Chapter 1017: Chapter 1019: Little Boy
[Chapter 1019: Little Boy]
At this moment, when Eric brought up their bet from the Oscars, Judy couldn't help but say, "But why do I suddenly feel like I owe you a promise?"
"Well, if you feel that way," Eric replied smoothly, "how about you take me out to dinner later?"
"Sure," Judy nodded enthusiastically. "After dinner, we can go watch a movie together."
Eric readily agreed. "No problem."
Judy continued, "And after the movie, you can take me home."
Eric was somewhat taken aback. "Sure."
Judy shot him a playful yet sharp glance with her spirited almond eyes, a smile on her lips, and quickly changed the subject. "You wish!"
Eric feigned injury. "Hey, Judy, that's not fair."
Judy showed no signs of remorse, still smiling. "What do you expect? You're always thinking about hitting on me, little boy."
"You know, Judy," Eric said earnestly, "from a psychological perspective, calling me 'little boy' indicates that subconsciously, you worry about not being able to resist someone of the opposite sex. So, you use a defensive term that you think creates distance between us. But in reality, it might just backfire."
Judy propped her chin up with one hand, listening with a beaming smile. "Though I think you're talking nonsense, it somehow seems quite rational."
Eric encouraged her, "You should be a bit more confident and be brave enough to acknowledge your mental state."
"Alright, enough of your rambling," Judy laughed as she pulled out a stack of papers from her bag and handed it to him. "This is the first draft of my novel version of Gravity. Though it's only halfway done, I still wanted you to take a look at it first."
Upon hearing Judy bring up a serious matter, Eric stopped joking and accepted the stack of manuscripts. "I'll finish reading it this weekend and get back to you on Monday."
"You don't need to rush. Take your time to read it," Judy waved off as she stood up. "Well then, I'm leaving."
Eric got up to see Judy off before returning to his desk to continue working on his log for the day.
...
Saturday morning arrived with the typical sunny California weather.
Although he had work lined up today, he didn't have to rush like on a regular weekday.
He woke up promptly at seven at the estate, finished his usual workout, and sat down in the dining room to read the day's newspaper. An open laptop sat on the table. The twins were busy bustling around in the kitchen, having stayed out late the previous night, and were still lounging in bed, apparently not planning to get up until noon.
This Saturday marked the third weekend since the release of Charlie's Angels 3. The laptop displayed detailed box office data for the film over the past few weeks.
After breaking box office records with a $95.9 million opening weekend, Charlie's Angels 3 finally raked in $130.43 million for its first week, continuing to shatter various records in Hollywood.
Moreover, the film's second weekend also met expectations, with a drop of only 43%, bringing in an additional $74.34 million, accumulating a total of $204.77 million over two weeks -- a remarkable achievement of over $200 million in just two weekends.
Based on the box office data from yesterday, the third week's Friday gross represented a 49% drop from the previous Friday, with a daily box office of $8.46 million. Given that another major blockbuster, The Scorpion King, was released this week, this drop wasn't disappointing.
Eric recalled that the previous The Scorpion King could only be considered mid-tier in terms of cost, and its box office performance hadn't been exceptional. However, with Universal's ambition in building their Mummy universe, the production cost of this new scion film had reached $90 million.
Following its widespread release yesterday, The Scorpion King received decent reviews for its story and special effects. The midnight and first-day earnings accumulated to $21.86 million, suggesting a potential $80 million opening week, given the film's reception.
While these figures couldn't compare to Charlie's Angels 3, they were already impressive for a first installment of a derived series, and Universal may recover its entire production cost from the North American box office alone.
Under such circumstances, it was almost a given that Charlie's Angels 3 would be affected. A drop below 50% already demonstrated the strong popularity of this spy movie blockbuster. Moreover, having surpassed the $200 million mark in just two weekends, Charlie's Angels 3 seemed all but confirmed to be the first film in 1998 likely to break the $300 million mark at the North American box office.
Considering the summer movie line-up and the end-of-year slate, unless another surprise blockbuster emerged, Charlie's Angels 3 was undoubtedly a strong contender for the title of 1998's North American box office champion, aside from the similarly-produced Mission: Impossible III.
On the international market, in the countries that saw simultaneous releases, Charlie's Angels 3 had also strongly crossed $260 million in overseas box office in just two weeks. Notably, important overseas markets like Japan, Italy had yet to release.
All these combined suggested that the overseas revenue would conservatively be double that of North America, indicating that Charlie's Angels 3 might again challenge the billion-dollar mark globally, becoming the second film from the MGM spy movie universe to achieve such a feat.
Last year's Casino Royale saw robust box office returns, propelling MGM, which had been dormant for years, to surpass a market cap of $10 billion.
Amidst the general upward trend of the North American stock market, following further successes of the MGM spy movie universe and rapid growth in MGM's television business, MGM's stock price had reached $51.37, valuing the company at $22.3 billion.
Just a few years ago, MGM had been on the brink of bankruptcy, ready to be ousted from Hollywood's major studio ranks. However, in terms of film and television alone, its current strength had far surpassed that of Sony Pictures, with this year's expected profits placing it comfortably among the top three major studios.
...
As Eric casually browsed through the newspaper, he began contemplating MGM's next steps for expansion.
In terms of cinema, the only major shortfall MGM faced was the limitation of its film production and distribution scale.
Despite boasting blockbusters like Charlie's Angels 3 and Mission: Impossible III, MGM only had plans for the production and release of nine films throughout the entire year of 1998. Notably, these two films alone accounted for over 80% of MGM's box office share for the year.
While the spy movie universe was in its most thriving phase, it also faced hidden crises, the most striking of which was that all three major series had started to encounter the "Hollywood trilogy curse."
Although Eric successfully navigated the 007 series past that hurdle last year using strongarm tactics, the increasing importance of the spy movie universe to MGM meant he couldn't resort to such desperate measures again this year.
To lessen MGM's dependence on the spy movie universe, it was imperative to bolster MGM's overall film production and distribution capabilities. That way, even if unforeseen issues arose in the spy movie universe, MGM wouldn't plummet from its peak into a deep valley.
Just like this year's Firefly Group, which boasted only The Day After Tomorrow -- a heavyweight blockbuster -- yet benefited from the combined impressive production and distribution scales of Firefly Pictures, Disney Pictures, and New Line Cinema, as well as continuous revenue from video sales and television broadcast rights following previous years' hits, Firefly Group expected its film and television revenues to maintain a leading position in Hollywood.
...
The twins brought breakfast to the table, snapping Eric back to reality. He stopped pondering his previous thoughts and, as they sat across from him, asked, "So, where did our party girl go wild yesterday?"
Natasha looked up. "Boss hosted a party to celebrate the wrap of Fast & Furious."
Eric nodded, not saying much more but reminding them, "Just make sure you don't drink at these parties. Take care of each other."
Natasha replied softly, "We never drink, master."
"That's a good habit," Eric affirmed lightly and then casually inquired, "What do you two like to do in your spare time?"
Natasha seemed taken aback and replied, "Whatever you ask us to do, master."
Eric thought back; he genuinely couldn't recall if the twins had any particular hobbies. They seemed like mere shadows of that girl: "Well, don't tell me you haven't thought about what you'd like to do in the future? Like marriage, perhaps?"
Natasha's bright blue eyes looked back, unexpectedly questioning, "Master, do you want us to get married?"
Eric paused for a moment, then suddenly laughed, shaking his head. "No, that's not right. You usually don't talk like this."
But instead of responding to Eric, Natasha pressed on, "Master, do you want us to get married?"
Hearing Natasha speak so out of character astonished Eric. He bluntly replied, "Of course not! You two are mine. No one's leaving."
"Mm," Natasha responded with a hint of agreement, but it seemed like the earlier conversation evaporated as she returned to her usual cool demeanor, lowering her head and silently munching her food.
Eric fixed his gaze on the two girls across from him for a few seconds and suddenly felt like he had just experienced something uncanny. He couldn't help but ask, "Natasha, do you remember what you just said?"
Natasha raised her face again, slightly nodding, and replied, "Master, if you want, you can take us out for the night. But not together; it has to be one at a time."
One at a time -- how would he ever leverage the twins' advantages like that?
Eric pondered, glancing towards Eve. Sensing his gaze, Eve's exquisite face colored slightly, but she only lowered her head a bit.
He turned back toward Natasha and asked, "Well, what if I wanted both of you together?"
Natasha's expression barely flickered. "Master, you can't take us both on."
"..."
Alright, it seemed logic always lay in the hands of those with bigger fists.
Eric suddenly realized he had two deeply hidden, extraordinary young women by his side and couldn't help but feel a little strange about it all.
"Remember to wake Drew up at ten; she can't sleep too long. Also, I'll head straight to the party celebrating Charlie's Angels 3 tonight, so you two don't need to wait for me."
After breakfast, before heading to work, Eric gave the twins all the usual instructions. Once they nodded quietly, he glanced at their identical beautiful faces and joked lightly, "I'm off to work. Should I get a kiss before I go?"
Natasha nodded, while Eve blushed shyly. The two identical girls had completely different reactions; it gave Eric another curious sensation.
However, after Eric's comment, the two of them remained standing still for a while, neither moving nor speaking.
After holding that pose for over ten seconds, Eric shrugged slightly and said, "Okay, I must've said something strange just now. This morning is just too weird. Well, goodbye."
...
Aside from the peculiar experiences of the morning, Eric soon arrived at Firefly Studios and quickly immersed himself in work.
He spent the morning brainstorming the redesign of the astronaut helmet with Firefly's visual effects supervisor, Robert Byer, after which he was set to have a scheduled lunch meeting with Amy Pascal to discuss the upcoming development plans for the Charlie's Angels series, mainly revolving around the salary issues for Charlize and the other two lead actresses.
Typically speaking, with Charlie's Angels 3 projected to hit the global $1 billion box office, the lead actors in this series would certainly qualify for salaries of $20 million or more each.
However, considering there were three actresses, if each one asked for $20 million, that would mean MGM had to pay a staggering $60 million for just the lead roles in the next sequel. If they wanted to invite one or two strong supporting roles, just the salary expenditures would make it challenging for Hollywood to produce a single A-list film.
Under traditional Hollywood rules, poor cost management had long been the leading reason for major studios suffering losses. This wasn't due to a lack of capable cost managers in Hollywood but because those producers typically reaped the most benefits from the existing rules.
Filmmakers, from directors to producers and other creatives, often came out in the green, while the neglected sacrifices usually fell on shareholders and investors. If Eric were just a director, he would hope for such a profit-sharing model to continue but wouldn't care much about how it affects anyone else.
Now, however, Eric's most important role leaned more toward that of a shareholder and investor, which meant he couldn't allow such scenarios to persist within the Firefly system.
Regarding the future development of Charlie's Angels, while he wouldn't be as inflexible about salaries as he had been last year, he also wouldn't submit to Hollywood's traditional practices of profit distribution.
*****
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