Hollywood What If Chapter 492
Despite his nervousness, Kazir kept his smile. Although he was nervous, he couldn't deny that he was also excited.
Shadow Beneath was the horror movie he failed to film in his past life.
He put everything he learned about filming horror movies into this project. This was his dream and also a burden.
Since his regression, he had been haunted by the fact that his past profession as a horror movie director had failed. This was his biggest regret. This was also the thing he feared the most.
Now, Kazir was trying to take a step and face his fears. He looked at the leaders of Hollywood who had personally attended this screening just to watch his movie.
Some of them were skeptical. Some were calculating the profit, and some were against the idea of buying it.
But overall, their expressions showed that they appreciated Kazir's movie. He was nervous as the lights turned on.
Some of the people who attended the screening left, while some stayed. It didn't mean that the people who left were not interested in Kazir's movie. They were probably analyzing and talking to professionals regarding Kazir's new film.
They could see the potential in his movie, but they didn't know the endgame. Furthermore, they also had to determine what offer would satisfy Kazir enough to sell the copyrights to them.
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"The movie is entertaining. I must admit, the plot twist caught me off guard, but it's also not that mind-blowing."
Robert Iger spoke to the people in the limousine as they returned to the company. They had just spent around two hours at Grey Pictures before heading back to the Walt Disney headquarters.
The other people from the management and board of directors agreed.
"It has potential. If we do it right, the box office can reach at least $300 million."
"We can use Kazir as the center of our promotion," one of them added, and many agreed.
To be fair, the reason why the movie could possibly reach $300 million at the box office was because of Kazir's box office appeal.
Whenever people heard that Kazir was related to a movie, they knew that the movie was worth watching.
If Shadows Beneath had the same plot but a different director, the movie would hardly make money at the cinema.
"But let's be honest here. We know that Kazir's career started with filming horror movies. His three horror movies never made money at the box office. I admit that their DVD sales skyrocketed, but it was because people considered them cult classics after they found out that Kazir filmed them. Overall, his first three movies are just average horror films."
They also agreed with that fact.
Being the best director in Hollywood, the management of Walt Disney studied Kazir's filmography seriously. They knew Kazir's strengths and weaknesses.
His strengths were:
His fast filming, where he could make a movie every year.
His strong budget control. He never overspent, except one time.
His understanding of how to catch the audience's attention. He knew what movies people liked.
His weakness:
Kazir didn't have any clear, original style. All of his movies didn't follow a strict filming style.
Horror movies were also considered his weakness based on statistics.
As for the other bad traits, they couldn't really say those were Kazir's weaknesses. They were more like things they didn't like about Kazir.
Kazir loved selling his scripts at an expensive price.
Kazir also loved to negotiate contracts that were quite painful on the pockets.
Lastly, Kazir was hard to convince… This was probably the hardest hurdle they would face in this negotiation.
Robert listened to the management seriously, making their opinions valid. Robert was respected by the management as he slowly acquired ownership of Pixar, one of the foundations of 3D animation in the entire world.
Furthermore, Robert was also the person who pushed for the production of many 3D movies. This year, the money they earned from toys from 3D movies were immaculate. It grossed $462 million. This might look simple, but it wasn't at all. The profit they gained from the franchises were immense.
It all came down to toys. The sales of toys related to Toy Story alone exceeded $1 billion. It was obvious that kids liked the movie. In fact, in 2011, which was five years from now, the the Toy Story franchise would generate $5 billion in merchandise sales.
Robert Iger was one of the keys to why these projects became successful.
After listening to them, and once the limousine stopped in front of the Walt Disney headquarters, Robert stepped out of the car and said to his entourage:
"Contact Kazir and express that we are interested in buying his movie. I heard that this movie cost $17 million to make. We can double or triple that amount. It doesn't matter if we lose some profit. Our intention this time is to form a positive impression on Kazir. We are not investing in his movie, we are trying to fix our relationship through money. Understand that."
"Yes, sir."
Robert stepped into the elevator.
"Well, if we get this movie and it surpass $1 billion, it's going to be a miracle… Titanic did it, so it's not impossible for another miracle to happen."
Robert shook his head. He was already surprised that Grey Pictures and CAA had invited him to watch Kazir's horror movie. It meant that they had a chance to fix their relationship.
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[First of all, this is a What-if, so I might as well go all out. Since most of you voted for over a billion dollars at the box office, I will do it. Let's make the impossible possible. After all, this is just fiction.]
[Edit: The patrons voted that the horror movie will surpass $1 billion at the box office... Sorry about that.]