Chapter 96: The Double Tom Meeting
Chapter 96: The Double Tom Meeting
An inconspicuous black business van stopped downstairs outside the Firefly office building. A tall man with black curly hair and sunglasses stepped out alongside his agent, then lowered his head and hurried into the building.
Across the street, the convenience store owner Johnny casually glanced through the glass window and immediately recognized him.
Tom Hanks.
Johnny counted as a movie fan himself. He watched one or two popular films almost every week. Although he was nearly forty and long past the age of idol worship, he still knew Hollywood celebrities large and small like the back of his hand. Someone like Tom Hanks, who merely wore sunglasses without making any real attempt at disguise, could be recognized by Johnny at a glance.
In Burbank, a place packed with film production companies large and small, running into a celebrity or two was perfectly normal. Johnny did not feel particularly surprised.
He knew the owner of the film company across the street was the recently risen Eric Williams. He casually guessed Tom Hanks was probably there because of that miracle young director’s new film.
After serving two or three customers, another five or six minutes passed. By coincidence, Johnny saw another business van stop across the street.
Curious now, Johnny stared fixedly at the car door.
Soon, two more people stepped out—a man and a woman. The man also wore sunglasses.
Although this man was shorter than Tom Hanks, his fame in Hollywood was even greater.
It was none other than the currently red-hot Hollywood idol star Tom Cruise.
“Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise...” Johnny stroked his chin thoughtfully. Suddenly, he felt perhaps the paparazzi would be interested in this clue.
If only one person had come here, it would not have been news at all. Although paparazzi followed every move of Hollywood stars, they were not especially interested in ordinary daily activities.
Only celebrities who had recently become the focus of public attention—because of blockbuster films, scandals, divorces, drug arrests, and similar reasons—became targets for relentless pursuit.
Back when Home Alone had just premiered, Eric himself had been chased by paparazzi for quite some time. During that period, the public had been intensely curious about this miracle young director who had created such success immediately after adulthood. Any newspaper carrying news about Eric would sell briskly.
But now, two of Hollywood’s hottest male stars had appeared simultaneously at Firefly Pictures.
And coincidentally, both were named Tom.
Since they were close in age, and because Hanks had not yet “aged poorly,” the two occupied competing positions within the industry.
That alone made it entertainment-page-worthy news.
Thinking this through, Johnny excitedly found a gossip tabloid and dialed the hotline printed above it.
Many newspapers paid informants for news leads in order to gather material. Naturally, Johnny did not contact major papers like the Los Angeles Times. Those papers never lacked news, and the price they offered definitely would not satisfy him.
“Hello, is this Hollywood Information Daily? ... Yes, yes, I have a huge scoop...”
Several minutes later, Johnny excitedly hung up the phone.
Hollywood Information Daily had sharply recognized the value of the news and generously offered Johnny five hundred dollars for the lead. The only condition was that he could not sell the information to any other newspaper.
After some bargaining, Johnny ultimately raised the price to seven hundred dollars.
For someone running a tiny convenience store, this was practically an unexpected windfall.
Less than twenty minutes later, several paparazzi dispatched by Hollywood Information Daily hurried over. After learning from Johnny that Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks had not yet left, they promptly paid the informant fee and patiently began staking out Firefly headquarters.
After reaching an agreement with Columbia, Eric immediately began working on securing his two male leads.
Following the success of three consecutive films, nobody in Hollywood still looked down on Eric because of his age. No major star would directly reject an invitation to collaborate with him anymore—not even red-hot celebrities like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.
Moreover, after reading the story outline, both Hollywood superstars had sharply sensed how excellent the story was.
Under those circumstances, there was even less reason to refuse.
Previously, neither side had known the other had also received an invitation.
But after Hanks proposed wanting to play the robber, and Cruise submitted a long list of revision suggestions for the script, Eric revealed the situation to both of them and suggested meeting face-to-face.
The two Toms also understood that, with the current fame of all three men, if the collaboration succeeded, the resulting box office appeal would be immeasurable.
Especially with the excellent story of Running Out of Time, perhaps this movie could once again create a box office miracle like Eric’s previous two directorial works.
No one wanted to miss the chance to become part of a miracle.
That was how today’s meeting came about.
Inside Firefly’s conference room, only Eric, Hanks, and Cruise remained.
Jeffrey Katzenberg and the two actors’ agents all waited outside.
Although Cruise and Hanks were currently both represented by Creative Artists Agency, the agency’s ability to restrain them had become nearly nonexistent.
As a result, the two agents could only obediently perform their duties and dared not interfere.
Of course, once the collaboration was fully confirmed, salary negotiations would still require the agents to step in.
Both agents were eagerly awaiting that moment.
They had already received instructions from upper management.
To summarize in one sentence:
Squeeze them for every last penny.
In front of Cruise and Hanks sat complete copies of the script. Previously, both men had only seen the outline.
After spending half an hour skimming through the screenplay, Tom Hanks touched his face and smiled.
“Eric, I understand now why I’m not suitable for Andy. With my appearance, cross-dressing as a woman would indeed be somewhat difficult.”
Eric laughed along with him.
However, Cruise seemed not to hear Hanks’s joke at all. He still frowned slightly.
“Eric, I still think it would be more appropriate to revise this part. Since Andy is established in the script as a master of disguise, disguising himself as another man would also be a perfectly viable choice, don’t you think?”
Sitting opposite Cruise, Hanks raised an eyebrow slightly.
He felt Cruise’s attitude was overly conservative.
Cross-dressing as a woman was not some grave matter. As an actor, even if a director asked him to play a dog, as long as it was reasonable within the story, he would do it.
Moreover, after analyzing the script, he felt this plot point was not forced at all.
Andy disguised himself as a woman precisely because it would lower the villains’ guard.
The fact that the villain later allowed “the woman” Andy was pretending to be to accompany the underlings to retrieve the ransom proved exactly that.
If it had instead been another burly man, Hanks felt the villains would be more likely to simply pull out guns and kill them.
After all, having two men appear simultaneously at the exchange site would have looked far too suspicious.