HWI 127

Hollywood What If Chapter 127

Now that the screening of Taken was over, Grey Pictures and Paramount signed a distribution contract. Paramount would get a 25% profit fee after distributing their videotapes to the market. This contract was valid for five years. 

Grey Pictures produced 3 million copies of videotapes for the cost of around $2.7 million. Producing videotapes was cheap but the profit was big.

Furthermore Taken had two videotapes. The normal and the luxury ones. 

The normal video cost 30 dollars while the luxury version was 60 dollars. The luxury version had three Continental Coins. People were still oblivious about these coins except for the time when retired agent Bryan Mills tossed it to a ninja. However, a year later these coins would become a sold-out merchandise. 

Except for the coins, the luxury version had the extended version, a longer watching time than the one released in the cinemas. Kazir Grey added 15 minutes worth of shots in the luxury version. 

The content of the extended version was the snippets about the Continental Cinematic Universe such as the conversation with the ninja. In the extended version, Bryan Mills even fought a hitman who could bend the trajectory of his bullets. 

2 million copies of normal videotapes and 1 million copies of luxury videotapes. They never intended the produce many luxury versions for the scarcity effect. 

The videotapes of Taken would be at Walmart, Blockbusters, and other movie stores in the month of December. Paramount and Grey Pictures hoped that Taken would sell at least 1 million copies in the first month. 

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While the days of November were passing by, Kazir Grey visited the investment firm that handled his investment. 

Just like usual, the stockbrokers tried to pitch investment from him but Kazir felt like their choices were dubious so he stick to his usual ones. 

'If I remember correctly, I visited this place in November last year as well.'

Kazir only chose three companies to invest in. Nokia, Cisco, and Microsoft. 

Last year, his investment in Nokia increased to $2.4 million. Furthermore, he invested another $3.3 million into Nokia last year. 

Unlike last year, Nokia only increased its stock price by 21.78%. 

So this year, his investment in Nokia went up to $6.9 million.

"Nice," Kazir muttered while looking at the certain number. 

As for Cisco, his $2.7 million plus $3.3 million went up to 31.4%. 

With this, his stock in Cisco was $7.8 million. There was nothing bad with seeing your investment increase another million dollars. It was actually a good thing. 

As for the last one, he had $3 million in Microsoft plus he invested 3.3 million last year. As always, Microsoft was one of the best investments of the 90s. 

With a 56.44% stock increase, his money in Microsoft was now $9.8 million. There was a reason why millionaires and billionaires would never lose money because they have many ways to earn it. They would never reach a point where they would be poor and homeless. 

With the three investments combined, Kazir has $24.5 million. His money was growing even though he did nothing. 

Seeing that his money increased again, he intended to invest another $10 million and divide them into three. The investment firm he chose was highly trusted and he was confident about his cash. 

Besides, he was going to withdraw all of the money around the last quarter of 1999. He knew that the internet bubble would pop around 1999 and 2000. 

He planned to buy a house around that time. 

'I didn't need a house since I'm a workaholic guy, but it's not bad buying some houses.'

After finishing his visit to the investment firm, Kazir Grey returned to his office just like usual. Even though most of the employees were working, Kazir Grey was doing his job as the director. Writing script and drawing the storyboard. 

He was quite lonely these days but he was used to it anyway. 

Reese Witherspoon joined the crew of There's Something About Mary and the filming might take two or three months to end. 

Even Salvatore Barlowe was busy helping Brianna Evans in her role in The Truman Show. 

"As long as everyone is happy."

Kazir shrugged and sat down. With his pen, he started drawing sketches. He draw a man in his suit, he had shoulder-length black hair, with a short beard. 

The man, the Baba Yaga, John Wick, Mister Jonathan Wick. 

As long as the actor passed his requirements, he would have a chance to show his acting talent. Then Kazir would meet him in the last round of auditions. 

To be honest, he had some actors in his mind but he was not sure if they would agree with his conditions. 

"We need a protagonist as soon as possible so that he has more time to train. Because John Wick is different from Taken. It's action-packed, I'm not even lying."

The gunfight and hand-to-hand combats almost filled the whole movie. There was no boring part, everything was adrenaline pumping. 

"Not only the protagonist, I need to train the other cast too. Because most people in the John Wick universe are assassins and hitmen. Heck, even a beggar is a hitman."

With that in his mind, he started writing his requirements about the other cast too. They should sign a training contract to make sure that they would not make a mistake in the filming. 

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Another week passed and December arrived. The employees started showing up one by one. 

Their agenda was the first round of auditions for the role of John Wick.