All those ideas clicked perfectly with everything Cassius had already learned.
His brain felt packed with fresh Jackie Chan-style inspiration and insight. It was still raw, still early, but a whole new door had just swung wide open.
He looked at the legend sitting across from him with even deeper respect now. He finally understood the insane creativity and brutal effort behind every single successful shot Jackie had ever delivered.
"What's up, Cassius? You zoning out on me?" Jackie laughed, waving a hand in front of his face.
Cassius snapped back, grinning wide and sincere. "Nah, Brother Jackie. Just… everything you're saying is better than any film school lecture I've ever heard. I'm taking notes in my head like a damn student."
"Hahaha! Good! I only spill this stuff when somebody actually wants to listen!" Jackie roared with laughter. "Alright, we're done for tonight. I'll have my assistant call your guy Rob tomorrow to start the paperwork on the house. And I'll shoot you the full roadshow schedule for Zodiac as soon as it's locked."
Zodiac opened in North America… and it landed with a thud.
The theater count was tiny—just 102 screens nationwide.
Most of them were crammed into Chinatowns in L.A., New York, San Francisco, plus Vancouver and Toronto, with a handful of art-house spots and foreign-language auditoriums in big chains.
Showtimes? Weekday matinees and late-night slots. Prime weekend slots were owned by the big Hollywood tentpoles.
American audiences still treated non-English movies like they carried the plague.
Even with Jackie's millions of fans here, foreign films just didn't get the love.
Jackie had expected it, but seeing the actual numbers still made him sigh.
"Fewer screens than Red Dragon twenty years ago," he joked dryly over the phone to Cassius. "Times have changed, kid. Hollywood's even more closed off now than it was back then."
Cassius stared at the quick report Rob had thrown together.
Per-screen averages in the -heavy theaters were actually solid—packed houses. But the base was so small the total barely registered on the national chart.
Mainstream media gave it one polite mention in the arts section and moved on. Social media chatter stayed locked inside communities and Jackie's longtime fans.
"Culture shock was always gonna happen," Cassius told Jackie on the call. "We knew that going in, Brother Jackie. The real question is how we turn those 102 screens into 202… then 302."
"That's on you now, young blood!" Jackie's voice perked up. "My old face only buys so much nostalgia out here. Your heat is fresh and real. Us teaming up? We might actually make some noise."
Their first joint roadshow stop was an AMC in West L.A.
The theater had been cool enough to give them a prime evening slot.
Outside, right next to the lonely Zodiac poster, they'd slapped up a massive joint banner overnight:
Legend Meets Future: Jackie Chan & Cassius Live!
The buzz hit instantly.
By 3 p.m. the sidewalk was already split into two excited lines.
One side—older Jackie fans in faded Rush Hour tees and classic kung-fu shirts.
The other—way younger, waving Green Lantern posters, phone wallpapers of Cassius, chattering nonstop.
Backstage, Jackie peeked through the curtain and clapped Cassius on the shoulder. "See that? Your crowd showed up. Young, loud, hungry. Exactly what we needed."
Cassius just smiled and straightened his casual dark jacket. No stiff suit tonight—he wanted approachable.
All four core acting attributes at Level 4 gave him rock-solid calm. The brand-new Jackie-style action-comedy fragments sitting in his head made standing next to the legend feel… natural. Respectful, but right at home.
The second they walked out together, the roar that hit them was pure electricity—nostalgia crashing into fresh hype.
Flashes exploded. Older fans waved vintage posters. Younger ones held up glowing phone screens with Cassius in the Green Lantern suit.
The image was electric: the veteran who'd bled for decades carving his name into Hollywood, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the hot new star trying to rewrite the rules.
Media cameras ate it up.
After a quick intro, the mic went to Jackie first. Same signature Hong Kong-accented English, same charm. He told wild shooting stories, explained the mission to bring the artifacts home, and described the insane stunts he still risked everything for.
His longtime fans teared up. The younger crowd leaned in, fascinated.
Then it was Cassius's turn.
He didn't go for the big "this movie is important" speech. Instead he grinned, leaned into the mic, and said in perfect American English:
"When I was a kid, one of my relatives ran a tiny video store. The first Jackie Chan movie I ever saw was on a blurry VHS tape with terrible sound."
The audience chuckled, already hooked.
"Two things stuck with me. One: how the hell does this guy jump off buildings and walk away laughing? Two: how does he get the crap kicked out of him and still make the audience crack up with a goofy face?"
Warm laughter rippled through the seats. A lot of people were remembering their own first Jackie movies.
"Years later, after I became an actor—especially after shooting all the big action in Green Lantern—I finally understood. Those 'easy' and 'funny' shots? They're the result of insane planning, thousands of rehearsals, and bodies that refuse to quit."
He turned to Jackie, dead serious and respectful. "So when Brother Jackie asked me to come help promote Zodiac, I didn't even hesitate."
"Because he's Jackie Chan. A living legend who's still out here getting hurt for real, still making people laugh and cheer, still fighting to tell our stories. That deserves every single person in this theater—doesn't matter where you're from—buying a ticket and showing up."
The line landed perfectly—big respect for Jackie, but it also framed supporting the movie as supporting real filmmaking, period.
The crowd erupted.
During the Q&A, almost every question flew at Cassius.
"Cassius, you're in the middle of Green Lantern press—why spend time promoting a -language film in the U.S.?"
"Time spent on something that matters is never wasted," he answered smoothly. "Great movies deserve to be seen—no matter what language the poster's in."
"Do you really think Zodiac can pull in non-Asian audiences who only know you from Green Lantern?"
"I believe stories and heart cross every border," he said. "Green Lantern is about an ordinary guy becoming a hero. Zodiac is about ordinary people risking everything to protect their heritage. Same core—courage, duty, never giving up."
"And let's be real—Jackie Chan's fight scenes are a universal language. You're guaranteed to have a blast."
Jackie jumped in at the perfect moment with his trademark humor, even pulling Cassius into a quick, silly on-stage reenactment of a simple comedic exchange from the film.
Cassius matched him beat for beat—flawless timing, perfect physical comedy. The theater lost it laughing and clapping.
Jackie's old fans saw their hero still full of fire and teaming with the new hot star. Cassius's young fans suddenly got curious: "If Cassius respects this guy that much, the movie must be fire."
The viral clip of the two of them goofing around hit Twitter before they even left the stage.
#JackieChanCassius trended within an hour.
Young Green Lantern fans who'd never heard of Zodiac started searching: "Cassius is hyping this guy? Buying tickets now."
New York and Toronto stops got even crazier.
Every joint appearance made headlines.
Cassius funneled every ounce of his current heat straight toward Zodiac.
One theater even unrolled a massive banner with every Jackie character ever painted on it—fans lined up to take pictures.
Jackie's eyes got misty. Cassius felt it too. Someday, he hoped, someone would do the same for him—not because of one big IP, but because the roles actually meant something to people.
After the first weekend, the indie distributor's numbers came in.
In the three cities where Cassius had appeared, Zodiac's weekend per-screen average jumped 35–50 percent.
Non-Asian ticket buyers—previously almost zero—climbed to nearly 15 percent.
Social mentions and search traffic tracked the roadshow dates exactly.
A week later the distributor called with big news: based on the strong per-screen holds and sudden buzz, they'd convinced more chains to expand. Zodiac was jumping from 102 screens to almost 200 for week two.
New theaters weren't just in Chinatown anymore. They were hitting mainstream locations. Weekend slots were moving closer to prime time.
"We got momentum, Cassius!" Jackie boomed over the phone. "These theater guys only care about butts in seats. They see money, they add screens—no questions asked!"
"Let's push for three hundred next week!"
Because of the joint roadshows, Zodiac kept adding screens and climbing.
Meanwhile, Green Lantern—already deep into its run—was supposed to be fading.
Instead, the numbers did something almost unheard of.
The box-office tracking editor at the big Hollywood data site nearly spat coffee all over his keyboard when the fresh Sunday estimates popped up.
Green Lantern: Rise of the Azure Dragon – Week 7 North American weekend estimate: +3% from last week.
He refreshed. Same number.
He pulled the historical chart.
Normal big movies peak opening weekend, then slide. Maybe a small holiday bump. Trend always down.
Green Lantern had crashed hard out of the gate, clawed its way flat by week three, got a tiny lift from The Tonight Show in week six… and now, a month and a half in, with screens already slashed, it was actually going up again?
"What the hell?" the editor muttered, digging into the data.
The growth was concentrated in the exact cities where Cassius and Jackie had roadshowed—L.A., New York, San Francisco. A few theaters had even brought back IMAX prints.
Comment sections were full of people mentioning "Jackie Chan" and " Zodiac."
An emergency report landed on Greg Silverman's desk at Warner.
The Zodiac buzz—fueled by Jackie's legend and the joint appearances with Cassius—had accidentally breathed new life into Green Lantern's long tail.
Ticket sales were crossing over.
"These two movies are feeding each other?" Silverman stared at the numbers, eyebrows raised in pure delight.
"Cassius just became the pipeline between two completely different audiences."
He grabbed the phone and called Rob before he even finished his coffee.
"Rob! How many more Jackie roadshows do you guys have left? Can we add more? Warner will throw in venues, promo support—whatever you need. Just say the word!"
Capitalists always smell money first.
And right now, the scent was getting stronger every single day.