"Congratulations, director."
"Ah? Yes, thank you."
Kazir confusingly nodded as he entered the building of Blue Sky Studio. This was his first time going to this place so he was confused when the security guard congratulated him. He was not even sure what the guard was congratulating him about.
'Is he talking about Pirates Of The Caribbean? Or perhaps The Equalizer?'
Kazir was not sure.
Both movies made a lot at the box office as of September 6.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl already grossed $280.44 million at the North American box office. As for its overseas performance, the movie currently grossed more than $172 million. The worldwide box office of Pirates Of The Caribbean was $452 million as of now.
The movie was still raking in money internationally and its reception was mostly positive. Pirate-themed was not common but people liked Pirates Of The Caribbean.
As for The Equalizer, it grossed $170.25 million at the North American box office. The movie just had its first week of international screening, making $48 million.
As for the other movies that were released the same month(August) as The Equalizer, their performances were mediocre.
American Wedding, Freaky Friday, S.W.A.T., and Freddy vs. Jason, their genres and popularity were nothing compared to a CCU movie.
They couldn't fight The Equalizer in the long run. This showed how much Grey Pictures struck gold with their franchises. They just have to put the movie within the universe of CCU and the audience would buy tickets just to watch them.
However, Kazir was adamant about making sure that the Continental Cinematic Universe should only focus on the action genre. He had no intention of adding drama, comedy, or romance movies to CCU. It would lose its appeal, that was Kazir's opinion.
'Now that I think about it, my birthday is getting close... Perhaps the guard earlier congratulated me on my birthday. Probably not. I know that I'm famous now but most people probably have no idea when my birthday is or other information about me.'
He was turning 35 years old this month. He made sure to stay healthy by hitting the gym. In fact, he just went to the gym an hour ago, before going to Blue Sky Studio. His physique looked amazing but Kazir knew that he rarely got 8 hours of sleep lately. His schedule was so packed and he was busy most of the time.
Blue Sky Studio was an American visual effects and computer animation studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Although the company had a branch here in Los Angeles, where Kazir was currently in.
Blue Sky Studio was a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. This company was meant to compete against Pixar and DreamWorks Animation in the 3D animation industry. Hollywood knew how much money these 3D animation movies make every year.
Toy Story alone, a single franchise, was worth over $1 billion based on the revenue generated, such as merchandise and movies. God knows how many Toy Story toys and merchandise Disney sold.
Of course, 20th Century Fox wanted to get a share of that delicious pie. So Blue Sky Studio was founded.
'Based on what I remember, Blue Sky Studio produced Rio, Robots, The Peanuts Movie, and other 3d cartoons. However, their most successful franchise is Ice Age. This is also their first movie.'
Ice Age was released last year and its performance gave Blue Sky Studio and 20th Century Fox hope. The movie made $383 million.
But compared to Pixar, the best company in the industry, the animation of Blue Sky Studio was pale and bland. It didn't have much to say in terms of animation.
'After Walt Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky Studio closed miserably since Walt Disney didn't need another animation studio. Walt Disney already had Pixar and Disney Animation.'
Blue Sky Studio died in 2019, together with Fox. Of course, one of the reasons why Blue Sky Studio closed down was because of its lack of profit.
Only Ice Age and Rio were the famous franchises of Blue Sky Studio, unlike Pixar and DreamWorks Animation movies that had dozens of franchises to make profits from.
20th Century Fox believed that Blue Sky Studio could compete with Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, but it needed to exceed in other areas.
Blue Sky Studio's 3D animation was not that bad, but not good either. Technology was advancing every year and their animation would probably level up once the technology matured.
The reason why Kazir visited this place was because of the scripts that Tom Rothman asked him to write. Everyone knew that Kazir was a talented scriptwriter and his stories made money.
Since Blue Sky Studio couldn't beat Pixar in animation, why not in stories?
Finding Nemo was a heartwarming movie... Surely Kazir could cook something comparable to that, right?
Being a veteran in Hollywood, Kazir was also interested in the animation market. Since he was given a chance to participate in Blue Sky Studio, he wanted to make sure that his participation was worth it.
He had come up with three scripts for different purposes.
First was Wall-E. In terms of plot, this movie was comparable to Finding Nemo. It won many awards, even the Academy's Best Animated Feature. The box office also was not that bad, grossing more than $500 million. Kazir liked this movie and he believed that this movie was not only meant for kids, but for adults too. No, it was actually meant for adults based on its plot alone.
As for his second script, he decided to write one of the highest-grossing franchises in the Animation market. Cars!
Cars, starring Lightning McQueen. The total revenue of this franchise was more than $21 billion! It had a simple plot but the profit it generated was not that simple. Pixar struck gold with Cars.
The third was more in his forte, Kazir wrote the script for Kung Fu Panda. A 3D animation movie based on a Panda. It focused more on action and fighting so boys and men would definitely like it.
Between the three, Cars and Kung Fu Panda were successful franchises that had multiple sequels. With Cars being the most profitable.
While Wall-E was more focused on novelty and prestige, but it didn't have a sequel and its profit was also the lowest.
+++++
[Author's Note: You can choose between Wall-E, Cars, and Kung Fu Panda. I'm also interested in other cartoons such as How To Train Your Dragon and Incredibles but Kazir can't show all of his cards so these movies might be on another time. I wanted to add MegaMind at first but I immediately changed my attitude, fuck DreamWorks for destroying a great chance to make a good franchise. I will calculate the missing chapters tomorrow.]