HWI 282

Hollywood What If Chapter 282

Joaquin Phoenix had great filmography these past few years. Perhaps his recent best role was in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor because of his role as Commodus in Gladiator. 

A few years later, he would win the Academy Awards' Best Actor for his role as Joker/Arthur Fleck. He won a lot of awards in his career and everyone knew that he was a talented actor. 

Looking at the information thanks Kazir was reading, he knew that casting Joaquin Phoenix was not a problem. 

The expected budget of The Revenant was at least $85 million and Kazir had no problem casting someone like Joaquin Phoenix. 

For the same reason, Tom Hardy and Shia Labeouf were good choices. 

Tom Hardy had his film debut in Black Hawk Down but his career was unsteady after that. He could not get any promising roles. If not for Kazir who knew about Tom Hardy's future, the guy might not get a role in The Revenant. 

Tom Hardy's usual roles were about buff strong guys. This Means War, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Dark Knight Rises were just a few of the movies he participated in. The roles in these movies were buff strong guys. 

Out of interest, Kazir decided to give this rising actor a chance to work with him. 

The same with Shia Labeouf. Shia Labeouf was a famous actor but his career died for some reasons. His career was smooth sailing at first, at a young age he got roles in Constantine, I, Robot, the first trilogy of Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Eagle Eye, and Fury. Phew, he was part of so many blockbusters. Perhaps one of the reasons why he got steady jobs was because of his face but that was debatable and probably not true. 

Well, his presence in Hollywood slowly disappeared after many allegations. 

Kazir heard some stories back in his past life but this and that were two different things. 

The Shia Labeouf of 2002 was just a fledging actor who was currently trying to find his path in this industry. 

His agent recommended him to audition for The Revenant and Constantine. So far, his role in Constantine was already sure but the filming would start in September which was 9 months later. 

The main reason why Kazir was interested in Shia Labeouf was to know his current attitude as a young actor. He also knew that Shia could act, his range as an actor was quite vast. 

For these reasons, Kazir felt like casting these three actors was not a problem. 

One thing was sure, Tom Cruise had no problem with the cast. None of the cast were more famous than him and he was confident in his acting capabilities as well. He had been in this industry since 1981. His experience was enough to face such talented actors. 

Besides, Tom knew that Kazir would never betray him. He would definitely give Tom more screen time and let him showcase his acting. 

... That was actually written in the contract. For this role, Tom decided to grow a beard for the first time. He even studied bears just to understand them. 

He might even go as far as meeting a real bear and possibly having a boxing match with it. Tom Cruise was a professional actor and he was known for doing his stunts. (Note: I'm still skeptical about that fact. If that's true, no insurance company will sign a contract with Tom Cruise. He probably only does stunts that are on the safe side.)

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"It's nice to meet you again, sir. I thought you would forget about me." Vance Goodhood greeted Kazir after three years of no contact. 

Kazir became busy and he didn't have much time to return to the investment firm. However, when he contacted the company, he realized that the investment firm was immensely affected by the dot com bubble burst and 9/11. Because of that, they announced bankruptcy. 

So Vance Goodhood decided to apply for Goldman Sachs and he got accepted. His credentials were good. Because of Kazir's warning, Vance pulled out his investment before the stock market crashed. He earned millions and he was very thankful for Kazir's opinion. 

As expected, Kazir Grey was a genius. He was a genius director and even in the financial sector he was raking in money. 

Because of this, Vance visited Grey Pictures because Kazir wanted to invest in tech/internet companies again. 

This time, Kazir was ready to invest $150 million. This was a huge amount and Vance personally met Kazir because of the seriousness of this situation. 

"Are you sure you want to invest in these companies, sir?" 

Kazir had three companies in mind. eBay, Apple, and Amazon. 

eBay and Amazon were both online selling services and their growth was promising. Only Kazir knew the exact story of how these companies would become billions/trillion dollars worth. 

As for Apple, now that Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Kazir knew that this company would start the era of smartphones. By the way, Steve Jobs was also a shareholder of Walt Disney because of Pixar. 

Kazir would keep investing in Apple and Amazon while eBay was just short-term. 

Actually, he wanted to get some pie of Google but the company was still not showing interest in his money. Google would only become public in 2004. 

At the same time, Facebook was still nonexistent and it would only exist in 2004. 

'Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg is open for investment.' Kazir thought to himself. 

Vance Goodhood was not sure why Kazir was interested in Apple but he decided to keep his mouth shut. 

This was $150 million and Vance didn't want to fuck up the deal. He tried to offer alternatives to Kazir but the director was adamant. In the end, Vance Goodhood respected Kazir's decision and took care of the $150 million, investing $50 million in each company. 

'As for Netflix... Meh. I'll just invest once their Online Streaming Service happens. So far, Netflix is still a small company that's trying to copy Blockbuster's business strategy. I don't want to alter and possibly change their trajectory so I'll just wait once they become steady.'

Being in this industry, Kazir knew that Netflix would suffer hardship for a long time. Kazir didn't want any of that. 

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[Let's see if I can write two chapters tomorrow.]