Meizong Wealth Life

Chapter 163 The gears of fate turn again

"By the way, there's one more thing."

Jamie shifted the phone to his left hand.

"How was your chat with Gwyneth's agent?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, and then Ovitz's voice rang out.

"In fact, I haven't told the other party about it."

Jamie frowned and said:

"why?"

"Don't you think there's someone better suited than me to convince Gwyneth?"

Jamie was stunned for a moment, then realized that Ovitz was talking about Rebecca.

Just at this time, Rebecca came out of the bedroom changing clothes.

The long white windbreaker tightly wrapped the upper body, revealing only a pair of long legs wrapped in black silk below the knees and black high-heeled shoes with red soles.

Jamie covered the receiver of the phone, looked at Rebecca up and down, and then asked curiously:

"Are you getting ready to go out?"

"No, you forgot that I told you before coming here that I prepared an early Christmas surprise for you."

"so--"

Before Jamie finished speaking, Rebecca suddenly opened her windbreaker.

A cool and sexy red "Christmas shirt" came into view, and Jamie's eyes widened.

Rebecca took off her windbreaker and threw it on the sofa aside.

He put his hands on his hips and blew a kiss to Jamie proudly.

"How about it, do you like this gift?"

The seductive, drawn eyes made Jamie instantly interested.

"Wait a moment."

Jamie picked up the phone again and placed it on the right side of his face.

Ovitz, who had been waiting on the other end of the phone for more than half a minute, immediately asked what happened.

"You go to Parmat and get the male lead, and I'll get the female lead. That's it."

Jamie hung up the phone without waiting for Ovitz to reply.

……

More than an hour later, after finishing the Santa Claus vs. Elk game, Jamie and Rebecca took a shower and cuddled up on the sofa in the living room.

There was heavy snow falling outside the window, but it was warm inside the house.

Rebecca raised her head from Jamie's strong chest and looked at the man in front of her who looked gentle but actually looked like a wild bull with a pair of beautiful and charming big eyes.

"When I came out of the bedroom just now, I thought I heard you mention my cousin's name on the phone."

"I was actually going to tell you about it."

Rebecca sat up from Jamie's arms and looked like she was ready to listen carefully.

Jamie continued:

"How is your cousin doing lately?"

Rebecca shrugged.

"I only know that she has been quite free recently. Not only does she often call me, she even plans to learn yoga from me."

"Isn't she filming?"

"Yes, but according to her, they are all boring movies, and she doesn't have many roles in them."

"Really? This is different from what I imagined the daily life of an Oscar-winning actress would be like. I thought she had endless dramas and would be busy all day long."

"I thought so at first, but later I learned that there is an Oscar curse in Hollywood. Many people think that after winning an award, an actor's career will definitely skyrocket, but in fact, many people's careers will be strange after winning the award. The earth is stuck in a state of stagnation, and this bad luck will last for years to come.”

Jamie has heard this saying in his previous life.

Not just actors, but directors too.

In his previous life, Lee Eucalyptus was very successful when he won the Oscar for Best Director for the first time with "Brokeback Mountain". However, after winning the award, he found himself in an embarrassing situation with no films to film in Hollywood, so he had no choice but to return to his hometown. In the Chinese film industry, a movie "Lust, Caution" was filmed.

After that, it took five or six years to make a comeback with "Life of Pi."

In a sense, winning an Oscar really feels like a curse.

On the contrary, directors like Nolan, who have always maintained high-quality creative standards and made every film above the standard, have no chance of winning awards.

Let alone an Oscar, Nolan didn't even win a remotely significant award.

I have been nominated to run with you many times.

This actually involves an unspoken rule in the film industry - dividing the cake.

A director like Nolan, who has both fame and fortune, often suffers when his works compete with other shortlisted works for awards.

Because most of the judges adhere to such an award concept.

It’s not that which work is better shot, the award must be awarded to this work, but it depends on which work deserves the award more.

To put it in a more popular way, the judges will tend to award the award to which work has the greatest profit after winning the award.

Because any film award is established to encourage the development of film art.

Awarding an award to a film that has already achieved both fame and fortune will, at most, serve as icing on the cake.

And by awarding the award to a film that is unknown and lacks exposure, the role it can play is to provide help in times of need.

Nolan suffered such a loss.

His works have been able to maintain a stable level in terms of both box office and word-of-mouth. He lacks neither fame nor profit, which has led to him receiving awards every time.

A similar situation exists with Little Plum.

He has been chasing Oscar dreams for years, but in the end, even the Oscar judges probably couldn't stand it anymore, and then he finally realized his dream of becoming an actor.

And this actor is actually mostly comforting.

Of course, there are also great people who can break this unspoken rule, such as James Cameron and Peter Jackson.

Their award-winning "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings" series are phenomenal works that only come out every ten years.

If the Oscar judges don't award the award to them, it will damage the credibility of the award itself.

Gwyneth's situation is even more unique.

She was an Oscar-winning actress because of Weinstein's public relations. What she received after winning the award was not praise, but a lot of abuse and doubts.

She even won the title of "the most beautiful actress".

In fact, ordinary audiences and movie fans really don’t have that big of an opinion about Gwyneth winning the award. All of this is due to those interested parties who were robbed of the award cake by Gwyneth, and who were afraid of Gwyneth’s momentum as an Oscar-winning actress. The female celebrities who had their own resources taken away from them had a tacit understanding and joined forces to bribe the media and set the pace to smear and suppress Gwyneth.

There are only so many places at the top of the Hollywood pyramid, and if Gwyneth climbed up, someone would be kicked off.

In fact, Gwyneth's experience is not unique. Many actors who try to reach the top of the Hollywood pyramid through Oscar awards will encounter joint attacks from other parties.

This is like an invisible ceiling. Many actors will be automatically blocked by this transparent ceiling after winning Oscars.

There are very few people who can break through this ceiling and continue to climb up.

Gwyneth has no ability to resist the unspoken rules of the industry, so she can only choose to stay low-key and dormant.

"I am cooperating with Marvel and Universal to prepare the live-action movie "Iron Man". Currently, the female lead is still vacant. If your cousin is free, I can arrange an audition for her."

Before Jamie could finish her words, Rebecca stood up from the sofa excitedly, took out her mobile phone and prepared to call Gwyneth.

Jamie called Rebecca just in time.

"The audition is just a formality. If nothing else, this role will definitely be hers, but there are two things you need to tell her in advance."

"First of all, the salary for this movie will not be very high. Of course, considering her current situation, I think this shouldn't be something difficult to accept."

Rebecca held the phone and nodded for Jamie to continue.

"One more thing, the leading actor is Robert Downey Jr."

Rebecca's eyes widened, she covered her mouth and exclaimed:

"That guy who just got out of rehab?"

Jamie nodded affirmatively.

Rebecca asked hesitantly.

"why?"

Jamie shrugged and replied:

"Because he's cheap enough."

It took Rebecca more than half a minute to digest the shocking news.

Finally, she picked up the phone in front of Jamie and called her cousin Gwyneth.

the next morning.

As soon as David Messer arrived and sat down in the office, there was a knock on the door.

Messer looked up from behind his desk just in time to see the office door being pushed open.

Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief and founder of Warrior Comics, strode in, followed by a female secretary who looked terrified and helpless.

She once tried to stop Shute, but the other party chose to force his way in after learning that Messer was already at work.

Fortunately, Messer didn't care. He waved his hand and asked the secretary to exit the office and closed the office door.

Shute walked to the desk and explained his purpose straight to the point.

"I saw a message on the Comic Forum website this morning that Marvel intends to cast Robert Downey Jr. to play Iron Man."

Messer was stunned for a moment, but before he could recover, Shute's urgent voice rang out first.

"I know this sounds like fake news. Unless the Marvel board of directors is crazy, how could they cast a guy who just came out of rehab to play Iron Man."

Messer put his hands on his desk and replied with a serious expression:

"I think it's quite the opposite, I think it's very possible that it's true."

Shute's eyes widened.

He had just said that the Marvel board of directors was crazy, and now he was even more suspicious that Messer was also crazy.

Messer did not immediately explain, but asked Schutte about another matter.

"What do comic book fans on the forum say about Robert Downey Jr. starring in Iron Man? I mean, putting aside the negative news about Robert Downey Jr., do you think he is suitable to play Iron Man?"

Shute replied:

"Everyone on the forum treated this as a bad joke, but there are indeed many people who think Robert Downey Jr. is quite suitable to play Iron Man."

Messer nodded solemnly.

Shute asked in confusion:

"You ask everyone's comments. What does it have to do with our discussion of whether the news is true or false?"

"I suspect that this news on the forum was deliberately released by Ovitz, not only to test the attitude of comic fans on this matter, but also to use this as a basis to convince the Marvel board of directors."

Although Messer's expression was very serious when he said this, Shute still felt unbelievable.

Judging from his many years of experience at Marvel, the Marvel board of directors is not a group of people who are easily swayed by the opinions of comic readers.

Because of this, Messer is increasingly certain that Ovitz is preparing to use Robert Downey Jr. as the leading actor in "Iron Man".

"I have just said that comic book fans' recognition of Downey's starring in Iron Man can be an opportunity for Ovitz to convince the Marvel board of directors, but this is not the real reason he used to convince the Marvel board of directors."

"what is that?"

"Pay!"

Messer looked at Shute, who was stunned, with a determined look on his face.

"Robert Downey Jr.'s current situation, Ovitz can push his salary to an unimaginable level, and Palmater and the Marvel board of directors can have 10,000 reasons to reject Downey, but if Downey's The salary is so low that it is almost negligible, and with Palmater’s stingy character, he will definitely support this proposal.”

Shute also fell silent after hearing this.

He originally resigned as Marvel's editor-in-chief because Palmater wanted to lay off some editors, which he strongly opposed.

As a result, Palmater turned around and fired Shute as editor-in-chief.

This wave of layoffs at Marvel can be said to have directly cut into its own arteries.

The already sluggish comic sales were worsened by the layoffs of the chief editor and a group of editors.

This time the layoffs have resulted in two consequences.

Due to declining revenue, Marvel began to conduct various sales of its superhero copyrights.

Shute, who was laid off, brought in venture capital with several editors to create Warrior Comics.

Warrior Comics was later sold by venture capitalists to a video game production company until it was acquired by Disney.

Shute also didn't expect that more than ten years later, he and Marvel would become rivals again.

But this time the battlefield is not comics, but superhero movies adapted from comics.

At this time Messer's voice sounded again.

"Jim, you used to be the editor-in-chief of Marvel. From a purely comic fan perspective, what do you think of the idea of ​​Robert Downey Jr. starring in Iron Man?"

Shute thought for a few seconds.

"If 'Iron Man' wasn't our match, I'd tell you, this casting is fantastic."

"Looking back at Robert Downey Jr.'s past, you will find that his growth trajectory is highly consistent with Tony Stark's growth trajectory before he became Iron Man."

"They both became famous at a young age and both have an excellent father who is a role model in their career. Except for taking drugs, they have exactly the same bad habits."

"Even if Robert Downey Jr. can successfully detoxify completely this time, then his behavior of repenting and turning back is exactly the same as Tony Stark's journey of becoming Iron Man."

Speaking of this, Shute suddenly glanced at Messer.

If Downey really successfully detoxifies, it will not be good news for Warrior Comics, which is competing directly with "Iron Man".

On the contrary, if Downey has not truly escaped the control of drug addiction, once it is exposed later, it will definitely cause a fatal blow to "Iron Man".

(End of this chapter)