Chapter 032: Ripples
Chapter 032: Ripples
After returning home, Eric saw that the number of reporters outside had increased again. Left with no choice, he called his lawyer and asked him to come to the house to discuss the compensation agreement. Although he had already figured out Columbia’s trick, he still felt it was better to be cautious.
After finishing all this, Eric finally remembered that he should call Aniston.
He dialed several times in a row, but nobody answered on the other end. At this hour, Aniston should have been at home. Feeling worried, Eric put down the phone and was about to dial again when the phone suddenly rang.
“Williams residence?” Eric answered the call.
“Eric, it’s me.”
Aniston’s voice came from the other end.
Eric immediately brightened. “Annie, are you alright? I kept calling your apartment just now, but nobody answered.”
“I moved to my dad’s place, Eric. Didn’t you know? The paparazzi found out about our relationship. They’ve been following me everywhere. They even pretended to be delivery people and knocked on my apartment door. They scared me to death.”
There was still lingering fear in Aniston’s voice.
Eric hurriedly asked, “Annie, are you okay? Right, when did this happen? I called you before boarding the plane yesterday, and everything was fine.”
“I’m fine, Eric. It just happened this morning. I don’t know how the paparazzi found out, but it was already in the newspapers this morning. They even said... they even said...”
Aniston sounded unhappy.
Eric figured it definitely was not anything pleasant, so he could only comfort her. “Alright, Annie. It’s enough as long as you’re safe. Stay at your father’s place for a while. You should quit your convenience store job too.”
Aniston complained unhappily, “Eric, it won’t stay like this forever, right? How am I supposed to live otherwise?”
“Of course it won’t last forever. It’ll calm down after a while. Actually, there are also a lot of reporters surrounding my house. Give me your dad’s address. I’ll visit you when I have time.”
Aniston gave him the address, and Eric wrote it down. After comforting her for a while longer, he finally hung up.
…
Inside a villa in Beverly Hills, Aniston dejectedly hung up the phone.
She glanced at the pile of crumpled newspapers on the floor and grabbed a cushion from the sofa, smashing it hard several times.
Those newspapers had described her relationship with Eric as a Hollywood version of the prince-and-Cinderella story. While excessively praising Eric, they belittled her from every angle. Almost all the papers were pessimistic about their future together. Some newspapers even compared her to Drew Barrymore and concluded that Drew was more suitable to be Eric’s girlfriend than she was.
By the time she finished reading, Aniston gradually developed a sense of inferiority and unease.
In her eyes, Eric was so outstanding, while she herself was so ordinary.
Now he was about to become the youngest billionaire in Hollywood, while she was merely the “convenience store clerk” described in the newspapers. The gap between the two of them seemed to be growing wider and wider.
…
Eric, however, had no idea about Aniston’s inner turmoil.
After waiting for half an hour, the lawyer responsible for the gambling agreement finally arrived.
“Hello, Mr. Edward. Thank you for coming personally.”
Eric ushered the lawyer handling the gambling agreement, Edward Lewis, and his assistant inside and extended his hand.
Edward Lewis quickly shook hands with Eric. His tone carried a trace of respect.
“Eric, I never expected Home Alone to become this explosive. Congratulations. This is my assistant, Carter.”
The three of them sat down on the sofa.
Eric took out the compensation agreement Columbia had provided and recounted the entire incident.
Edward Lewis listened quietly to Eric’s explanation and carefully read through the compensation agreement. After several minutes, he finally said, “Eric, there’s no problem with this agreement. You can sign it without worry.”
“That’s good.”
Eric nodded in relief, took out a fountain pen, and directly signed his name on the agreement.
Edward Lewis looked at Eric, hesitated for a moment, then said, “Eric, I think perhaps you need a dedicated legal team to handle your daily legal affairs.”
“Hm?”
Eric could hear the self-recommendation hidden in Edward Lewis’s words and looked up with a smile.
Seeing Eric’s smile, Edward Lewis stopped beating around the bush and said directly, “I believe my firm has enough capability to handle this matter, Eric. From what you just described, it’s clear that if you hadn’t been vigilant enough, you might already have faced the collapse of the gambling agreement.”
“So I believe my law firm’s team can become your representative and fully handle all future negotiations with Columbia. If Columbia violates the agreement again, we can even devote our full efforts to fighting the lawsuit for you and ensuring your interests are protected.”
Ever since drafting the gambling agreement, Eric had already witnessed Edward and his legal team’s professionalism.
Moreover, Eric knew he truly needed a dedicated legal team now.
After chatting for a short while, the two sides quickly reached an agreement. Edward Lewis took out an authorization agreement he had prepared in advance, and Eric immediately signed his name on it.
“Then I’ll leave the rest to you, Edward. Please deliver this compensation agreement to Columbia on my behalf. I really don’t want to deal with them anymore.”
“Understood, Eric. If there’s nothing else, we’ll take our leave first.”
After seeing Edward and his assistant out, Eric finally let out a sigh of relief.
From now on, he could focus entirely on the film career he loved.
He trusted Edward Lewis’s law firm very much.
After all, they were merely his representatives and did not possess the authority to make decisions on his behalf. If they colluded with Columbia and turned around to scheme against him, then once the matter was exposed, in a country where credibility was extremely important, the careers of everyone in the entire firm would be destroyed. Columbia could never offer a price high enough to support that many people for the rest of their lives.
Eric had finally relaxed, but Columbia, because of Eric’s public statement, had fallen into a whirlpool of public opinion.
Due to Eric’s statement, many newspapers that had already finalized their layouts were forced to redo them entirely, because the news was simply too explosive.
That very evening, Eric’s condemnation of Columbia appeared in newspapers.
All kinds of analyses and speculations rapidly spread across the media. To boost sales, most newspapers chose to fan the flames.
After publishing Eric’s statement word for word, those newspapers began analyzing it sentence by sentence.
It had to be said that the power of imagination was truly formidable.
Some newspapers somehow connected Eric’s statement to Michael Eisner.
Before making the statement, Eric had indeed subtly dragged Michael Eisner into the matter by saying that the two of them had a pleasant conversation and might cooperate in the future. This led newspapers to speculate that Michael Eisner had played a positive role in exposing Columbia’s “despicable tactics.”
Michael Eisner had originally still been hesitating over how to explain to his old friend that Eric had already exposed their scheme.
The moment he saw the newspaper reports, he immediately called Blount Cohen to explain, but unfortunately, the other side clearly did not believe him.
Michael Eisner could only smile bitterly.
He also understood Blount Cohen’s suspicious personality. With a sigh, he realized their friendship had probably reached its end. Yet strangely enough, he did not feel much resentment toward Eric. Instead, he felt a bit more admiration for him.
Other newspapers quickly discovered that Home Alone only had around 1,500 screens that week, even fewer than the already expanded 1,600-plus screens of Back to 17.
This discovery caused the media to overwhelmingly curse Columbia while simultaneously questioning the company’s credibility.
Media outlets controlled by other film companies were already jealous that Columbia had monopolized the Home Alone windfall, so they all joined in condemning Columbia. Some tabloids even called on moviegoers to boycott Columbia and refuse to watch Columbia-produced films.
From the moment the news appeared in newspapers, Columbia’s public hotline was flooded with calls from self-righteous citizens.
Several female employees responsible for answering public calls were reduced to tears from the nonstop abuse. Two of them submitted resignation letters the very next morning.
After smashing everything in his office, Columbia president Blount Cohen could only helplessly summon the public relations executives to immediately hold a meeting and discuss countermeasures.
That very night, a television station controlled by Columbia issued a statement defending Home Alone’s screen count for the week. They also publicly revealed the compensation agreement between both parties, while implying that Eric’s accusation that Columbia had attempted to tear up the agreement was completely fabricated, and merely the result of Eric drawing the wrong conclusions from the dispute over screen numbers.
However, because Eric himself did not come forward to respond, the media and the public generally refused to believe Columbia’s explanation.