I’m in Hollywood - Chapter 6

[Chapter 6 The Good News]

After finalizing the publication of Jurassic Park, Eric devoted all his spare time to writing and revising the script for Seventeen Again.

“Return to Seventeen” mainly expresses the discussion about family, love, friendship and life choices, so it is not inappropriate to use it in this era, but the various geek elements and thumb culture in previous life movies are not It needs to be revised, after all, the big brothers are not yet popular, and personal computers are also in the era of transistors.

Eric modified Ned’s setting into a successful entrepreneur, a die-hard movie fan who likes to collect props for various movies.

Of course, it is limited to the movies that have appeared in this era, and the lines about the movie “The Lord of the Rings” can only be modified into other movies, which is easy for Eric, who has a lot of movies in his mind.

After completing the script, Eric gave the script to Jeff as agreed.

Since watching Eric’s “Jurassic Park”, Jeff no longer underestimates the orphan left by this friend.

After reading the script several times, I found some wrong details, such as Kevin Federline’s hippie T-shirt that the protagonist wore when he went back to school. As a result, Jeff asked Kevin Federline curiously. who is it.

Eric carefully searched the memory, only to find that Britney Spears’ second ex-husband is still a ten-year-old little Zhengtai.

After fixing some of the loopholes Jeff found, Eric will soon hand over the script to Michael Krause.

After completing a novel and a script, Eric did not rush to create a third work without stopping, but began to practice basketball, especially in the movie, where freestyle basketball is used, Eric has no foundation at all, so he must start over. practise.

There are many scenes of playing basketball in the movie. Although Zac Efron’s performance in the previous life movie was not very good, the scenes about basketball are still remarkable, especially the use of fancy basketball in the student cafeteria丨The clip of playing Bad Boy Stan is impressive.

A week later, Eric, who had been practicing for two hours on the community basketball court, walked into the house playing freestyle basketball, and heard a rush of phone ringing in the distance.

In the past few days, Eric has been receiving calls from Michael one after another, about the publication of “Jurassic Park” and the script of “Return to Seventeen”. The publication of “Jurassic Park” went well and soon Eric could see the sample book, but Seventeen Back was not so lucky.

Although after reading the script, the film companies that received the script are very interested in the script, but after hearing that the script writer insisted on the conditions of starring as the male lead, most of the film companies directly gave up the script. This is actually quite normal. Things, no one will easily risk tens of millions of dollars in investment.

Eric even suggested that Michael should not focus on the big six film companies, but also try those second-tier film production companies.

“Hey, this is Williams’ house.” Eric picked up the phone and adjusted his shortness of breath after exercising.

“Hello, Eric, I’m Michael.”

Eric smiled calmly: “Michael, it’s almost ten o’clock in the evening, you must have good news by calling at this time, right?”

Michael on the other end of the phone couldn’t help complaining, “Don’t mention this, what the hell, I’ve called so many times since eight o’clock and you haven’t answered.”

“Oh, sorry, Michael. I play basketball at the community playground. Now

.”

“Playing basketball, wow, Eric, it seems that you are determined to win, I remember that there are indeed a lot of basketball games in the script.”

“Of course, I still say

the same thing.

.I’m not only in contact with basketball, but I also practice acting in front of the mirror for an hour every morning.”

“Eric, I admire you a little bit, very few people are willing to do so much when things are completely unremarkable. Ready. How about taking a day off tomorrow, let’s go on a date.”

Eric’s hand shook slightly, and the basketball that was spinning on his right index finger slammed to the ground, bouncing and making a few muffled sounds: “This is Is it… good news?”

“Of course, lucky guy, I got a call today from Mr. James Brooks of Twentieth Century Fox, who liked the script and didn’t reject you outright, but you had to pass the audition.

” Thank you, Michael.”

“You’re welcome,” said Michael on the opposite side with a smile: “Of course you have to understand that the other party’s acceptance of the audition is equivalent to accepting your conditions in disguise, but if you perform too badly during the audition, you can only I’m

sorry.”

“Absolutely not, I’m fully prepared.”

Eric was excited all night, and early the next morning, Eric drove to meet Michael Krause the appointed place.

“Is this the filming base of Twentieth Century Fox?” Eric looked at the huge warehouse-like studios surrounding the walls with yearning in his eyes.

Michael closed the car door, walked over, stood side by side beside Eric, looked up at the studio and said, “Yeah, it’s spectacular, right? But Warner’s studio base is more spectacular than this, um, you must have seen it before. , if you have the opportunity, you can visit the site.”

Eric thought of the familiar title from Warner’s movie, and nodded: “I will.” The

two followed a staff member to the door of an office. , the guide knocked on the door and said a few words, then invited two people in.

Seeing two people come in, two middle-aged men, a man and a woman, who were talking about something in the office stood up and greeted them.

Michael Krause stepped forward and shook hands with the two of them, and then introduced: “James, Penny, this is Eric Williams. Eric, this is the producer Mr. James Brooks, this is After the

introduction, Michael Krause said to Penny Marshall with a smile: “You may not know, Ms. Penny, a week ago, Eric also said that you may become an American filmmaker. The first female director in history to earn more than 100 million at the box office.”

Eric first shook hands with James Brooks, James just shook Eric lightly and withdrew his left hand in less than a second.

Eric keenly found that this well-known producer didn’t seem to like him very much, and after a little change of mind, he understood what was going on. For the producer who had the power in the film production process, he, the guy who recommended himself the actor, was definitely not likable. .

Without showing any inappropriate expression, Eric turned to Penny Marshall, a blond white woman in her forties with a fat body, so although she was also an actor as a director, her roles were all that.

“Hello, Ms. Penny, I like your “Flying Beyond the Future” very much.”

“Thank you for your appreciation, Eric.” Penny Marshall’s expression did not change much

.

, With the continuous release of “Flying Over the Future”, everyone knows that the box office of this film is a certainty. In the past week, the weekly box office of the film has not decreased, but has increased.

This is the fourth week of the movie’s release. Many movies are likely to be forced to go down because the attendance rate is too low.

After introducing each other, Eric discovered that both James Brooks and Penny Marshall were looking at him with scrutiny. Obviously, if the cooperation is successful, James Brooks and Penny Marshall will be “Return to Seventeen” respectively. Producer and Director.

Eric was not nervous at all, just with a confident smile on his face, he sat down on the sofa with Michael Krauss.

The pretty female assistant brought a few cups of coffee and exited the office.

James Brooks didn’t drink coffee, but crossed it on the table and said: “Eric … Mr., your movie script is really good, but I have to say that the conditions you put forward are a bit harsh. We I learned from Michael that you are just a high school student and have no acting experience. So at first we were going to reject it, but Mr. Barry Diller came across your script by chance and he liked it very much The ideas expressed in the script are specially approved for your request, of course, you must pass the most basic audition. If you pass, you will also receive short-term performance training.”

Eric nodded in agreement.

I was a little surprised, but I didn’t expect that my script was approved by Barry Diller.

He certainly knew who Barry Diller was. Former Disney president Michael Eisner and DreamWorks helm Katzenberg were once just one of Barry Diller’s assistants during his tenure at Paramount.

Barry Diller has been in Hollywood for over thirty years.

From the rise of Paramount to the prosperity of 20th Century Fox, from the film industry’s domination of the world to the structure of television networks in the United States, and the subsequent rise of network media, he has left his indelible traces.

After thinking for a few seconds, Eric didn’t realize that he was in James Brooks’s office until Michael Krause poked him gently, and James Brooks’ eyes had a hint of dissatisfaction.

From the very beginning, he was very resistant to Eric. In the process of Hollywood film production, the producer usually has the sole power, and the producer has the final say from character selection to post-editing.

Eric’s asking himself to play the male lead is no doubt taking away a part of his rightful power.

“I’m sorry, everyone, I lost my mind.” Eric quickly apologized.

“It’s okay, young man,” James said with a slight emphasis on the word young man, and then continued, “Then let’s audition before discussing other things.”

[End of this Chapter]