Chapter 218: Ah… Ha!
Chapter 218: Ah… Ha!
After Robert Shaye walked away, Eric finally said to Jeffrey, “Jeffrey, you saw it too. Because of this matter, Firefly has nearly eighty million dollars in additional expenses this year, so cash flow will be very tight. How about converting all of your producer share from this year into company shares at year’s end?”
Jeffrey froze briefly, then smiled. “That’s exactly what I could only hope for. But Eric, are you planning to dilute Robert’s shares this quickly?”
“Of course not,” Eric said with a smile. “If I did that, Robert would probably want to kill me. I’ll transfer part of my own shares to you. I hope you won’t mind if it’s too little.”
“I won’t. However much you give me, I’ll take,” Jeffrey said calmly. “If I didn’t want to watch Firefly climb step by step to its peak, I’d already have retired by now. By the way, I bought a farm in Maryland recently, about two thousand acres. It happens to be the place where my wife grew up. I’ve handed it over to someone else to manage for now. Someday, when Firefly no longer needs me, I’ll leave on my own, go to that farm, plant some corn, hunt a little, and spend my old age guarding that land.”
Eric’s nose felt a little sour. Without Jeffrey and the excellent team trained by that legendary wife of his, it was hard to say what Eric’s current situation would be like.
However, after Jeffrey finished speaking, Eric deliberately put on an unbearable expression and said, “All right, all right, Jeffrey. You’re neither Juliet’s Romeo nor the Little Mermaid’s prince. You’re just a middle-aged, balding, fat man, so please stop saying such sentimental things, okay?”
Jeffrey knew Eric was not truly complaining. This clever young man simply did not want him to keep immersing himself in the past, so he rarely made a joke. “Of course I’m not any of the people you mentioned. I’m Sorina’s Jeffrey.”
“Wow. If you keep talking, I’m going to throw up.”
Jeffrey smiled and shook his head. “Still, Eric, if I really do leave someday, don’t forget to visit me at the farm occasionally. You know… I don’t have many relatives.”
Eric carefully asked, “You… still haven’t reconciled with your son?”
Hearing this question, Jeffrey looked a little downcast. “It’s not that we haven’t reconciled, but we’re not exactly close either. Chris is very busy. We don’t see each other more than a few times a year, so it’s not strange that our relationship is somewhat distant.”
Eric grew curious. “Speaking of which, I really have never met your son. You just said his name is Chris. What does he do?”
“He works on Wall Street.”
Wall Street. Just hearing it sounded more high-end than Hollywood. Eric could not help thinking that and asked further, “Which company on Wall Street?”
“Morgan Stanley.”
“Wow!” Eric could not help exclaiming. Although he paid little attention to that field, he knew Morgan Stanley was one of the four major investment banks alongside Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. In his memory, the shadows of these giants were behind many famous financial storms.
“I was thinking that if possible, I’d have him come work at Firefly. Since it’s the famous Morgan Stanley, then there’s definitely no chance.”
Hearing Eric say this, Jeffrey inevitably showed some pride. Even if the relationship between father and son was somewhat distant and cold, no father would fail to feel proud of an outstanding son.
“Eric, if you want to make some investments in the future, you can try asking him. Although I don’t know much about his specific work, Chris’s professional ability is definitely excellent. When he was at the University of Pennsylvania, he always had a full scholarship. From beginning to end, he never made me pay a cent of tuition.”
Hearing Jeffrey’s words, many thoughts instantly flashed through Eric’s mind.
But he quickly suppressed those immature ideas. He had never even met Chris Hansen, so of course he could not make any decision now just because of a few words from Jeffrey. Still, Eric quietly remembered the matter of Chris Hansen.
As Eric and Jeffrey were chatting, Barry Diller walked over.
Aside from Robert and Jeffrey on Firefly’s side, as the head of Fox Television Network, Barry Diller was the one most concerned about Friends. He had noticed Eric the moment he came downstairs. However, he had originally wanted to wait for Murdoch to come down as well and ask Murdoch directly about the outcome.
But for some reason, even after Eric had been downstairs for quite a while, Murdoch still had not appeared again. Therefore, Barry Diller could no longer wait and had to come over.
“Mr. Hansen, Eric, hello,” Barry Diller greeted them with a smile.
After nodding to Barry Diller, Jeffrey knew Barry Diller’s target was not him, so he tactfully said, “Eric, you two talk. I’ll go over there and greet an old friend.”
Watching Jeffrey leave, Barry Diller did not get straight to the point. Instead, with a knowing expression, he softly asked, “Eric, you were the one who had someone buy the rights to An Affair to Remember, weren’t you?”
Knowing he could not hide it from a smart man like Barry Diller, Eric smiled and nodded.
“When I first saw that document about the sale of An Affair to Remember’s rights, I didn’t pay attention to it. Only after I later read the script for Sleepless in Seattle did I connect the dots.” After saying this, Barry Diller put on a dissatisfied expression. “Eric, that was completely unnecessary. Our cooperation has been very pleasant, hasn’t it? If you’d personally brought it up back then, Fox might have sold you the rights for one million. Even I think the price of three and a half million was too high.”
Eric laughed dryly, somewhat at a loss for words. After Sleepless in Seattle was released and drove the videotape sales of An Affair to Remember to several million copies…
All right, even he could not imagine what expression Barry Diller would have by then. However, the manager who decided to sell the rights to An Affair to Remember would definitely end up in a very miserable situation.
Of course, Barry Diller could not see through Eric’s current thoughts. He interpreted Eric’s expression as embarrassment and instead patted Eric on the shoulder as though consoling him.
“Forget it, this matter is over. Remember, next time you need help, you must ask me yourself, all right?”
“Of course. I definitely will,” Eric nodded sincerely and even pretended to gratefully clink glasses with Barry Diller.
At the same time, Eric made a decision in his heart. He had to remind the little girl to obtain all the Fox-related adaptation rights on the rights list he had given her before year’s end as much as possible.
After this year passed, there would probably be no chance of prying anything out of Fox again.