American fame and fortune

The internal dynamics of large companies, especially internal conflicts, are often difficult to conceal. People outside the industry may seem to be shrouded in mystery, but those within the industry can see it clearly.

In the afternoon of the same day, Martin received news that at a high-level meeting at Warner Bros., Daniel and Jon Berg had another quarrel. He accused Jon Berg on the spot of his random behavior that led to the failure of major investment projects one after another. God," "Green Lantern," "Into Darkness" and "Jack the Giant Slayer" were responsible for the failure.

The conflict between the two intensified and was put on the table.

According to Hollywood tradition, Jon Berg, the project initiator and first producer, should be responsible for the failure of "Jack the Giant Slayer".

But Jon Berg kept passing the blame.

Kevin Tsujihara put the matter on hold for the time being, citing the unclear international market for the film.

Two assistant directors on Bryan Singer's team later accepted interviews. Like Bryan Singer himself, they pointed the finger at Jon Berg, saying that Jon Berg's almost nonsensical operation was... The main reason for the failure of "Jack the Giant Slayer".

On the set, they were almost driven crazy by the six producers.

The next morning, the front door of Warner Studios became extremely busy. More than 50 star actors, directors and screenwriters gathered here to demand the arrears of shares from Warner Pictures.

Representatives from many investors also arrived one after another and joined in.

"We have sued Warner Pictures and gone through the legal process. This time we came here to ask Warner executives to give an explanation." Nolan faced reporters and pointed to the core of the problem: "According to our understanding, the distribution channel share has already been paid. According to the account, this money was misappropriated by Jon Berg to the post-production of "Jack the Giant Catcher". Warner's management has such a big problem, shouldn't they give us an explanation?"

Martin then stood up: "The matter has been delayed for half a year and has not been resolved. Warner Pictures has been delaying mediation after mediation, and Warner's management has never considered our interests. How can we continue to cooperate with Warner?"

Others have also expressed their opinions. Many of them are outdated stars who hope to make a living from the profits of their previous works. Warner's approach is tantamount to directly reducing their quality of life.

Doesn’t it cost money to live a high-quality life like drinking and picking up girls?

All fingers point to Jon Berg.

Later, Warner Bros. sent a vice president to the studio door to talk to everyone.

The matter seemed to have calmed down for the time being.

But by the next day, many companies and investment funds, including the Nolans' Colter Pictures, Louise's Pacific Pictures, and Wall Street funds composed of Relativity Entertainment and DreamWorks, publicly stated that in view of Joe Jon Berg has a history of misappropriating funds. He will carefully consider cooperating with Warner Pictures in the future because Jon Berg has a history of misappropriating funds.

Many companies that cooperate with Warner follow up spontaneously. They have long-term cooperation with Warner Pictures. With a super genius like Jon Berg sitting in the position of president, who would dare to easily participate in Warner Pictures’ platter of projects and investments? ?

At the same time, a group of Warner managers headed by Daniel were also engaged in fierce confrontations with Jon Berg within the group.

Time Warner quickly stepped in.

The overall performance of Warner Pictures is still outstanding, but the main revenue comes from the legacy projects of the predecessor, the projects promoted by Jon Berg. Let alone the performance, the huge losses are shocking.

"Jack the Giant Slayer" spent its second weekend in North American theaters.

The already sluggish box office experienced a sharp decline, with only US$4.56 million in revenue the next weekend. Counting the revenue from the previous four working days, the film's North American box office barely exceeded US$20 million.

But this box office trend indicates that the final North American box office will be difficult to exceed 30 million US dollars.

The production cost of the film alone was as high as 250 million US dollars!

Because Jon Berg has tossed this project several times, this is not the production cost under accounting rules, but the actual shooting and production investment of the project.

At the critical moment, Kevin Tsujihara chose to cut himself off to protect himself.

Soon, Warner Bros. announced that Jon Berg would be relieved of his position as president of Warner Pictures, and Daniel from the distribution company would also serve as president of Warner Pictures.

…………

Warner Pictures, Office of the President.

Daniel's team and Jon Berg's team have completed the work handover.

Jon Berg packed up his personal belongings and stood in the middle of the office, not wanting to leave for a while.

Came with great ambitions, but ended in disgrace.

Slowly exhaling the suffocation accumulated in the past few days, Jon Berg picked up his bag and walked outside.

The door opened and he saw Daniel waiting in the corridor.

"You win," Jon Berg said.

Daniel shook his head: "I didn't win, but you lost."

Faced with this bastard who wanted to blame himself every time a movie project failed, he certainly had no good words to say: "You did a terrible job. You are one of the worst presidents of Warner Pictures. I can remove you." position, it’s not about how good I am, but how bad you are.”

Jon Berg looked extremely ugly: "This seat is not easy to sit in."

"I know." Daniel has tolerated him for a long time: "But with you as the worst CEO in front of me, it will be easy for me to achieve results. After all, the results are all based on competition."

"You..." Jon Berg's chest rose and fell rapidly, and he was about to explode.

Daniel has been accused so many times that he has yet to finish what he has been saying for a long time: "You will leave your name in the history of Hollywood movies. Anyone who mentions 'Jon Berg-style editing' in the future will laugh for several minutes. It turns out that making movies is still It’s such a fun and funny operation.”

He spoke more and more freely: "Jon, when you go to the next company, all your colleagues will be wondering, how did you come up with such a genius idea?"

"That's enough!" Jon Berg picked up his bag and left, not giving Daniel a chance to say anything more.

Daniel said again: "I won't give it away. You still want me to solve the mess you left."

Jon Berg took the elevator downstairs and entered the front hall, and found that everyone's eyes turned to him.

Perhaps because of Daniel's words just now, Jon Berg's ears were filled with buzzing comments.

He quickened his pace and walked outside the building.

But there were still comments that fell into my ears.

"Warner Pictures has had the worst president in fifty years."

"It was he who forced away Martin, the most marketable actor at the moment, and almost forced away Nolan, the most marketable director."

"I'm not good at professional skills, but I'm good at internal fighting."

Jon Berg did not make any stop and walked out of the main entrance alone with his bag in hand.

With the chauffeur gone and the company's vehicles gone, Jon Berg drove his own car and left Warner Bros. completely.

Upstairs, Daniel plans not to continue using Jon Berg's office but to redecorate one.

In the meantime, he will work from a temporary office.

The assistants were busy tidying up the office.

Daniel called his secretary Becker and said: "You call Martin Davis, Christopher Nolan and Spielberg respectively and tell them that I..."

He suddenly stopped and changed his words: "Forget it, I'll fight it myself."

Daniel came to the quiet window and was the first to call Nolan, telling Nolan that he would promote the "Interstellar" project as soon as possible and highly recommend Martin to play the leading role.

Then, he called Martin and invited Martin to star in "Interstellar".

Warner Pictures will not only invest but also distribute the film.

"Interstellar" will also be the first major production project he promotes after taking office.

Daniel found that he should be grateful to the genius of Jon Berg for retaining such good performance.

…………

Davis Estate, Beverly Hills.

Martin hung up the phone, returned to the living room, and said to Thomas: "The "Interstellar" studio will probably call you soon to discuss my salary contract."

With the last hurdle removed from Warner Bros. Pictures, the project will soon be officially launched.

Thomas asked: "Did it get done so quickly?"

Martin simply said: "Daniel officially takes over as president of Warner Pictures today."

Thomas understood and asked: "20+20 in terms of salary?"

This is the kind of treatment only a superstar can get, which is a basic salary of US$20 million, plus a tiered share of the North American box office capped at 20%.

"That's basic, plus a DVD cut," Martin said.

"I will strive for 5% to 10% of North American sales." Thomas thought for a while: "It is also difficult for Leonardo to get such treatment."

Martin nodded. The highest share of Hollywood DVDs belongs to Tom Cruise. The superstar's DVD share of "Mission: Impossible 3" was 22%.

22% of sales, not net profit.

"Mission: Impossible 3" had the worst box office performance in the series. It is said that Tom Cruise took away more than half of the profits, causing Paramount Pictures to become so angry that they once fell out with him.

The difficulties that Tom Cruise encountered in the past few years are not unrelated to this.

Before the two of them finished speaking, Martin received another call from lawyer Hamlin.

The legal department of Warner Pictures notified him that settlement negotiations will be held again three days later to resolve the post-production sharing issues of many star directors, including Martin and Nolan, as soon as possible.

In this regard, Martin left full power to the lawyer to discuss and asked Thomas to follow up.

Warner Pictures does not lack funds, but Jon Berg’s operations are really incomprehensible.

Martin couldn't understand, and simply didn't think about these things, because this was in line with what he remembered as the consistent style of Warner's top management after 2010.

The next morning, Martin received another call from Daniel, wanting to have a chat with him. Warner Pictures wanted to renew their relationship and continue their film cooperation with him.

Of course Martin would not refuse, but he would have to wait until Daniel came back from Boston to have a detailed meeting with him.

After half a year of preparation, the movie "The City" adapted from Chuck Hogan's novel "Prince of Thieves" has officially entered the filming stage.

The crew, led by director Denis Villeneuve, will go to Boston to shoot on location.

At Martin's request, Villeneuve arranged all the male protagonist's scenes at the beginning.