Hollywood What If Chapter 588
June 2009 was eventful. Some important things happened this month such as:
Barack Obama's first international trip as President. Obama attended a summit in London and also visited several European countries.
Somali pirates hijacked a ship and kidnapped a captain. The U.S. Navy SEALs rescued the captain. This event inspired a movie that was released in 2013 titled Captain Phillips.
North Korea launched missiles...
The economic recession was still ongoing. The aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis was still happening, and many people lost their jobs.
These were just some of the events that happened.
Out of all of these, Kazir was concerned about one thing. There was a reported case of H1N1 in the U.S. and Mexico. The H1N1 virus, also known as Swine Flu, was a new strain of influenza.
Kazir was concerned that this virus would affect Scarlett's pregnancy. The couple decided not to travel around this time to stay away from the virus. Kazir knew that H1N1 would spread and that the World Health Organization would declare a pandemic in June.
Thankfully, Kazir now had few things to do and he rarely left home.
Instead, Kazir focused on spending quality time with Scarlett and preparing for the twins' arrival. He also took the opportunity to work from home, finalizing scripts and checking on the progress of other projects through phone calls. He also put some time into farming Bitcoin. So far, the computers were doing well and could handle the computations. He had already earned a few hundred Bitcoins.
The home had become a sanctuary, filled with the soft scent of baby lotion and stacks of unopened packages. Even though these products were in separate rooms, Scarlett opened them at least once a day to see the treasure she had collected. Kazir followed suit and checked the baby gear, such as the crib, stroller, carrier, baby walker, bottle sterilizer, and many more...
By the way, he had already checked them a week ago, but since he had nothing to do, he might as well double-check them. If he found malfunctions or faulty products, he wouldn't return them to the store since it was a hassle and time-consuming. He could just buy another one, fast and easy. Money was not a problem for him.
Scarlett appreciated Kazir's presence, especially now that her pregnancy was entering a delicate stage. Every night, Kazir would read to her, hand on her belly, feeling the subtle kicks of their unborn children. Doctors recommended that parents talk to their babies in the womb. It helped develop the babies' auditory systems, exposed them to language, calmed them, and was a form of bonding.
Though the world outside was uncertain, inside their home, there was warmth, laughter, and the joy of being a family.
Not going to lie, Kazir had already forgotten about his plan regarding Mel Gibson. He was still not sure if he would help the actor or not.
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Even though the world was going through tough times, people were still looking for excitement and entertainment. Around this time, the internet was already a strong form of entertainment, but internet speed was still in its infancy. Watching movies or TV shows would take time.
So of course, people were still interested in watching movies in theaters. Especially now in summer, there were some huge movies released in June.
The Taking of Pelham 123 grossed $187 million. It was an action movie.
The Proposal, a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, grossed $429 million. The movie was distributed by Walt Disney.
The Hurt Locker, starring Jeremy Renner, grossed $100 million. The movie won the Best Picture Award, the Best Director Award, and many more at the Oscars. Kathryn Bigelow, the director of this movie, was the first female director to win the Best Director Award at the Oscars/Academy Awards.
My Sister's Keeper, a drama starring Cameron Diaz and distributed by Warner Brothers, grossed over $121 million.
The performance of the movies this month was lackluster. Only The Proposal by Walt Disney did well at the box office.
The answer to this oddity was that Kazir changed the timeline. Hence, some major movies that were supposed to be released this month didn't happen.
The first was The Hangover. Kazir had already filmed this movie in 1995, and the movie was released in 1996. Because of this, The Hangover trilogy was released and ended earlier than in the original timeline.
The second was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This was the second movie of the Transformers franchise. It was supposed to be released this month. But because of Kazir's interference, Transformers was still in production, and the second movie still did not exist. Honestly, the Transformers franchise in this timeline might never become successful because it was so late. Transformers was supposed to be released in 2007, yet Michael Bay was still filming the movie as of this year. A huge time difference.
As for Fast & Furious 3, this movie, produced by Grey Pictures and released in April, currently grossed $614 million worldwide. The movie had been in theaters for 84 days, and its theater count in North America went down to 1,400 theaters. The theaters that screened this movie would further decrease every week until Cinema Alliance deemed it unworthy and ended its screening.
But overall, the performance of Fast & Furious 3 was satisfying, especially when its budget was only around $100 million.
For a movie to be considered profitable, it should earn 2.5 times its production cost.