Chapter 68: Ugly Duckling Pixar
Chapter 68: Ugly Duckling Pixar
Eric quickly sorted through the fragmented memories about Pixar from his previous life. As the leader of Hollywood 3D animation, Pixar had produced the world-famous Toy Story series of animated films.
But before 1995, Disney’s 2D animated films still dominated the animated film market, and no one was optimistic about the future of 3D animation.
Even Jobs himself had no confidence in 3D animation. Before Toy Story was released, Jobs had always wanted to sell off the burden that was Pixar, even forcing himself to contact his old rival, Microsoft.
When meeting with Microsoft’s executives, Jobs even specially placed a laptop running Windows on Pixar’s office desk in order to please Microsoft’s senior vice president Nathan Myhrvold.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s offer did not satisfy Jobs. Jobs, already mired too deeply to pull himself out, had no choice but to grit his teeth and hold on, eventually welcoming the dawn.
After Toy Story was released, it earned a record-breaking 192 million dollars in North America alone, while its worldwide box office approached 360 million. The cost of Toy Story was only 30 million dollars.
After that, Pixar, once valued at 50 million dollars, saw its market value multiply directly by twenty. By the time Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, its market value had already reached 7.4 billion dollars.
Calculating the timing, Jobs should already have begun trying to sell off this “money-losing burden” called Pixar. Eric had just developed the idea of immediately buying Pixar, but he had no choice but to shake his head in disappointment.
Although Jobs was unlikely to insist on the 50 million dollar price like he did in Eric’s previous life, even if the price were cut in half to 25 million, Eric still could not afford it.
He did not have much money left now. Home Alone had been in theaters for so long that Columbia must have already begun splitting revenue with the theater chains.
However, if Eric wanted to receive his own share, even under the best-case scenario, he would have to wait until Home Alone was pulled from theaters. In his previous life, film directors and actors taking film companies to court over delayed profit shares was nothing uncommon.
For funds worth over 100 million dollars, even if the money were simply deposited in a bank, the daily interest would be a considerable amount. Even with a clear agreement in place, Columbia would definitely think of every possible way to delay payment by even one more day.
Eric could even imagine what “dirty tricks” Columbia would use to delay the payment. For example, several months later, even after Home Alone’s box office potential was clearly exhausted, Columbia could still keep the film hanging on a hundred or so screens just to delay the date of revenue distribution. Eric would very likely only be able to glare helplessly.
Because Columbia had been badly trapped by the gambling agreement, the possibility of them cooperating with Eric again in the short term was very small. Since they did not need to worry about maintaining their relationship, Columbia would have no psychological burden at all in using these small tricks that hurt others while benefiting themselves. Especially since Brant Cohen was still sitting in the Columbia president’s seat.
After thinking it over, Eric still felt that the most important thing right now was to do Pretty Woman well. In any case, even if history did not change at all, there were still six years before Toy Story would be released. Eric had plenty of time to acquire Pixar.
Before filming began, the preparations for Pretty Woman had already been quite complete. The crew did not need Jeffrey, the producer, to be present at all times. Several executive producers were already enough to arrange everything properly.
After discussing with Eric for an hour, Jeffrey hurriedly left the crew again, preparing to fly to New York to negotiate the advertising matter with NBC.
The bidding for Super Bowl advertisements had begun half a year earlier, and NBC had already successfully sold eighty percent of this year’s advertising slots. What Jeffrey needed to fight for was one of the remaining twenty percent, and the time slot would not be very good. The better slots had long since been snatched up by others, even at prices far above average.
Three days later, Eric had just gotten up when he received Jeffrey’s call. Jeffrey said he had secured a fifty-nine-second ad. Super Bowl ads were calculated by the second, with the shortest being fifteen seconds and the longest ninety seconds.
“What? One and a half million dollars? Didn’t you say before that we could get it for 1.2 million?” In the bathroom, Eric tucked the cordless phone under his chin and squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush as he asked.
Jeffrey’s voice also carried helplessness. “If no one had bid against us, 1.2 million really would have been enough. But during the bidding, a New York fashion company suddenly appeared to compete for that ad slot. You specifically told me I had to secure it, so I had no choice but to raise the price to 1.5 million. I even suspect that fashion company was a shill NBC brought in, but that’s only my guess. I don’t have any evidence.”
With an extra 300,000 dollars in expenses out of nowhere, Eric lost the mood to brush his teeth slowly. He scrubbed around carelessly a few times, rinsed his mouth, and returned to the living room.
“Forget it. One and a half million it is.” Eric sat on the sofa and poured himself a glass of water. “Sign the contract as soon as possible. By the way, Jeffrey, tomorrow is the Golden Globe Awards ceremony. Can you make it back before then?”
“I’ll see how things go. I probably won’t be able to make it back.” Jeffrey’s tone carried regret. “Anyway, the person everyone wants to see most is you, the miracle director. Whether I go or not doesn’t matter.”
“Haha, don’t worry. Even if you miss this one, it’s fine. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future.”
“I believe that too,” Jeffrey laughed along. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll hang up. You must have only just gotten up. It should only be seven in the morning in Los Angeles. But with a 300,000 dollar overrun, I had no choice but to notify you as soon as possible.”
“It’s fine. I happened not to stay up late last night. I came back a little after ten.”
After saying goodbye, Eric hung up the phone.
Leaning against the sofa and lightly tapping his knee, Eric silently calculated his finances.
The 25 million dollar check he had received from Fox: the Beverly Hills mansion cost 1.9 million; paying Drew’s mother cost 1 million; acquiring UTA cost 1 million; renting and renovating Firefly Films, along with the expensive professional equipment for the dubbing room and editing room, cost another 3 million; Pretty Woman’s production budget was 7 million; the Super Bowl ad cost 1.5 million. Altogether, that came to 15.4 million dollars.
Although he was not a lavish person, the scattered expenses during this period also amounted to several hundred thousand dollars.
Since he had been reborn in America, Eric was about to face one of the two things no one in this country could escape: paying taxes. With his current income status, he would definitely have to pay the highest personal income tax rate of 35%, which came out to nearly 10 million dollars.
After fiercely cursing the evil capitalist system, Eric sadly discovered that before the tax filing deadline on April 15, he very likely would not have any more income.
“Don’t tell me I’ll need to take out a loan just to pay taxes.” Eric rubbed his forehead with a bitter smile. Deep down, he was not truly American, after all. He had not developed that deeply rooted concept of spending ahead of time, so he was very resistant to borrowing money.
Temporarily putting the matter aside, Eric ate breakfast and drove to the crew.
Perhaps because Eric had announced that the crew’s fixed weekly rest day would be moved ahead to tomorrow, the crew members’ morale was high. Over the course of the day, they even filmed five or six extra shots.
After ten days of filming, Pretty Woman had already completed sixty percent of its shots. At this rate, after the Golden Globe ceremony, the film would only need one more week to officially wrap.
The reason filming went so smoothly was mainly thanks to Julia’s outstanding performance. From the beginning, Eric had never worried that Al Pacino would cause any problems. For Al, who had received so many Oscar nominations, playing a role that did not require too much acting skill and even required him to restrain his acting placed no pressure on him at all.
Julia, as a newcomer, was different. At first, Julia did not have many major problems when filming her solo shots. At most, she needed a few NGs. But when she began acting opposite Al Pacino, Julia frequently made mistakes, and the number of NGs rose sharply. Compared with Al, Julia’s acting skills were indeed still at an infant stage.
However, after several days of adjustment and after Eric finally failed to hold back from roaring at her, Julia gradually closed the gap with Al Pacino. In some shots, she could even suppress Al to a certain degree. Even if that happened while Al Pacino was holding back, it was still not something easily accomplished.
“OK, that’s it for today.” After the final shot, Eric announced the end of work. The crew members cheered, then began packing up and heading their separate ways.
Eric stopped Al Pacino, who was about to go remove his makeup, and asked, “Al, how is your practice going for that piano solo?”
In the original film, Edward’s piano solo in the restaurant was composed and performed personally by Richard Gere. Based on his memory, Eric had worked with the company’s composer to write out the sheet music for that piece of less than forty seconds and handed it to Al Pacino.
Al’s piano skills were only slightly better than Eric’s, but he insisted on playing it himself, so Eric had no choice but to postpone that scene.
“Eric, give me one more… no, two more days. I think I still need to practice a little more.”
“That’s fine.” Eric still admired Al’s professionalism. “But Al, we can’t drag this out too long. The film’s shooting pace is very fast. If we delay too long, your emotional state will change a lot as the plot progresses. At that point, even if you play it well, it will be difficult to perform with the same feeling you had after filming those scenes over the past few days.”
Al Pacino thought for a moment and understood that Eric was telling the truth. Realizing that his small insistence would not improve the film’s quality by much, Al nodded helplessly and compromised. “All right, Eric. Then let’s put this scene the day after tomorrow. If it really doesn’t work, we’ll use post-production dubbing.”