HWI 569

Hollywood What If Chapter 569

After tackling the topics regarding Modern Family and Corporate spies, the meeting started talking about other stuff such as the success of Game Of Thrones Season 3.

Kazir smiled as he saw the profit of this show. Even the executives were satisfied. Some executives were from 20th Century Fox and strongly related to the production of Game Of Thrones and its broadcasting rights to Fox TV. They were proud of what they achieved.

Game of Thrones Season 3 was an absolute success, both critically and commercially. With its storyline, shocking twists, and high production value, it acquired high ratings of viewership.

The season averaged over 14 million viewers per episode, making it Fox TV's most-watched series at the moment. Merchandise sales skyrocketed, from collectible figures to clothing and replica swords. Especially the books, they were selling like hotcakes.

For reference, Fox TV produced and aired notable shows such as Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Idol, The X-Files, House, Prison Break, That 70's Show, and many more. Yet their fastest earner was none other than Game Of Thrones, the first TV Show that Grey Pictures produced. No wonder many TV Networks were eager to work with Grey Pictures.

International broadcasting rights of Game Of Thrones brought in over $150 million alone, while DVD and Blu-ray sales added another $80 million to the account. Fox TV reported that Season 3 had generated over $400 million in combined profits, solidifying Game of Thrones as a cultural and financial Dragon.

Season 3 just ended since it only had 10 episodes because of its huge expenses. Still, the profit was also astronomical. In fact, Season 4 was already in production.

Grey Pictures has stable three production teams. One team consisted of Kazir's most trusted people, such as Renner, Jane, Harold, and many more. They mostly work with Kazir once a year since the director always has yearly projects. But this time, they would work with the production of Modern Family for the time being. Kazir had no project this 2009.

As for the second team, they worked with Game Of Thrones.

As for the third team, they worked with their CCU movies.

This year, aside from Ninja Assassin, Grey Pictures will release Fast & Furious 3... Only Kazir knew that the original title of this movie was Fast & Furious and it was the 4th sequel of the franchise.

'For some reason, in the original timeline, the Producer and Director Justin Lin decided to name the 4th sequel as Fast & Furious without indication of what sequel it was. Because of that, some people were confused between The Fast And The Furious(1st movie) and the Fast & Furious(4th movie). To make sure that CCU fans won't be confused, I decided to change the title to Fast & Furious 3. As for why it became the 3rd movie, instead of the original 4th movie, I decided to skip the 3rd installment of the franchise, which is Tokyo Drift.'

Kazir secretly sighed because of the decision he made. For some reason, he felt like he betrayed the franchise as a fan. But he knew that he didn't have a choice.

After all, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift didn't have a strong relevance to the overall plot of the franchise. Except for a single character, Han Lue, and a short cameo of Dom Toreto, Tokyo Drift was nothing but a standalone movie.

'So instead of adding Tokyo Drift to the Fast and Furious franchise. I decided to make it a standalone movie that is set to be released after Fast & Furious 6 so that it won't complicate the plot of Fast and Furious.'

In short, Kazir had no intention of erasing Tokyo Drift, he intended to release it in a few years.

'Hehe, maybe I can make another franchise from Tokyo Drift, a franchise strictly based on car racing.'

Fans of Fast & Furious agreed that Tokyo Drift was the last movie of the franchise where car racing was an important part of the plot. After Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious became all about action and gravity-defying stunts... Imagine a car flying to space; yeah, that was what Fast & Furious was all about...

It was understandable why fans of the franchise missed the simple car racing theme.

So yeah, Tokyo Drift would still happen, but not as a sequel to Fast and Furious, but as a real standalone movie.

'I bet fans will be shocked once they know that Han Lue will die in Tokyo Drift.'

He was smirking and staring ahead. The people in the conference room glanced at him and thought the boss was happy. Anyway, money was coming so of course there was a reason to be happy.

"Kazir?"

"Hm, Tokyo Drift..."

"Ahem, Kazir?"

"Ah, yes?"

Kazir snapped out of his thoughts when Stella cleared her throat and brought up the next topic. The marketing strategy for Fast & Furious 3. With the film set for release later in the year, the team had to plan promotional tours and merchandising products.

The cast of the movie had to be active and keep doing promotions. Vin Diesel could spam his motto again: Nothing beats Family.

Kazir leaned forward, fully engaged. He was embarrassed that he was lost in his thoughts earlier.

He emphasized a strong international campaign, telling me the importance of the international box office. He encouraged the cast to promote the movie outside of America. Especially in Europe and Asia, where the franchise had a huge following. The company had a private jet plane now and they could use it for the cast to travel around... Kazir even used it to go to Hawaii two months ago.

After the topics of Modern Family, Game Of Thrones Season 3, and Fast & Furious 3, the meeting continued. A company as large as Grey Pictures had a lot of things to talk about, and it wouldn't simply end unless the boss wanted the meeting to end.

++++

[Author's Note: What do you think of my decision to postpone Tokyo Drift and make it a standalone movie?]