HWI 282

Hollywood What If Chapter 282

Joaquin Phoenix had a great filmography in recent years. Perhaps his best recent role was in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards for his role as Commodus in Gladiator.

A few years later, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Joker/Arthur Fleck. He won many awards in his career and everyone knew that he was a talented actor.

Looking at the information thanks Kazir read, he knew that casting Joaquin Phoenix was not a problem.

The expected budget of The Revenant was at least $85 million and Kazir had no problem casting someone like Joaquin Phoenix.

For the same reason, Tom Hardy and Shia Labeouf were good choices.

Tom Hardy made his film debut in Black Hawk Down, but after that his career was unstable. He could not get any promising roles. If Kazir had not known about Tom Hardy's future, he might not have gotten a role in The Revenant.

Tom Hardy's usual roles were about buff, strong guys. This Means War, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Dark Knight Rises were just a few of the movies he starred in. His role in these movies was the buff strong guy.

Out of interest, Kazir decided to give this up and coming actor a chance to work with him.

The same thing happened with Shia Labeouf. Shia Labeouf was a famous actor in the mid 2000s and early 2010s but his career was dying for some reasons after that.

At first his career was going well, at a young age he got roles in Constantine, I, Robot, the first trilogy of Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Eagle Eye and Fury. It was amazing, he was part of so many blockbusters. Maybe one of the reasons he got steady jobs was because of his race, but that was debatable and probably not true.

Well, his presence in Hollywood slowly disappeared after accusation and controversy.

Kazir had heard some stories in his past life, but this and that were two different things.

The Shia Labeouf of 2002 was just an aspiring actor trying to find his way in the industry.

Shia's agent recommended that he audition for The Revenant and Constantine. So far, his role in Constantine was already set, but filming would start in September, which was 9 months later.

The main reason Kazir was interested in Shia Labeouf was to know his current attitude as a young actor. He also knew that Shia could act, his range as an actor was quite wide. As for the reason why Kazir was interested in Shia... It might because of Transformers.

For these reasons, Kazir felt that casting these three actors was not a problem.

One thing was for sure, Tom Cruise had no problem with the cast. None of the actors were more famous than him, and he was confident in his acting abilities as well. He had been in the industry since 1981. His experience was enough to face such talented actors.

Besides, Tom knew that Kazir would never betray him. He would definitely give Tom more screen time and let him showcase his acting skills.

... It was actually written in the contract. For this role, Tom decided to grow a beard for the first time. He even studied bears to understand them.

He might even go so far as to meet a real bear and possibly have a boxing match with it. Tom Cruise was a professional actor and he was known for his stunts. (Note: I'm still skeptical about this. If it's true, no insurance company is going to sign a contract with Tom Cruise. He probably only does stunts that are safe).

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"Nice to see you again, sir. I thought you had forgotten me." Vance Goodhood greeted Kazir after three years of no contact.

Kazir became busy and didn't have much time to return to the investment firm. However, when he contacted the company, he found that the investment firm had been hit hard by the bursting of the dot-com bubble and 9/11. As a result, they filed for bankruptcy.

So Vance Goodhood decided to apply to Goldman Sachs, and he was accepted. His credentials were good. Because of Kazir's warning, Vance pulled out his investment before the stock market crashed. He made millions and was very grateful for Kazir's opinion.

As expected, Kazir Grey was a genius. He was a genius director and even in the financial sector he was making money.

So Vance visited Grey Pictures because Kazir wanted to invest in tech/internet companies again.

This time Kazir was willing to invest $150 million. This was a huge amount, and Vance met with Kazir in person because of the seriousness of the situation.

"Are you sure you want to invest in these companies, sir?"

Kazir had three companies in mind: eBay, Apple and Amazon.

eBay and Amazon were both online sales services, and their growth was promising. Only Kazir knew the exact history of how these companies would become worth billions or trillions of dollars.

As for Apple, now that Steve Jobs had returned to Apple, Kazir knew that this company would usher in the era of smartphones. By the way, Steve Jobs was also a shareholder in Walt Disney because of Pixar.

Kazir would continue to invest in Apple and Amazon, while eBay was only short-term.

Actually, he wanted to get a piece of Google, but the company still showed no interest in his money. Google would not go public until 2004.

At the same time, Facebook did not exist until 2004.

'Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is open to investment.' Kazir thought to himself.

Vance Goodhood was not sure why Kazir was interested in Apple, but he decided to keep his mouth shut.

This was a $150 million deal and Vance didn't want to screw it up. He tried to offer Kazir alternatives, but the director was adamant. In the end, Vance Goodhood respected Kazir's decision and took care of the $150 million by investing $50 million in each company.

'As for Netflix... Meh. I'll only invest when their online streaming service happens. Right now, Netflix is still a small company trying to copy Blockbuster's business strategy. I don't want to disrupt and potentially change their trajectory, so I'll just wait until they're stable.'

Being in this industry, Kazir knew that Netflix was going to struggle for a long time. Kazir didn't want any of that part.

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[Author's note: I know this has nothing to do with the novel. But I want to say that we will miss you, Detective Amelia Watson of Hololive. Man, I'm sure going to miss your gremlin screams].