HWI 331

Hollywood What If Chapter 331

There were some rumors about Kazir making a young woman cry, but the rumors died down quickly. First of all, Kazir was in public and he hadn't committed any crime. Another thing was that Elizabeth Holmes was of legal age, she was just skinny.

Kazir could say the most devious curses known to man, as long as he didn't commit a crime, he was safe. Everything would change, however, once the Internet took over...

Cancel culture would become a prominent part of the Internet. Where one wrong word and you would be canceled by a bunch of people. Luckily, it was still 2003, Facebook had not even launched yet.

Kazir was known to be a gentleman, so people believed that the woman probably did something wrong for Kazir to berate her.

After this little incident called "Make the bitch Elizabeth Holmes cry", February slowly passed without much happening.

Well, Nora Jones won the Grammy and Roman Polanski won the Best Director award at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) for his movie The Pianist. Since the man was not wanted in the UK, he attended the awards.

Other than that, not much happened in February. In fact, only three movies have the power to surpass $100 million this month.

The first was How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.

The second was Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck, which was released on February 14. The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Since Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox weren't family at the time of production, the movie had no connection to the upcoming plan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Daredevil was a stand-alone movie, one of the reasons it got a mediocre reception... Well, February was never the best time to release a movie. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner starred in the movie... Two years after the release of Daredevil, 20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios for some reason felt the need to release Elektra. The box office for that movie was mediocre.

So before the project(Elektra) could even start, Kazir immediately talked to Marvel Studios about not starting the project.

Aside from How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and Daredevil, the last movie that had a good chance of making over $100 million was The Jungle Book 2. Of course, a hand-drawn animation by Walt Disney was nothing to sneeze at. After all, Disney was the king of animation in Hollywood.

March came and Bringing Down The House, produced by Touchstone/Walt Disney, was released on March 7th. A comedy starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah.

Unsurprisingly, this was the only movie to have an amazing march at March, yeah, bars... Nothing really drew audiences to the theaters this month, so ticket sales were low.

However, even though it was not an active month in Hollywood, a lot of celebrities were very active this month.

Many of these celebrities started showing up at a lot of parties, greeting people and making sure their names were relevant.

In fact, Tom Cruise and Kazir Grey did the same thing.

Just like that, the 75th Academy Awards officially took place on March 23, 2003.

The Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles was buzzing with celebrities and directors showing up one by one.

The show was broadcast live on ABC and was watched by 32 million Americans... Usually, the Oscar's ratings are around 40-50 million, but this time the ratings were below average. Maybe people were tired of the Oscars.

Still, the show must go on. Many celebrities don't care about the ratings. They just want to get their awards and prove their worth.

Kazir, of course, attended the Oscars with his girlfriend. Angelina Jolie wore a red and white halter dress while Kazir wore his usual black pants, tuxedo and white shirt.

The couple smiled for the camera as several reporters interviewed them. Kazir hoped he would win the Best Director award.

"Director, how do you feel if you win the Best Director award tonight?"

"I will be happy if that happens. I have already prepared my speech in case I am on stage," Kazir and Angelina giggled.

"What do you think about the Academy's justification that they are partial and fair? That they don't control the nominations."

"I'm a member of the Academy too, and I believe them."

Kazir apparently voted for The Revenant.

The Revenant only received two nominations, and it was the biggest disappointment the Academy made this year. Some news outlets even said that the Academy cooked the nominations against The Revenant.

Of course, members of the Academy denied this and said that their organization is always fair and just... Obviously a lie that everyone knows.

Anyway, Kazir understood that his influence was not enough to control the voting. First of all, he didn't know many old members of the Academy voted.

Fortunately, Kazir had 20th Century Fox to help him. 20th Century Fox was one of the oldest studios in Hollywood and their connections were wider and deeper.

Kazir and Angelina found their seats, next to them were Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz's seats, the two were still missing.

Kazir looked around and found Nicole Kidman talking to some old people... Since Kazir knew the future, he also knew that Tom's ex-wife would win the Best Actress award tonight, which would cause a ripple between Tom Cruise and his agent Pat Kingsley.

He hoped that Tom would also win Best Actor tonight.

Nicole stole a glance in their direction, perhaps looking at her ex-husband. Tom Cruise was still not there, so her eyes went to Kazir and Angelina instead.

The actress smiled before returning to her seat.

"I don't like that woman."

Angelina whispered to Kazir and the man couldn't help but nod. Kazir had no good reason to hate Nicole, but since he was friends with Tom, he didn't like Nicole either, plain and simple.

Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz showed up a few minutes later in a good mood. The two held hands as they sat down.

"You look great."

"Yeah, let's just say..."

Before Tom could answer, Penelope playfully tapped him on the shoulder. They just giggled instead.

"I can say that no matter what happened tonight, I'm glad to be working with someone like you," Tom said to Kazir.

"Me too, Tom." Kazir nodded.