In The Hollywood Reporter's headline, the outlet's account of the events of the WMA packaging project went so far as to go into a lot of specifics.
The whole report starts from Jonathan Friedman's launch of the packaging project, including the process of several major Hollywood studios trying to resist the WMA's turn to packaging operation strategy, until finally, Jonathan Friedman is dissatisfied with Norman Broca's compromise, the uneven distribution of project benefits, and the complete falling out with his immediate boss, etc., are all like experiencing the whole thing firsthand.
Apart from the internal disclosure, this article can't come from other sources.
The factions within the WMA are almost well known.
Bringing out this infighting scandal will have an immeasurable negative impact on the WMA, but at the same time, if President Norman Broca and Vice President Jonathan Friedman are unlucky, many people can benefit from it.
After all, even between Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman, there are still seven VPs waiting to go further. Countless other WMA brokers are still struggling to climb up.
Any one of these people, there is enough reason to do this.
In the face of the sudden breaking news article from The Hollywood Reporter, it was too late to investigate who leaked the dispute, and the WMA management had to start to deal with the influx of media inquiries.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times reporter in New York on the morning of the "Hollywood Reporter" article, WMA Chairman Lou Weiss denied everything in the "Hollywood Reporter" revelations, and also revealed that WMA has reached a preliminary agreement with Fox Pictures, the company's first packaging project has not failed, and high-level infighting naturally does not exist.
However, when the media turned to Fox Pictures for verification, Fox Pictures President Ronald Goldberg's response was ambiguous, neither admitting nor denying it, but only told reporters that the company was still in contact with WMA, which was inconvenient to disclose the details.
This is the result of urgent negotiations between WMA and Fox executives.
Fox Pictures violated the tacit agreement with several other major film companies and tried to win "The Butterfly Effect" in private. After this incident was picked up, Fox management looked very embarrassed in front of its peers. But Ronald Goldberg knows better that if they deny the whole thing at this time, the WMA will not make Fox too good in the future.
In addition to persuading Fox to cooperate with them in acting as a double reed, WMA executives also privately contacted Teckie Cassel, the behind-the-scenes major shareholder of The Hollywood Reporter.
After tossing for a whole day, WMA originally thought that it had successfully dragged the whole thing back to a place where it could be turned around.
The next day, another revelation was published again.
The whistleblower did their homework, because the article shifted its position, bypassing the "Hollywood Reporter" that was checked by WMA, and published it in another Hollywood newspaper, "Daily Variety".
"Daily Variety" is a daily newspaper under the Variety Company. Together with the weekly "Variety" magazine, they form the two major print media platforms of the Variety Company. The Hollywood Reporter also distinguishes between the daily edition of the newspaper and the weekly edition of the magazine, but it does not have a different name like the variety show.
The revelation of "Daily Variety" is more detailed, and even involves the content of the packaging plan after WMA President Norman Broca 'compromised' with Fox.
It highlighted Matthew Broderick's $5 million salary contract and the stingy buyout agreement obtained by the screenwriter of the project script "Butterfly Effect", and pointed out that these two agreements led to Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman having conflict.
As the "Daily Variety Show" broke the news again, many daily newspapers and media, including the "Los Angeles Times", also began to pay attention to this incident, and the situation tends to continue to expand.
Faced with this situation, WMA and Fox had to bite the bullet and continue to deny a lot of news in the media.
However, everyone is also aware that to avoid greater setbacks, it is imminent to take strong measures to quickly and thoroughly resolve this storm.
And so on until July 21st.
on Monday.
After a hectic weekend, WMA Chairman Lou Weiss and CEO Lee Stevens also came to the West Coast following Norman Broca, who had returned to Los Angeles early to stabilize the situation.
At nine o'clock in the morning, at the WMA headquarters on Camino Street, only four people were sitting in the spacious conference room. They were the two bosses who came from the east coast and the two parties involved in the whole thing.
"Yesterday in New York, I had personally communicated with Mr. Murdoch, Chairman of News Corp." Sitting at the head of the conference table, Lou Weiss, 75 years old this year, looked a little tired, but his eyes were still sharp. Looking at the three subordinates around him, he said: "Mr. Murdoch has agreed that Fox will try to cooperate with us to complete the "Butterfly Effect" project. However, some adjustments must be made in this matter. Moreover, I declare in advance that The next thing to talk about is the final decision, the two of you can't object, you just need to implement it. If you can't finish it, you can pack your things and leave."
With that said, Lou Weiss looked down at his memo and re-read. He raised his head, glanced at Norman Broca and Jonathan Friedman, and said, "Since we have denied a lot of information in the media, the original plan must be adjusted. First of all, the actor needs to Substitution, it can't be Matthew anymore. And, Norman, I've already agreed with Fox that Matthew will be in one of their films called Project X. They say they've handed you the script before. right?"
Norman Broca nodded, but then asked, "Lou, what about Matthew's salary?"
Lou Weiss stared at Norman Broca and said, "$3 million ."
Hearing the number reported by Lou Weiss, Norman Broca immediately stood up and said, "This is too low!"
"It's only $3 million," Lou Weiss said with an unquestioning tone, "Or, you can leave."
Norman Broca's mouth moved, but he nodded and sat down again with a reluctant expression.
Jonathan Friedman can choose to leave the WMA as a last resort, but Norman Broca is impossible to do so. He is the vice president of the largest talent agency in North America and even the world. , it is simply impossible to find that position in any other brokerage firm.
But if he chooses to stand on his own, even if he can pull away from a group of top stars, Norman Broca will no longer have the power at this time in the future anyway.
Lou Weiss saw Norman Broca sit down and nodded in satisfaction before looking at Jonathan Friedman.