Hollywood What If
Chapter 503

Chapter 503

Spider-Man 1 and Spider-Man 2 were directed by Kazir after the director signed a two-movie deal with Sony-Columbia. It was the best decision they had made, as this business deal elevated their studio. It helped them discover how they could survive in the industry.

Kazir changed how Hollywood looked at superhero movies. Now, many studios were interested in trying the genre because of what Kazir did.

The success of Spider-Man allowed Sony-Columbia to keep up with the other giant studios and maintain its relevance. Kazir was a major factor in that.

Unfortunately, Kazir expressed that he wouldn't direct the third Spider-Man movie because he had other plans. Sony-Columbia did its best to convince the director, but he wasn't budging. They offered him a better contract, but Kazir was already a billionaire at that point.

A lot of people were disappointed to hear that Kazir wouldn't direct the third movie, including the fans. Sony-Columbia was disappointed, especially the executives. Even the management of Marvel Comics was disappointed. They had a good relationship with Kazir, but feelings were hard to control.

In the end, Sony-Columbia had to hire another director for Spider-Man 3. It was sad news for Spider-Man fans all over the world... Perhaps Sony-Columbia could find a way to include Kazir in the project.

They did try.

Sony-Columbia hoped that Kazir would participate in the project. They even wanted to hire him as the head of the editing team for Spider-Man 3. They resorted to competing to buy Shadows Beneath just to convince Kazir, but their plan didn't work. Universal Pictures got the last laugh.

By the way, Sony-Columbia was actually not confident that Shadows Beneath would be successful at the box office considering its genre. Horror movies were also considered Kazir's weakness in his filmography.

Sony-Columbia didn't expect that the horror movie would become the highest-grossing horror movie of all time. They regretted not doing their best to acquire the rights to this movie.

Everyone believed that The Sixth Sense, the best horror movie of all time, would lose its position as the highest-grossing horror movie after Shadows Beneath was released.

After all, The Sixth Sense had an amazing plot twist that shocked people even today… But Shadows Beneath also had a plot twist. This just proved that Kazir was THE GUY.

The director was breaking records after records like it was a Sunday morning. At this point, fans may hype the director, but he would still be recognized as underrated. The stats were not lying.

As of now, Shadows Beneath had grossed $891 million at the box office after five months of screening. It made the movie the highest-grossing horror movie of all time... unless another movie could defeat it.

The second highest-grossing horror movie was now The Sixth Sense, which grossed $672 million at the worldwide box office.

If something was terrifying about these facts, it was the fact that Shadows Beneath would probably continue making more money as the movie was still screening all over the world.

Anyway, Sony-Columbia released Spider-Man 3 on May 4, and it was a success.

In just three days, the movie casually grossed $151 million. No one would deny that the movie was a success.

Spider-Man 3 was almost the perfect copy of the original Spider-Man 3 from Kazir's timeline.

Kazir worked with Marvel Studios to write the script, and Kazir had strong authority in making decisions. Also, he was the best scriptwriter in Hollywood, so it was easy to convince Sony-Columbia to make the original version of Spider-Man 3.

As for why Kazir didn't change the plot of Spider-Man 3? He had a simple reason.

He had no idea what to write. He also had no idea what to change. Kazir was just a person, after all. He couldn't come up with great stories like Artificial Intelligence, sad to say.

In his opinion, Spider-Man 3 was perfect the way it was. Sure, it had a lot of downs, but it was still a great movie, and Kazir enjoyed it.

Because of that, some fans had mixed reviews regarding the third movie. Still, Spider-Man 3 was making huge money.

In just ten days of screening, Spider-Man 3 grossed $240 million. It was close to recouping their production cost, which was $258 million. It cost a lot to make Spider-Man 3.

Sony-Columbia kept promoting the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man on many platforms. When May 17 arrived, the movie grossed $258 million… Now they were starting to make a profit.

Too bad because a strong rival was released on May 17. It was none other than the most handsome ogre of all time, Shrek! To be precise, Shrek the Third!

Shrek the Third was a computer-animated movie produced by DreamWorks Animation, led by Jeffrey Katzenberg. Shrek was the first computer-animated movie that DreamWorks released, and it was a massive success. Since then, Shrek became one of the franchises that made DreamWorks Animation relevant. If not for this bad-mouthed green ogre, DreamWorks Animation would be long gone.

Shrek the Third grossed $122 million after four days of screening. It was weaker compared to the performance of Spider-Man 3, but it was still an amazing feat.

Also, because of Shrek the Third, Spider-Man 3 only grossed $29 million between May 17 and May 20. Having two powerful movies released in the same month was tough to look at because one would lose while the other would win.

This month of May was tougher to look at because three big movies would compete to dominate the month.

When May 24 arrived, Shrek the Third had grossed $150 million, while Spider-Man 3 had grossed $289 million.

And on the same day, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was released in cinemas.