Chapter 98: Stirring the Pot
Chapter 98: Stirring the Pot
“Williams Meets Privately with the Two ‘Toms,’ Suspected Discussion of New Film Project.”
That was the front-page headline of Hollywood Information Daily the next day, accompanied by a photograph of Eric, Cruise, and Hanks walking side by side out of Firefly headquarters.
In the photo, Eric wore a gray tracksuit, looking like a high school student, perfectly matching his age. Cruise wore a black casual jacket left unbuttoned, revealing the white T-shirt underneath. Only Hanks dressed formally, wearing a black suit and tie, looking like an office worker.
Because they had spent the entire morning discussing the script, both stars had relaxed their guard while leaving and were no longer wearing sunglasses. As a result, all three of their expressions were extremely clear. Laughing and chatting together as they walked toward the entrance, the scene happened to be captured by one lucky paparazzo.
“Around eight o’clock yesterday morning, two superstar actors, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, were seen entering the headquarters of rising young director Eric Williams’s Firefly Pictures. After receiving the tip, our reporters rushed to the location. Following a wait lasting over four hours, Eric Williams finally emerged from Firefly headquarters accompanied by Cruise and Hanks amid a crowd of onlookers. Judging from the expressions of the three men in the photo, the meeting was extremely pleasant.
“Although the three did not accept interviews from our reporters and instead hurriedly departed in separate vehicles, according to clues provided by informed insiders, this meeting was related to Eric Williams’ new film currently in preparation.
“Ever since making his debut last year as both actor and screenwriter with Back to Seventeen, Eric Williams, the miraculous young man who suddenly burst into Hollywood, has continued rising at rocket-like speed. His first directed film, the low-budget comedy Home Alone, immediately propelled him into the hundred-million-dollar box office club.
“When many people still attributed the boy’s achievements to the favor of Lady Luck, only four months later, Williams’ second romantic comedy, Pretty Woman, premiered again. Its opening-week box office approached thirty million dollars, completely proving the strength of this young director.
“In his first film, Home Alone, Eric Williams used only a group of television actors and an ordinary neighborhood boy to create an astonishing box office miracle. In his second film, although Al Pacino had received multiple Oscar nominations, he had been retired from acting for four years, with almost no remaining box office appeal. Meanwhile, Julia Roberts had only played small roles in low-budget comedies. Yet Eric simultaneously elevated both of them into Hollywood A-list actors.
“And this time, the young director has directly chosen two of Hollywood’s hottest A-list male stars. We have no doubt that his next film will once again create a box office miracle.
“However, although the photo of the three chatting happily gives the impression that this collaboration is naturally falling into place, we must mention that Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks currently both belong to CAA. Industry rumors have long claimed that a certain CAA executive is extremely dissatisfied with Eric Williams. During the casting period for Pretty Woman, that executive even obstructed Richard Gere’s collaboration with Eric Williams, compensating Gere with an MGM-UA big-budget production instead.
“Under such circumstances, we cannot imagine that Eric Williams’ collaboration with the two Toms will proceed smoothly.
“Of course, both Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks possess enough influence to ignore CAA’s support entirely, and their careers likely would not suffer major impact.
“Moreover, judging from the momentum generated by Eric Williams’ previous two works, his new film could very likely elevate the careers of both superstars to an entirely new level.
“We believe no actor in Hollywood could resist such temptation. The only question is how CAA’s upper management will handle Williams’ invitation. Let us wait and see.”
Eric let out a bitter laugh and tossed the newspaper onto the table.
He seriously wanted to blow up the editor who wrote that article.
Under normal circumstances, Michael Ovitz would at most have raised the stars’ salary demands to express his dissatisfaction. He would not have strongly obstructed the collaboration like last time.
After all, UTA’s rise had already become unstoppable. If Michael Ovitz continued making petty moves now, not only would it be counterproductive, it would also make others view him as narrow-minded.
And the more narrow-minded a person was, the more they feared and hated others accusing them of it.
Once the contracts were signed and the cast officially announced, then with a few media outlets subtly pushing the narrative, no matter how much open and hidden conflict remained behind the scenes, the public would view both sides as having reconciled and buried the hatchet.
That would benefit both CAA’s public image and Eric’s.
But after this tabloid deliberately stirred the pot, if the collaboration now proceeded smoothly, the newly awarded title of “Most Powerful Man in Hollywood” Michael Ovitz had just received would become a complete joke.
Sure enough, the day after Hollywood Information Daily published the article, Eric received a thoroughly irritating piece of news.
“This is outrageous! A six-million-dollar salary demand is still understandable, but they’re also shamelessly demanding twenty percent of North American profits after release. I’ve been in Hollywood for so many years, and I’ve never heard of any actor making such excessive demands!”
After negotiating with Cruise’s and Hanks’ agents, Jeffrey stormed into Eric’s office looking furious and complained:
“Eric, do we absolutely have to use Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks? Other agencies also have top-tier actors. If worst comes to worst, you could even play one of the roles yourself. Writing, directing, and starring in the film yourself would create an even bigger publicity impact.”
Although Eric had mentally prepared himself, the conditions still startled him.
The bad habit of Hollywood stars demanding profit participation had originally begun with Tom Cruise.
Later on, the combination of upfront salary plus profit participation gradually became a popular compensation model, with percentages generally ranging from ten to twenty percent.
So-called profit participation and box office percentage were two completely different concepts.
Specifically, after the production company received its rightful share of the box office revenue, the gross profit remaining after subtracting production costs would then be multiplied by the actor’s negotiated percentage.
That became the actor’s profit share.
Moreover, profit participation itself was divided into worldwide profit participation and North American profit participation.
Although Cruise’s and Hanks’ agents had not completely lost their minds to the point of demanding worldwide profit participation, even that twenty-percent North American profit share was extremely difficult to obtain even many years later.
Actors who could receive the highest percentages were either absolutely irreplaceable—like Johnny Depp in the parallel world’s Pirates of the Caribbean—or they completely abandoned upfront salary and essentially gambled on receiving the highest possible profit percentage instead.
But right now, this compensation model had only just appeared.
Last year, while filming Rain Man, Tom Cruise had first “wildly imagined” this payment structure.
Because of Cruise’s immense box office appeal, combined with Rain Man’s relatively low production cost, the producers ultimately concluded that as long as Cruise joined the project, the film would easily become profitable.
Thus, they agreed to Cruise’s outrageous demand.
However, that was only after Cruise had voluntarily lowered his base salary.
And even then, the profit participation percentage was only ten percent.