Chapter 364

    "Are you excited for Wanted 2?"

    "Hell yeah."

    Alexa Nguyen weakly replied as she watched the movie trailer on the television.

    The trailer for Wanted 2 seemed extravagant and impressive. It said that Kazir taught Fremont Smith how to make a compelling trailer by showing him his formula.

    There was something about Director Grey''s trailers that compelled audiences to see the movie. Since then, art professors and other directors have studied his trailers. They wanted to know how to get people excited.

    As one of the members of Grey Fans and the lucky one to meet the director in person, Alexa was excited to see the movie.

    She was an film art student who wanted to be an actress, so she was quite knowledgeable about movies and TV shows.

    In her opinion, Wanted was the movie that paved the way for the success of the Continental Cinematic Universe.

    Sure, both Taken and John Wick were released before Wanted, but Wanted was the most significant of the three franchises.

    It showed the relevance of each film and made people more interested in the characters. A lot of people would buy or rent DVDs just to keep up with the plot. Especially teenagers who wanted to keep up with the trends.

    Alexa dreamed of working with the famous director. She was so happy when she realized that she was one of the lucky fans to meet Kazir in person at the premiere of The Equalizer.

    She stayed up all night in the theater waiting for the premiere of The Equalizer to end.

    When she met the director, she realized that the guy was down-to-earth and humble... He was also damn handsome, and Alexa admitted that she had a crush on him.

    Suddenly, she remembered that Kazir and Mara were supposed to be siblings. Out of curiosity, Alexa told Kazir that she was Mara''s classmate.

    "Director, I''m your sister''s classmate. I also studied at the California Institute of the Arts."

    "Sister?"

    Kazir frowned slightly at first. Then he seemed to remember something. Instead of smiling, his mood turned sour.

    The second week saw the release of Mystic River, produced by Warner Brothers. It made $13 million in its first weekend.

    The same week, Kill Bill: Volume 1 was released. Miramax has never been confident in competing with the Big Six in the summer, so they usually release their heavy hitters from October to December. Depending on how the company''s schedule works.

    Kill Bill was a famous movie, directed by a famous director in his niche, Quentin Tarantino. Obviously, the movie would show at least one foot scene...

    Quentin Tarantino''s filmography slowly gained popularity because his movies had something unique about them.

    However, it could never be denied that his movies would have a hard time facing the mainstream genres and mainstream audiences. A lot of people appreciated his works, but his movies hardly made money at the box office. In fact, the highest grossing movie in his career was Django Unchained, which earned $426 million. To date, this movie has not been made.

    Quentin currently had one successful movie at the box office and that was Pulp Fiction (1994). The audience was not sure if this so-called Kill Bill would make any money at all.

    But surprisingly Kill Bill: Volume 1 actually made money. 22 million dollars on the first weekend.

    Miramax saw the potential and promoted the movie, of course with the help of Walt Disney. The relationship between the two companies was getting better thanks to Harvey Weinstein and Robert Iger.

    In the third week, Texas Chainsaw Massacre from New Line Cinema. This franchise had so many movies and New Line Cinema did a good job of cultivating the franchise. The budget for each movie was small, but the profit was sometimes ten times the budget.

    Also, the profit from the DVD market was huge because horror movies have always been part of the movie culture. God knows how many people love to watch horror movies in their houses.

    The fourth week and a lot of people were excited, to be precise, the people who were fans of CCU were excited to see Wanted 2. The movie was to be released on October 24th. But it was not that easy, Wanted had two opponents that could prevent its domination.

    Scary Movie 3 was a famous parody franchise created by Miramax.

    Bear Brother had a serious theme, although it was a cartoon meant for children. And yes, it was made by Walt Disney.

    It was ironic that Wanted 2 was going up against Miramax and Walt Disney, two companies Grey Pictures never liked.

    Everyone in Hollywood was eager to see the outcome of this competition.

    ++++

    [I lost to procrastination yesterday after doing laundry and decided to lie on my bed all night, so yeah, you''ll get three chapters tomorrow to make up for it.]