Hollywood What If - Chapter 257
Chapter 257
The room was a little awkward. Well, strangers had just entered this place to start the script reading schedule. This was their first meeting and the bond was still not there. Quite a problem, since the whole motto of Fast and The Furious was “family”.
Yep, nothing beats family.
– Dom Toreto.
To make matters worse, the director of the movie was not fluent in English. He could speak English, but his accent and his speed were not so fast.
At least you could understand him. That was enough.
Paul Walker and Vin Diesel were the main characters of this movie. An LAPD (Brian O’Connor) and a notorious street racer (Dominic Toreto) respectively.
The copyright of The Fast and The Furious was quite complicated. Well, Kazir Grey made it very complicated.
Kazir wrote the script in 1995 and registered it with the Writers Guild. However, in 1998, an article about street racing was published that had some similarities to his script. Kazir expected this because the first movie in the Fast & Furious franchise was inspired by the article.
The name of the article was Racer X by Ken Li, published in Vibe magazine.
To make things easier and to avoid a lawsuit. Grey Pictures bought the said article for an amount of 50 thousand dollars. Now the problem was easily solved.
Once that was done, the production of Fast and The Furious was approved by the management, although Kazir was the main decision maker anyway.
The investment was made. Grey Pictures hired an insurance company to make sure the production was on track.
The director of the film was a Taiwanese director named Justin Lin. The man had been a director since 1997 and had made one movie. When he received an invitation from Grey Pictures to direct one of their movies, the answer was only one.
“Absolutely.”
This was a unique opportunity for him to break into Hollywood. The biggest show business in the world.
For a nobody like him it was hard to turn it down. He was actually shocked and scared. He didn’t expect this situation. He even thought it was a scam.
He flew to Los Angeles just to meet Stella Willow, the General Manager of Grey Pictures.
Justin Lin knew that his position in this industry was so low, so he agreed to most of her conditions. He had to do it. Otherwise the position could be taken by others.
He signed a contract and got a salary of $1 million. It was actually the highest salary he ever had.
After that he signed with CAA and had an agent to help him. Salvatore Barlowe was already in a tight spot after having two directors, so it was impossible for him to get Justin Lin. CAA would not let that happen.
“Haha, L- Let’s start the script reading.”
Justin Lin announced in his unique accent, wiping his sweaty brow. He was actually nervous.
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, still strangers, stared at each other and wondered.
‘Can this guy even direct this movie? He looks like he’s going to pass out from sweating so much.’
All the actors in this movie were new to the industry. None of them had established their status.
Vin Diesel had been in some projects like Saving Private Ryan and even starred in Pitch Black, but the guy was still not that famous. Grey Pictures could afford his salary, so yes, he was not that famous…
The biggest reason why these actors and actresses auditioned for this movie was because of the influence of Wanted and the previous CCU movies. Hollywood predicted that the movies produced by Grey Pictures had a high chance of making a profit.
For new actors/actresses who didn’t have a steady career in the industry, this was the chance they didn’t want to let go.
What they didn’t know was that Kazir understood the importance of this franchise. Because he knew how much money Fast & Furious could make.
As for why Kazir didn’t hire Rob Cohen, the first director of The Fast and The Furious movie. The first film lacked unrealistic stunts.
The Continental Cinematic Universe was filled with spies, assassins and even ninjas. The movie needed spice to make it interesting.
Justin Lin was the director of:
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (3rd sequel)
Fast & Furious (4th sequel)
Fast Five (5th sequel)
Fast & Furious 6 (6th sequel)
F9 (10th sequel)
Many of these movies had unrealistic stunts that hyped the whole franchise.
Cars falling from the sky with parachutes? Yes, they did.
Military tanks that had the speed of a race car? Yes.
Cars overtaking an airplane? Yes.
Oh, here’s another one. Cars in space? Absolutely yes.
Kazir didn’t need the mellow version Fast and The Furious. He needed the adrenaline-pumping version of Fast and The Furious.
He felt that Justin Lin was the right person for that. He gave the director control over the film’s action sequences, as long as it fit the Continental Cinematic Universe.
“Tsk, let’s just go with that and finish the session.”
17-year-old Scarlett Johansson muttered, and that got the attention of the cast.
On this project, Scarlett had perhaps the longest association with Grey Pictures, except for Harold, who was still the producer.
Kim Mills had a brief appearance in this movie.
Nobody knew how the story would go on. Even the author has no idea…
If there was one good thing, it was that Kazir had already written the general plot of the first movie. It was about an undercover LAPD who infiltrated a gang of criminals who were stealing expensive electronic goods…
Kazir leveled up the plot. The gang stole military equipment instead, that brought them to the list of wanted criminals.
+++++
[Author’s note: Yes, that was the plot of the first movie, I found it on Wikipedia. But to add in the CCU, I decided that Dom Toreto’s gang stole military equipment instead.]