HWI 441

Hollywood What If Chapter 441

[Author's Note: After looking at it again, I found that the distributor of La La Land was actually Lionsgate. I made a mistake last time and decided to edit it.]

La La Land was first released on November 25 at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles as a small premiere.

The movie didn't win any awards so the film crew had to settle with seven days of small screening in Los Angeles. Only having 5 theaters to release the movie on December 9.

This was one of the requirements to get a nomination for the Academy Awards. The movie should have a theatrical release that must have at least seven consecutive days, with at least 3 screenings per day.

So seven days passed by, and the movie grossed $1 million. For a movie that only has 5 theaters to screen for seven days, that result was not that bad.

Lionsgate fought for more theaters. The Cinema Alliance was trying to see the profitability of La La Land. They knew that the director of this movie was Fremont Smith. Fremont was known to make action movies and this musical was definitely not his forte. Still, they decided to give the movie 200 theaters at the start of December 16.

When 200 theaters were announced, Lionsgate officially planned a red carpet.

The cast of La La Land obviously attended the movie despite the not-so-good publicity. After all, Lionsgate was just a second-tier studio. The company didn't have much power to move the media.

Thankfully, Lionsgate was getting confident in its business decision. Especially after the success of Saw at the box office.

They spent money on La La Land. That was for sure.

Kazir attended the red carpet but didn't stay much. It was not his movie and he was not part of the cast. He didn't want the audience to focus their attention on him. Once the movie was done, Kazir congratulated Fremont, Brianna, and even Ryan Gosling. After that, he left the theater.

16 days after the screening of La La Land, the movie grossed $9 million at the box with 200 theaters.

The Cinema Alliance saw the profitability so they decided to give it more theaters. They felt like the movie would do better compared to the other movies released in the same month.

In December, the only movies that could face La La Land were Blade: Trinity, Ocean's Twelve, Million Dollar Baby, and The Aviator.

The matchups for December 2004 were kind of weak. There were no Harry Potter nor Lord Of The Rings to dominate the month. Most of the time, these two would be released in December.

Well, Lord Of The Rings Trilogy was completed while Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban was already released in May.

Anyway, since the Cinema Alliance can't find promising gems in the releases this month, they decided to put more theaters on La La Land.

When Christmas arrived, the number of theaters screening La La Land went up to 700+.

That was the start of La La Land's smooth sailing. Lionsgate was so happy when they saw the numbers going up. They were the investor and distributor of La La Land so they also suffered the most if the movie failed.

Thankfully, it didn't happen. Even Fremont and the cast sighed in relief when they saw that their movie was doing well.

Nobody wanted to see their hard work art piece to fail.

While La La Land was having its screening. Fremont and the cast also promote the movie. Not only that, Fremont and Brianna also attended so many parties in Los Angeles. Even Ryan Gosling joined the campaign in the hope that he would also get a nomination.

God knows how hard it was to get a nomination. Most of the time it was about how much money you're willing to spend.

Yes, the Academy Awards were not about performing arts anymore. It was about who was going to spoil them.

Kazir experienced it once and he had no intention of trying it again. Sure the award was prestigious, but the Academy Awards was never fair. It was the money and politics behind their votes.

.........

......

...

January arrived, obviously.

Kazir didn't have much time to spend on vacation. His vacation was making movies, that was the happiest moment of his life. But of course, he visited his family in New York.

The filming of Batman restarted, and their schedule was moving forward at a fast but expected pace.

While in that process, Enrico Pusi actually asked him about the possibility of adding Constantine to their DC Cinematic Universe.

"What?"

Kazir was confused at first. Yes, he knew about their so-called Cinematic Universe, but he didn't take it seriously because he knew that Warner Brothers would have a hard time making one. The official start of DCEU was in 2013, using Man Of Steel.

He chuckled.

"Enrico, before thinking of the Cinematic Universe, you should make sure that the movies are profitable first. If the initial movies didn't make money, then the Cinematic Universe you guys are planning might not happen at all."

"..."

Enrico was speechless.

Constantine.

Superman Returns.

Green Lantern.

Cat Woman.

They all have similarities.

One, they were both from DC Comics. Second, they flopped.

They have huge production costs but the box office they generated couldn't return the investment. This is also the reason why they didn't get sequels...

Although there were rumors that Keanu Reeves was interested in Constantine 2, well, that movie might happen around 2 decades later.

+++++

[Yeah, I've seen so many fake trailers for Constantine 2 starring Keanu Reeves lately.]

[Also, I want to thank you guys for all of your support. I hope you'll continue supporting me.]

[Another thing, I decided to create a Ko-fi account because some readers can't use Patreon. But they can only access HWI chapters, unlike here on Patreon, where there are TOFD and RDD; both are on hiatus, by the way.]