Chapter 124: The Oscars
Chapter 124: The Oscars
The next day, The Hollywood Reporter used a full four pages to publish the complete text of The CAA Revelation.
If the media had previously still been immersed in the thrill of kicking CAA while it was down, they now suddenly calmed down and shifted their attention to this article.
The CAA Revelation thoroughly revealed the secret behind CAA’s rise. The major film companies also finally understood why their production costs had been rising again and again, and why they had been completely unable to refuse that trend.
Michael Ovitz saw the article almost the moment the newspaper was published. With his brows tightly furrowed, he spent half an hour reading it through. Even he could not help slapping the table in admiration. The article’s discussion of an agent’s business radius almost perfectly matched his recent thoughts, and was even somewhat ahead of them. It was precisely because this idea had emerged that he had tried to participate in Sony and Columbia’s acquisition case some time ago.
But after that admiration, Ovitz immediately became so furious he was almost beyond words. He even had the urge to kill someone. Because this article was equivalent to completely exposing CAA’s secret manual to the entire industry.
Before this, CAA’s competitors could only vaguely imitate CAA’s model without ever truly understanding its essence. But from now on, they would no longer continue blindly groping in the dark.
The first one to benefit was naturally WMA. Although WMA had been overtaken by CAA, it was still an old agency with a century of history. In terms of scale and resources, it was not much worse than CAA. Once it obtained this set of theory, even if it could not surpass CAA in the short term, it could still quickly close the gap.
Soon after The CAA Revelation was published, someone brought the “manuscript” to WMA, and what followed was a farce.
Amid this storm, the gold-medal agent who had always handled Hanks’s affairs at CAA also switched agencies with him.
This immediately caused all kinds of speculation within the industry. If he stayed at CAA, even if he had ability no worse than any gold-medal agent, he would still have to climb up again step by step from the very bottom. But by following Hanks to UTA, he could immediately obtain enough room to display his ability.
Under the witness of Kapoor, Hanks himself, Hanks’s agent Simon Wilson, and staff from a well-known Los Angeles notary institution, Eric and Hanks secretly signed the contract Eric had promised. Of course, Hanks was kind enough not to make Eric set up the one-hundred-million-dollar wager fund.
As for Hanks’s agency switch, the only thing CAA could do was demand a small breach-of-contract penalty from him, as well as its commission from his Running Out of Time salary.
After Hanks signed the actor contract with Firefly, Cruise learned of Hanks’s salary terms. Sure enough, just as Eric had expected, Cruise made a major concession on profit participation. Finally, on the day before the Oscars ceremony, both sides quickly signed the contract. Cruise joined Running Out of Time for a salary of five million dollars and five percent of North American profits. These terms fully matched Eric’s expectations. Running Out of Time also finally confirmed April 5 as its official start date.
On March 29, after more than a month of preparation, the 61st Academy Awards ceremony officially took place at the Shrine Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Eric would also serve as this year’s presenter for Best Supporting Actress. It was said that the organizers had originally planned to invite the newly married couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. Don Johnson was not particularly famous, but Melanie Griffith had shot straight into the ranks of first-line actresses this year through Working Girl. Unfortunately, Melanie Griffith was destined to be unable to compete with Eric. After Columbia contacted the Oscar organizers, they quickly gave up on Melanie Griffith and her husband and chose the more famous Eric instead.
“Eric, help me check again. Is there anything wrong?” Inside the Lincoln slowly driving toward the Oscars red carpet, Virginia nervously turned toward Eric. The young woman had never dreamed she would walk the Oscars red carpet so soon, and her cheeks were faintly flushed from excitement.
Eric patted Virginia’s hand. “Alright, you look beautiful, Vicky. Relax.”
The young woman was still not confident. She gently touched her styled hair, then suddenly remembered something else and asked, “Um… Eric, if Tin Toy wins, are you really letting me go up and accept the award for someone else?”
“Of course,” Eric nodded. “I don’t want the first award I personally receive onstage to be some Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.”
John Lasseter, who should have attended the ceremony, had received Eric’s investment and freedom, and was now completely trapped in workaholic mode. He practically wanted to live in Pixar’s office. If the Oscar invitation had not been sent to Richmond, John Lasseter would almost have forgotten that the short film had been nominated for an Oscar. But after receiving the invitation, John Lasseter directly called and said he was too busy to leave. If it won, he asked Eric to accept the award for him.
Eric did not try too hard to persuade him. In the future, Pixar Animation would practically dominate the Oscar animation categories anyway. Missing this one time would not matter. Back then, the main reason Pixar had submitted for this award was to win an Oscar and use it to attract more business for Pixar. At the same time, Eric did not want the first trophy he received on the Oscar stage to be Best Animated Short Film, so he gave this opportunity to show her face to the woman beside him.
As they spoke, the Lincoln stopped at the entrance to the Oscars red carpet. From a distance, they could already hear the fans calling out.
Eric stepped out of the car first, turned to the other side of the limousine, and very gentlemanly extended his arm for the young woman to hold. Under the staff’s prompting, they slowly walked toward the red carpet.
Perhaps actresses were born red-carpet creatures. Virginia, who had still been extremely nervous in the car, quickly relaxed after stepping onto the red carpet. Lightly holding Eric’s arm, she followed beside him step by step, occasionally waving gently to the crowd and revealing a charming smile.
When they were still seven or eight meters away from the fan area, someone spotted Eric. Immediately, shouts rose up, mixed with several girls crying out things like “Eric, I love you.” Compared with the stars on the red carpet, who were generally over thirty, Eric’s youth and handsomeness clearly gave him a tremendous advantage.
In addition, 17 Again, in which he had acted, had only recently ended its theatrical run and had already gained a large number of fans among teenagers. If not for the staff maintaining order, someone might have rushed directly onto the red carpet. Such things had happened before.
Eric slowed his steps, wearing an appropriate smile as he nodded toward the fans, which immediately drew another wave of female screams.
Without realizing it, he actually had fans now.
Eric sighed faintly in his heart, then continued forward with Virginia on his arm. The woman beside him felt slightly disappointed, because no one called her name. She even noticed hostility in the eyes of quite a few female fans in the audience area. That feeling only faded once they reached the media section.
“Eric, look here!”
“Here, here!”
“Eric, Virginia, can you move a little closer?”
Compared with fans who only focused on the celebrities they liked, the reporters in the media area easily recognized Virginia. They had long heard that Virginia would be starring in a film invested by Firefly and personally written by Eric.
By this point in Hollywood’s development, many things in the industry had already become open rules. If an unknown beautiful actress or handsome actor suddenly obtained an important role in a film, many people would instinctively ask: Who did she, or he, sleep with?
These beautiful actresses and handsome men would not obtain opportunities for no reason. They had to pay a price. And for them, other than their bodies, they had nothing else to offer. Most people would not look down on these men and women either. They would only envy their good fortune.
The reporters’ eyes burned with gossiping fire. While urging Eric and Virginia to behave as intimately as possible, they frantically pressed their camera shutters.
After finally passing through the media area, while ABC’s reporter caught Michelle Pfeiffer for an interview, Eric directly pulled the young woman into the celebrity waiting area.
“Hi, Mr. Williams. I’m Robert Downey Jr.”
“Hello, Mr. Downey.” Eric smiled and shook his hand. He had just been about to praise a few of the man’s works when he realized he did not remember what representative works this actor, who had become famous young but had a troubled career, had in his early years. He could only gesture to the young woman beside him. “This is Virginia Madsen.”
Robert Downey Jr. politely shook Virginia’s hand. He had only come over to make himself known and hoped for a future chance to work together, so he did not linger too much. After chatting with Eric briefly, he soon left.
Eric also took the initiative to greet others.
Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Melanie Griffith, Patrick Swayze, Geena Davis, Bruce Willis and his wife Demi Moore, Cher, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Sigourney Weaver…
Moving through the crowd as if in another lifetime, chatting casually with these still-young stars, Eric followed the staff’s reminder a few minutes later and entered the venue with everyone else.
No one knew what this year’s Oscar organizers had been thinking, but they actually had not arranged a host.
After entering the auditorium and finding the Home Alone crew’s seats to confirm the location, Eric immediately left his seat and headed backstage. That was because the Best Supporting Actress award he would present as a guest had been placed first.
The order of Oscar awards was not strictly fixed. Many times, to attract the audience’s attention, the organizers would present a relatively important category such as Best Supporting Actor or Best Supporting Actress first.
“Hello, Eric. I’m Tom Selleck.” After Eric entered the backstage area, a tall and sturdy middle-aged man came over beside him. “I’ll be guiding you onto the stage later.”
Eric shook his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Selleck. I really liked your Three Men and a Baby. I heard the film is getting a sequel?”
Three Men and a Baby had been the annual box office champion in 1987. The warm comedy had been able to win the year’s box office crown mostly because of good luck, since there had been no particularly famous films that entire year.
As for Tom Selleck, Eric had only watched Three Men and a Baby. His deeper impression of the man still came from the image of Monica’s boyfriend, more than twenty years older than her, in Friends.
After finishing Running Out of Time, the television series Eric planned to shoot for Fox was Friends. Although he remembered Tom Selleck’s role as Monica’s boyfriend clearly, Eric knew he definitely had to choose a newcomer. Tom Selleck’s career was still at its peak now. If Eric invited him to act in a television series, it would be strange if he did not get spat on.
Hearing Eric mention his proudest work, Tom Selleck laughed heartily. “Of course, but it won’t be released until next year. Honestly, I don’t want to run into your movie.”
After about ten minutes of opening song and dance, Eric accepted the winner’s envelope handed over by the staff and, under Tom Selleck’s guidance, walked onto the stage.
All presenters’ lines had been written in advance by writers, so when audiences saw those stars speaking wittily on television, it actually did not reflect their own verbal ability.
“Wow.” Walking to the center of the stage, Eric adjusted the microphone slightly and sighed. “Actually, after I received the invitation, I asked Allan Carr: Why? Why does everyone else get a female partner when they go onstage to present an award, but I have to be alone? This isn’t fair. Allan stared at me for a long time before saying: Because you’re too young!”
At this point, Eric blinked at the audience in a deliberately cute way and put on an innocent expression.
The audience fell silent for a second, then immediately burst into laughter. Applause followed as well.
Over the past half year, although Eric had achieved a series of astonishing accomplishments in Hollywood, people still brought up his age from time to time. Achieving so much at eighteen seemed to have become a “blemish” in Eric’s life. While people marveled at geniuses, they also instinctively rejected them.
After a few more witty lines that made the audience laugh, Eric finally pulled the topic back.
“In any film, while the leading men and women display their acting skills, they are always inseparable from the support of supporting characters. A good supporting role can make a film shine even more. So now, let’s see which films have received nominations for Best Supporting Actress.”
After Eric finished speaking, he made a gesture. Clips of the films nominated for Best Supporting Actress appeared one after another on the big screen. They were Sigourney Weaver and Joan Cusack from Working Girl, Michelle Pfeiffer from Dangerous Liaisons, Geena Davis from The Accidental Tourist, and Frances McDormand from Mississippi Burning.
Personally, Eric was least optimistic about Sigourney Weaver. The Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress she had won earlier for Working Girl had been rather inflated. By comparison, Eric preferred Michelle Pfeiffer and Geena Davis, and he also believed the winner should be one of those two.
After all the nominated films were introduced, Eric slowly opened the envelope and glanced at the name. Sure enough, it was as he expected.
“The Oscar for Best Supporting Actress goes to The Accidental Tourist, Geena Davis.”
Amid applause, a red-haired woman over 1.8 meters tall excitedly covered her mouth and stood up. After hugging the other members of the The Accidental Tourist crew one by one, she walked onto the stage.
The woman did not hurry to accept the Oscar statuette. Instead, she excitedly hugged Eric first. Eric could only smile and pat her back.
Geena Davis was already over 1.8 meters tall, and now she was wearing high heels, making her even slightly taller than Eric. When the two hugged, Eric really did look rather “small,” and this scene drew another round of soft laughter from the audience below.
“Hey, Ms. Davis, can you let go of me? Are you sure you’re not taking advantage of me?” Eric patted her a few more times, and seeing that she was still holding him, he could only whisper in her ear.
“You impatient little guy,” Geena Davis whispered back before quickly letting go of Eric, taking the Oscar statuette, and beginning her speech.