Hollywood What If Chapter 495
The day after the signing of the contract, there was a meeting that happened in one of the offices in Universal Pictures' headquarters.
This was the third time Kazir went to this place.
The first was when he personally sent his script, hoping that Universal Pictures would be interested in it. The script in question was Seven. From the moment the script readers and analysts confirmed that the genre was dark thriller mystery, they immediately put the script into their script library.
Kazir believed that his old script was still rotting in their library... He was wrong. When Seven became a huge hit, the higher management asked to have the script delivered for them to read.
The second time he visited Universal Pictures was when he was looking for investors for his first action movie, titled Taken... the first movie that introduced the Continental Cinematic Universe.
Universal Pictures believed that this experimental project called a Cinematic Universe would obviously fail, so they didn't work with Kazir. At that time, Kazir didn't want any status to acquire the full rights to Taken, so the highest he could offer to the investors was a 70% investment. Universal Pictures didn't like that, so the deal didn't happen.
And now, Kazir didn't believe that he would step into this building for the third time. What happened in the past made him believe that it would be impossible to work with Universal Pictures.
Some things were impossible to predict.
"Let's start our meeting."
The presenter was Stella Willow. She had prepared for this meeting because she was the type who never backed down.
Even though Grey Pictures only made more than $80 million as an initial profit, the company still had a 5% box office share to feast on. It was small compared to the usual shares they received whenever they worked with 20th Century Fox, but it was still pure profit on their side... Honestly, Stella had no idea why Kazir wanted to do this deal. This was considered a loss for them.
If they had kept the copyrights, Stella had so many methods to make money out of it. Sure, it would take a longer time compared to an upfront payment of $100 million, but Stella was confident she could make more than that if given more time.
Unfortunately, Kazir wanted to experience nostalgia... a selfish reason for a billionaire. Kazir had nothing to lose anyway. In the first place, he was too wealthy to even care. Grey Pictures was also not in a poor situation, and the company was not desperate for money... At least that's how Kazir saw it.
The reason for this meeting was for them to come up with a promotion plan.
Stella was the one who planned this promotion. Truth be told, she didn't want to present this promotion to a rival company, but she also didn't want another person to take credit for her hard work, so she might as well do it herself.
This was the promotion plan that Grey Pictures offered. If Universal Pictures had a better idea, naturally, they would use the better idea.
But for now, Stella Willow was going to explain the plan.
Even Ronald Meyer was present because he was partially responsible for buying Shadows Beneath. He wanted to know how talented this so-called Stella Willow of Grey Pictures was.
Stella had already proven herself, but she still wanted to make a statement. She loved it when people around her looked at her with respect and awe. That was her pride.
Her assistant gave the documents to the people present in the room.
"After doing some research, I found these pictures from the mental hospital where Kazir filmed the majority of the movie."
The people curiously looked at the pictures.
"They were taken in different years, but you can see that there are people in the pictures who resembled our cast."
Kazir nodded. Having a resemblance was true, but Kazir could also see the difference between these people and the cast.
"Based on what you're telling us, you want to follow the promotion that Titanic did a few years ago?"
In one of the many promotions for Titanic, there was a picture of a couple on the ship who resembled Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
"Sort of." Stella nodded.
"Sort of?"
"Here, I have another thing to show you guys."
The projector lit up and a video started playing. In the video, the crew members were busy with their jobs. Suddenly, one of the cameras fell off, and the guy near it paused as if he saw something before turning around and running fast. The people who witnessed it also ran away from the scene. The clip ended with that.
"See what I did there?"
The people in the room were interested in what happened next, but the clip ended. They looked at Stella, they were waiting for an explanation.
"If you watch it out of context, you'd think they saw a ghost and ran away, right?"
Some of the people in the room nodded, while others kept waiting for an explanation.
"Kazir, explain to them what happened."
"The crew found a snake and they ran away. If I'm not wrong, they started screaming about snakes after that video clip."
Ronald now had an idea about Stella's promotion.
The woman didn't wait anymore and started explaining.
"My promotion is that while filming, the crew realized that the mental hospital is haunted. We can make things up and tell people that the cast sensed some unknown entities were watching them while they acted in the set of Shadows Beneath. There was a small accident while filming the movie. We can also blame that on ghosts or whatever. We will promote that the people in these pictures are still in the mental hospital, repeatedly experiencing the tragedies."
Everyone in the room had watched the movie, and they were impressed when Stella came up with a promotion that could connect to the film.
"We will make it look like that mental hospital is a haunted place where spirits lingered."
"So basically just like The Blair Witch Project?"
"That's right."
"Are we not afraid that we will experience another incident like The Blair Witch? Besides, aren't people going to see through our lies?"
"So what?"
Stella grinned.
"I believe it would be better if someone died because of the movie. That way, more people will be interested in the movie. However, I don't want anyone to die, just to be clear."
Hollywood... Their main focus was making money instead of thinking about other people.
"It doesn't matter if they believe it, as long as more people watch our movie, then it's fine."
This promotion was built on a lie. The cast and crew members also signed a contract about this promotion.
From now on, they had to say that the mental hospital they filmed in was eerie. The snake incident didn't happen, it was an act of the supernatural. The stunt double didn't fall from the second floor because of equipment malfunction, he fell because a supernatural entity pushed him.
Of course, Grey Pictures had to pay them money to make sure they would keep the lies.
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[I just kept writing for an hour until I realized that I wrote more than 1200 words. Anyway, this is the best method I can think of as a way to promote the movie.]