Chapter 54
The conference room's door was pushed open, and Jeffrey Hanson and Kapoor came in. Once they saw Eric's gloomy face, they knew things had gone haywire.
Kapoor was certain this was related to him, otherwise there was no way Richard Gere would reject Eric's offer.
"Eric, it's better if I quit after all. I can just go to Europe. Although, their movie industry is in recession, it won't be hard for me to find a job with my abilities."
Eric rubbed his somewhat stiff cheek, and said: "No, I will not make any compromises, just do what you're supposed to do without minding the rest, Kapoor. Right, I wanted you to manage Julia, so what do you think of her ?"
"I specifically went to see Ms. Roberts' Mystic Pizza, and also met with her to talk for a short while, but to be honest with you Eric, I'm not optimistic about her potential. The girl has only had short-term performance training, and whether it be her acting or her appearance, they are both average…."
Kapoor's tone was low and slow as he looked at Eric's face from time to time. He knew that Julia was recommended by him, and judging by the tabloids' gossips, the relationship between the two couldn't be ordinary. He was afraid that, if he was too blunt, the youth would be angered.
However, once Kapoor finished, Eric nodded in agreement: "Right, I think so too."
"Then why are you letting her star as a lead ?" Jeffrey asked, he had always wanted Eric to change her to a more famous actress.
"Hm, should I say intuition ? That in the future Julia's fame will blow up, that she'll pile up awards and become famous throughout the world…." Eric hadn't even finished that Jeffrey and Kapoor looked ready to call the loony squad on him.
Eric smiled: "Alright, just joking. For Pretty Woman, although the female lead needs to be beautiful, it can't be at the level of destroying nations, and so Julia seems like the perfect fit to me. If the female lead is too much of a beauty, the audience will easily focus on her face and ignore the majority of the plot. In the future, when people watch the movie, they'll only think about the 'pretty face' that starred in it, and it will be counted as a failure."
Jeffrey and Kapoor had already read the Pretty Woman's script, and listening to Eric's analysis, they couldn't help but agree that the youth had a point.
"Now, the most important thing is to cast a male lead." Eric looked at the two men before saying: "Although I really wanted Richard Gere, since the other party refused, we'll have to choose someone else. Do you have any suggestions ?"
"How about Michael Douglas ?" Jeffrey took the lead and suggested: "He played a stock market's tycoon in last year's Wall Street, the image he gave off then seems quite similar to the one Edward's gives off in Pretty Woman."
Eric was in the middle of reminiscing about Wall Street when he heard Kapoor softly caution: "Eric, Michael Douglas is a signed artist of the CAA."
The three of them stayed silent, before Eric said: "Kapoor, you are the professional here, so you do it. Sort a list of actors that would suit Edward's image and set up auditions as soon as possible, our time is tight."
Kapoor acquiesced: "No problem, if there's nothing else, then I'll get to it right away." At Eric's nod, the man hurriedly left the conference room.
Glancing at the disappearing figure of Kapoor, Jeffrey softly sighed: "Eric, do you think this is worth it ?"
"You mean about Kapoor and the CAA's stuff ?"
Jeffrey simply nodded.
"It's not about it being worth it or not, Jeffrey, I'm different from other people, you'll understand in the future. Perhaps other movie companies will fear giants like the CAA, but I won't, I don't need to."
"I don't understand where you get that self-confidence from." Jeffrey shook his head: "Right, Eric, you mentioned you wanted a sports car sponsorship for the movie, so I contacted the headquarters of Ferrari based in Los Angeles like you asked, and they were okay with providing us a free sports car until they learned that the film dealt with prostitution. Now they're still hesitating but I suppose we should look for another brand, what do you think ?"
"Let's do that." While he liked Ferrari, if the other party didn't want to grab on this promotional opportunity, he wouldn't insist. Think back to Jeffrey's words, Eric suddenly asked: "Jeffrey, you said that the other party had promised to provide us with a free sports car for the shooting ?"
Jeffrey was confused for a moment, he carefully recalled what he had said for a moment and nodded his head.
"What about the money ?"
Jeffrey said: "Eric, with your fame, looking for a sports car brand who will provide a car for free is an easy thing to do, there's no need to mention money."
"I mean…." Eric waved his right hand in a slightly annoyed manner: "You didn't ask them for a fee ?"
Jeffrey was startled and said: "How is that possible ?"
Eric thought that this was common sense, but looking at Jeffrey's reaction, it was clear that this type of advertising concept hadn't been implanted yet. In his past, the industry of product placement had crossed the 20 billion $ a year scale.
"Jeffrey, you think about it for a minute. According to the script, the sports car appears a lot in the first twenty minutes, and even the female lead keeps describing its performance, which is equivalent to a two minutes car ad. If the movie gets a box office of 100 million $ in North America, it's equivalent to 10 million people having seen the advertisement, then adding the number of people who will see it in theaters around the world, and when it'll be released on tape, this number will keep on growing. Ten years or even twenty years later, every time people will watch the movie, they'll get to see the 'ad' again. It's even more efficient than straightforward advertising, you know ?"
Jeffrey thoughtfully nodded.
"Then get your head straight, and when you go seek sponsors again, keep in mind that the sponsorship fee can't be under 1 million $."
"Eric, one million is not a little sum, what if the movie's box office turns out to be bad…."
Eric said: "That's easy to solve, both parties agree to a box office figure, and if we can't live up to it, we'll return part of the fee."
Jeffrey added: "What if the box office exceeds the agreed figure ?"
Eric felt this old man was really too long-winded, he exasperatedly said: "Jeffrey, can't you just deal with this as the producer ? I'm seriously busy, so can you please not add to my worries ?"
At this time, an employee knocked on the office's door: "Mr. Williams, the costume that was customized according to your drawings has been sent over, would you like to take look at it yourself ?"
"Yes, I'll be right there, you get Julia to put it on first." Eric chatted some more with Jeffrey, then said: "Let's go, let's see how it will look on Julia."
Getting out of the soundproofed conference room, they could hear the faint knocking sounds of the people who were still working on the renovations.
They came inside a thirty square meters audition room, and Julia was already wearing the classic Pretty Woman's attire: white vest, blue skirt, black boots and red coat. Eric looked at her then frowned: "Where's the wig ? I remember specifically asking for it before."
"It's in the locker room, do I have to put it on now ?" Julia asked.
Eric waved his hand: "Yeah, hurry up and change, we'll take some pictures."
Julia dutifully walked into the locker room, followed by an assistant named Alison that the agency was sensible enough to provide for her.
Soon, Julia walked out again wearing, not only a blonde wig, but also a black cap.
She had just appeared in the audition room that everyone's eyes opened wide.
Under the effects of the wig, Julia's transformation was startling; if it was said that she was usually a 6, right now, she was at least an 8.
Eric still felt that something was missing, but he still told the photographer to start taking pictures.
After it was done, he said: "You guys leave us for a bit, I need to talk to Julia."
Several staff members as well as Jeffrey got up and left.
Once everyone was out, Julia somewhat anxiously clutched the hem of her vest as she asked: "Eric, is there something you'd like to say ? You've been frowning for a while…."
Julia Roberts felt like what was happening to her these days was surreal. When she had slept with Eric and been coaxed by him, she had really been hopeful.
Then, one week past without any further contact from him, and just when she couldn't help but lament at her stupidity and realize that Eric was no different from those other self-righteous guys, her phone suddenly rang. She had then hurried to the agency to sign a contract, and once she was done, Eric had thrown a script in front of her and declared: "The female lead role is yours, don't let me down."
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