the MSD involved very little additional programming and minimal testing. Rita approved the additional billable man-hours for the use of a modified version of PiPP to fulfill the MSD, and gain the critical foresight she was looking for.
Chandra was the first to reach out to Rita and convey the early findings. The history of all five actors was very simple and ordinary. There was nothing terribly exciting or unusual about their respective lives in terms of their childhood, education, friends, family, and life in general prior to becoming actors. In a brief phone conversation initiated by a nervous and slightly unhinged Rita, Willis concurred. Rita was incredulous and introduced a divide and conquer strategy to the two person covert team of Willis and Chandra. Whoever could go beyond the information already held in the actor’s dossiers, and come up with new discoveries, such as potential addictions, preoccupations, or altercations with the law — that diligent fact finder could expect to receive a slight promotion in their title after the new product launch. The less diligent partner might need to be replaced by Joshua, the obnoxious intern.
The divide and conquer strategy was not effective as far as dividing Willis and Chandra was concerned. Josh the intern would eventually need to stalk another department and possibly work directly under the uncle who brought him into the company. The divide and conquer strategy would, oddly enough, deliver results in the end, which sent the wrong message to Rita, and would contribute to the continued degeneration of her already despised and privately ridiculed managerial practices. Willis and Chandra were well aware of Rita’s dysfunctional management style. Driven by 35% fear of being fired, and 60% shear hatred of Rita, with a 5% margin of error, the covert duo doubled down on their dig-for-dirt efforts and produced all future communications as a team. Rita was now picking up the pace of nervous inquiries and requesting daily status reports. The Super Ramen Nikomu launch date was a week away. Willis and Chandra had collected enough data and character correlations, as set forth in the general guidelines provided by Dr. Carbonell, to facilitate a first run through the recently modified PiPP platform. They still didn’t have any outstanding data points describing acts of brutality or signs of a hibernating mental disorder for any of the five actors. Willis and Chandra had only accumulated a collection of trivial behavioral specks and petty hearsay blemishes.
