Hollywood What If - Chapter 262

Chapter 262

June was tough for everyone, not just Sony-Columbia, but even the Big Six. Hell, even Grey Pictures was going to have trouble this month.

And why is that? Because so many movies were coming out that month. Even if they didn’t want to, those movies were going to have to fight to make money. The promotion this month was so fierce that every TV channel was promoting movies.

The first weekend in June was dominated by Spider-Man. This was the only schedule Sony-Columbia could find for the movie. Every week was packed with big movies.

In fact, next week, starting June 8, a new batch of movies will be released. This time, Walt Disney, DreamWorks and Warner Bros. would release their movies on the same night.

Walt Disney would release their animated movie titled Atlantis: The Lost Empire. A very underrated hand-drawn animated film.

DreamWorks would release Evolution, a comedy.

While Warner Bros. released Swordfish, an action movie.

These movies did well during the week. Unfortunately for them, it was hard to compete with a superhero movie that had great special effects. There was something about superhero movies that people loved so much at that time.

To make matters worse, the word of mouth about Spider-Man was nothing but positive. Almost no one had anything bad to say about it. Kids, teens, and even adults praised the movie. This led to a massive increase in ticket sales.

The fact that the director of this movie was also the director of Wanted made it even better. Wanted was so huge last year, $1 billion at the box office. Of course it would get that much attention. So Spider-Man joined the fun.

After 10 days in theaters, Spider-Man made $223.04 million! Damn, how can a movie make that much in just ten days?

Was the movie really that good? Or was director Kazir Grey just so talented that he could make any movie shine?

Spider-Man’s path was smooth sailing. Tobey Maguire and the rest of the Spider-Man cast easily became superstars because of the attention Spider-Man got.

Even Willem Dafoe, who risked his career to play a villain, had a good day. Now the studios realized that the guy could play many roles, from a good assassin to the villain of a superhero movie.

Unfortunately, while Spider-Man was at his peak, Kazir Grey could not help but be sad about some things.

On June 15, Paramount Pictures joined the battle with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie… A very hard time for the couple.

In fact, Kazir and Angelina had a little fight.

“This is the second time this has happened. Last time it was Gone in 60 Seconds. And now it’s Lara Croft.”

Angelina grumbled as she cuddled with her man. She hated that Paramount chose June as release date. They should have rescheduled it away from Spider-Man. Angelina was confident that Kazir’s movie would dominate the month.

“We can’t help it. We’re just a worker and we can’t influence management. Besides, Paramount can’t find the right week to release the movie. In July, Legally Blonde, Jurassic Park 3, Planet of the Apes and Cats and Dogs will be released.”

“So are you saying that I should stomach it instead?” She raised her brow.

“Of course not, you can cry on my shoulder instead.”

He teased the woman by touching her nose.

“Tch, I can’t hate you because you’re so hot.”

The woman touched the man’s abs and playfully pinched them. Well, the first week of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was pretty good. It made $47.73 million in its first weekend.

But the comparison with Spider-Man was pretty brutal. The superhero film grossed $289.88 million.

Numbers. Looking at those numbers was numbing, but the amount it represented was outrageous. You could buy 170 McLaren Elva’s with that amount!

To be fair, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was only out for three days while Spider-Man was out for 18 days. However, the first three days of Spider-Man grossed $114.84 million, so… Yes, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was nothing compared to the glory of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

“Now that I think about it, are you going to be okay? Next week is Fast and The Furious. Spider-Man and Fast and The Furious might collide.”

Sony-Columbia was responsible for distributing Fast and The Furious, and they decided to release the film on June 22, the same day 20th Century Fox would release Dr. Dolittle 2.

“Like I said before, I can’t help it. It’s already fortunate that Sony-Columbia chose the summer schedule to release two of our movies.”

In fact, Kazir Grey fought for this outcome. He didn’t want to jeopardize his two movies, so it was better to release them before September.

Fast and The Furious in June and John Wick Chapter 2 in August. This was the schedule Kazir fought for.

Fortunately, Sony-Columbia didn’t want to sour their relationship, so they agreed. Besides, Sony-Columbia had nothing big to release this year except Spider-Man.

Kazir hoped his hard work would pay off. He remembered that in his past life, after the success of Avengers, most of the Marvel movies made good profits.

If his calculation was correct, Fast and The Furious and John Wick Chapter 2 would receive the same treatment. He really hoped so… That would be another way to increase their net worth. The more good movies, the more chips they could use.

Just like that, June 22 came and Kazir had to attend the premiere. Even though he was not active on this project because he was working on Spider-Man, he made sure to attend the post-production. He had to watch the footage so he knew what was going on.

“I won’t lie, the effect of the CCU on Fast and The Furious was so serious.”

+++++

[I skipped the synopsis for Spider-Man, since all of us here have already seen it. Yes, I think we have all seen Spider-Man (2002). This movie was the biggest superhero of the early 2000s and I strongly believe that all of us watched it at least once].