America: Starting with the acquisition of MGM

Chapter 83 I will do my best to help you block the wind and rain outside

After leaving the set of "The Walking Dead", Eric went to the nearby set of "Legally Blonde 2".

This project started in mid-January, but since it is a sequel, I have shooting experience.

And it wasn’t made after Eric came, so he didn’t pay much attention to it. The producer reported the progress twice, but he didn’t pay much attention to it.

Today I suddenly remembered that the heroine of this drama is Reese Witherspoon, that well-known Hollywood sweetheart.

It was 2001's "Legally Blonde" that established her sweetheart status, and it was this movie that made Witherspoon enter the ranks of well-known movie stars.

In 1999, she also guest-starred as Rachel's sister in "Friends". At that time, Jennifer Aniston was America's sweetheart.

By 2001, both of them were sweethearts. Unfortunately, development has highlighted the gap, and this gap will widen further in the future.

Aniston still can't jump out of the small screen, but Witherspoon has spread her wings on the big screen.

On the set, Eric and Witherspoon shook hands, with the latter extending his hand first. This was also the first time the two met.

"Reese Witherspoon, just call me Reese."

The blonde beauty smiled sweetly, and her little face had a hint of naughty baby fat.

"Eric Cooper, it's our first time meeting you, but I believe we will get to know each other in the future."

Letting go of his hand, Eric asked: "Where is the director? Where is Charles Winfield?"

The assistant director next to him hurriedly replied: "He went to the bathroom. It seems that he had a bad stomach last night."

"Is it serious? If the situation is not good, you should go see a doctor. There is no rush to shoot for one day."

Eric shows care at the right time, and with his handsome appearance, there is no hint of any capitalist exploitative temperament.

Several people around him couldn't help but sigh in their hearts, what a good person. Other companies are trying their best to push. If you delay for a day, you will lose a day's money. Little Mr. Cooper is so kind.

But the old MGM employees didn't think so. They knew very well that the guy in front of them fired more than half of the executives on the first day he took over the company.

He would rather lose money than tell those people to go away, which shows his cruelty.

After chatting for a few words, Witherspoon suddenly said gratefully: "Eric, actually I have always wanted to thank you."

"What! Why? This must be our first meeting. Are we childhood sweethearts? Have I helped you before?" Eric asked curiously.

Witherspoon laughed and said: "Of course not. I heard that you killed a lot of scripts when you took office. Of course I have to thank you for being able to keep "Legally Blonde"."

Eric suddenly realized that Witherspoon's masterpiece is "Legally Blonde" now, and his status is not yet stable.

If she cuts the sequel, she will probably cry to death behind her back. If she is unlucky and doesn't get a good book, she won't be able to recover for a few years, and she may slowly disappear from the public.

"Reese, you deserve this. Being killed by me only means that they are bad, but you are excellent. I admire you very much and am very optimistic about your future development."

Hearing this, Witherspoon's pupils shrank significantly, and Eric noticed that her hands suddenly shook.

Realizing that he had said the wrong thing, Eric hurriedly added: "Of course, I'm talking about acting."

Witherspoon smiled stiffly. Seeing the other party like this, Eric didn't want to stay any longer.

At this time, director Charles Winfield walked out of the bathroom holding his stomach. Just as he was about to come over and say hello, he saw Eric turn around and leave, and touched his head strangely.

In the car, Eric suddenly remembered the "me too" movement before time travel, which was a female boxing storm.

Many Hollywood female stars have used this movement to speak out about their experiences of persecution. This movement also directly and indirectly sent Harvey Weinstein to prison.

Reese Witherspoon, who had transformed into a producer boss at the time, also revealed her unbearable past.

A beautiful girl with no background can tell what will happen if she enters the entertainment industry.

When Witherspoon was 16 years old, she received a call from the director and went to the audition with high spirits. Unfortunately, she was sexually assaulted upon arrival.

When she told her agent about the matter, the agent didn't take it seriously at all and only told her that if she wanted to survive in this circle, she had to learn to accept the unspoken rules.

In the following years, she had no good works published. It is said that she did not want to accept the unspoken rules, so she could not get good resources.

But even so, she still suffered some sexual assaults during the period, until she took over the filming of "Legally Blonde" and became a hit.

At this point, ordinary directors and producers no longer have the ability to unspoken rules for her.

But Eric is different. He has enough power to make Witherspoon obey.

So hearing the words "I admire you very much" should have awakened the unbearable feeling deep in the memory.

Two days later, Frank Darabont came to the MGM building with a rough cut of the first episode of "The Walking Dead." Dad, who had rare time today, also participated in an internal preview.

The rough cut version of the first episode only lasts 45 minutes. Although the apocalyptic rendering is not interesting, this aspect can be made up for in post-production.

And this flaw doesn't matter, the zombies rushing towards it will not give the audience time to think at all.

After reading it, everyone applauded Darabont.

Volvo, the marketing director who had always been skeptical about this project, also expressed his praise with great excitement.

Eric gave Darabont a thumbs up: "Frank, like I said, I have no doubts about your ability!"

Darabont grinned: "Hahaha, this is thanks to the excellent scripts and financial support provided by MGM. A TV series invests 40 million U.S. dollars. I know what that means. Many movies starring big-name stars have invested 40 million U.S. dollars." less than this amount of funds.

"And I have a hunch that 'The Walking Dead' will become my most satisfying work after 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Green Mile.'"

Eric looked at everyone: "So do you have any other opinions? You can raise them now."

At the scene, you looked at me and I looked at you, but no one said a word.

"If that's the case, then contact HBO, Shoutime, Starz, Amc, FX, in short, contact all the cable stations."

"The contact was made within a week, and with the quality of The Walking Dead , I guess they weren't fools."

"Volvo, today is Tuesday, and I need to get the quotes and treatment offered by all cable stations before next Friday."

Volvo nodded: "No problem, I will give you the results as soon as possible."

"By the way, don't forget to tell them that MGM plans to use this show to compete for the Emmy Awards, so the broadcast time is also an important factor for us to consider."

"clear!"

Everyone dispersed, and only Cooper and his son were left at the scene.

"Dad, how are things going at Double Star Entertainment?"

"We are making progress. I have already contacted a private equity fund. They are very professional in doing this kind of thing. It won't take long for the results to come out."

"Also, I have something to ask you Eric. I heard from Kenny that you asked him to contact people in Silicon Valley. Do you have any plans? What do you want to do? Engage in technology research and development?"

Even if his father doesn't ask about this, Eric will still find time to tell him that the two fathers and sons have nothing to hide.

"Dad, I plan to enter the Internet field, but it is just a preliminary idea. I think I will report to you when it matures."

Dad frowned: "Internet! This is not a good time. The stock market crash has just ended. It is like a restricted area, and it is expanding too fast. I am worried that MGM's funds will be tight."

"The company needs money in too many ways. There are loans to repay and the share acquisition of Double Star Entertainment. In addition, we are negotiating cooperation with DreamWorks."

"If you want to buy stocks, I have no objection. Microsoft, Oracle, and Google are high-quality resources that the market is generally optimistic about. Forget Yahoo, it is in trouble now."

Eric shook his head slightly: "Dad, you misunderstood. I didn't mean to buy stocks. Of course, stocks can also be bought, but that's not the point."

"What on earth do you want to do?"

"What I want to do is to truly enter the Internet field, build an Internet company of our own, and develop a social network and network platform that only belongs to us."

Dad hesitated for a moment and seemed to be thinking about his words carefully, but he still looked at Eric in confusion: "I don't understand what you are talking about. We also have an online platform. We have our own official website, isn't that it?"

As a middle-aged man in his fifties, or someone who is about to enter old age, Charlie Cooper naturally lags behind in accepting new things.

This is a common problem among people. They live in their own life experiences and do not want to accept new things from the bottom of their hearts.

Because those new things are likely to destroy their cognition and even destroy the empire they have built.

A good example of this is media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

In another five or six years, the development of online media will reach a new height, while traditional paper media will face the danger of being eliminated.

But for Murdoch, who started his career in print media, abandoning those newspapers that he is proud of is definitely cutting his flesh, even if the profits of these industries are already very low or they are losing money.

But what was the result?

Murdoch was forced to leave the company by his son and many senior executives, and it was inevitable to cut the paper media business out of the group.

In the end, even this man who controlled public opinion and could influence the presidential election had to make compromises.

He left $2.6 billion in reserves for his newspaper empire, hoping to resurrect it from the ashes.

Other paper media groups were abandoned. The worst one was Newsweek, which was sold for $1.

Yes, it is 1 dollar, because there are too many foreign debts.

Pulling back my thoughts, I want my dad to support me, but I still need to make sense. If you tell him the development trend of the Internet, he may not be able to understand it, so you have to say something more practical.

"Dad, the reason why I want to enter the Internet field is actually for the development of MGM."

"Especially through the production of "The Walking Dead", this feeling is particularly strong. Let me ask you, after the TV series is produced, why can't we broadcast it ourselves? Why should we sell it to those TV stations."

"Because we don't have a broadcast channel, if we don't sell it to a TV station, wouldn't this investment be equivalent to wasting it? This is what everyone does."

Dad replied without hesitation that this pattern had been fixed in his mind for decades and it made perfect sense.

But Eric, a time traveler, must have felt it was unreasonable, and he continued to ask: "So why don't we build our own channels?"

Dad laughed: "Eric, that's impossible. Do you know how difficult it is to build a TV station? Do you know how much capital reserves are needed?"

"Even if we have enough funds, you still have to communicate with major local TV stations and then form your own TV network."

"Then you have to face the siege of the existing TV stations. They will not allow a new person to cut the cake. This is absolutely impossible."

"Under the pressure from these established TV stations, I'm afraid no local station will sign a contract with us."

Eric nodded: "Yes, I understand, and we all know that these TV stations are backed by major groups."

"Behind FX is Fox, and behind Fox is Murdoch, who also has our rival 20th Century Fox; behind AMC is Rainbow Media, and behind Rainbow Media is CVC Group;"

"NBC is backed by General Electric; HBO belongs to Time Warner, which also has our rival Warner Pictures; Starz is backed by Liberty Media Group; Shoutime belongs to Viacom Group."

"In short, every TV station you can think of has a powerful capital group behind it. We can't compete, at least for now."

"But I'm not willing to give in. I don't want to sell the movies and TV series that I have worked so hard to produce to them. This is equivalent to us making money for our opponents."

"So I want to build an online platform, to be precise, an online on-demand platform, to broadcast our works on our platform. This is my idea, and it is also based on the general trend of the development of the Internet."

"Dad, in the near future, the Internet will be the only way out and one of the few opportunities we can seize."

Looking at his excited son, Charlie Cooper suddenly felt that he couldn't understand this child. He always felt that he didn't look like the child he had watched for more than 20 years.

It seems that since that balcony accident, he has become a stranger, like a different person and a different soul.

All of a sudden he understands movies, all of a sudden he can even direct and write, and it's all weird.

How could Charlie Cooper not have doubts?

But hearing Eric call him father dispelled that doubt.

But at this moment, he was still shocked. After decades of working in the industry, he could hear what Eric meant, but he didn't expect that his son's ambition would be so big.

While he was satisfied with making MGM better, Eric's target was the real big groups.

He thought this idea was ridiculous and impossible to achieve.

But looking at his excited son, I felt that maybe it wasn't that his son was too arrogant, but that he was really old and no longer had the ambition of his youth.

Finally, Charlie Cooper sighed: "Eric, although I don't know much about the Internet, at least I know one thing. If you really want to build an online viewing platform, we will definitely face a violent attack."

"Because this is subverting the fundamentals of all current film and television companies and TV stations. You are digging into their roots!"

"From the bottom of my heart, I feel that this is a wrong decision, and it will probably lead MGM to a point of no return."

"But as a father, I knew I had to support my son."

"So do it, and I will do my best to help you block the wind and rain outside until you fall."