Chapter 033: Taking the Initiative
Chapter 033: Taking the Initiative
The next day, the impact of the incident continued to expand.
While most newspapers overwhelmingly condemned Columbia, somehow the public outrage spread to Columbia’s parent company, The Coca-Cola Company, with people beginning to criticize Coca-Cola’s management strategy regarding Columbia.
After all, Columbia Pictures’ performance over the past few years had indeed been terrible.
Originally, the Coca-Cola Group had not cared at all about this “minor matter.”
Unexpectedly, after the stock market opened that day, Coca-Cola’s usually stable stock price dropped by 1.7%.
That figure might have seemed insignificant, but once multiplied by a market value worth tens of billions of dollars, it became impossible to ignore.
Coca-Cola CEO Goizueta directly cursed Blount Cohen out over the phone and ordered him to resolve the matter immediately. Otherwise, he could get out of the president’s chair at Columbia.
Under intense pressure from Coca-Cola headquarters, at ten o’clock that morning, Blount Cohen personally held a press conference at Columbia and tactfully apologized to Eric while promising to faithfully execute the gambling agreement going forward.
After hearing the news, Eric naturally did not want the matter to escalate further. He immediately had his personal lawyer, Edward Lewis, publish a statement of reconciliation in the Los Angeles Times.
Just as the storm had begun to swell, it quickly died down.
Perhaps because of the breach-of-contract controversy, Home Alone’s box office, which by normal standards should have declined somewhat, not only failed to drop during its second week, but instead increased significantly, earning 28.76 million dollars.
In just two weeks, it broke through the 50 million dollar mark.
At the same time, Back to 17 earned 14.73 million dollars, still holding second place at the box office.
The total revenue of these two films connected to Eric alone even exceeded 50% of North America’s total weekly box office, once again astonishing countless people.
Although the results remained dazzling, the media’s attention toward Eric gradually began to cool.
After several days of failing to uncover any useful news, the reporters around Eric’s house finally started leaving one after another.
During this week, Eric mostly stayed home, concentrating on writing the Resident Evil novel he had promised Michael Krause.
There had been two versions of the Resident Evil story in his previous life: one was the Capcom game storyline, while the other was the film storyline centered around Alice.
Unfortunately, Eric had only played the fourth and sixth Resident Evil games, so he was not very familiar with the game version’s plot.
As for the movie version, there was not much material to write about. Based on the game setting, it was basically just Milla Jovovich’s personal overpowered action showcase.
Because of this, writing the Resident Evil novel was nowhere near as easy as Jurassic Park had been.
Eric spent three days constructing an outline with Leon as the male protagonist. The story began from Leon joining the police department and continued all the way until everyone worked together to escape the virus-stricken Raccoon City.
Eric skillfully incorporated protagonists from his previous life such as Chris, Jill, and Wesker into the novel.
Of course, Ada Wong, who had been especially beloved among Chinese gamers, absolutely could not be omitted.
With considerable malicious humor, Eric reshaped the ambiguous relationship between Ada Wong and Leon into that of a queen-like mistress and her pet boy.
This was not Eric’s original creation.
In his previous life, many gamers online had already described the relationship between the two in exactly that way.
In the games, the elegant and devilishly charming Ada Wong would frequently encounter little Leon struggling in desperate danger during missions. She would calmly rescue him from his predicament, casually tease him a little, then gracefully leave behind a rocket launcher marked with a lipstick kiss before disappearing.
Every time players reached those scenes, it was easy to imagine certain wicked images:
Come here, little darling…(pat pat on the head)…alright, you’re done here now. Go play somewhere else.
…
Holding a cup of hot water as he walked out of the kitchen, Eric prepared coffee for James L. Brooks, who was currently sitting on the living room sofa reading part of the Resident Evil manuscript.
“James, what do you think?”
After handing over the coffee, Eric sat down across from him and asked.
“Very cinematic. It gives people a strong sense of immersion, almost like watching a movie. Very exciting.”
Eric nodded.
James’s evaluation was very accurate.
Because of his professional habits from his previous life, Eric unconsciously used a large amount of montage-style writing while composing the novel. The greatest characteristic of that style was its strong visual quality.
“What if it were adapted into a movie?” Eric asked again.
James put down the manuscript and seriously replied, “At this stage, I don’t think this novel is suitable for adaptation into film. Although zombie-themed works do have a dedicated audience, the overall market is still too small. That determines that the film could only receive a small- to medium-scale investment.”
“But if this novel were made into a film, it would require quite a lot of special effects. With too little investment, the results definitely wouldn’t look good and the final product would end up awkward and unsatisfying. It would be better to wait a few more years for special effects technology to become more advanced and cheaper.”
As expected of a top-tier producer.
In just a few sentences, James accurately outlined both Resident Evil’s limitations and its adaptation prospects.
In Eric’s previous life, Resident Evil fans often complained that the movie series had too little budget, that the effects were not explosive enough, and that it was always Milla without other major stars.
What they failed to realize was that if studios truly filmed according to fans’ wishes, then because of film ratings and audience limitations, movie companies would lose money almost instantly without question.
After chatting about Resident Evil a bit longer, Eric finally asked about James’s purpose for visiting.
“You’re inviting me to a Fox banquet?”
Eric had assumed James came regarding Home Alone’s overseas rights, but unexpectedly it was for something entirely different.
Over the past few days, Eric had already received numerous calls and invitations related to Home Alone.
Even Michael Eisner, who had originally intended to join Columbia in scheming against him, had personally called again.
However, Eric already had his own plans in mind, so he rejected them all directly.
Seeing Eric’s surprised expression, James smiled.
“Of course. You thought I came because of Home Alone, right? Quite a few people have extended olive branches to you these past few days, and I heard you rejected all of them. I think perhaps you were simply waiting for Fox to contact you first. Am I right?”
A trace of surprise flashed through Eric’s eyes.
He truly had been waiting for Fox to make the first move so he could seize the initiative.
Since James Brooks had already guessed correctly and personally came to invite him, denying it now would only make Eric appear petty.
Shrugging with a smile, Eric admitted, “I did have that thought, James. After all, our cooperation has been quite pleasant.”
James sincerely replied, “That’s why I personally came today. Actually, Mr. Barry Diller wants to meet with you to discuss Home Alone, Jurassic Park, and your… next movie.”
“Oh? Fox is quite greedy.”
James laughed.
“This has nothing to do with greed, Eric. This is business. Even if Fox doesn’t make a move, other companies will become interested in these projects.”
“Of course, Fox definitely won’t be as shortsighted as Columbia. We hope the two sides can cooperate as equals and achieve mutual benefit.”
Those words were fine to listen to, but Eric was not naïve enough to truly believe them.
Fox could speak so generously only because they had failed to secure Home Alone’s distribution rights. Otherwise, given the gambling agreement, there was no telling what kind of dirty tricks they might have pulled.
The phone-hacking scandal exposed in Eric’s previous life had merely been the tip of the iceberg regarding the filthy actions these giants committed behind closed doors.
But for now, Eric still had to choose one major studio as a backer.
Only then could he reduce outside greed directed at him while protecting himself and secretly developing his own strength.
After careful comparison and consideration, Eric chose Fox.
Over the next few years, Fox’s primary objective under Barry Diller would be the creation of the Fox television network. Comparatively speaking, that meant their attention toward the film division would inevitably decrease.
That created an excellent opportunity for Eric, this little sparrow, to quietly occupy more resources inside the magpie’s nest.