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Chapter 34 - 296

Harold Witsend scratched his head in confusion after meeting Director Grey a few days ago back when he visited Canada, where the filming of The Revenant was in its final stage. 

The Revenant was set to be released in November or December, depending on the schedule that 20th Century Fox could provide. Well, 20th Century Fox was currently courting Grey Pictures so they would probably give it a better schedule. 

Anyway, Harold looked at the sketches that Kazir drew in his free time... The sketches were amazing but Harold felt a looming danger while staring at these papers. 

Why? Because all of them were sketches of wooden ships! Ships! To be precise, pirate ships! 

Harold and Kazir were close friends and Harold saw some of the scripts that Kazir registered to the Writer's Guild. 

One of them was about a pirate movie... And it was a terrible idea. In the first place, this kind of genre was doomed to fail. 

There was a reason why. The last pirate-themed movie was released in 1995 and it was horrible. The title of the movie was Cutthroat Island. A movie with a production cost of $98 million, a huge investment. This was the last movie that Carolco Pictures distributed before it became bankrupt. 

In fact, Cutthroat Island was the reason why Carolco Pictures disappeared in Hollywood. 

The movie was a major disaster and since then, no one in Hollywood touched live-action pirate-themed movies. 

The investment of Cutthroat Island was $98 million, but the box office it produced was only a meager $10 million! Saying that it was a disaster was not enough. It destroyed a once-strong Hollywood studio. 

Carolco Pictures was a famous studio around the 80s and early 90s. Producing Rambo franchise, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Basic Instinct, Universal Soldier, Cliffhanger and Stargate. 

In the end, the library films of Carolco Pictures were acquired by Paramount Pictures. 

So it was obvious why Harold was afraid of Kazir's idea. He still hadn't read the script but he was already against it. In his opinion, it would be better to film movies with safe genres such as comedy and action. These two genres were Kazir's strengths. Kazir could probably make a profit if he filmed comedy or action.

However, Harold also felt that if there was someone who could make a successful pirate movie, it would definitely be Kazir. 

Since Harold was just an employee and his salary was quite huge, he decided to trust his friend. He witnessed how Kazir slowly made his name. 

'Besides, one mistake is not enough for Kazir to lose face in Hollywood. This mistake can also make him humble.'

Kazir only gave him one job, to find a company that makes wooden ships. The ship should work in the water/ocean. 

The sketches and designs were just the base image but they could be altered for future reference. Harold didn't know why Kazir was adamant about starting this project. 

While thinking about it, Harold felt his phone vibrating. When he opened it, he frowned and decided to decline the call. The person who kept calling him was very adamant and Harold was slowly losing his patience. 

'I already gave them projects for them to be busy, what do they want now?' 

A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again and Harold sighed. His position in the industry was great and some studios wanted to hire him but Harold stayed in Grey Pictures.

After some thinking, he decided to answer the call. He controlled his emotions, trying his best to be calm. 

"What do you want?" 

...

...

...

"I'm so glad to work with someone like you." 

"Nah, I'm sure it's not that great. Besides, I also heard that you're going to work with Steven Spielberg for the second time. I think that's an honor. That means that Director Spielberg likes your acting."

Tom Cruise's side made an agreement with DreamWorks that the actor would star in two of their movies. The first movie was The Minority Report, based on a novel. The movie was released on June 21, which was two weeks ago. So far, Minority Report made $84 million at the box office. 

The second movie was The War Of The Worlds. A movie based on a science fiction novel, written by H.G. Wells back in 1895 to 1897. A century-old novel. 

"Nah, Kazir, let's not joke around. You're a better director than Spielberg in terms of box office."

"..." Kazir just shrugged. That might be true but Steven Spielberg's storytelling and his talent in creating heartfelt movies were far better than Kazir. 

The filming of The Revenant met its end and it was time to separate. Of course, Tom Cruise would still visit the editing studio to do his dubbing. 

"Good luck with Minority Report."

"You sure you don't want to go back to Los Angeles with me? We can drink in the private plane while waiting for the landing."

"It's fine, I'll go with the crew." 

Kazir knew that Tom and his current girlfriend, Penelope Cruz, would go back to Los Angeles and he didn't want to disturb their time. He didn't like being the third wheel, that would be stressful. 

Tom Cruise said his farewell. He admitted that working on the set was quite good. He didn't feel any stress at all while working on this project. He immersed himself into the role and he could say that his mentality as an actor was doing well. 

"Um, Director."

"Oh Shia, how's it going?"

"Thanks for casting me for this film. This is my card and my agent's card, I hope that I have another chance to work with you again."

The young Shia Labeouf was acting awkward and shy and immediately left after giving his contact info.