198 HWI 198
Hollywood What If Chapter 198
If everything went well with F*ght Cl*b, the movie would gross $200 million at the worldwide box office. That was a huge deal.
"Haha, it looks like 20th Century Fox and David Fincher reconciled this time."
He still remembered how 20th Century Fox banned David Fincher after the tragedy of Alien 3.
Anyway, David Fincher was his friend and Kazir Grey was happy to see his friend succeed.
"... Sigh, maybe he will invite me to drink again."
Drinking with David Fincher was a bad idea.
Kazir decided to open the next page of the newspaper and read the contents.
There was an explanation why F*ght Cl*b was doing well even in October. The one who wrote the article was a movie critic.
Kazir raised his eyebrows when he saw his name.
The film critic said that the aesthetic of the filmmaking was changing. After the release of Kazir Grey's films and the Wachowskis' Matrix, people became interested in watching action films with serious stunt choreography. Especially Kazir Grey's hand-to-hand combat.
The action movies created by Kazir Grey emphasize making the fight scenes as grounded and realistic as possible.
Although Kazir's movies had a bit of the supernatural, such as bending bullets and ninjas, people preferred to watch that rather than a topless man raining bullets with a heavy machine gun without reloading.
Because of this, the performance of F*ght Cl*b was affected and brought a better box office.
"So this critic is saying that I'm the reason why Fight Club is thriving, is that right?" Kazir tilted his head and wondered.
He knew that he was changing the future, and it seemed that he was indirectly changing the future of F*ght Cl*b, too, because of his movies.
Anyway, David Fincher was his friend and he was happy that his movie was successful.
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...
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Another two weeks passed and Kazir was busy again. October passed and November was there to greet them with a bunch of horror movies.
F*ght Cl*b grossed over $72 million and is already considered a box office hit.
As for The Bourne Identity, it grossed $147 million after three months in theaters. However, the movie was already losing steam and had only 500 theaters. Maybe two weeks later, The Bourne Identity would be dropped by the Cinema Alliance. Well, it seemed that The Bourne Identity would cross the $150 million mark within those two weeks.
Grey Pictures had already received their 40% share of the $100 million from Cinema Alliance. The remaining money would be sent once The Bourne Identity finished its run.
Sony-Columbia only received $20 million because of the contract. Honestly, Sony-Columbia was losing money on this. They were bleeding and gambling with their future. Bruce Almighty was still in the filming stage and needed more time in post-production because of the special effects it needed.
Some of the higher-ups at Sony-Columbia were not happy about the deal. Sony-Columbia invested more than $15 million in prints and advertising for The Bourne Identity.
The fact that they could get more money from Cinema Alliance, at least $10 million, eased their minds a bit.
In addition, the international performance of The Bourne Identity has been astounding.
In just 50 days of release, the film had already grossed $138 million.
$17 million in the UK.
$14 million in Germany.
$15 million in Italy.
$13 million in Spain.
$27 million in Japan.
$9 million in Australia.
These are just the major countries that contributed to the international box office for The Bourne Identity.
Keep in mind that Sony-Columbia distributed the films in hundreds of countries. Of course, local theaters would get a cut of the box office.
Sony-Columbia might get $28 million. Not bad, honestly, but not good either. At least they spent less money on international promotion.
Matt Damon and the cast of The Bourne Identity flew around the globe for a month just to promote the movie, it was very exhausting... Kazir was not with them because he had another project to take care of.
The worldwide box office for The Bourne Identity was $285 million. There was a good chance that it would cross the $300 million mark.
If there was one thing that Sony-Columbia was disappointed about, it was the fact that they could only get 20% of the videotapes and DVD sales of The Bourne Identity.
They were only the distributor of The Bourne Identity and Grey Pictures owned all the copyrights.
Since The Bourne Identity was part of a huge Cinematic Universe, and once that Cinematic Universe became a huge success, many people would be interested in buying the videotapes to complete their sets.
With that in mind, the videotapes and DVD sales of The Bourne Identity could be over $100 million in its first year. And Sony-Columbia could only lick 20% of that huge amount.
Another thing, Robert Ludlum was the author of the Jason Bourne novels, and he also had a piece of this delicious pie.
Even though the 3% revenue cut was small compared to Sony-Columbia, it was still 7 to 8 figures in cash. As long as Grey Pictures sold the videotapes and DVDs or rented the movie to an online movie platform, Robert Ludlum would get 3% of the revenue.
Everybody got their piece of the pie, and everybody was happy. Everybody got their profit, no matter how big or small it was.
It was a win-win situation, although Grey Pictures had the last laugh. They were able to make more than $100 million at the box office this time.
After all that, Grey Pictures still didn't have time to celebrate. Because Taken 2 would be released in the first week of November, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
This time Fremont Smith was the one who was having a hard time because of stress. His iconic afro was long gone, he cut his hair short because he didn't have time to take care of it lately. He was so busy working on Taken 2 that he didn't have time to take care of himself.
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[Author's Note: Not gonna lie, this chapter is super clunky to read.]
