I’m in Hollywood - Chapter 697

[Chapter six hundred and ninety first for a little money]

San Diego, where Qualcomm’s headquarters is located, is in southern California, less than two hours’ drive from Los Angeles, making it very convenient to travel.

After Eric expressed his intention to take a stake in Qualcomm to Owen Jacobs, the two parties started close negotiations.

In Eric’s office in Firefly Studios, Kelly, who had just returned from San Diego, handed over a memo to Eric, saying: “Chris will also discuss with several important shareholders of Qualcomm in the afternoon. Just came back, this is the result of our negotiation in the morning, Qualcomm’s board of directors is only willing to accept half of our proposed capital injection, but their attitude is not so firm, it should only be a matter of time before a deal is finally reached.”

Eric opened Kelly and handed it over The memorandum said: “Since the official contact has begun, this matter must not be hidden for too long. If it drags on for a long time, some changes will inevitably occur. All I care about is the time issue. Let’s take a week. It

will be determined within the next week.”

Kelly said: “Eric, if we compress the negotiation into one week, we will definitely be passive.”

Eric shook his head and said, “This matter cannot be rushed. We will become passive only if we have a quick decision and attract too many people’s attention. You will continue to go to San Diego tomorrow and explain the benefits to Qualcomm. At-t has just obtained the spectrum license and announced gsm as its technical standard. Several operators who have obtained spectrum licenses will not hesitate for too long, and if they miss the best time to lobby for DMA because of their hesitation, we will not hesitate to give up the deal, so, only one week.”

Once the news of Firefly’s attempt to take a stake in Qualcomm spreads.

Not only will the stock price skyrocket.

It may also lead to follow-up.

after all.

Firefly’s investments in companies such as Cisco, America Online, Yahoo, and Nokia in recent years have now achieved very rich returns, and the capital market has already begun to pay close attention to Firefly’s investment trends.

If the negotiations drag on for too long, and another company interested in Qualcomm suddenly pops up in the process, that’s the biggest trouble.

Kelly thought for a moment, then nodded: “Okay, I’ll prepare.”

Eric read the memo, discussed some precautions with Kelly, and picked up a thick package on the desk.

He got up and said, “The Wachowski brothers will be here soon, so come along too.”

Kelly followed, surprised, “Eric, do you really plan to let them direct The Matrix?”

Eric Said: “It hasn’t been decided yet, let’s see first.”

“I always feel that this is a bit too… outrageous, they are just two little-known screenwriters.”

Eric smiled: “I You used to be just a little-known screenwriter.”

Kelly said: “But you didn’t direct a movie with such a huge budget from the

beginning. The original budget of “Home Alone” was only one million, and then there was “Fengyue”. Pretty Woman, Home Alone 2, Dark War and Ghosts, you didn’t start trying to make big movies until the sixth Tornado.”

Eric explained: “At that time I’m relatively timid, if I directly make a big project with an investment of more than 100 million yuan. If the box office fails, I will definitely not be who I am now.”

Kelly is still a little puzzled. Look, he has always been a very rational person, but this time his behavior seems a bit unreasonable.

Because of the great success of “Jurassic Park”, Firefly has great expectations for Eric’s film adaptation of “The Matrix”, and the production budget is directly opened to 100 million US dollars.

Katzenberg and others actually hope that Eric can continue to direct in person, but Eric has become interested in two new Hollywood rookies who have not even directed a work, which is really puzzling.

It was still the small restaurant near the administrative building where Eric often had lunch. As soon as he entered the door, the two brothers who were already waiting in the restaurant stood up, accompanied by a studio employee.

Eric sent the employee who was in charge of the escort to leave, and sat down with Kelly opposite the Wachowski brothers, looking at the Wachowski brothers who were still men at this time, Eric inexplicably had a weird feeling. It feels that, perhaps because of cultural differences, it is difficult for Eric to understand the thinking of transgender people.

Feeling Eric’s gaze, Larry Wachowski, who looks thin and wears glasses but is actually his brother, looked at the package that Eric put on the table and said, “Mr. Williams, may I ask you? What do you think of our vision for The Matrix?”

Eric put away his inexplicable thoughts, took out the sub-shot draft in the package, and said, “You can call me Eric, I think the bullet time in your draft is about bullet time. The idea of and the 360-degree rotating lens is very cool. However, I feel that you have not completely adapted my novel, but there is no detailed script in these drawings. You can talk about your specific thoughts on the plot first. In

order to avoid the collision of thinking, the novel version of “The Matrix” written by Eric did not follow the route of the movie version in memory, nor did he have deep philosophical thinking, except for the name and main line concept, but mainly the male protagonist. The story of Neo, who unexpectedly discovered that he was living in an illusion, and returned to reality with his friends against the mother body.

Hearing Eric’s question, Larry Wachowski said: “Eric, in fact, Andy and I have had similar ideas before, but it’s just been some scattered ideas, It wasn’t until we saw your novel that we decided to script our story, so the storyboard you saw was drawn by Andy and I combined with your novel and some of our own ideas. We feel , Compared with the novel version, such a story should be able to carry out deeper excavation and exploration, about reality and unreal, about the origin of life, etc., and should not be just a science fiction novel.”

Eric nodded and said

: “Then, completely put aside my story and talk about your idea?”

“Of course there is no problem,” Larry Wachowski said: “Our idea is this, in the illusion created by the matrix. O should be a programmer proficient in hacking. One day. A mysterious person suddenly contacted him…”

The Wachowskis began to talk about their story ideas with great interest, and Eric interjected a few words from time to time, and unconsciously, even Kelly was gradually drawn into the discussion.

It was not until two o’clock in the afternoon that several people thought of having lunch and simply filling their stomachs. Eric began to ask the Wachowskis about the specific shooting ideas, and the discussion continued until the evening.

The Wachowskis just left Firefly Studios.

Eric asked the waiter to remove the coffee from the table, ordered dinner by the way, and then asked Kelly next to him: “What do you think of them?”

Kelly thought about it and said, “Two very thoughtful people. , However, if it is shot according to their ideas, this film is likely to be a little… obscure. If it is made into a low-cost ult film, it may become a classic. But as a big production with an investment of hundreds of millions, the box office is very good. Hard to guarantee.”

Eric nodded.

The female assistant’s eyes are still very keen.

In the original time and space, in order to pull the investment in “The Matrix”.

The Wachowski brothers are still very restrained in the script, combining the philosophical thinking and commercial elements they want to express, so the audience sees a cool science fiction blockbuster without lack of connotation.

The first “The Matrix” came out, and it immediately caused a sensation. Not only did it have a double harvest at the box office, but it also made the originally unknown Wachowski brothers become first-line Hollywood directors.

Hollywood has a very simple and crude rule that as long as you can make a blockbuster movie for a studio, you can get everything you want.

As a result, after the success of the first film, the two brothers became Hollywood’s first-line directors and gained full control over the production of the sequel. Warner, the producer, also refused to accept the requirements of the two brothers. Therefore, the two brothers He began to add his own ideas to the film without restraint. The sequel used unbridled special effects while the plot became dark and obscure. The disastrous consequence of this extreme incongruity was that fans were anxiously waiting for four years. After that, I finally saw two dog-tailed sequels. After the second “Reloaded” had basically exhausted the reputation of the series, fans directly swayed their disappointment on the third part, which should have been The end of the series’ peak has been reduced to the worst box office and word of mouth of the entire series.

Recalling these things, Eric said to the female assistant: “I will personally check the script, and I will definitely not let them mess around as they want.”

“Eric, but they don’t have any directing experience after all. According to the periodic table of film production, if all goes well, “The Matrix” will take about three months of filming and the same four months of post-production, and about three months of preparatory work, which may add up to less than a year. We still have a year and a half until next year’s summer vacation. In the future, the announcement can be carried out at the same time as the later stage. If the time card is tighter, maybe they can use this half year to direct a low-cost film to exercise.”

Eric Nodding: “This is a good idea, um, a year and a half… er, a year and a half, eighteen months, six months, 1995, 1997…”

Kelly saw Eric talking , his face changed suddenly and continuously, he muttered strangely to himself, and stood up worried: “Eric, what’s wrong with you?”

Eric calmed down, smiled reluctantly, reached out and patted Kelly on his shoulder He put

his hand on Eric and said, “I’m fine, I just thought of something.”

“Why is it okay?” Kelly was still a little worried, and put the back of her hand on Eric’s forehead, except for some fine sweat, she didn’t feel anything. strange.

Eric smiled and grabbed the female assistant’s little hand and put it on his lips and kissed it, “It’s really okay, it just suddenly occurred to me that I might have overlooked something.”

Kelly was kissed by Eric on the back of the hand, Feeling the surprised gaze of the waiter not far away, he withdrew his little hand with a blushing face and sat down again, but he forgot to ask Eric why he had lost his temper just now.

Eric’s expression quickly returned to normal, but he did not let go of the thoughts just now.

Because of Kelly’s inadvertent reminder, Eric suddenly thought of the production cycle of “Titanic”. In the original time and space, after “Titanic” created a box office miracle, many production details were picked up by the media.

Eric clearly remembers that the “Titanic” in the original time and space began preparations in the second half of 1995, and officially began shooting in 1996.

Fox had planned to release it in the summer of 1997.

As a result, Cameron dragged the production cycle again and again.

It was finally delayed until the end of 1997 to be released, and the entire production cycle was nearly two years.

Although the production budget of 150 million US dollars was approved for “Titanic” at the beginning, Eric was already mentally prepared that Cameron would definitely overspend, as long as he could bring the same classic as the original time and space, Eric didn’t mind Cameron pushing his budget to $200 million again.

But he inadvertently overlooked that Cameron would not only overrun the budget, but also overrun the production.

Because of the auction of Disney’s hand-drawn animation department last year, Firefly will have a break in the annual animation film next summer.

If “Titanic” can’t be released as scheduled, the 1996 Firefly summer file may only be left with “The Matrix”.

In the past few years, the profits created by several major films of Firefly’s summer program have accounted for about half of the annual film business profits, which shows the importance of the summer program to Firefly’s film business department.

If next year’s summer movie upload scale suddenly shrinks to one-third of the previous size, the Firefly Group’s movie business will inevitably be greatly affected.

This kind of thing, staring at Cameron will definitely have no effect, and it will only make him roar a little higher on the set in the end.

Eric quickly made up his mind, it is better to prepare in advance.

And, luckily, it’s only early 1995.

If I realize this again in the second half of the year, I want to prepare a film that can carry the summer of 1996.

It’s definitely running out of time.

…

The director of “The Matrix” was chosen by Eric himself, and the Wachowski brothers were quickly determined.

Eric also, according to Kelly’s suggestion, asked the Wachowskis to shoot a low-budget film in advance to hone their directing skills during the preparatory stage of “The Matrix”.

The Wachowski brothers are screenwriters, and they happen to have a script called “Amazing Flowers” written by themselves, but the script has been sold to an independent production company affiliated with Warner. With the coordination and Firefly agreeing to co-invest, Warner readily agreed to hand over the directorship to the Wachowskis.

Negotiations with Qualcomm continued, and the news inevitably leaked out in the next few days. Several major telecom operators expressed their close attention, and even high-level at-t called through Warren Buffett to ask Ai Rui. Gram’s intentions.

Although Qualcomm’s stock price also skyrocketed, under the tough attitude of Firefly, Qualcomm shareholders and the board of directors began to compromise step by step.

Hollywood, the Golden Globes are coming.

Eric paid little attention to this matter. In order to avoid the delay of Cameron’s “Titanic”, which caused no films to be released next summer, Eric began to be busy with the selection of the script.

“Mr. Williams, the story goes like this, a Marine Corps officer led his subordinates to seize a batch of gas bombs because he was dissatisfied with the attitude of the US government to the fallen soldiers, and hijacked them on a prison island that had been turned into a tourist attraction. A group of tourists were taken as hostages, in order to threaten the US government to pay a ransom of 100 million US dollars to compensate the fallen soldiers. The abandoned prison was once called ‘Alcatraz’ and was famous for its strict guards. During the process of rescuing the hostages, forced to discover A former British agent is the only criminal who has successfully escaped from Alcatraz Island, so he forces the executive to deceive the agent that he will be **** by the US government, on the premise of leading special forces into Alcatraz to save the hostages… ”

Firefly Studios, in Eric’s office, a thin middle-aged man narrated his script concept to Eric, and made some gestures from time to time. Eric listened quietly and sat on the other side. Jerry Bruckheimer kept nodding his head, waiting for the middle-aged man to finish his narration, and said, “Eric, how about this idea of David? It’s great, right?”

Eric smiled noncommittally, and said to the thin middle-aged man: “Mr. Weisberg, go back first, if there is a result, someone will notify you.” The

thin middle-aged man looked at Jerry Bruckheimer said to Eric reluctantly: “Mr. Williams, you can imagine that the role of the old British agent is played by Sean Connery, and the first 007 played the British agent, which is full of gimmicks. That chemist can be handed over to Nicolas Cage, and the director chose John Wu, whose directing style is perfect for the script. Make it on this cast. The movie will definitely sell. And…”

Eric There was still no indication, but Jerry Bruckheimer frowned impatiently and said, “David, listen to Eric, you go back first, I will call you in the afternoon.”

David Weisber Grid felt Jerry Bruckheimer’s displeasure and did not dare to entangle any more, and got up and left the office honestly.

Wait for the office door to close.

Jerry Bruckheimer said to Eric: “Eric, can you tell me what you think now?”

“Jerry,” Eric spread his hands and smiled, “You know my rules. , I don’t want the incident of the original “Cutthroat Island” script to happen again.”

Knowing that Eric was seeking the script, in just a few days, Firefly received a large number of scripts delivered by the script agent.

However, learning from the past lessons, in order to send the script to Eric, the owner of the script needs to sign a strict intention contract with Firefly first.

After confirming that Eric chooses the script, the screenwriter will not sell the script to other film companies for profit.

today.

Jerry Bruckheimer suddenly came to the door excitedly with a screenwriter, saying that he had a good idea to recommend to him, so the situation just now happened.

Jerry Bruckheimer said: “Of course I know, and I also think that that incident was originally the hole you dug for Michael Eisner, am I right?”

Eric shrugged, Even if everyone guessed it, he wouldn’t admit it.

Jerry Bruckheimer smiled knowingly and then explained: “I’ve already bought the script, so let’s put it down. As long as Firefly agrees to invest, everything else will be fine.”

“Jerry, you guys seem to be fine. I have overlooked a problem. Until now, I still don’t know the name of the script.”

“Well, I ignored it, but the movie name is often undecided at the script stage. Of course, David has given this The story has a name called “Brave to the Dead Island”.”

“Okay, “Brave to the Dead Island”,” Eric read it again, and smiled: “That, David Weisberg I just said, Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, John Wu, oh, and you, the gold medal producer, in this case, have you calculated the film budget?”

Eric didn’t know the original time and space How much did Sean Connery get paid in “Brave Island”, but he just happened to know that Sean Connery got his first 2000 in the subsequent “Trap of the Sky” The salary of 10,000 yuan, even if it is lower now, will not be too much lower.

Cage’s current salary is also around 15 million US dollars. John Wu has experienced three big-selling films, and the director’s salary is also no less than 10 million US dollars. Jerry Bruckheimer, a gold medal producer, must have no 10 million. Certainly not.

Then, this film is just the main creator salary, and it will not be less than 50 million.

Jerry Bruckheimer pondered for a moment and said, “Eric, the starring cost of this film is a bit higher, but the film doesn’t have many special effects and big scenes, so the budget should be able to be controlled within 80 million. ”

Eric doesn’t know how much box office “Brave Island” got in his previous life, but this film was the first batch of imported films in China at that time, and it will definitely not be too bad at the box office in North America and the world.

Knocking on the armrest of the seat and thinking for a moment, Eric nodded and said, “Okay, Jerry, only 80 million, and you know, Firefly doesn’t have the habit of signing remuneration bonus agreements, so the 80 million is all the producers. expenditure.”

When Jerry Bruckheimer reported this budget, he actually raised it a bit. According to his estimate, the film could be completed at about $75 million.

Eric is not like the executives of the film companies he has worked with. UU Reading www.sonicmtl.com deliberately took out a main creator or compressed the budget of 10 to 20 million to cause problems for the producers, which also made him feel very comfortable, so he felt very comfortable. Nodding: “No problem, Eric, I’m quite familiar with Sean Connery, and I can help convince him to join this project. For Cage and John Wu, you’d better come out and say hello in person. The

two discussed the project in detail, Jerry Bruckheimer was about to leave, Eric joked: “Jerry, in the last few days, everyone who enters this office will leave a script idea or two. Aren’t you going to leave like this?”

Jerry Bruckheimer laughed, remembering that he didn’t have anything urgent to leave, Eric said so, then sat down again, and said casually with his legs crossed: “I really have a script here, but it’s a bit old-fashioned. It’s a crime action movie that imitates the two male protagonists of “Lethal Weapon”. I originally planned to sell it to Colombia for a little money, but the budget was not high. Only 19 million, are you interested in listening?”

Eric narrowed his eyes slightly, his smile unchanged, and said, “Oh, what’s the name of the script

?

”

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[End of this Chapter]