Glancing at the subordinate who caused him a lot of trouble, Lou Weiss said, "Joe, as for your side, Brian De Palma is still the director and will also serve as the producer of The Butterfly Effect. Fox paid $2 million, and 10% of the North American box office profits."
Jonathan Friedman nodded.
If it weren't for the two previous failed films, Brian De Palma's salary level should be around $3 million.
Now that Fox is offering $2 million-plus a 10% share of the North American box office profits, Jonathan Friedman has no dissatisfaction at all. What he wanted to win for his clients was just a simple fixed salary of $2 million.
Of course, Jonathan Friedman also understands that the reason why Brian de Palma was able to get this relatively generous contract is mainly that a series of harsh agreements that have triggered infighting in the WMA in recent days have been exposed.
Both Fox and WMA need to refute relevant revelations in the media through 'facts'.
Thinking of this, Jonathan Friedman began to look forward to Fox's offer for Simon's script. However, he did not take the initiative to speak, waiting patiently for Lou Weis to continue.
Lou Weiss finished talking about Brian De Palma, looked at his memo again, and raised his head: "About the script, the price has been raised to $200,000, and $160,000 is the payment for the script of The Butterfly Effect, $40,000 to reserve the screenwriter's priority for the next two scripts."
After listening to Jonathan Friedman, he paused and asked, "Lou, is it still a buyout?"
Lou Weiss shook his head. , said: "This is the basic remuneration, and the sharing clause follows the industry practice."
Jonathan Friedman was relieved. If it is still a buyout agreement, even if Fox doubles the base price, he is not sure if Simon Will you agree.
Now, with just the addition of a scripted preference, Jonathan believes that Simon must know what to make.
Seeing that Jonathan did not raise any objection, Lou Weiss continued: "Joe, in addition to the arrangement of these three people, the original packaging plan has also been overturned. The new budget given by Fox is 10 million US dollars. According to this standard, you will Put together a list of main characters and give it to me tomorrow, any questions?"
Jonathan Friedman realized that Lou Weiss just wanted to sign a simplified package contract with Fox as soon as possible, which only involved the core creators. The current situation also obviously does not allow WMA to have a second option. So he nodded again and said, "No problem."
Hearing Jonathan's answer, Lou Weiss closed the memo in front of him, waved at him, and said, "That's it, you can go now."
Jonathan Friedman stood up and saw that the other three were sitting still, and knew that they would discuss the revelations of the past few days.
With such a bad internal leak, WMA will pursue it to the end.
However, Jonathan didn't think that the management could find any results at all. The guy who broke the news to the media must be very aware of the serious consequences of doing such a thing. If he didn't completely hide, he would not shoot it easily.
Leaving the conference room, Jonathan Friedman walked slowly through the outer corridor, feeling the warm sunshine through the glass curtain wall in the morning, and suddenly there was an unprecedented relaxation.
Discussions in the media about the WMA incident continue.
Jonathan Friedman is very clear that although he has temporarily crossed the current threshold, it is almost impossible for him to go further in WMA due to this incident.
Even, once Lou Weiss, who is 75 years old this year, steps down from the chairman position in the next few years and loses this layer of support, he is likely to be completely kicked out of the company by Norman Broca.
However, after letting go of his long-standing desire to climb up, Jonathan felt that the depression, resentment and other emotions that had accumulated in his heart for so many years had all dissipated.
Jonathan also found that, compared to many others in the industry, he was already very powerful.
Relying on the experience and connections accumulated over the past 20 years, even after leaving WMA, he can still live well, or even better.
Now, instead of having to think about trade-offs all the time, he just needs to be single-mindedly responsible for his clients. Then, he believes that no matter what happens in the future, a large part of these people will follow him closely.
Arriving outside his office unknowingly, Jonathan Friedman paused, suddenly remembering the boy who made him do all this, so he walked to the outside assistant and said, "Owen, help me find Simon's contact address."
Jonathan Friedman has 37 clients under his name, Westerners don't have much creativity in naming names, and more than one of these clients happens to be named Simon.
However, Owen Wright immediately understood what Jonathan meant, and skillfully pulled out a sheet from the thick stack of address books and handed it to his boss.
Jonathan Freedman took a few glances and then handed it back to his assistant, saying, "I'll go out for a while and come back at noon."
Owen Wright nodded, watching Jonathan leave, he couldn't help thinking, it seems I should have more contact with that boy named Simon Westeros in the future.
Leaving the WMA headquarters office building, Jonathan Friedman drove directly to the address of a 7-11 convenience store in midtown Santa Monica.
For the new week, Simon re-rotates the morning shift.
The time is 9:40 am.
The convenience store was at a time when there were fewer customers, and Simon was doing a routine inventory of the shelves he was in charge of. Courteney Cox, wearing a pink T-shirt and shorts, walked over casually.
Feeling the faint scent of perfume around him, Simon turned his head and smiled at Courteney, watching the girl hold a few things in her arms with her bare hands, and said, "Are you always so used to holding things when you buy things?"
Seeing that Simon took the initiative to talk to herself, Courteney spoke only then, but she was still somewhat habitually impolite, and said, "Yes, do you have any opinions?"
Simon immediately shook his head and said, "No, if it's customers like you, the carts in our store will last for many years."
"Oh, I'll use the carts next time," Courteney said, picking out a bottle of ketchup, still holding it in her arms, watching Simon again He turned his attention to the folder in his hand, hesitated for a moment, and then said casually: "The one in the newspaper in the last few days, um, "The Butterfly Effect", was written by you?
When it came to "Lola Run", Courteney did not know Simon's other scripts before, and she was not very interested in this matter.
Moreover, in the news these days, the whistleblower did not mention the personal information of the screenwriter of "Butterfly Effect", and the other party had his intentions for doing so.
If the outside world knows that Simon is just an 18-year-old rookie who has just debuted, the article's argument that Fox's buyout contract is too harsh may also be questioned. After all, in an age where most ordinary people earn only $10,000 to $20,000 a year, many people are destined to think that a young man can earn $100,000 just after turning 18. What's not to be satisfied with?
Courteney has a hard time believing that the screenwriter of "The Butterfly Effect", which caused such a big storm in Hollywood, will be Simon, an ordinary boy who didn't seem any special at all.
However, she happened to know that Simon was the only screenwriter under his Friedman's name.
Simon glanced at the girl who looked inquisitively, smiled and nodded, and replied casually: "Yes."
Although it was generally confirmed, Courteney opened her eyes when she heard Simon's answer, and asked: "Really?"
This time, before Simon could respond, Roger Griffin's chubby body leaned over from the other side of the shelf and said, "Simon, someone is looking for you." Simon responded and made a mark on the folder and went outside.
Courteney hesitated and followed Simon with a pile of things.
As soon as he turned out of the shelf, Simon saw the agent Jonathan Friedman standing at the exit of the cash register and nodding to him.
Courteney also quickly found the figure of the agent, and the surprised expression on her face that had not dissipated came up again.
You must know that since signing the contract, she has never encountered the situation where the ace agent of WMA came to find her in person. In the beginning, she could only see Jonathan's assistant in most cases.
Simon walked across the cashier to Jonathan. The agent looked at the clerk's attire on Simon's body, shook hands with him with a gentle smile, and patted Simon's shoulder again, saying, "I didn't expect you to be here, tell me earlier. , I can help you find a better part-time job."
Simon joked: "It's not too late."
"Now, oh, now you don't have to," Jonathan smiled and shook his head, then turned to come over Courteney also reached out and shook hands with the girl, and said, "Curt, I didn't expect you to be here too, you know Simon?"
Courteney felt the difference in Jonathan's attitude towards herself and Simon, but Nodding obediently, he said, "Yeah, I live nearby, and I often come here to buy things, so I just met Simon."
"Oh, that's a coincidence," Jonathan replied, and turned to Simon again, saying: " Simon, can you take a few hours off? Let's go out and talk."
"Okay," Simon nodded, turned his head and glanced, walked towards Roger Griffin, who was poking his head here, to the convenience store owner Beside him, he said, "Roger, my agent asked me for something temporarily."
In addition to being very stingy about his salary, the middle-aged fat man seems to be very talkative in other aspects. He glanced at the elegant middle-aged man not far away, and nodded cheerfully: "No problem, come back before noon, it's just you A two-hour absence from work is fine."