"So what's our agenda this year?"
Ronald Meyer started the first quarterly meeting this year. Ronald Meyer was the CEO of Universal Pictures and his management was amazing.
He was the one who pushed the plan of making The Mummy. Now, The Mummy has become one of their most profitable franchises.
He was also the one who convinced Spielberg to direct Jurassic Park. The movie was based on a novel but Universal found the power of this novel and bought the movie adaptation rights.
"Sir, Maid In Manhattan already grossed $150 million at the worldwide box office. We already rent a hotel to celebrate the success of Maid In Manhattan." The presenter announced.
The executives nodded hearing the good news. Profit was always a good thing. The major shareholders of Universal Pictures were GE(General Electric) and Vivendi.
"That's great to hear, what else?"
"Johnny English is set to be released in July." The presenter added.
"Yeah, we already talked about this. Is there a reason why you say it?"
"... We heard the news that The Equalizer, Grey Pictures new movie would be released in July."
The meeting room turned quiet.
Ronald's expression slightly turned sour. Grey Pictures and Kazir Grey, these two names are famous in the industry right now... Universal Pictures was bitter because never had a cooperation with Kazir Grey! None at all!
Even scripts, they couldn't buy at all!
It was all because of the stupid pig! Harvey Weinstein!
Back then, Harvey Weinstein and Universal Pictures joined forces to destroy Kazir's reputation. But it miserably failed. The Nutty Professor was nothing compared to The Hangover!
Because of that incident, Universal Pictures lost their chance to work with Kazir Grey.
How much did they regret that? Working with someone like Kazir means easy profit these days. For a company that was living on profit, they would hug Kazir's leg.
Actually, they wanted to join the fight for the acquisition of Grey Pictures but they were ashamed to do so. After all, they knew that they would only waste their time. Grey Pictures won't agree with working with Universal Pictures.
Walt Disney kicked their chairman because of the losses they suffered last year and Ronald was afraid to experience the same thing.
"Did they announce the exact date?"
"No, sir."
Johnny English was set to be released on July 18. If Grey Pictures and 20th Century Fox decided to release The Equalizer on the same day, it would be a disaster for Universal Pictures.
Johnny English was an action comedy while The Equalizer was pure action. Johnny English could attract young audiences but it was not probably enough to face The Equalizer.
The Continental Cinematic Universe already gained its foothold and it would be hard to topple it down.
Based on their calculations, The Equalizer could gross at least $300 million at the worldwide box office.
"Find their schedule as soon as possible, I don't want any mishaps. We are not looking for a battle or face-off, we are here to make money. I want Johnny English two weeks away from the release of The Equalizer."
"Yes, sir." The other people from the management agreed. This was not a problem of a single person. The whole company would suffer if they made a mistake.
"What's the next agenda?"
"It's about Dawn Of The Dead. We are still looking for a director who will oversee the project."
"Who's on our list?"
"Zack Snyder, Danny Boyle, and Peter Jackson."
"Peter Jackson... Isn't that the director of Dead Alive?"
"Um, sir... Peter Jackson is also the director of Lord Of The Rings." One of the people reminded Ronald.
"Thanks for reminding me... Let's erase Peter Jackson from the list. We can afford him to direct a horror with mid-budget."
The only two left were Zack Snyder and Danny Boyle.
Danny Boyle was the director of 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs.
Although it was still 2003 so Danny just recently filmed 28 Days Later. It was about zombies, starring Cillian Murphy.
As for Zack Snyder, he was still a music movie director and this could be his first time filming a movie... If Universal Pictures gave the project to him, of course.
Funny that these directors started their careers filming horror movies. Well, horror movies were the least expensive genre to film and the profit it could bring was also massive.
And yes, Kazir also started his career as a horror movie director.
"Let's go with Zack Snyder."
The CEO of Universal Pictures, Ronald Meyer, announced.
However, they didn't know that a certain production studio already contacted Zack Snyder.
...
...
...
"So our budget is in the red right now?" Kazir asked Stella and the finance team regarding their budget.
"That's right."
Kazir looked at the data. They had four projects this year and all of them were expensive.
The budget for The Equalizer was set to be $50 million but that amount would probably increase once they started promoting the movie.
The Wanted 2 had a budget of $80 million. The budget could also increase.
The Pirates Of The Caribbean had a budget of $120 million. Even if Kazir knew how to control the budget, the promotion would also increase the budget.
As for Game Of Thrones, the first season had 10 episodes. That was the best they could do because the Game Of Thrones was expensive. They set a budget of $5 million per episode.
Combining the four projects, Grey Pictures had to spend $300 million! That was surely expensive. Their revenue last year was around $600 million but their profit was only 30% of that amount. They also need to pay taxes, salaries, maintenance of the building, and movie equipment. They were really not in a good situation.