Hollywood What If

Chapter 85

The audition continued and this time it was for Bryan Mills' daughter.

To be honest, Kazir didn't care about the age aspect of this role. As long as she could act well enough, Kazir would cast her.

So...

"Hi, I'm Scarlett Johansson."

'You got to be kidding me.'

Kazir stopped writing. He looked at the little girl who was about to audition.

'So this is the client Salvatore signed. That bastard, when did he do that? We are talking about Miss Black Window here. How did Salvatore sign a contract with her? Did I cause a butterfly effect? Probably yes.'

Scarlett Johansson was born in 1984. That means she was 12 years old right now. However, women at that age were usually taller than their male counterparts. So Scarlett Johansson looked about 14 to 15 years old. She had light blonde hair, was tall, and looked mischievous.

'I think I know why Salvatore begged me to keep it PG-13.'

'Since he is Salvatore's client, I have to give her a chance.'

The little girl began her audition. Just as Salvatore had promised, Scarlett Johansson prepared for the role. She easily passed the audition and the crew was pleased.

"Thank you, Miss Johansson. We will contact you later."

The little girl waved before leaving.

"That's it. The cast is set. I want each of them to sign contracts as soon as possible. We will have a script reading next week."

"That will be my job, right?"

Harold rubbed his forehead. This new job was exhausting. But he didn't want to disappoint Kazir. The only reason he had agreed to this job was to ease Kazir's workload.

"Don't worry. We already signed the troublesome ones. I'm sure each of them won't fight for a higher salary. We can always hire other actors."

"I'll try my best."

Harold nodded.

"Don't worry Mr. Producer, we will try to make sure that your responsibility will not be heavy."

"Shut up Renner, you are not helping at all!"

"Hahaha."

...

...

...

The end of 1996 came and New Year's parties were everywhere.

This time Kazir received invitations from many people. Mostly from prominent actors who wanted to get in touch with him.

The success of his last film was amazing.

This year's box office champion was Independence Day with $817.40 million. 20th Century Fox had the last laugh this year. It sold the most tickets worldwide.

In second place was Warner Bros.' Twister with $494.47 million worldwide.

The third was The Hangover. The movie grossed $469.30 million worldwide. And yes, it was also from Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. had the second and third highest grossing movies of the year. Combined, the two movies made $963.77 million. In a way, Warner Bros. won much bigger tickets than 20th Century Fox.

Fourth was Mission: Impossible with $457.69 million.

Fifth was The Rock, starring Nicholas Cage, with $335.06 million.

In sixth place was Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. An animated film with $325 million.

Seventh was 101 Dalmatians. Another Disney film with $320 million.

Eighth place came from Disney again. This time it was Ransom starring Mel Gibson with $309 million.

Places six through eight were dominated by Disney. Michael Eisner knew how to do business. The three films together grossed $954 million. In addition, Disney sold millions in merchandise from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and 101 Dalmatians. They may have made more profit than 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.

Ninth place was taken by Universal Pictures with The Nutty Professor. The film earned $273.96 million.

In tenth place was Sony-Columbia's Jerry Maguire. The movie starring Tom Cruise made $273.55 million.

These were the top ten films worldwide. Yes, they were all dominated by Hollywood. The Hollywood industry was beginning to take over the world.

The top ten movies of the year would probably sell at least a million videotapes each. The cost of a videotape was $30. So each movie could make at least $30 million in the videotape market.

'I didn't have a videotape share, but I can look at the statistics for The Hangover. This month, the videotape sales of the movie were 1.6 million copies. 1.1 million copies of regular videotapes and 500 thousand copies of the deluxe edition.'

The non-deluxe videocassette of The Hangover cost $29.9. The deluxe edition cost $59.9.

If the math was right, the sales of the non-deluxe videotapes were $32.89 million. As for the deluxe edition, it was 29.95 million dollars.

This means that the videocassette sales of The Hangover this month were $62.84 million. This month alone. The videoctape sales would continue to grow through next year. It might even surpass the worldwide box office. Especially because The Hangover was a funny movie.

The buying power of Americans is enormous. They can keep the industry going.

At first, the invention of the VCR was frowned upon by Hollywood. They thought they would lose authority over their movies. But what they didn't expect was that the videotape market would save them instead. Now the movie companies had videotape distribution channels just to make more money. They signed deals with Blockbuster and Walmart to sell and rent their movies.

"Thanks for helping me last time."

The woman next to Kazir giggled and squeezed his arm. Reese Witherspoon and Kazir Grey decided to attend a party in the new year.

Out of the many people who invited him, Kazir decided to attend the Sony-Columbia New Year's party. Despite their differences, the two parties still had a friendly relationship. In fact, Grey Pictures was about to sign a deal with Sony-Columbia to distribute Taken...