Hollywood What If

Hollywood What If Chapter 256

Manhattan, New York. 

The original setting for Spider-Man was New York. Obviously, the crew flew to New York to shoot the movie. 

Particularly was the Times Square. 

One of the most popular Spider-Man locations is Times Square. In the first Spider-Man trilogy, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) saves Mary Jane from the Green Goblin at the Unity Festival, in Times Square. 

It was an iconic scene, the scene where the Green Goblin glides in the sky and throws special grenades. 

This project had a huge budget and Kazir didn't hesitate to hire a crane. They use it for Spider-Man's web-slinging and landing. Of course, they use it mostly when Spider-Man and Green Goblin need screen time in the sky or landing from the sky. 

Although most of the web-slinging and swinging by the buildings would be created by special effects. Sony-Columbia has already hired Industrial Light & Magic to create the necessary scenes. The special effects alone cost them almost half of the budget. This was early 2000 and special effects were very expensive. Even the people who knew about VFX were few and far between. 

With the crane, Tobey Maguire landed safely on the ground with the wire connected to the crane. 

"Cut!"

Kazir announced through the megaphone and the crew started to fix the set. 

"..."

Kazir touched his chin as he watched the landing from different angles. 

He nodded. 

"This is over."

The crew knew what they had to do. Since the director had announced that this scene was over, they began to clean up the set. The giant crane was moved out and the cameras were returned to the van for the next location. 

Tobey took a deep breath. Finally, he had the time to take off his tight costume. It was really uncomfortable to spend most of the day in the costume. 

Fortunately, they were done for today. Apparently, Director Grey wanted to meet his relatives, so he decided to end the shooting early. 

Kazir packed his things, even though it was only a cup of coffee. Erica Mendez followed him, keeping her job as his assistant/bodyguard. 

The chances of Kazir getting into a gunfight were slim, but this was the land of the free. People could carry guns for protection. Unfortunately, there were people who used guns for the wrong purposes. 

Gun control was quite complicated... 

As Kazir started to leave, he found Kirsten fidgeting and quietly following him. The woman realized that the director sensed her. 

"Is something wrong, Kirsten?"

"Um, director, I baked some cookies. I hope you'll try them."

"Thank you." Kazir casually accepted the gift. 

"By the way, is Jezebel still..."

"Unfortunately, yes. Although I've gotten used to her. What she says always makes sense, but she's very strict with me," Kirsten replied. 

"Tell me if something happens."

"Yes, director."

Kazir and Erica got into the car. As the assistant/bodyguard/driver, Erica was responsible for driving the car. 

Kazir looked at the box of cookies and decided to take a bite. 

"Not bad. Maybe my niece will like it."

Kazir was not stupid. He knew what Kirsten was up to. 

He was responsible for the movie and he didn't want any mishaps, so he decided to let things be. However, Kazir had no intention of flirting with the young woman. He just wanted to make sure that Kirsten was in her right mind so that the filming would go smoothly. 

The actress' mental health has been very delicate lately. 

Kazir wanted to do something about Jezebel, but the woman had no faults other than being strict with women. In fact, she was good at her job. 

So to balance things out, Kazir decided to accept gifts from the actress, but made sure to keep the proper distance and create a boundary between them. 

If Kazir flirted with Kirsten, Angelina would definitely be upset. They had a great relationship and Kazir didn't want it to crumble. 

'The watch Kirsten gave me is missing. I can't find it after my night with Angelina. She probably did something with it.'

Well, Angelina made up for it by buying Kazir a Rolex, a much more expensive watch. 

"I prefer G-Shock, but whatever," he looked at the Rolex he was wearing and confirmed that it was 4:45 pm. 

The traffic in New York was terrible and they were still in Manhattan. Then Erica decided to take a new route and they reached Wall Street... 

Not a minute later, the two heard a thud and then a loud scream. 

People started screaming and some of them had pale faces. 

Kazir frowned. 

"What happened?"

He decided to lower his window and saw something horrible. A man in a suit, his head literally open, brain matter everywhere. 

Fortunately, Kazir worked in horror movies and was used to seeing gruesome corpses (props). In fact, he saw much more disgusting than this. 

Still, Kazir was affected by the fact that a person had died close to where he was. 

He looked at Erica and the woman had a normal expression. The woman had served in the military and had probably seen the same things. 

"The man jumped off the building!"

"Ambulance! Call the damn ambulance!"

"Fuck, this is the fifth one this month. When are they going to stop?"

"It's all because of the bubble burst!"

"Bubble burst? Dot-com bubble burst?"

The man was probably someone who worked in the financial sector, maybe dabbling in stocks. But because the dot-com bubble burst, the man lost everything. He decided it was better to kill himself than face the consequences. 

"Let's go."

Kazir ordered his assistant. 

"Sir, we can't. The traffic here is not so good either."

Kazir sighed and shut the window. The stock market was no paradise. Someone would win, someone would lose. 

The two were silent for a while until they reached the place where Aaron and his family lived. 

++++

[VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Some of you may have heard about what happened to the Patreon iOS app recently. Basically, greedy Apple wants to take a 30% cut whenever someone subscribes to Patreon using the Patreon iOS app. Please, if you want to subscribe to Patreon, don't use the iOS app. Instead, use the website or the Android app to subscribe. Because 30% is a huge cut for creators, we're going to suffer because Apple wants a cut of our revenue. And yes, fuck Apple.] 

[Another Note: I've got to get to the Grey Pictures stuff first, like Fast and The Furious and John Wick Chapter 2, before I start the Spider-Man premiere].