127 HWI 127
[Shout out to Emerlee S and Айнур К!]
Hollywood What If Chapter 127
Now that the screening of Taken was over, Grey Pictures and Paramount signed a distribution deal. Paramount would receive a 20% profit fee after distributing their videotapes to the market. The contract was for five years.
Grey Pictures produced 3 million copies of videotapes at a cost of about $2.7 million. Producing videotapes was cheap, but the profit was big.
Besides, Taken had two videotapes. The normal one and the luxury version.
The normal videotape cost 30 dollars while the luxury version cost 60 dollars. The luxury version came with three Continental Coins. People still oblivious about these coins except for the time when retired agent Bryan Mills threw them to the ninja. A year later, however, these coins would become a sold-out item.
Aside from the coins, the deluxe version had the extended version of the movie, a longer viewing time than the theatrical release. Kazir Grey added 15 minutes of footage to the deluxe 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 killer who could bend the trajectory of bullets.
2 million copies of normal videotapes and 1 million copies of luxury videotapes. They never intended to produce many luxury versions for the scarcity effect.
The videotapes of Taken would be in Walmart, Blockbuster and other movie stores at the start of December. Paramount and Grey Pictures hoped that Taken would sell at least 1 million copies in its first month.
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As the days of November passed, Kazir Grey visited the investment firm that handled his investment.
As usual, the stockbrokers tried to sell him investments and insurance, but Kazir felt that their choices were dubious, so he stuck to his usual ones.
'If I remember correctly, I also visited this place in November last year.'
Kazir chose only three companies to invest in. Nokia, Cisco and Microsoft.
Last year, his investment in Nokia grew to $2.4 million. He also invested another $3.3 million in Nokia last year.
Unlike last year, Nokia's stock price increased only 21.78%.
So this year his investment in Nokia increased to $6.9 million.
"Nice," Kazir muttered as he looked at the specific number.
As for Cisco, his $2.7 million plus $3.3 million went up 31.4%.
That made his stake in Cisco $7.8 million. It was not bad to see his investment increase by 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% increase in value, his money in Microsoft was now $9.8 million. There was a reason why millionaires and billionaires would never lose money, because they had many ways to make it. They would never reach a point where they would be poor and homeless.
With the three investments combined, Kazir had $24.5 million. His money grew even though he did nothing.
Seeing that his money was growing again, he decided to invest another $30 million and split it three ways. The investment firm he chose was very trustworthy and he was confident about his money.
He also planned to withdraw all the money around the last quarter of 1999. He knew that the Internet bubble would burst around 1999 and 2000.
He planned to buy a house at that time.
'I didn't need a house because I'm a workaholic type, but it's not bad to buy a few houses.'
After his visit to the investment firm, Kazir Grey returned to his office as usual. While most of the employees were working, Kazir Grey was doing his job as a director. Writing the script and drawing the storyboard.
He was pretty lonely these days, but he was used to it anyway.
Reese Witherspoon joined the crew of There's Something About Mary, and it might take three or four months to finish shooting.
Even Salvatore Barlowe was busy helping Brianna Evans in her role in The Truman Show.
"As long as everybody is happy."
Kazir shrugged and sat down. He began to draw sketches with his pen. He drew a man in a suit, with shoulder-length black hair and a short beard.
The man, the Baba Yaga, John Wick, Mr. Jonathan Wick.
As long as the actor passed the appearance requirements, he would have a chance to show his acting talent. Then Kazir would meet him for the final round of auditions.
To be honest, he had a few actors in mind, but he was not sure if they would agree to his requirements.
"We need a protagonist as soon as possible to give him more time to train. Because John Wick is different from Taken. It's action-packed, I'm not even lying."
The gunfights and hand-to-hand combat filled almost the entire movie. There was never a dull moment, it was all adrenaline.
"Not only the protagonist, I also have to train the other actors. Because most people in the John Wick universe are assassins and killers. Hell, even a beggar is an assassin."
With that in mind, he began writing his requirements for the other cast members. They would have to sign a training contract to make sure they would not make any mistakes during the shooting.
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Another week passed and December arrived. The crew began to return one by one.
On their agenda was the first round of auditions for the role of John Wick.
