Hollywood What If Chapter 257
The room was a bit awkward. Well, strangers just entered this place to start the script reading schedule. This was their first meeting each other 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 it worse, the director of the movie was not fluent in English. He could speak English but his accent and his speed were not that fast.
At least people could understand him. That was enough.
Paul Walker and Vin Diesel were the main characters in 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 quite complicated.
Kazir already wrote the script in 1995 and registered it in the Writers Guild. However, an article about street racing was released in 1998 and it had some resemblance to his script. Kazir already expected this to happen since the first movie of the Fast Furious franchise was inspired by the said article.
The name of this article was Racer X by Ken Li, published in Vibe magazine.
To make things easier and so that no lawsuit could happen. Grey Pictures bought the said article for an amount of $50 thousand. 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 most important decision maker anyway.
The investment was settled. Grey Pictures hired an insurance company to make sure that the production would be on the right track.
The director of this movie was a Taiwanese director named Justin Lin. The man has been a director since 1997 and made one movie. When he got an invitation from Grey Pictures to direct one of their movies, the answer was only one.
Absolutely yes.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for him to get a foothold in Hollywood. The biggest Show Business in the world.
For a no-one like him, this was a hard thing to decline. He was shocked and afraid actually. He didn't expect this situation would arrive. He even thought that this 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 their conditions. He gotta do it. Or else the position might be taken by others.
He signed a contract, getting a $1 million salary. It was actually the biggest amount of money he ever had.
After that, he signed under CAA, having 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 wouldn't let that happen.
"Haha, L- Let's start the script reading."
Justin Lin announced in his unique accent, wiping his sweaty forehead. He was actually nervous.
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, still strangers, stared at each other and asked themselves.
'Can this guy even direct this movie? He seems like he's going to pass out after sweating so much.'
All of the cast of this movie were all new in this industry. None of them had solidified their status.
Vin Diesel had been in some projects such as Saving Private Ryan, and even starring in Pitch Black, but the guy was still not that famous. Grey Pictures could afford his salary so yeah, 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 past Continental movies. Hollywood predicted that the movies that Grey Pictures produced had a high chance of making a profit.
For new actors/actresses who didn't have a steady career in this industry, this was the chance that they didn't want to let go of.
What they didn't know was that Kazir took the importance of this franchise. Because he knew how much money Fast Furious could generate.
As for the reason why Kazir didn't hire Rob Cohen, the first director of The Fast and The Furious movie. The first movie lacks unrealistic stunts.
The Continental Cinematic Universe was filled with spies, hitmen, and even ninjas. The movie needed spices 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.
Military Tanks that had the speed of a race car? Yes.
Cars overtaking an airplane? Yes.
Oh, here's another. Cars in outer space? Absolutely Yes.
Kazir didn't need the mild Fast and The Furious. He needed the adrenaline-pumping scenes of Fast and The Furious.
For that, he believed that Justin Lin was the right person. He gave the director control over the action shots of the movie as long as it sat well with the Continental Cinematic Universe.
"Tsk, let's just go with this and finish the session."
The 17-year-old Scarlett Johansson muttered and that caught the attention of the cast.
In this project, perhaps Scarlett had the longest time working with Grey Pictures, except for Harold who was still the producer.
Kim Mills had a short appearance in this movie.
As for how the plot would progress, no one knew. Even the author has no idea...
If there was a good thing, Kazir already wrote the overall plot of the first movie. It was about an undercover LAPD who infiltrated a gang of criminals that stole expensive electronic goods...
[Yup, that was the plot of the first movie, I found it on Wikipedia.]
Hollywood What If Chapter 258
Kazir spent the months of December and January in New York, filming Spider-Man.
While in New York, he spends some time bonding with his family.
Most of his energy was put into the film since this was a project that he didn't want to mess up. His family was very supportive of him, his father told him that he was so proud of his son.
He was so proud of his two sons, they were now living their lives and had achievements.
If there was one thing he was for... He wanted to see his son start a family and possibly have a child.
To be precise, Victor Grey (Kazir's father) wanted another grandchild to pamper!
You see, Aaron and his wife decided to take things slowly after having a daughter. They have no intention of having another child for the time being.
Now that Victor experienced having a granddaughter, he realized that life was worth living for. So yeah, out of his selfishness, he wanted Kazir to have a child or two.
It depends on Kazir if he wants to marry again. After all, his son experienced the same thing as him. The heartbreak of divorce.
Victor met Angelina a few times and he didn't have a problem with the woman. She seemed sweet. If Kazir and Angelina wanted to marry and have a child, he would gladly support them.
For an old grandfather who didn't have much in life except work, Victor felt like having grandchildren was the best.
As for Kazir, he was still not sure about his future path. He was traumatized by the divorce and he couldn't imagine marrying again. At least not now.
As for having a child. He didn't know how to be a father. He was not sure if he would be a good father. He had a chance to be one of but his ex-wife aborted the baby. He didn't know it at that time and couldn't stop it.
He and Angelina had a good relationship but it was not enough to determine if they were sure about marrying much more than having a baby. Besides, Angelina's career was just taking off and pregnancy might affect her blooming career.
Now that we look into the past, Angelina and Kazir started their relationship over a year ago. They had their first night together in December, Christmas Eve to be exact. They decided to become a thing after that.
And now, the year 2000 just passed and it was already February 2001. Time sure flies fast whenever you're so busy.
...
...
...
"Congratulations. Not only Wanted, even Bruce Almighty that you've written had a great performance."
"Thanks, George. I have to keep motivated to remain relevant. I'm not like you who created a culture in the United States. The influence of Continental Cinematic Universe is nothing compared to Star Wars."
Kazir visited Industrial Light Magic to see the progress of the special effects. The project regarding special effects was already 85% done and they just needed a few edits. Of course, Kazir had to put all of these shots into one complete movie before everything was done. So he probably had to spend another month or two in post-production.
"Give it some years, your movies will have the same treatment."
Kazir shrugged at George Lucas' response.
"Anyway, I know that you declined Star Wars Episode 2 because you are interested in Spider-Man. But how about the Episode 3?"
"You sure are adamant about hiring me."
"I can't help it. You're the most profitable director right now. If you directed Star Wars, I'm sure the box office will be over $1 billion."
"I can't promise you anything."
Based on his opinion, the romance between Padme and Anakin was kinda forced. He had an idea how to fix it but he wanted to keep it in himself since he was not sure if he was going to work with Star Wars.
The progress of special effects for Spider-Man was on the right track. Most of it was about Spider-Man swinging by the buildings in New York like he was Tarzan.
'I can't believe that we spent millions of dollars for this eight to ten minutes of detailed animation.'
CGI was very expensive back in the early 2000s. But if you compare it to the recent movies filled with CGI such as Marvel movies, the early 2000s movies had better CGI.
After checking with Industrial Light Magic, the man decided to return to the studio that Sony-Columbia gave to him to edit Spider-Man. He had five editors to work with, with one having the head editor whom Kazir talked to the most.
Another thing was that one of the staff from Marvel Comics would be in the editing room to watch the whole job. And sometimes tell his opinion.
Kazir thankfully got the full editing rights. Giving him the power to use his full creativity in the project. He already proved himself in this industry so Sony-Columbia gave him the power.
As the perks of being a successful director. Everyone believed that your movie would make money.
Perhaps the only thing that Kazir could be proud of was his strong memories of movie-related stuff. Being his most devoted hobby and job, Kazir rarely forgot a scene. That helped the process of post-production a lot.
"Use our third footage for this one. I think it has the right angle and the emotions are expressive."
"Yes, director."
While Kazir was busy editing Spider-Man. One of the Big Six expressed its intention to buy Grey Pictures...
[Aight, the time has come. Honestly, I'm still stuck on my opinion of selling at least 30% of Grey Pictures so that the company can latch on to one of the Big Six. Because realistically, if Grey Pictures keeps making successful movies, the Big Six would join together to destroy it. DreamWorks, Lionsgate, and even I can even say Miramax and New Line Cinema suffered because of Big Six. Let's not forget 20th Century Fox, this company was now under Disney. So the Big Six became the Big Five.]
[I want to hear your opinion on selling some shares of Grey Pictures to one of the Big Six.]
[And yes, two chapters tomorrow, but I won't promise it though. Just gotta write what I can write.]