HWI 259

Hollywood What If Chapter 259

"Ptui--! What did you say?"

Tom Rothman coughed out the coffee he was drinking when he heard a certain rumor from his secretary. The life of being a CEO of 20th Century Fox was not that simple. 

A year or two, Tom Rothman would be part of News Corporation and leave the position of 20th Century Fox's CEO. He worked hard for this company but he knew that he was just a worker. The real owner of 20th Century Fox was News Corporation, to be exact, Rupert Murdoch. 

Well, at least he got some stock options and the credits he accumulated were enough for him to have a good position in News Corporation. 

As for the next CEO of 20th Century Fox, Tom Rothman had no idea who it would be. 

He thought his job for the next two years would be smooth sailing, but he didn't expect that one of their rivals actually start an acquisition! 

"Some of our spies admitted that they saw Terry Semel visiting Grey Pictures."

Corporate spies were real. They were hard to find since sending information was easier now that there was internet and telecommunication. 

"They said that Terry Semel and Warner Bros intended to buy shares of Grey Pictures."

'Buy shares? Kazir is already a multimillionaire and that guy is not greedy for money. Because if he is greedy, he would easily agree to the contract that 20th Century Fox and LucasFilm offered to him to direct Star Wars. It's a huge money.'

Tom knew that Kazir was a tough guy to crack and it would be impossible for the guy to easily sell a portion of Grey Pictures to one of the Big Six. 

'I say that he will swap shares for stability.'

At best, Kazir could get 2% shares of Warner Bros in exchange for 30 to 40% of shares of Grey Pictures.

The net worth of Warner Bros was $27.97 billion while Grey Pictures was expected to be around $1 billion to $1.5 billion. Grey Pictures was not a public company so they had to determine the net worth through research. 

Tom Rothman put down the coffee and wiped his mouth. Just like him, Terry Semel was near the end of his term and Yahoo already invited the guy to be the Chairman and CEO. 

Alan Frederick Horn would be the COO of Warner Bros while Barry Mayer would be the Chairman now that Terry Semel planned to end his job at Warner Bros. 

'This is strange, that guy should have focused on training his successor instead of trying to acquire Grey Pictures. Was this ordered by Time Warner? Are they interested in Grey Pictures?'

Unlike him who had at least a year to move a job, Terry Semel was already in his last quarter in Warner Bros. Yet the guy contacted Grey Pictures. 

Tom Rothman narrowed his gaze and thought about it seriously. 

'Should I contact Rupert? News Corporation might be interested in Grey Pictures as well.'

Unlike other production companies, Grey Pictures had a strong chance of being a world-class studio.

'Kazir is a smart guy, he didn't try to make a distribution channel at all. Perhaps he already expected this outcome... Is he really confident in CCU?'

Well, Kazir proved himself right and now the net worth of Grey Pictures was over $1 billion despite not being a decade old. It was already earning millions of profits, sometimes over $100 million per year. The revenue it created last year was over $1 billion because of Wanted, the box office was now $1.21 billion, and some countries were still screening the movie. 

On top of that, Bruce Almighty ended its screening, grossing more than $484 million worldwide. The movie premiered in August last year and seven months already passed. 

Do you know a director who could make a script that had a 100% percent chance of making a profit at the box office? Nah, because director and scriptwriter were two different jobs. 

But Kazir had the two talents, complimenting the two and making a fantastic chemical reaction. 

Most of his movies were original screenplays, except for The Bourne Identity and the upcoming Spider-Man. Well, the guy had the talent to make the movie a box-office hit. 

That, Tom Rothman, admitted. 

One time was nothing but a bluff. The second time was interesting. But third, fourth, and even fifth was not a miracle anymore. It was talent and consistency, and Kazir consistently made successful movies over the years. 

'However, Grey Pictures is useless without Kazir.'

Obviously, Warner Bros wanted Kazir Grey more than Grey Pictures. They wanted to acquire his creative mind. If Kazir Grey owned a share of Warner Bros, the guy would put his focus on it to make sure that his shares wouldn't go to waste. 

Besides, Grey Pictures was in bad need of distribution. Working with Paramount and Sony-Columbia would reach its end and Grey Pictures had to find another company to latch on. Grey Pictures had no marketing channel as well. They didn't have Viacom, Time Warner, and News Corporation which controlled the media all over the world. 

Grey Pictures might be blossoming right now, but it won't take long for the company to reach its limit. 

The Big Six became the Big Six because of the control they have over the media and movie distribution. 

In a way, this was a win-win situation between the two. 

"What time is it in Australia?"

Rupert Murdoch was Australian and he had a massive authority in the country. One of the reasons why 20th Century Fox could get tax incentives from the Australian government whenever they film in the country. 

"Sir, it's currently 1 AM in Sidney right now."

"..."

The time difference between Los Angeles and Sidney was 17 hours. 

Anyway, if Warner Bros was interested in Grey Pictures, 20th Century Fox had to look for this acquisition very carefully. It might affect them in a bad or good way. 

+++++

[Author's Note: I can't find the net worth of Warner Bros back in the 2000s, so I decided to use the current net worth which was $27 billion.]

[I racked my brain on this chapter for the last few hours tonight. It's late here guys, I will reply to your comment tomorrow. I'll post the poll and two chapters tomorrow as well...]