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Although he was very dissatisfied with Jonathan's active intensification of the conflict, but now that things have developed, Lou Weiss has to stand firmly on the side of his direct line, otherwise, Jonathan Friedman will be suppressed, and Lou Weiss Weiss himself is also likely to be implicated.

The two were allowed to quarrel all morning.It was at lunch time that Lou Weiss took the initiative to mediate and discuss the solution of the matter with several other board members.

Jonathan has not announced his decision to abandon the "Butterfly Effect" packaging project for the time being, so there is room for maneuver.

After lunch, the other members of the board of directors left separately, and Lou Weiss also announced the results of the preliminary discussions to the two of them.

Regardless, The Butterfly Effect package must continue.However, Lou Weiss will personally take over the project and re-discuss the cooperation plan with the film company.In addition, both Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman need to let go of this matter completely.All subsequent arrangements for the project are directly decided by the headquarters.

Now that the matter has developed, Norman Broca knows that it will not do him any good to continue to make trouble.Jonathan Friedman also managed to shake off the hot potato while keeping his job.

So, although both of them were very unwilling on the surface, they both agreed.

However, there are always too many unexpected changes in this world.

Early the next morning, before Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman had time to return to Los Angeles, they saw a piece of news from the latest issue of "Hollywood Reporter" that caught everyone off guard. .

The "Hollywood Reporter" did not know where it got the news, and suddenly revealed all the recent events.

"The failure of the packaging project led to internal fighting in the company, and the transformation of the old agency giant encountered difficulties"

The continuous turmoil in the first half of the year has not completely dissipated, and the sudden revelation of the "Hollywood Reporter" suddenly plunged WMA into chaos again.

Chapter 020

In the headline article of the "Hollywood Reporter", the media's account of the WMA package event even went into many specific details.

The whole report started from Jonathan Friedman's initiation of the packaging project, including the process of several major Hollywood studios attempting to boycott WMA out of fear of WMA's shift to a packaging operation strategy, until finally Jonathan Friedman was dissatisfied with the promise Man Broca's compromise, the uneven distribution of project benefits, and a complete fallout with his immediate boss, etc., are a series of causes and consequences, as if he had experienced the whole thing himself.

In fact, it is obviously impossible for this article to come from other sources other than internal disclosures.

The factions within the WMA are almost everyone knows.

The disclosure of this infighting scandal will have an immeasurable negative impact on WMA, but at the same time, if President Norman Broca and Vice President Jonathan Friedman are unlucky because of this, many people can benefit from it. beneficial.

After all, even between Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman, there are still seven vice presidents waiting to go further.There are countless other WMA agents who are still struggling to climb up.

Any one of these people has enough reasons to do this.

In the face of the sudden breaking news article by The Hollywood Reporter, there was no time to investigate who leaked the dispute, so the WMA management had to start dealing with the influx of media inquiries.

On the morning when the "Hollywood Reporter" article was published, in an interview with the "Los Angeles Times" reporter in New York, WMA Chairman Lou Weiss firmly denied all the contents of the "Hollywood Reporter" broke the news, and also revealed that WMA has reached a preliminary agreement with Fox Films, and the company's first packaged project has not failed, and high-level infighting naturally does not exist.

However, when the media turned to Fox Films for verification, the President of Fox Films, Ronald Goldberg, responded ambiguously, neither admitting nor denying it, but told reporters that the company was still in contact with WMA, and it was not convenient to disclose Details.

This is actually the result of urgent consultations between WMA and Fox executives.

Fox Pictures violated the tacit agreement reached with several other major film companies and privately tried to win "The Butterfly Effect". After this matter was picked up, it made Fox management very embarrassed in front of their peers.But Ronald Goldberg understands better that if the complete denial of the whole thing at this time makes WMA unable to step down, WMA will not make it easy for Fox in the future.

In addition to persuading Fox to cooperate with him in the double reed, the WMA executives also contacted Taiqi Cassel, the major shareholder behind the "Hollywood Reporter" in private. The promise of news.

Tossing all day, the WMA originally thought it had successfully dragged the whole thing back to the room for change.

The next day, another revelation was published again.

The whistleblower obviously did enough homework, because the article actually shifted its position, bypassing the "Hollywood Reporter" that was managed by WMA, and published it on another Hollywood newspaper "Daily Variety".

"Daily Variety Show" is a daily newspaper under the Variety Show Company, and together with the weekly "Variety Show" magazine, it constitutes the two major paper media platforms of the Variety Show Company.In fact, the "Hollywood Reporter" also distinguishes between a daily newspaper and a weekly magazine, but it doesn't have another name like a variety show.

The breaking news of "Daily Variety" is more detailed, and even involves WMA President Norman Broca's "compromise" with Fox's packaging plan.

It highlights Matthew Broderick's $500 million salary contract and the stingy buyout agreement that the screenwriter of the project script "Butterfly Effect" got, and pointed out that these two agreements were the reason why Norman The fuse of the conflict between Broca and Jonathan Friedman.

As "Daily Variety" broke the news again, many daily newspapers and media including the "Los Angeles Times" also began to pay attention to this matter, and the situation has a faint tendency to continue to expand.

Faced with this situation, WMA and Fox have to bite the bullet and continue to deny many news in the media.

However, everyone also knows that in order to avoid greater twists and turns, it is imminent to take strong measures to quickly and thoroughly resolve this disturbance.

So until April 7th.

on Monday.

After a hectic weekend, WMA Chairman Lou Weiss and CEO Lee Stevens also came to the West Coast, following Norman Broca, who returned to Los Angeles early to stabilize the situation.

At nine o'clock in the morning, at the WMA headquarters on Camino Street, there were only four people sitting in the spacious meeting room, which were the two bigwigs who came from the east coast and the two parties involved in the whole matter.

"Yesterday in New York, I had personally communicated with Mr. Murdoch, Chairman of News Corp." Sitting at the head of the conference table, Lou Weiss, who is 75 years old this year, looked a little tired, but his eyes were still sharp. Glancing at the three subordinates around him, he said: "Mr. Murdoch has agreed that Fox will try to cooperate with us in completing the "Butterfly Effect" project. However, some adjustments must be made on this matter. Moreover, I declare in advance that I The next thing to say is the final decision, the two of you can't object, you just need to implement it. If you can't finish it, you can pack up and leave."

Having said that, Lou Weiss looked down at his memo, looked up again, glanced at Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman, and said: "Since we have denied many things in the media Breaking news, so the original plan must be adjusted. First of all, the actor needs to be replaced, and it can no longer be Matthew. And, Norman, I have agreed to Fox, and Matthew will star in one of their movies called " Project X. They said they sent you the script earlier, right?"

Norman Broca nodded, but asked again: "Lu, what about Matthew's salary?"

Lou Weiss stared at Norman Broca and said, "300 million dollars."

Hearing the number reported by Lou Weiss, Norman Broca immediately stood up and said, "This is too low!"

"It's only $300 million," Lou Weiss said with no doubt in his tone, "Or, you can leave."

The corner of Norman Broca's mouth moved, but he finally nodded and sat down again with an unwilling expression.

Jonathan Friedman can also choose to switch from WMA as a last resort, but it is impossible for Norman Broca to do so. He is the vice president of the largest talent agency company in North America and even the world. , It is impossible to find one's own position in any other brokerage company.

But if he chooses to start his own business, even if he can pull away a group of top stars, Norman Broca will no longer have the power at this time in the future anyway.

Seeing Norman Broca sitting down, Lou Weiss nodded in satisfaction before looking at Jonathan Friedman.

Chapter 021 Simplified Version

Glancing at this subordinate who caused him a lot of trouble, Lou Weiss said: "Joe, as for you, Brian De Palma is still the director, and will also serve as the producer of "Butterfly Effect". The filmmaker. Fox’s remuneration is $200 million, and there is also a 10% share of the North American box office profit.”

Jonathan Friedman nodded.

If it weren't for the two previous failed films, Brian De Palma's salary level should be around $300 million.

Now that Fox is offering $200 million plus 10% of the North American box office profit share, Jonathan Friedman has no dissatisfaction at all. What he wanted to win for his clients before was just a fixed salary of $200 million. .

Of course, Jonathan Friedman also understands that the reason why Brian De Palma was able to get this relatively generous contract is mainly because of the exposure of a series of harsh agreements that have caused infighting in WMA in recent days.

Whether it is Fox or WMA, they need to refute the relevant revelations in the media through 'facts'.

Thinking of this, Jonathan Friedman began to look forward to Fox's offer to Simon's script.However, he did not take the initiative to speak, and patiently waited for Lou Weiss to continue.

Lou Weiss finished talking about Brian De Palma, looked at his memo again, and looked up: "As for the script, the price has been increased to 20 US dollars, and 16 US dollars is the remuneration for the "Butterfly Effect" script. $4 to reserve that writer's first option for the next two screenplays."

After listening to it, Jonathan Friedman paused and asked, "Lu, is it still a buyout contract?"

Lou Weiss shook his head and said, "This is the basic remuneration, and the sharing terms follow industry practice."

Only then did Jonathan Friedman feel relieved. If it was still a buyout agreement, even if Fox doubled the base price, he was not sure whether Simon would agree.

Now, just adding a priority option for the script, Jonathan believes that Simon must know what choice to make.

Seeing that Jonathan did not raise any objections, Lou Weiss continued, "Joe, besides the arrangement of these three people, the original packaging plan has also been completely overturned. The new budget given by Fox is 1000 million U.S. dollars. According to this standard, you can re- Sort out a list of the main characters and hand it over to me tomorrow, any questions?"

Jonathan Friedman realized that Lou Weiss now only wants to sign a simplified package contract with Fox that only involves core creatives as soon as possible, and the current situation obviously does not allow WMA to have a second option.So he nodded again and said, "No problem."

Hearing Jonathan's answer, Lou Weiss closed the memo in front of him, waved to him, and said, "That's it, you can go to work now."

Jonathan Friedman stood up and saw that the other three were sitting still, and knew that they would definitely discuss the revelations in recent days.

The internal leaks that have such a bad impact, WMA must investigate to the end.

However, Jonathan didn't think that the management could find any results from the investigation. The guy who broke the news to the media must be very aware of the serious consequences of doing such a thing. If he didn't completely hide himself, he would definitely not make a move easily.

Leaving the meeting room, Jonathan Friedman walked slowly through the outer corridor, feeling the warm sunshine through the glass curtain wall in the morning, and suddenly felt an unprecedented relaxation.

Discussion in the media about the WMA incident continues.

Jonathan Friedman is very clear that although he has temporarily passed the current threshold, affected by this incident, it is almost impossible for him to go further in WMA in the future.

Even, once Lou Weiss, who is 75 years old this year, retires from the position of chairman in the next few years and loses this layer of support, he is likely to be completely kicked out of the company by Norman Broca.

However, Jonathan felt that all the depression, resentment and other emotions that had been smoldering in his heart for so many years had dissipated, after he let go of his desire to climb up, which he had been careful not to make mistakes for a long time.

Jonathan also found that compared to many other people in this industry, he is actually very powerful.

Relying on the experience and connections accumulated over the past 20 years, even after leaving WMA, he can still live well, or even better.

Now, instead of having to constantly consider trade-offs, he only needs to be responsible for his clients wholeheartedly.Then, he believes that no matter what happens in the future, a large part of these people will follow him closely.

Unknowingly came to the door of his office, Jonathan Friedman paused, suddenly remembered the boy who prompted him to do all this, so he walked to the outside assistant and said, "Owen, help me find Simon's contact address."

Jonathan Friedman has a total of 37 clients under his name. Westerners do not have much creativity in naming, and it happens that more than one of these clients is named Simon.

However, Owen Wright immediately understood Jonathan's meaning, and skillfully dug out one from a thick stack of address books and handed it to his boss.

Jonathan Friedman took it and glanced at it, then handed it back to the assistant, saying, "I'll go out for a while, and I'll be back at noon."

Owen Wright nodded, watching Jonathan leave, and couldn't help but think, it seems that he should get in touch with that boy named Simon Westeros more in the future.

Leaving the WMA headquarters office building, Jonathan Friedman drove directly to the address of a 7 convenience store in the midtown of Santa Monica.

In the new week, Simon re-routed the morning shift.

The time is nine forty in the morning.

The convenience store was at a time when there were fewer customers. Simon was doing a routine inventory of the shelves he was in charge of. Courteney Cox, who was wearing a pink T-shirt and shorts, walked over casually.

Feeling the pleasant scent of light perfume coming from around him, Simon turned his head and smiled at Courteney, watching the girl hold a few things in her arms with bare hands, and said, "Are you always so used to holding things when you buy things?"

Seeing that Simon took the initiative to talk to her, Courteney opened her mouth, but still with a bit of habitual impoliteness, she said, "Yes, do you have an opinion?"

Simon shook his head immediately, and said, "No, if there are customers like you, the trolleys in our shop will definitely last for many years."

"Oh, I'll use a trolley next time," Courteney said, picking out a bottle of ketchup, still holding it in her arms, watching Simon turn his attention to the folder in his hand again, hesitated, and then He said nonchalantly, "You wrote the, um, "Butterfly Effect" in the newspaper in the past few days?"

After all, there was no deep relationship. Except for "Run Lola Run" that I saw by chance, Courteney didn't know about Simon's other scripts before, and she didn't have much interest in this matter at first.

Moreover, in the news these days, the person who broke the news did not actually mention the personal information of the screenwriter of "Butterfly Effect", and the other party obviously had his own intentions in doing so.

If the outside world knows that Simon is just an 18-year-old rookie who just debuted, the argument in the article that Fox's buyout contract is too harsh may also be questioned.After all, in this era when most ordinary people only earn $18 to $10 a year, many people are destined to feel that a young man who has just turned [-] can earn $[-], what else is there to be satisfied with?

In fact, it was hard for Courteney to believe that the screenwriter of "The Butterfly Effect", which caused such a big disturbance in Hollywood, would be Simon, an ordinary boy who couldn't see anything special on weekdays.

However, she happened to know that Jonathan Friedman had only one screenwriter named Simon.

Simon glanced at the girl with an inquiring expression, nodded with a smile, and replied casually, "Yes."

Although it has been roughly confirmed, Courteney's eyes widened when she heard Simon's answer, and asked: "Really?"

This time, before Simon could respond, Roger Griffin's fat body leaned over from the other side of the shelf and said, "Simon, someone is looking for you."

Simon responded, made a mark on the folder, and then walked out.

Courteney hesitated for a moment, and followed Simon with a bunch of things in her hands.

As soon as he turned out of the shelf, Simon saw the agent Jonathan Friedman standing at the exit of the cash register and nodding towards himself.

Courtene also quickly spotted the agent, and the surprise that hadn't dissipated appeared again on her face.

You know, since she signed the contract, she has never encountered the ace agent of WMA who came to find her situation in person. In the beginning, she could only see Jonathan's assistant in most cases.

Simon walked through the cash register and came to Jonathan. The agent looked at the clerk's attire on Simon, shook hands with him with a gentle smile, and patted Simon on the shoulder, saying: "I didn't expect you to be here, tell me earlier , I can definitely help you find a better part-time job."

Simon joked, "It's not too late now."

"Now, heh, it's not necessary now," Jonathan smiled and shook his head, then turned to Courteney who was walking over, and also reached out to shake the girl, saying: "Curte, I didn't expect you to be here too, you and Simon knows?"

Courteney clearly sensed the difference in Jonathan's attitude towards herself and Simon, but she nodded obediently, and said, "Yes, I live nearby, and I often come here to buy things, so I just met Simon."

"Oh, what a coincidence," Jonathan responded, then turned back to Simon, and said, "Simon, can you take a few hours off? Let's go out and talk."

"Okay," Simon nodded, turned his head and glanced, walked towards Roger Griffin who was poking his head this way, came to the convenience store owner, and said, "Roger, my agent is looking for me temporarily." matter."

In addition to being very stingy on salary, the middle-aged fat man seemed to be easy to talk about in other aspects. He looked at the elegant middle-aged man not far away again, nodded readily and said: "No problem, come back before 12 o'clock, only you are counted." Two hours of absenteeism is fine."

Chapter 022

After asking for leave, Simon changed his clothes and came out of the locker room with his bag on his back.

Courteney was chatting with Jonathan with a shopping bag in her hand. When she saw Simon coming over, she took a step forward with a smile, but then stopped, greeted Simon shyly, and walked out of Gerry with the two men. Fern supermarket.

Jonathan Friedman's black Mercedes was parked on the side of the street.The two got into the car, nodded to the girl on the curb, Jonathan started the car and took Simon east.

Smiling and watching Jonathan's Mercedes turn around a street corner and disappear, Courteney put away her expression in frustration, feeling some regret in her heart for rejecting Simon's words that night.