Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Ronald was touched by the suggestion made by Douglas Jr. He himself was also a film director artist. Sometimes he didn't need to spend too much energy on business. He just needed to listen to the opinions of professionals he trusted and then make a judgment.

In his apartment, Ronald met with his private lawyer and private accountant.

It had been a long time since he saw Lawyer Lindsay Doll. She still looked like a college girl, a little rounder than before.

"Are you already a partner?" Ronald asked, looking at the new business card Lindsay gave him.

"Yes, I brought about half of the paid business in a year to the law firm." Lindsay said proudly.

"Congratulations," private Chinese accountant Lawrence Wang also congratulated the young female lawyer.

"Let's get back to the point. I think you should accept the offer from Atlantic, take the money to buy out the profits and leave." Lawyer Lindsay put forward her own ideas.

"I disagree. The marketing expenses they gave are too false. This is not a bill that a professional accountant can see. Even students who have just learned the balance sheet know that there are big problems in it." Lawrence was very dissatisfied. This kind of fraud is simply an insult to his professional ability.

"Look, the marketing expenses of 5.5 million here are simply too bizarre. Even if they have made a lot of posters and standing pictures in each theater, it is impossible for a theater to spend nearly 10,000 US dollars.

And the distributor did not do a lot of advertising on TV media and mass paper media, nor did they do trailer ads before other movies were shown. I think they have falsely reported at least one million US dollars here.

There are also distribution costs. The unit price of large-scale copies cannot be so expensive. Even if the distributors talk to each company, they can't spend so much.

They falsely reported a total cost of nearly 1.4 million, from which we can get an extra share of about 300,000."

Ronald looked at Lawyer Lindsay.

"I agree with you. But if we want to sue, there are several difficulties. First, evidence collection in the film industry has always been the most difficult. Marketing materials will be discarded after use. If there are such expenses in the cinema's account, it is difficult for us to use rationality to convince him or the jury in front of the judge that Atlantic has falsified accounts.

Second, in order to shoot and distribute this film, Atlantic actually set up a separate project company to handle all matters. So even if we win the case, we will face the situation of bankruptcy or cancellation of this project company. If we pursue his shareholders again, we will face a series of legal troubles.

Third, this money is not too much. To win the lawsuit, you have to summon multiple theater owners as witnesses, and you have to pay for expert witnesses in the film industry. All these expenses need to be paid in advance. Therefore, it may cost you more to win the relationship than the compensation you get.

Of course, if we win, we can also pursue punitive damages, and such fines will be far higher than your cost. But this is all assuming that you can win the lawsuit. And in this case, you will have no friends in the film industry..."

"Will you have no friends?" Ronald continued with a wry smile.

"In fact, it would have been difficult for you to get this part of the dividend. The film company can easily use various inflated costs to make the entire film's profits disappear. The reason why Atlantic didn't do this is because your movie's box office far exceeded their expectations, so they couldn't make false accounts to wipe out all the profits.

In addition, they may still want to cooperate with you, so they took the initiative to propose a monthly bonus of 100,000 and the option of early settlement."

Lawyer Lindsay Doll looked at the numbers in the contract.

Ronald looked at Lawrence Wang again.

"Lawyer Doll is right, I have no objection."

"Okay, then let them write a check." Ronald nodded to Lawrence.

Lawyer Lindsay Doll saw that there was nothing to do, so she stood up and left, "Helen asked about you recently, do you want to meet her?"

"Uh... I'm very busy in New York this time, I may not be free." Ronald thought of Lindsay's roommate, the temptation of prosecutor Helen Gable in a black uniform, and the touch of stockings on her legs, and swallowed his saliva.

"Okay, Brooke Shields, eh?" Lindsay also heard the gossip, winked at him, and then went back to the firm to work on other cases.

Ronald then checked his financial situation with Lawrence Wang.

"This time, with the $600,000 in my account, plus my stock account, am I already a millionaire?" Ronald was very happy. After working hard for a few years, he has made some achievements. He will not have to worry about food and drink as an ordinary person in the future. However, if he wants to support a movie star like Diane or Brooke, he has to continue to make money.

"No, you don't count this income, you are already a millionaire." Lawrence opened the report and showed Ronald his stock price.

"The President has loosened economic policies in recent years. Last year's inflation has been greatly reduced to only 3.2%. The economy has begun to recover, and this year's annual GDP is expected to grow by more than 4%.

Coupled with the implementation of the tax cut bill and various deregulations of the financial industry, more funds have entered the stock market. In short, your stocks have performed well this year. Because you buy stocks to get dividends every quarter, I didn't advise you to sell at a high point.

ib performed the best, rising nearly double. McDonald's and Coca-Cola both saw their share prices rise by more than 50% this year. Only Kodak's share price performance was not satisfactory, falling by 10%.

So your stock assets have totaled more than 850,000 US dollars. "Gu Kuan

"Oh, really?" Ronald didn't expect that the stock price would grow so well when he just wanted to earn some dividends and outperform inflation. But it's not even one million yet?"

"Have you forgotten the royalties of your best-selling book?" Lawrence took out another record, "Your "Word Star Idiot Book" has sold very well. The publisher has reprinted it many times, and the royalties have exceeded 150,000 US dollars."

"Ah? So much?" Ronald suddenly felt that he had a bright future in writing and selling books.

"Yes, it's very interesting. The number of books you sold has exceeded the sales of WordStar's software."

"Oh?" Ronald thought for a moment, "Is it because of piracy?"

"Yes, many people who write with pirated WordStar software have to buy your book because they don't have the instructions for the genuine software."

"So what stocks do you want to invest in with your two incomes?" Lawrence Wang saw that the price of the stocks Ronald bought was rising, and he was already quite impressed with his vision.

"Buy me Coca-Cola," Ronald thought for a moment, "Their competitor Pepsi-Cola always cooperates with some losers, such as Burger King. And they are very rich. They bought Columbia Pictures. I think they must make a lot of money."

"You are right," Lawrence looked at Coca-Cola's annual report, and the revenue and profit were good. "In this way, except for your next year's tax, I will buy you Coca-Cola stocks for the rest."

Ronald nodded and signed the required documents to confirm.

"By the way, there is one more thing." Lawrence Wang hesitated before getting up and leaving, and spoke to Ronald.

"Do you remember the case of Vincent Chin?"

"Yes," Ronald remembered the Chinese man who was mistaken for a Japanese and beaten to death by two unemployed white auto workers in the street in Detroit. He even donated two thousand dollars to him.

"The Illinois court has made a ruling. The charges against the two murderers were reduced from second-degree murder to manslaughter by the white judge.

The prosecutor and the two murderers reached a plea bargain under the arrangement of the judge. Because the charges were minor, they were sentenced not to serve any prison sentence and only had to pay a fine of three thousand dollars to be acquitted.

The judge also said that the two murderers were good people and should not be imprisoned."

"This..." Ronald looked at Lawrence's yellow skin and guessed the reason in his heart, "This is unfair."

"Yes, this is unfair. The mother of the deceased, Ms. Chen, also said that if a Chinese had beaten a white person to death, this would never be the final verdict. We Chinese are very angry about this matter. Two Chinese lawyers also stood up and filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the deceased, re-suing the murderer at the federal level on the grounds of civil rights of racial discrimination."

"In this way, I will write another check for two thousand dollars, and you will donate it to the deceased for me to use in legal proceedings."

"I will do it, thank you, Ronald." Lawrence seemed to have something else to say.

"Do you have anything else to say?"

"I know this may be an unwelcome request for you, but our Chinatown Chamber of Commerce plans to take to the streets before Christmas to let the media do justice for us. You are a famous Hollywood director, can you also participate, so that we can attract TV stations other than Chinese TV stations to interview us."

"It seems that you have a misunderstanding of my status in Hollywood. Even if I stand on the streets of New York or in front of the three major TV stations, no reporter will recognize me."

"No, you are not talking to Brooke Shields..." Lawrence asked tentatively.

"I understand your sympathy for your compatriots, but I can't cause trouble for Brooke for such a thing." Ronald was also very angry about the blind judgment of the Chen Guoren case, but this did not mean that he could drag Brooke into the water.

What's more, he still has Diane.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made such a request. It's just that our Chinatown is very weak and can't attract the attention of the mainstream media. Several of my uncles have agreed to unite with the Japanese in Little Tokyo in the East Village of Manhattan to protest on the streets."

"You are not... I remember that China and Japan were enemies during World War II. How can you be willing to join them?" Ronald asked.

"Ah, this has also caused a lot of controversy. The uncles all fought with the Japanese in China, or donated the food money they saved.

But most of the rulers in America are white. In their eyes, whether it is the Chinese, the Japanese, or the Koreans who have increased recently, they are all the same. They are all completely different ethnic groups from them.

The Japanese have now defeated the manufacturing industry in America, and now they are also under pressure from the President and Congress. This incident is about two workers in the automobile industry who were squeezed out of work by the Japanese. They mistook us Chinese for Japanese, so they took the initiative to find us and wanted to unite."

"Why don't they protest on their own?" Ronald was a little confused. There are many Japanese in America, and they are very strong economically now.

"Humph, they are just the defeated country, we are the victorious country. In the United Nations, Chinese and Americans are both permanent members of the Security Council and have great power. Moreover, on the streets and in American politics, we are far more influential than those Japanese. They used to follow us Chinese and take advantage of us."