HWI 260

Hollywood What If Chapter 260

"Warner Brothers is interested in my company. That is obvious. But the timing is strange. If I'm not wrong, Time Warner and AOL will going to merge this year... Now that I think about it, I haven't heard any news related to their merging. Is this another butterfly effect?"

Kazir asked himself in confusion. He was surprised that Terry Semel personally visited Grey Pictures for the first time to inquire about the possibility of acquiring Grey Pictures. 

Terry Semel was not a simple man, he was the CEO of Warner Bros and someone like won't easily visit another studio. 

"Should I hire a detective and research regarding Time Warner and AOL?"

AOL was a web portal and online service provider. This company was very famous in the 90s but lost its strength in the 2000s. It merged with Time Warner and people called it the worst merger in corporate history. In the end, AOL lost and failed to adapt, becoming a small subdivision of AOL Time Warner. 

"Is this a method to hide the news about their merging?"

The merging of AOL and Time Warner should have cost around $5 billion but it became $165 billion. As for how it became huge like that, there were many factors. 

Anyway, the merging of Time Warner and AOL was a disaster.

"If this is indeed a method to benefit them, then that's good. But I have to think twice before selling shares to them. After all, I don't want to work with a sinking ship. If AOL and Time Warner indeed merged, then it will affect Warner Brothers and possibly Greg Pictures."

Kazir admitted that he was never good enough in business politics. He fucking hated it whenever he used his mind to think of this stuff. He should focus his mind on something that makes him happy, such as movies. 

Yet because of Warner Bros, he couldn't help but think about it. 

"Warner Brothers is not that bad. They are a giant in this industry. They can Grey Pictures."

However, Kazir had no intention of selling Grey Pictures for the tip being. He wanted to see the effect of Wanted on the audience. If the outcome was positive, then the net worth of Grey Pictures would increase, possibly becoming $2 billion or perhaps $2.5 billion.

Another thing was the videotapes profit from Wanted and other CCU movies 

Because of Wanted, the other movies had an increase in sales as well. Overall, the profit from videotapes and peripherals reached more than $180 million. This was the profit last year (2000). 

However, the profits of videotapes were getting smaller compared to DVDs. The DVDs sales portioned more than 50% of the profit last year. 

Furthermore, Grey Pictures worked with clothing brands to promote their CCU clothes, for example, t-shirts with the faces of the protagonists. Then, Hasbro hoped to buy their copyrights to make action figures of the CCU characters. This business cooperation was part of the $180 million profit. 

Hasbro was the toy company that produced Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Beyblade. 

Yup, Hasbro had now the license to produce Continental Cinematic Universe toys. Ranging from action figures to paper toys and stuff. 

"Stella Willow seems very active lately, perhaps because of the bonus and the shares I promised her, she's working harder." 

Kazir had no intention of making his company public because it would affect the company. As for selling some shares to one of the Big Six for protection, that was Kazir's intention since the beginning anyway. Or else the company won't survive that long. 

Unlike other studio companies that made losses from some of their movies, all of the movies that Grey Pictures produced were profitable. That was the biggest difference between them and Grey Pictures. 

Perhaps because of this and the news that Warner Bros was interested in Grey Pictures, some of the Big Six felt like Grey Pictures was worth acquiring. To be precise, they wanted Kazir Grey, the mind of this company. 

Was creativity really that important? In Hollywood, creativity means a huge chance of loss. Hollywood was not meant for art, it was a business. So a movie with too artistic sense would never work. All they wanted was movies that would print them more money. 

And surprisingly, Kazir's creativity fit well with them. Using realistic action stunts and creating a Cinematic Universe. It was creative but it didn't give them aversion. Instead, they wanted more. 

Kazir Grey fits perfectly in this industry. This was the reason why the Big Six wanted him. 

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February was not that good for Hollywood. A lot of movies were released every week but most of them didn't perform well. Some of these movies deserved a better chance but fate was cruel to them. 

The most sought schedule was always taken by the Big Six. These six giants would always have a battle in summer to determine which one would earn more. The Big Six would leave January, February, March, and April to small studio companies to release their movies and let these small studio companies get some crumbs. 

In February, only one movie grossed more than $100 million. It was Hannibal, produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM). The movie grossed $350 million. Yes, MGM became one of the small studio companies that settled with crumbs to get by. The company could not face the Big Six in summer unless they use Bond films. But even Bond films were getting weaker, especially when Peirce Brosnan announced that he was done with the franchise. 

In March, only two movies surpassed $100 million. 

The first was The Mexican, grossing $145 million. Produced by DreamWorks. 

The second was Spy Kids. Spy Kids grossed $197 million. This movie was produced and distributed by Walt Disney. It was very sad that even these not-so-famous schedules were getting dominated by the Big Six. 

Small studios didn't have the strength to fight them. Marketing and movie promotion were hard to do since they didn't have any connection with the media(television, radio, and newspapers). 

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