[Shout out to Jose B, Thiago S, Garland G, Carlo, Joe O, Star Emperor, Simone, Sione M, Sahal I, This Dude, Abdi, Angelo M, Clinton, Rodolfo Felix V, Daniel Best and Juan Correa S!]
Hollywood What If Chapter 121
"So what's Sony-Columbia's decision?"
Harrison Ford sat down with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He tried to calm his nerves, but it was hard to do so.
"Harrison, I need you to listen to me calmly."
"Brittany, I can't calm down when my movie is involved in this situation."
Harrison Ford was a client of UTA (United Talent Agency). His agent was Brittany Balbo.
Three agencies in Hollywood could compete with each other in rivalry. CAA, WMA and UTA. These three agencies took over most of the market.
"So what's her decision?"
Harrison asked, drinking his alcohol and trying his best to calm down.
"They didn't agree to increase the advertising budget too much, they added a little bit."
Sony-Columbia would increase the promotion budget if they thought the movie was promising. But for Air Force One, it was competing against Taken, which was currently hot.
Sony-Columbia felt there was no point in increasing the budget. So they decided to maintain the status quo. They would spend $5 million on advertising for the next week.
"..."
Harrison Ford put down the glass and rubbed his forehead. He had been expecting this outcome.
At first, he was confident that Air Force One would defeat Taken in a straight fight... But the news about sex trafficking was getting a lot of people interested!
Harrison gritted his teeth. It would be a lie to say he was not affected. He chose his movies seriously.
Harrison Ford had many blockbuster movies because of his ability to choose the best script. Air Force One had all the ingredients to be a blockbuster.
However, the result was different from what he thought.
It was August 3, 1997. Ten days had passed since the release of Air Force One. The movie grossed $80.73 million. If you compare it to other movies that were released that year, it was an amazing achievement. Harrison Ford was happy with the amount.
Unfortunately, Air Force One was released the same time as Taken. By August 3, 1997, Taken had grossed $122.15 million. It was only ten days, but Taken had already crossed the $100 million mark.
Paramount would receive 25% of the box office while Cinema Alliance would receive 40%. Grey Pictures would receive only 35% of the gross.
Paramount has already guaranteed $30.53 million in the cake. While Cinema Alliance would receive more than $48.86 million. Grey Pictures assured $42.75 million.
However, Taken's box office was steadily rising. These three divisions would get more as time went on.
Paramount, Cinema Alliance and Grey Pictures were all happy.
Especially Kazir Grey. As a director, the best he could get was 20% of the North American box office. Well, he never had the experience of having that kind of treatment. Kazir Grey got 10% of the North American box office for The Hangover, that was the highest contract he got so far.
Even though Kazir Grey owned Grey Pictures, it was a legitimate company and he couldn't bully it. So his salary was $5 million and 10% worldwide box office... Not North America, but worldwide.
Which means that 10% of the box office would go into his private bank account, 10% worldwide box office.
The production budget of Taken was 25 million dollars. More than that would be pure profit... After taxes.
"Damn." That was all Harrison could say.
"Harrison, you need to think seriously about this. You and Kazir are both Jewish, you have a good chance of working together. I heard that Grey Pictures is going to start another project, maybe you can contact Kazir and get the script."
Harrison Ford sighed and leaned against the chair, closing his eyes to think about the situation.
"You're right, Brittany. It's not like I lost. The performance of Air Force One already exceeded my expectations. Brittany, try to get in touch with Grey Pictures. I want to read their script."
"I understand."
The two ended their conversation. Even though Harrison was still bitter, he knew that having bad blood against a talented director was not good for him. He became famous in the first place because of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Star Wars and Indiana Jones were movies that would never be forgotten, even three decades later.
...
...
...
Sometimes no one would expect the outcome of a movie. Everyone believed that Air Force One would be the winner, but three days before the release, their opinions changed.
Grey Pictures was getting bombarded with calls. More people were trying to contact them. But Kazir wanted to keep all the scripts in his library. He didn't want to share them or sell them if the price wasn't right.
'To make matters worse, Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox are interested in my action scripts like John Wick and Fast And The Furious.'
He realized that Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox felt that his Cinematic Universe could be successful, so they wanted to buy the action scripts, either for good or bad reasons.
Of course, Kazir didn't want to sell any scripts related to the Continental Cinematic Universe. He was just getting started.
As for the other scripts, such as comedy and thriller/suspense, Sony-Columbia began contacting Grey Pictures to acquire Final Destination.
'No one had written the script, so I decided to put it in my name... First come, first served.'
Kazir Grey stretched his arms after polishing the script of his next project. Even though Taken had just been released and he was going places to promote the movie, Kazir still took his chance to polish his script.
The title of his next project was... John Wick. The reason he chose this movie was because of its low budget. John Wick had a production budget of 20 to 30 million dollars. Grey Pictures was still not ready to spend money on big movies.
"Director Grey, that's your cue."
The assistant director told him the interview was about to begin.
"Okay." Kazir Grey closed his laptop after saving his script.
"Break a leg."
"..."
Even though it was a standard greeting, "Break a leg" was a little... not used to it.