HWI 288

Hollywood What If Chapter 288

None could do what Kazir did. Two years ago, his movie Wanted created another history and became the third movie that surpassed $1 billion at the box office.

Everyone thought that it would be the greatest achievement that Kazir would ever reach. After all, surpassing $1 billion at the box office was already a hard thing to do. So far only three directors have done that.

However, who would have thought that the next year after, Kazir would film another movie that would surpass $1 billion at the box office?

Now, Spider-Man has become the fourth movie to achieve this feat. People's opinions regarding Kazir deepened. No one took him for granted, not anymore. He became the most profitable director in the industry, not even Steven Spielberg or James Cameron could compare to him in terms of box office.

Spielberg and Cameron were indeed amazing and their movies were mostly profitable but no one could provide consistent performance at the box office except Kazir.

All of his movies after 1995 were all amazing. All of his movies were small to mid-budget yet all of them were profitable. To be precise, all of the movies that Grey Pictures produced never exceeded the $100 million production cost. Yet all of them performed well and made money.

Only Spider-Man had over $100 million budget and it was produced by Sony-Colombia.

It was clear that every project that Kazir touched never lost money. They all made money one way or another.

People were now suddenly thinking about the future of this production studio, would they soar higher or fall to the ground and crash? Only time could tell.

One thing was sure, Kazir Grey might be recognized as the most profitable director in this era. It was obvious why a lot of people wanted to work with him. This was also the reason why the Big Six wanted to acquire Kazir.

Sony-Colombia and Warner Bros were not stupid. They know that the real money maker of Grey Pictures was Kazir Grey. If they acquired the company completely, then the company would lose its value. Grey Pictures was only relevant as long as Kazir was there.

Being serious about this acquisition, they only ask for 40% company shares at best. They would never go more than that. Because if Kazir felt like he was getting bullied, the guy might leave the company altogether and work with another studio. That would be troublesome.

You see, Kazir already made two movies that performed very well at the box office with $1 billion each.

Sony-Colombia and Warner Bros knew that this would never be the last time that it would happen. They could feel it, Kazir was still at his peak, or perhaps he was still climbing higher and his chances of failure were low.

How could they not be tempted? Have you seen someone like Kazir who could make $1 billion with one movie? Yes, two other people did which were Spielberg and Cameron. However, Spielberg mostly worked with Paramount and Universal.

As for Cameron, he worked with 20th Century Fox and Paramount but he only makes movies every few years. In fact, James Cameron's next movie would be in 2009, 7 years from now. His art took a long time to create, unlike Kazir who consistently filmed one movie per year. That was the most salivating fact in this acquisition.

Even if they could only acquire 20-30% shares from Grey Pictures, it would still be equivalent to profit. And from the looks of it, Kazir was not interested in money. It was just a way for him to keep his career.

... Because Kazir was not interested in money, the negotiation became a little bit difficult. Kazir wanted shares exchange instead.

Meaning, Kazir would receive shares of Sony-Colombia or Warner in exchange for shares of Grey Pictures.

The current net worth of Warner Bros was $27 billion while Sony-Colombia sat around $21 billion.

As for Grey Pictures, the net worth of the company bloated or should I say increased after the recent success of their many movies. Sitting around $7 billion. After all, Grey Pictures' revenue last year at the box office was over $1 billion, and John Wick's Chapter 2 and Fast and The Furious exceeded $1 billion if combined. Furthermore, the profit from merchandise/DVDs that Grey Pictures was selling last year was over $150 million. The estimated worth of the company was not wrong at all.

To acquire 40% of the company, Sony-Colombia or Warner Bros had to bleed $3.4 billion. That could also affect their business dealings but it was a gamble they were ready to take. After all, both companies were backed by giant companies. Sony and Time Warner were powerful companies in their respective sectors.

So far, Sony-Colombia was interested in 35% shares for $2.1 billion. It was quite huge, however, Kazir was not interested in that amount of money. He was not the type who loved spending money. He could invest in some companies but he would rather focus on Hollywood. Besides, Kazir could wait.

Kazir had a feeling that Sony-Colombia and Warner Bros wouldn't only be the ones that would compete. One or two studios might also ask for shares of Grey Pictures.

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Chairman Michael Eisner gritted his teeth as he read the newspaper. Almost all of the publishers praised Kazir Grey for his talent. Well, he was the only one who achieved a back-to-back $1 billion at the box office. Of course people would praise.

'If I knew about it... Sigh.'

Michael sighed and understood that it was too late for regret. All he could do was move on. He had a lot of chances to work with Kazir but he failed to do so.

His position in Walt Disney was quite rocky and even his friend, Michael Ovits resigned because of of that. It seemed that everyone in Walt Disney started turning their backs on him. He lost his influence.

One of the executives was irking him especially, it was Robert Iger.

'That bastard...'

Robert Iger proposed that Michael Eisner should retire since he was getting too old. Of course Michael didn't want to retire because he loves being in power.

Right now, he has two choices to keep his position. The first was to acquire Grey Pictures, a pretty promising studio. Second was the upcoming performance of John Carter. Walt Disney put so much money into this project, hoping that they could follow the performance of CCU.