King of Hollywood

Chapter 263 Don't Let Me Down

"The same thing happened decades ago, when television was replacing newspapers as the new media. Compared with paper media that had to be bought on the street or delivered to the home by the newsboy, it was undoubtedly much more convenient. As long as you open it, you can know the news that can or cannot be seen in various newspapers." In the spacious office, Adrian said to Claude.

"And before the advent of television, the spread of radio has allowed newspapers to gradually adapt and adjust themselves, while the development of the Internet is far faster than television, so the impact on traditional media will be very large, right?" Crowe De smiled and said, "You have said it many times, Ed."

Adrian shrugged his shoulders, and continued without paying attention: "You and I both know that the advantage of the Internet is that the speed of transmission and the amount of information are far greater than traditional media, and the participants have gradually become ordinary people. It will also be bigger than traditional media. Think about it, what will happen if you can surf the Internet with a mobile phone in ten years? What if a mobile phone can take pictures, take high-definition photos or even videos, and then upload them to a dedicated website in the first place? "

"You started to prophesy again?" Claude raised his eyebrows, "So you let me acquire A and hold A?"

"Well...well..." Adrian suddenly showed a sly smile, "In fact, you only need a. I think their Flash software is very promising, and I thought it was developed by A at first."

"What?" Claude raised his eyebrows in surprise and disbelief.

"Don't worry, A will also have what we need in the future." Adrian added hastily.

"Oh, hell, I knew it, it was a mistake to believe you completely." Claude rolled his eyes and groaned.

"Hey, how can you talk like that, Crowe, I can often tell you that my opinion may not be completely correct, you have to use your own judgment," Adrian immediately retorted, "You just believe too blindly , yes, I admit that I was wrong, but don't you need to take part of the responsibility?"

"Are you showing off, Ed? Is that so?" Claude narrowed his eyes and stared at him with his hands crossed in front of him.

"Show off? Me?" Adrian laughed "ha", "I will use this if I want to show off, it's not a company thing."

As he spoke, he took out his wallet and threw a credit card in front of Claude.

"This is?" Claude picked it up and took a look. The overall color is black and unremarkable, but the workmanship is still exquisite and elegant.

"AmEx learned from Citibank, the latest top-level credit card just launched, the Centurion Card, which is even more noble than the Platinum Card. Applications are not accepted, and only the bank invites you to join." Adrian explained briefly.

"Oh? Is there any better service?" Claude asked.

"Unlimited credit, or the omnipotent personal assistant service," Adrian thought for a while, "I just bought a Gulfstream with it, it's really good, maybe one day I accidentally forget something on it when I take the train, such as shipping You can also call and ask them to inform the train station to drop off the things at the next stop."

The credit card he took out was naturally the legendary black card. Although he had heard all kinds of rumors about the world's top credit cards in his previous life, he only knew that was the case when he got it. The so-called unlimited credit limit is just based on If the overdraft exceeds the holder's assets, the credit card will be withdrawn. As for all-round services, this is the bank's means to attract customers, and how many are worthy of their invitation? Most have their own team of assistants.

"Stop joking, when have you been on a train?" Claude said disdainfully.

This is true. When Adrian goes out, he either drives or takes a plane. American trains can be regarded as a relatively bad form of transportation. After all, freight is far more profitable than passenger transportation, and most people prefer to travel by car.

"I'm just giving you an example. If you think it's not enough, I still have it here." Adrian said and took out another black card and handed it to Claude, "This is from Citibank, and it was sent by Express After the invitation, they immediately invited me, the competition is really fierce."

"If I also buy a Boeing 747 as my own car, they will also invite me." Claude shrugged and returned the two black cards to Adrian, "Okay, let's continue what we just said Let’s talk about it, frankly speaking, if it weren’t for the reduction in liquidity due to holding A, we would not be so fiercely competing with Bertelsmann in the ownership of Random House.”

"Again, A may not be very useful to us now, but it won't be so in the future." Adrian repeated his previous words again.

Well, he is a bit irrational, holding shares in A is mainly for Flash software, but he doesn’t know much about this, so he didn’t find out until after the acquisition of A that the development of Flash software a has not been acquired by A, so It was only then that the complete acquisition was turned into a holding and then a was pulled into the group. But A is not useless, their image processing software has always been the best in the industry, and in Adrian's plan, there are many things about this part of the website.

This is all off-topic, Claude's question about Random House is the key point. As one of the nine major publishing brands in the United States, Random House is quite famous. Although the focus of the media is on movies, TV and the Internet, But we can’t completely give up on traditional paper media, especially because our publishing company has become famous because of the agency of the “Harry Potter” series. It’s really unreasonable not to take this opportunity to expand.

But just last year, while the media took a fancy to Random House, Bertelsmann Group also took a fancy to them. The two sides fought several times around Random House. After all, Bertelsmann has a history of more than 100 years, and it is not as easy to deal with as Disney. . In addition, the media has just acquired A and controlled A, and Claude has suffered a lot from them. If he doesn't want to make a comeback, he can only give up Random House.

"Delay, you know our plan, up to a year." Adrian said, "I have asked Uncle Reggett to start preparations."

"I really don't know where your confidence comes from. Even my father can't be 100% sure." Claude sighed. "It's not easy to delay for a year. Bertelsmann is not Disney."

Immediately, Adrian gave an unexpected answer: "If it doesn't work, then just give up. It's not like we can't do without Random House. Our future lies in the Internet, and the success of "The Blair Witch" has been fully realized." It illustrates this point, and after seven or eight years, a certain topic may appear after being reported by CNN without much response, but it can be spread on the Internet but attract countless people to discuss it."

"Oh?" Claude raised his eyebrows, he knew that Adrian must have something to say.

Sure enough, Adrian smiled and changed the subject: "What do you think of Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company?"

"...I knew that you would have a big appetite." Claude laughed after a while.

Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company is one of the four major publishers in the United States. Its history of more than 100 years is comparable to that of Bertelsmann. Although Random House is good, it is still not enough compared with them. To acquire such an old-fashioned publishing company, one must either need a huge amount of funds, or undergo mergers and acquisitions. The latter is obviously not Adrian's choice, so the former... if the plan goes well, it may be really possible.

"You do see very far, Ed, although you are always unclear about the details, but when it comes to long-term planning, you are indeed very good at it." Claude said with emotion.

"Don't worry, Crowe, everything is still unknown, let's do the things in hand first." Adrian laughed.

"The Blair Witch" is still heating up. With the testimony of those who watched the film first, the discussion on this matter on the Internet has become more heated, so the number of theaters showing it has continued to rise, and the box office has naturally followed. rise. Of course, there are more and more accusations against the Maryland government day by day. Fortunately, Bosworth stood up to refute the rumors at this time.

The timing was good, the state government hadn't completely lost patience, and with the generous sponsorship—compared with the box office, it was a drop in the bucket—they didn't take it seriously. After the whole thing was announced, although some people felt fooled, more people were surprised that just such a hype could make people believe that the whole thing was true, so more people began to believe that the whole thing was true. Entered the cinema.

Although this is not unrelated to the media's secret support for the media, but there are also factors of the Americans themselves, just like a joke said, want to make money from the Americans? Just try to underestimate their IQ.

In the end, "The Blair Witch" earned a box office of 270 million worldwide, and Bosworth's hype methods were also included in the annals of film history, becoming the content that every film company must study, but this is in no way comparable to The film companies under the Shanghai Media Group have been repeatedly emphasized by Adrian from the very beginning.

Well, this is all something later, and now this low-cost movie is only starting to work, and Adrian is in the conference room greeting a crew that is about to start shooting.

"Everyone may be a little surprised, why such a movie with a medium investment, let me personally invite you to talk, the reason is very simple, the original novel of this movie adapted from a game was co-written by me and others." At the top of the table, Adrian looked at the screenwriters, actors and directors in front of him and said with a smile.

The actor Dennis Knight who played the fourth survivor "Death" Hank, River Phoenix who played Leon S. Kennedy, Sarah who played Claire Redfield, Love who played Jill Valentine and Lin Chiling, who plays Ada Wang, is right, the movie version of "Resident Evil" that has been in preparation for a long time is finally about to start.

Of course, apart from Dennis as the heroine, among the other actors who play game characters, only Lin Chiling's Ada Wang has more roles. After all, from the very beginning, the movie version has been established as a supplement and development of the game version, as well as It can be written as an independent story. Although each game character has appeared, there are not many scenes. What will happen in the future will have to wait and see how movie fans and game fans feel about the movie.

That's why Adrian decided to move Rui Fan to play the role of Leon. He wanted Aniston to play Jill at first. The husband and wife gimmick is quite interesting. But after Sarah agreed to play Claire, she also recommended her "puppy" to play Jill, and Adrian would naturally not refuse, so this plan can only be shelved temporarily, but it doesn't matter, there will be opportunities in the future.

"I suddenly came up with a very good idea. It will be very interesting for the two of you to act together as a husband and wife. But it will take a few more years for Jane to establish her image as an action star in movies." In the newlyweds When Dennis and Aniston of Yaner rushed back to Los Angeles from their honeymoon and were preparing to attend the meeting of "Resident Evil", Adrian said this to the couple.

Aniston's images of the female policeman in "Broken Arrow" and the female hacker in "The Matrix" have aroused quite a good response among movie fans, whether it is the heroic image in "Broken Arrow" or the image of the female hacker in "The Matrix". The plot of sacrificing to cover Trinity and Neo has won the affirmation of the vast majority of fans after those quarrels, and many filmmakers have begun to consider her action image.

But the influence of "Friends" is huge, and Rachel Green, who is innocent and cute and a little silly, is always more acceptable, so Aniston's action image is still not stable. Although Adrian can come up with that script, it's not the best time right now, so it's better to postpone it for a while.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was very harmonious. Most of the people heard that the director of Miracle had co-written a novel with others for the first time, so they had to ask a few questions about it, and then sparked other people to exchange pleasantries.

"The novel was written about seven or eight years ago. At that time, many interesting ideas always came out of my head inadvertently, so I often took a pen to record those flashes of inspiration. Some ideas are very suitable for writing novels, "Resident Evil" "That's it, a completely different framework inspired by Dawn of the Dead. But there was always a lot to do at that time, I only wrote the outline and some fragments, so I just asked people to co-write..." Adrian While explaining her motives, An observed the crowd silently.

The director Brooke Hamel is about ten years old, and he has directed several commercial films with moderate investment. Among several directors, Adrian feels that his style is closer to the game and his own ideas, so He was selected. At this moment, he was talking with two screenwriters. One of them was a signed screenwriter of the company and the other was from the game department. They both talked well with each other. With Adrian mediating from time to time, the script was pretty good.

Dennis and Rui Fan chatted a few words from time to time. They had cooperated in Fincher's "Fight Club" last year, and they both had a close relationship with Adrian, and they got along very well with each other. But Adrian's attention is not on this. "Fight Club" will be released in about next month, and he wants to know how Aniston will feel about Winona playing a supporting actress.

On the other side, Sarah and Love had an intimate conversation, which seemed to be similar to what the media said. The two were good sisters, but Adrian could see the reluctance in Love's smile. Sarah probably vented all the dark side of her heart on Love, and made this woman submissive, even if she felt resentful, she did not dare to resist, otherwise Adrian would not secretly call Love "Sarah's Puppy".

Of course, this has nothing to do with Adrian's red face next to him. "Death is Coming" starring Love will be released soon, and Adrian also said that if she wants, the record company can release her an album to try. water.

As for Lin Chiling, it was her first time to participate in such a meeting, and basically she didn't know anyone, but her manager came with her today, so she could say a few words, instead of just sitting there and doing nothing. Her agent is also surnamed Lin and also from Taiwan. She came to Los Angeles with her family when she was ten years old. She majored in economics and comparative literature at the University of California. After sending and receiving work, Adrian took a fancy to him and acted as Lin Chiling's agent.

Her English name is Kelly, the same name as Hu Kaili, and her Chinese name is Lin Xilei.

"Okay, let's call it a day. You guys have already read the script, and I hope you can see a wonderful movie." Seeing that the time is almost up, everything that needs to be said has been said, and everyone's status is also clear. Yes, Adrian got up immediately to announce the end. Of course, it was necessary to say goodbye to the familiar people one by one.

"Will you take Jenny to see "Fight Club", Dan?" This was said to Dennis, the other party rolled his eyes helplessly, and Rui Fan who was walking in front laughed lowly.

"Don't think it's a cameo nature, so you don't have to work hard." This was said to Sarah, and she grimaced in return, and then pulled Love away tightly, not giving her a chance to please Adrian.

"Don't let me down, Ling." This was addressed to Lin Chiling, and she was speaking in Chinese. She nodded immediately, and her smile was still very charming even though she was in the conference room.

But to the surprise of many people, Adrian kept Xilei Lin behind: "Wait a minute, Kelly."

This has attracted a lot of attention. As Lin Chiling's manager, Lin Xilei seems to have nothing to do with the producer. What is she staying for? However, these gazes were basically clear, so they didn't take it to heart, but Lin Chiling's expression was a little bit jealous.

"I heard that you were not happy with Ling before?" Adrian said after seeing Lin Xilei a little nervously.

Although she didn't understand why the other party asked this question, facing such a tycoon, Lin Xilei nodded honestly, and then wanted to explain, but Adrian rushed ahead of her and continued: "I know it's Ling's problem, However, you are not qualified as an agent."

"I asked you to act as Ling's agent."

"If you have any conflicts, you can go straight to your supervisor, or even Michael Ovitz - I told him - instead of arguing with the client."

"What I need is an agent who can take good care of Asian actors for the company."

"I have someone more important who intends to put you in charge if you meet my requirements."

"Don't let me down."\u003c/p\u003e