Chapter 286: Challenge
Chapter 286: Challenge
John Aniston circled in front of his daughter's door at another villa in Beverly Hills, wanting to knock, but eventually he turned away disappointed. On the other side of the door, Jennifer curled up on the bed, resting her chin on her knees, silently listening to the caged beast-like roar that revealed a strong ambition from the radio, her eyes not blinking, not knowing what she was thinking.
After the storm started, Elizabeth Murdoch moved directly to Los Angeles and lived with Julia after several unsuccessful disputes with her father. Although the two girls pretended not to care, when the radio on the coffee table in the living room played the tune of "New Divide" they both looked at each other. Julia silently reached out and turned off the loudest sound of the radio.
Nicole was in the kitchen making cupcakes, wearing a big headset on her head, wearing a simple shirt and jeans, and a small radio around her waist. She swayed her body gently with the music in it, holding a big bowl in her hand and stirring the ingredients in the bowl with a mixer.
Despite the incident, Nicole had some short-lived worries, but after Eric called her personally, instructing her not to make any sound for the time being, Nicole put her heart at ease and simply did whatever she needed to do. She thought to herself, how could such an awful man possibly survive, plus the confidence in his voice when he called.
Moreover, he was single now, so she thought she should take a chance, despite his awfulness.
Drew turned the volume of the home speaker connected to the radio to the highest, and the deafening sound spread across dozens of meters in the small apartment. A fat white neighbor jumped out angrily. He shouted curses out of the window towards Drew's room.
"Get lost, don't bother Grandma from listening to her music," Drew heard the fat man's angry shouts and immediately grabbed an apple from the table and threw it out, giving him the middle finger.
Faced with Drew's aggressive stance, the fat man was a bit intimidated, but soon shouted back, "Drew, don't think you're a star. If you don't lower your voice, I'll call 911 to report you for disturbing the peace."
"Go ahead and call, my dad just dropped the lawsuit, I haven't had enough of court cases yet, prepare some lawyer fees for me," Drew stuck his head out of the window and shouted, throwing another apple which hit the fat man on the head.
"You ... you're really unreasonable," the fat man said, covering his head in anger.
"How much is this so-called reason worth? Buy some for me, or get lost," Drew said.
Seeing the girl so fierce, the other neighbors who originally wanted to come forward to argue all shrunk back, intimidated. The fat man stood in his own yard and gasped for a few breaths, about to continue scolding, but suddenly noticed that Nicole had a bright red brick in her hands and was staring ferociously at him, as if she would smash it down if he talked more.
The fat man had seen the tragic pictures of the mad girl beating her own father in the newspaper, and immediately closed his mouth, stepped back and returned to his house.
Holding the brick in her hands, Drew returned to her bedroom, and the singing ceased at last.
"on- ;-day, i -- war -on -the- ……" Drew was swaying her cute little waist to the beat, and let out a cry, although her small face was flushed, due to her incomplete pitch, it sounded horrible. The song eventually ended and Matthew LaSalle, the host, spoke up again. Drew switched off the recorder and speakers, then picked up the phone on the bedside, calling the Malibou Estate.
After getting through, Drew had no trace of her previous brave stance when scolding the fat guy. She became a meek cat, with a soft voice and a hint of grievance. "Eric, I just got bullied by the neighbors again..."
In the living room at the Malibou Mansion, Eric and company made a gesture for her to wait, then said to the girl on the phone, "Thank goodness you don't bully others...Mmhmm...No problem...I understand, I understand..."
It took Eric at least ten minutes before he hung up the phone, letting out a soft sigh.
Due to the reversal of the wind direction, the four lawsuits that Eric had originally received, including the father of Drew and the scriptwriter who sued for plagiarism, were directly withdrawn. It was obvious that the forces behind the two people must have understood the current situation and knew that the deed could not be done, so they gave up their support for the two, while the lawsuit for Eric's illegal acquisition of the land at Maribou Corner was not withdrawn, but Edward also brought news that this matter would probably be over if it dragged on for a while.
As for Sony Pictures' lawsuit against the "Dark War" contract, although they were unwilling, they also knew that if they kept it up, they could delay the payment of the "Dark War" split for a while, but if they angered Eric, the sequel of "Dark War" might become distant. Such a big-selling movie, once the sequel stalled, the loss could be more than tens of millions of dollars. Therefore, the two parties also began the reconciliation process.
Of course, Eric wasn't sighing over these things, but thinking of Nicole, the little girl of Drew. After Drew's father withdrew the lawsuit, Eric called out to let her move back, but Drew refused and said she wanted to stay in Calver City with her mother. Eric knew the girl didn't want to trouble him anymore, so he patiently talked with Nicole whenever she called.
Sitting again on the sofa, Eric asked the people sitting around him, Jennifer, Nicole, Julia, and Malibou, “What were we talking about just now?”
Frustrated, Jeffrey reminded him, “The music company.”
“Oh, right,” Eric thought again. Then he said, “About the music company. Let’s go with Firefly for now. I think we can build a simple distribution channel through the release of this single. Robert, Jeffrey and I don’t know much about distribution. How about you take charge of the record company for now?”
Robert Shaye nodded with a smile, as he had already thought of this idea: "Of course, no problem, but what about the other side?"
"Let's keep cooperating," Eric said. They were talking about the major record company, and Eric's newly established label, named after his single, was just an empty shell with no distribution capabilities. Therefore, for this single release, they had to choose to cooperate with the famous major record company: "Because of The Firefly incident, I suddenly established a record company, and now several old record companies are wary of it, so we can only keep cooperating. Otherwise, we don't have a chance to develop. When we accumulate some strength in a few years, we can consider going solo."
The people in the living room laughed. There was a hint of pride in their tone, after all, it wasn't easy for a newly established music company with nothing but one single to attract the attention of the world's major record companies.
Edward looked to Edward and said, "Let's talk about UTA now. Let me give you an update on the situation."
Edward took out the information he had prepared in advance and said, "The situation is very favorable for us now. The few companies that were trying to take advantage of the situation have now abandoned their efforts, so all we need to do is follow the normal procedure for filing a lawsuit. Since the damages caused by Firefly and UTA's violation of anti-monopoly laws are minimal, the Federal Trade Commission won't likely give a harsh punishment even if a fine is imposed. All you have to do is get rid of UTA's shares as soon as possible."
Jennifer, Nicole, Julia, and Malibou are all listening intently, hoping to gain more insights on the situation.
Edward finished speaking and Eric looked towards the other side at Capwell, asking, "Capwell, what do you think now? I mean, do you want to take over UTA?"
Capwell sighed and shrugged, "Of course I do, but unfortunately I can't afford it."
Eric was silent. Since the anti-trust investigation began, the new North America's three major brokerage firm giants, CAA, WMA and, had all reported acquisition prices to him, the highest of which was 30 million US dollars. The other two also reported prices exceeding 20 million US dollars. To know that Eric bought UTA for only 1 million US dollars a year ago.
However, it is certain that the offer of such a high price must have been considered carefully. UTA now not only has a series of A-list stars such as Al. Pacino, but also has another advantage after the acquisition. Once UTA is merged, Eric's movie productions will be given priority consideration to artists, which is undoubtedly the case.
In just one year, Eric used a few movies to revive Al. Pacino and bring several unknown actors to the position of world-class superstars, which is why the three major talent agencies are willing to pay a high price for this terrifying star-making ability. Among the three major talent agencies, UTA is the one at the bottom, with the least Hollywood A-list superstars, which is why they are so eager for it.
Hearing this, Eric asked, "Let's not talk about money for now. Capwell, I just want to ask, what do you really think in your heart?"
Capwell thought for a while and said, "Eric, Marvin Josephson has already contacted me. If you don't mind me saying, I'm inclined to sell UTA to Marvin Josephson and he promised to give me a partner's position. As for the other two companies, I don't think you've considered CAA and I haven't either. WMA has been reforming and integrating over the past six months, but it's still too old and the system is still somewhat rigid."
Eric nodded in agreement. Although he wanted Capwell to have UTA by himself, it was not realistic. Not to mention that Capwell could not afford to buy the entire UTA, even if Eric gave UTA to Capwell, with the development of UTA, he still had to introduce partners and eventually develop into the model of the three major agencies. It's better to take it one step at a time. Just sell UTA directly.
Although this would completely deprive Eric of his influence on the agency, he no longer needs any influence on the agency with his current status.
"Since this is the case, let's talk and see if we can raise the price a bit," Eric said to Edward after making the decision.
Edward nodded and said he would remember.
"Alright, let's talk about wrapping things up. After a month of feeling down, we can't just let it go quietly."
Eric just finished speaking when Jeffrey softly advised, "Eric, I think letting it go quietly is the best outcome."
Eric was stunned, looking at the others. Whether it was Robert Shaye or Chris Hanson who rushed over from New York in the afternoon, they all nodded in agreement.
Eric forced a smile. "Fine, I'll listen to you guys. We won't take any substantial actions, but we should at least show some attitude, otherwise people will think they can bully me easily."
Everyone felt relieved when they heard Eric say this and all of them laughed. They had been worried that Eric would be too headstrong and try to get into a fight with the seven major movie companies, which would have been a very unwise move. It was a blessing that Firefly and Eric were able to make it through this unscathed. Now they no longer had the strength to fight back.
"Eric, what do you want to do?" Jeffrey smiled and asked.
Eric had already thought of some of the fighting strategies from his past life. When one person is surrounded by a group of people, he could make a fierce move and single out one of them to fight and beat, believing that the rest of them would be scared and not dare to provoke him again.
Eric originally chose Fox, but seeing that no one around him was willing to do such a thing, Eric had to give up.
After a while, Eric's mouth curled up into a smirk again: "Since we can't beat someone up, let's try to stir up the relationship between this person and his companions."
The people present were all smart and they soon understood Eric's meaning. At the same time, they also realized that Eric's target must be Fox, after all, the two sides had the deepest cooperation, and Firefly even held 10% of Fox's shares.
... ...
Eric's single "New-" has caused a stir in North America, and the lyrics of the song are not meaningless mumbling, but a true reflection of his experience over the past period. Therefore, the single sold more than 1 million copies in just three days, and more than 3 million in a week, undoubtedly topping various music charts and rankings.
At the same time, due to the influence of the song, Eric has received more and more public support, and he almost doesn't have to worry about this incident anymore. At the same time, several women who are close to him, under the guidance of public opinion, have also stepped out of the shadow of this incident and started to consider their work arrangements for this year.
On February 19th, another important event for Eric also happened.
On this day, Cisco went public and the initial offering price was 18 US dollars. Since there was no limit on the stock's first day of trading, the stock price of Cisco reached 22 US dollars that same day.
Although this result was not very impressive, Cisco soon experienced a series of successive limit-ups in the following period of time, and its stock price doubled within less than a month. Chris praised Eric enthusiastically over the phone with an envious tone, and asked Eric mysteriously how he had confirmed that the Cisco stock would explode. Of course, Eric could not answer it and could only chat with Chris.
At the same time, the nominations for the 62nd Academy Awards were announced in mid-February. "Scent of a Woman" was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, undoubtedly becoming the hot favorite for the Oscars. In addition, Julia was nominated as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress with "Pretty Woman" and "Steel Magnolias", which again caused a sensation in the media, because it is very rare for the Oscars to have two nominations in one year, let alone two important performance awards.
Jennifer, Nicole and Julia are all nominated for best screenplay awards for their films "Scent of a Woman", "Mystery Island" and "Dark War" respectively. Eric himself received script nominations for "Scent of a Woman" and "Mystery Island", and was initially also nominated for "Dark War", but he gave up his nomination to increase the chances of "Mystery Island" winning an award since the plot was very new and the horror film "Sixth Sense" had not yet been released. However, due to the public relations incident between Eric and the Seven, the companies responsible for the films' distribution were not keen to promote them, so Eric had to take matters into his own hands with the help of Robert Shaye, who had some experience in this area. Eric is now dealing with another issue which involves stirring up trouble between one person and his associates.
At the entrance of a famous Italian restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, a black luxury car slowly stopped in the parking lot, and the driver opened the door. Robert Murdoch walked out of the car, and as soon as he got off, flashlights lit up nearby.
Robert Murdoch laughed dryly and still adjusted his suit. Elizabeth, who came out from the other side, also went forward and held her father's arm. The two of them walked towards the restaurant.
The waiter had already recognized the two of them, and welcomed them: "Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Williams has been waiting for a while, let me take you there."
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