HWI 500

Hollywood What If Chapter 500

"If there's a miracle, then what I'm seeing right now is a miracle."

Barry Mayer frowned as he looked at the miraculous statistics on his table. He had been in the industry for more than a decade and these kinds of numbers were impossible to achieve. Even his Warner Brothers, the current number one studio in Hollywood could only replicate two $900 million movies.

That was the best achievement they did so far.

But the statistics he was looking at proved that two $900 million movies were just a child's play.

Have you seen a production studio that had three $1 billion movies in just a year? Probably not.

However, Grey Pictures was close to doing that.

After five months of screening, the Kingsman: The Secret Service grossed $926 million worldwide.

A great movie could last six to eight months in theaters as long as people were interested in watching it. As for the case of the Kingsman: The Secret Service, the movie made at least a million dollars per day. It could explain why the movie earned $900 million.

Barry could see that Grey Pictures would have three $1 billion movies. Kingsman: The Secret Service would be the third movie to do so.

He realized that 2006 was the year of Grey Pictures. The other studios lost in this particular year and they didn't like that.

Warmer Brothers was recognized as the current number-one studio in Hollywood because most of its movies in the past few years were box office hits. Even low-budget movies from Warner Brothers were earning more than $100 million.

Walt Disney couldn't compete at all.

Walt Disney was going strong with their 3D animated movies, but their live-action movies were not selling enough.

As for the other big studios, they couldn't release constant box office movies like Warner Brothers. Only Grey Pictures could follow that performance.

Honestly, if Grey Pictures decided to compete against the Big Six and acquired distribution lines, Grey Pictures would probably have the power to face them.

But this kind of threat would easily get plucked out, just like what they did to their other competitors. So far, only Lionsgate has had a steady performance every year, but even Lionsgate couldn't match up with the Big Six.

Barry turned the page and his expression turned worse as he realized that Shadows Beneath grossed $635 million after almost three months of screening... It didn't sit well with him that the horror movie he disregarded was making well.

Warner Brothers was already content that Kazir had a trilogy with them. They also didn't think that Shadows Beneath would make that much. They were too full of themselves.

'If I knew that this would happen, I would have increased the bid. At least I'm confident that we can acquire the copyrights if we offer more than what Universal Pictures offered.'

$100 million + 5% worldwide shares was a contract that Warner Brothers could handle. The fact that Shadows Beneath's copyright was acquired with that amount was quite laughable. A movie that performed that great could bring them more profit.

'It's because of those disgusting experiments on the internet...'

People were so intrigued and curious that they started searching for gruesome stuff. There was this thing called the Dark web that people were curious about...

Barry admitted that Grey Pictures had an amazing marketing strategy. Even though their marketing department was studying the secret behind it, Barry reprimanded them and forced them to study it.

Regarding The Dark Knight, there were some questionable things that Barry was against but he decided to trust Kazir.

The script was a bit dark for a superhero movie... Barry had to use his influence to convince the Motion Pictures Association of America(MPAA) to rate The Dark Knight PG-13.

Warner Brothers had a seat in MPAA and it helped them to protect the ratings of their movies.

If The Dark Knight was rated Rated-R, then it was automatically a loss for them. Warner Brothers was preparing to make sure that never happened.

By the way, the six members of the MPAA were all the Big Six. Their seats in the MPAA were also the reason why the other studios couldn't defeat them. Being the leaders that decide the ratings of movies, they have the power to easily sabotage other studios.

"If not for his credibility, I would not agree to Kazir's plot. This kind of script is too much for the fans to handle, I'm not sure if they will like to see their superhero lose..."

The management was strongly against it, even now. But the recent performance of Grey Pictures' movies was outstandingly great that they agreed to Kazir's idea.

.........

......

...

"Hey, so I want to ask, is it all right that you're letting Heath do his makeup?"

Jane, the head of the makeup team, asked Kazir about his opinion regarding Heath Ledger's intention to do his own makeup.

Kazir glanced at her before looking at the trailer where Heath was currently staying. He paused for a second before nodding.

"Let him do what he wants."

Jane narrowed her gaze and whispered something.

"Hey, are you sure that actor is doing fine? I talked to him earlier and he gave me the creepy vibes."

Kazir just chuckled. That just showed that Heath Ledger was doing well... As an actor. It showed that he was serious about his role.

"Don't worry, I'll handle it."

Some people were against hiring Heath Ledger because of his past role. Two years ago, Heath Ledger was working on a movie called Brokeback Mountain, his role in that movie was a gay cowboy. To be precise, the movie was about two gay cowboys who periodically went to Brokeback Mountain to rekindle their love.

Some people were against hiring Heath because they were afraid that it could affect the performance of The Dark Knight, but Kazir was firm in his decision. In his opinion, Heath Ledger was one of the reasons why The Dark Knight became successful.

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[First, I'm sorry if my uploads are not constant lately. I have no excuse.]

[Second, I want to celebrate the fact that this novel reached 500 chapters. Thanks to all of your support guys, I appreciate it a lot.]

[Third, I'm quite confident that this novel will end around 150 to 200 chapters. Let's all be honest, almost everything in Kazir's bucket list has been done except for Ninja Assassin. As for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Dark Knight Trilogy, I'll probably not tackle some of them.]

[Fourth, the reason why I want to end this novel within 200 chapters is because I feel like Kazir's story is already near conclusion. I don't want to lose the essence of this novel just because I want to milk the novel for money. No, this novel needs a proper ending instead of me spamming plots just because I want to.]

[Fifth. As for the days I missed, I'm not going to promise anything anymore because I feel like it's giving me a heavy burden that's hard for me to accomplish. I feel stressed when I owe chapters. All I can say is that I'll try my best to write this story until we reach the ending.]

[Sixth, this is my second novel that will be completed. The second novel of mine where I can clearly see the ending. I hope you will support me until the very end.]

[If you have any questions, feel free to comment. I will answer them tomorrow morning.]