I'm in Hollywood

Chapter 277: The reason is too powerful

Eric handed his hastily written outline of the script for "Instinct" to his assistant Allen and told him to register it with the Writers Guild. He then said to David Grinwalt, “Because I don’t like this woman.”

Both producers were speechless at this powerful reason. David Grinwalt and Hans Whitel felt helpless and envious at the same time, wondering when they would be able to influence someone’s fate with an ‘I don’t like’.

Eric didn’t explain any further. He was not an extreme nationalist, nor would he be sensitive enough to boycott something just because someone said something against it. If you don’t like me, I don’t like you either. It’s just that simple. They were both just commoners, so there was no need to take it too seriously. But after the disaster that resulted in thousands of innocent civilian deaths in his previous life, he could only describe the woman who laughed and said ‘retribution’ with cold blood. No matter what political stance or other nonsense one might use to justify it, it was difficult to forgive.

At the moment he saw Sharon Stone's profile, Erik instantly dismissed her and took advantage of her audition to write out the outline of the controversial movie, Basic Instinct, which made her famous and earned over a billion at the box office.

Although it was impossible for Erik with his current fame to personally produce such a controversial movie, and he even planned to not use his real name when producing movies in the future, handing the script over to Robert Shaye was just perfect. Robert was going to direct two major movies this year, he was willing to make any movie so long as it made money. As for the female lead, a lead from a TV show could draw hundreds of contenders. Could Hollywood ever lack female leads?

Eric was lost in thought when another poor girl was neglected in the past, and the next woman walked in. Eric looked up and glanced at the other person, then flipped through their profile to see the name on it. Confirming he hadn't made a mistake, Eric raised his head with a strange smile: "Miss, have we met before?"

Just as Hans Whitel and David Grinwall were about to speak, they shut their mouths at the same time.

It seemed that the female lead had been found, and finally they didn't have to endure for a few more days. Although they could see nearly a hundred beautiful faces every day, they certainly wouldn't feel anything if they saw too much, let alone with Eric pressing down on them. They had little power to decide on the roles, so they could only look but not eat these beautiful women.

Famke Janssen, who had just taken a seat on the chair, saw Eric's strange gaze towards her and felt a bit of joy inside, glad that she was noticed rather than being ignored.

"Mr. Williams, you might have seen the advertisement I shot in some magazines, I have shot quite a few," Famke said.

Eric openly glanced at the two long legs of the girl wrapped in white leisure pants, and asked, "Miss Janssen, are you a model?"

Famke Janssen shook her head: "Not anymore, I just retired."

Eric asked immediately: "If you are not chosen this time, what will you do in the future?"

The girl's expression did not change much, and she thought for a while: "In that case, I might apply to a university. Study for two years, and then get a certificate and look for other jobs."

"Other jobs, such as?"

Famke Janssen paused for a moment before shaking her head: "I don't know, I haven't thought about it yet."

Eric nodded and said to the two producers around him: "I'm fine, you guys go ahead."

"No more questions, like do you have a boyfriend or something?" Hans Whittel joked quietly.

Eric gave him a white look and thought to himself, I'm interested in the woman. What does it matter if she has a boyfriend, am I going to fight him for her?

David Grint asked in a low voice, “Eric, is it her?”

Eric replied without showing any emotion, “Let's finish the audition in the morning first.”

To be honest, there weren't many famous female stars born in the 1960s who were able to take advantage of the rise of Hollywood. There were only about two or three dozen, and a few others were added as the next generation. Among the Hollywood women born in the 1960s, Famke Janssen was one of the more famous ones.

Sharon Stone made the deepest impression on Eric with her tough yet beautiful Russian assassin in "007 Golden Eye", using her long legs to pinch the opponent to death in a very impressive way. So naturally, when Eric met her, he had to try out the power of those long legs himself.

Famke Janssen was a bit nervous when she saw the three main judges having a private conversation, not knowing what they were discussing. But what happened next made her quite happy, as the three of them were extra meticulous in her audition. Other auditioners usually had an audition time of no more than 10 minutes, but hers lasted a full 20 minutes.

Famke Janssen and Sharon Stone both smiled after David Greenwalt said, “Not bad, her acting was a bit clumsy but with more practice it will get better. She’s got a great camera presence, no wonder she’s a model.”

Hans Whitel also chuckled in agreement.

Eric showed no concern for the two, and continued to fill out the form in front of him with a hint of mockery on his face.

The auditions in the morning went by quickly, and since the characters were already cast, everyone was done for the day. Eric packed up his things and left with Alan after saying a few words. As for Famke Janssen, he was not in a hurry and would talk after this busy period.

As December rolled around, Christmas was fast approaching. In the five weeks since the Thanksgiving season on November 17th, the North American box office was led by Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, which had earned over one hundred and one million dollars in the short period of five weeks.

The top five box office rankings in North America, in addition to Home Alone 2, are followed by Warner's Lethal Weapon 2 and Universal's Back to the Future 2, which occupy the top three spots, while Home Alone 2 and Steel Magnolias are repeatedly competing for the fourth spot, consistently earning more than ten million dollars a week.

Home Alone 2 has accumulated seven weeks, and the box office is about to break 100 million. The final box office may exceed the original target of 150 million US dollars, because in the past few weeks, the box office of Home Alone 2 has not dropped by more than 20%, and the box office trend of Steel Magnolias is more stable. After five weeks, the cumulative box office has exceeded 60 million US dollars, coupled with the atmosphere of Christmas stalls very suitable for this movie. It is estimated that there will be a box office rebound during the Christmas season, and there is no suspense that the box office will break 100 million.

Famke Janssen's black comedy Harlem Night Club, which had a good box office in its first week, was thrown out of the top five after two consecutive weeks of more than 50% massive drop, once again proving the truth that black films cannot enter the mainstream of Hollywood.

The impressive results of the films Home Alone 2, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and Steel Magnolias also attracted media attention. From the beginning of November, Firefly, or Eric's, films have been dominating the box office chart for seven weeks. On December 22, Sleepless in Seattle, which was directed by Eric himself, will also be released. With Fox's strong publicity, no one expected Warner's Crazy Christmas Vacation to compete with Sleepless in Seattle.

On December 22nd, the seventh week had come to an end and Seattle Nights finally premiered after its screening at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, playing in over 2,200 theatres across North America.

At the same time, the Oscar-bait movie Pretty Woman, starring Al Pacino, was released in just 60 theatres, following the usual pattern for releasing an Oscar-bait movie.

After Famke Janssen was confirmed as the lead actress in The X-Files, Eric had pretty much finished his work for the year. After attending the premiere of Seattle Nights, he stayed at the Malibu mansion to rest and read books and write scripts, having a very relaxing time.

In contrast to Eric's leisure, the media in North America were closely watching the first week box office of Seattle Nights. If Seattle Nights could successfully take the box office champion for the week, then Eric's movie would truly achieve the grand slam of the entire new year's eight weeks box office champion.

Although many media did not have high hopes for Warner Bros.'s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to make a box office miracle, no one dared to bet against it. After all, although the movie is not starring children, its style is quite similar to Home Alone 2.

In this anxious wait, the box office results of the first weekend came out. Famke Janssen's Seattle Nights definitely won the box office champion with a total of $17 million, while Home Alone 2 only earned $11 million, not even as much as the Christmas-themed Home Alone 2. The victory and defeat were already determined.

A week later, Seattle Night Awake earned over 27 million dollars in box office receipts in its opening week, taking the top spot on the box office chart and thus, through three films, the Firefly had successfully won the box office champion of the entire New Year's file. The media began to operate this spontaneously, although last year's Home Alone 1 won 10 weeks of the box office champion, but that movie can only be classified as a miracle. This year, Firefly took the box office champion for eight weeks through this relay-style, truly proving its strength.

Although Firefly only released one movie, Pretty Woman, the other several movies were all distributed by Disney and Fox, however, the media of the entire United States did not give this credit to Disney, but instead, while praising Firefly, they ridiculed the seven major film companies one after another.

At the same time as Seattle Nights was taking the box office by storm, several other events also happened, including Pretty Woman, which premiered in 60 theaters but earned over 900,000 dollars in its first week, with an average of over 15,000 dollars per theater, far exceeding the 10,000 dollar threshold for a hit movie. And the movie was also very well received by critics, with Al Pacino's portrayal of a blind colonel being praised as his most iconic role since his film debut.

Eric remembered that after the release of "Seattle Night", with the proper promotion of Firefly, the video sales of "Steel Magnolias" broke 200,000 boxes in the first week, entering the top 10 of the weekly sales of videos. It is worth noting that this is an old movie from more than thirty years ago. With a sales of 200,000 boxes in the first week, it is not a problem to break through 1 million boxes in the following sales, or even 2 million boxes.

Calculating with the cost of less than 10 US dollars per box of video, with a profit of 5 US dollars given to distributors, Firefly can get half of the profits from each video box sold at a price of around 30 US dollars. If the sales reach 2 million boxes, Firefly can get a profit of 30 million US dollars. This amount of money is equivalent to the total profit brought by a movie with a box office of over 100 million US dollars in North America. While many were amazed at Eric's vision, the senior executives of Fox who sold the copyright of "Steel Magnolias" for 3.2 million US dollars left Fox in embarrassment.

Despite the buzz surrounding Firefly, Eric discovered things were going wrong. Under contract, Columbia Pictures was supposed to pay Firefly an $8.8 million share of the profits for Dark War, and the advertising share of Friends was due in December, but both companies found various excuses to delay payment. Eric even traveled to Columbia and Fox but did not meet representatives from either company.

Next, when Eric asked the newly appointed Firefly financial director Carolyn Aitken to apply for loans from several banks with Firefly's film contracts, the loan applications were blocked for various reasons within a few days.

On the last day of the year, December 31st, Eric had been running around all day with no results. Back at the Maribou Villa, Eric sat on the couch and thought for a long time, then he had to call Jeffrey, who was going to New York for Christmas. After the call was connected, Eric said heavily, "Jeffrey, something big might happen..."

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