Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1561 Party A Party B
Sometimes the key to instilling your ideas into others is to do enough preparation beforehand.

What Ronald wanted Bronfman Jr. to accept was actually a series of traps. First, Universal Pictures and Universal Music were very good assets. If they were to be bought from Panasonic, the best way would be to use a cash premium to allow the Japanese to exit with dignity.

Second, Ovitz could do a lot of things in the transaction, but he was definitely not suitable to be the party A leading such a multinational enterprise and be its CEO.

The difficulty of this matter is to make Bronfman accept these two points at the same time. If he accepts the second point but not the first, then the deal may not be done. Ovitz will continue to stay at CAA and continue to bully the executives of major studios.

If he accepted the first point but not the second, then all the things Ronald had worked so hard for would become a laughing stock. Ovitz took over MCA, which was acquired by Bronfman Jr., and became the CEO of a large media group he had always dreamed of. He went from being a second party who needed services everywhere to a first party who could easily listen to the proposals of the second party and get things done with just his mouth.

Now the first point has gradually influenced Bronfman Jr., especially Barbra Streisand, whose influence on him can be said to be very great.

No matter how stubborn a person is, he or she will have a sense of authority when it comes to idols from his or her teenage years. This is because when people are teenagers, hormones explode in their bodies, leaving behind unique memories that can rarely be replaced by other experiences.

Similarly, the second point also had some effect because of Barbra Streisand's complaints about Ovitz. However, to ensure that this was achieved, Ronald had to help Bronfman Jr. find a suitable replacement - Ovitz's colleague, Ron Meyer.

However, they could not meet at Ronald's house. Confidentiality could not be maintained in such an occasion. A word from anyone could alert the enemy and cause the matter to fail.

Therefore, Ronald did not introduce some CEO candidates to Bronfman Jr. as he expected, but only did the preparation work. Now Bronfman Jr.'s mentality has been adjusted by Barbara Streisand, and he is also dissatisfied with some of Ovitz's treatment of Streisand, his idol when he was young.

In other words, Bronfman Jr. is now very open to finding other replacements. When Ron Mayer met with him, he no longer needed to convince him why Ovitz was not suitable for the CEO of MCA after the acquisition, but only to convince him that Mayer himself was a suitable candidate.

Anyone who has ever worked in sales knows that if your customers are ready to listen to your sales pitch, the difficulty has been reduced by 90%...

After attending Ronald's party, Bronfman Jr. took his private jet to New York, where he worked closely with people from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the acquisition.

In order to conceal his whereabouts, Ron Meyer did not take a commercial flight where his itinerary could be traced. Instead, he secretly drove to the airport alone and boarded Ronald's private plane with several suits.

Ronald was also going to New York to meet with Disney Chairman Eisner, who was also on Wall Street. Such an itinerary was far away from Ovitz's home base of Los Angeles, and with the support of the chairmen of two major listed companies, even if the secret was accidentally leaked and someone found out, it would be difficult to associate it with Seagram's young Bronfman.

"Why did you bring so many scripts?" Ronald looked at Ron Meyer who was boarding the plane with Richard. Apart from some luggage, he had a large box of scripts. As soon as he got on the plane, he took out two thick books and read them carefully.

"I'm an agent, Ronald. And I represent stars, like Sylvester Stallone. Not everyone is as lucky as your agent Richard."

Ron Meyer made a few jokes with a wink, then ordered a glass of red wine and began to read the script with full concentration.

"Okay, bring me my script too..." Ronald felt that he was a little too free compared to an agent like Mayer. He also took out the script prepared by his assistant and started to browse through it.

However, Ronald's Daydream Pictures has a dedicated script department, and David Simkins knows Ronald's taste very well, which means he has screened the scripts for Ronald in advance, and has given very good screenwriting tips for each script, which makes reading them much easier for him.

After reading the script for a while, Ronald quickly got bored. He walked to the back of the plane and called Helen Slater, who was waiting for him in New York.

"Dear, are you all right? How's little Linda..."

"Ronnie, I'm fine, I just miss you a lot. Linda sometimes smiles at your photos and videos..."

"Oh, I miss her too. Fortunately, I will see her soon..."

Satellite calls on the plane were not cheap, but Ronald's current wealth made these costs completely insignificant. After he finished the call, his mind went to Helen and her daughter in the distance, and the script he had just read was thrown on the seat next to him.

"Ronald, can I use your satellite phone? I have some work to do." Ron Meyer also put down the script. He had a lot of things to do and couldn't relax even on the plane.

"Of course, feel free to use it." Ronald suddenly felt that the agent's job was very busy. Compared to Richard, he was treated almost the same way and had to do a lot of preparatory work that he could not see.

The jobs of the first and second parties in Hollywood are also very different. For example, if you want to read the script, you can read it, and if you don’t want to read it, you don’t have any problem. But the agent must read it completely, otherwise if the client asks you and you don’t have an answer, then they will feel that paying you a 10% commission is like feeding the dog.
Ronald looked at his own script, which was a story about a dancer. In order to raise her children, a single mother took up an immoral profession. During the performance, she was harassed. At this time, a familiar customer came to her rescue. Unexpectedly, this familiar customer turned out to be a congressman, and was filmed on the spot...

Ronald thinks that if he can find a suitable heroine and director for this script, it will be very interesting. However, it is not known whether the two directors who are good at shooting this kind of subject matter, Paul Verhoeven from the Netherlands and Adrian Lyne from Britain, are still interested in shooting this kind of film.

If one of them agrees, then it will most likely be profitable. As for the heroine, Ronald thought about it and decided not to let Diane or Helen be interested in the film... or maybe just forget it...

Watching Ron Meyer working so hard on the phone, Ronald felt bored, and his eyelids gradually became heavy...

"yeah……"

Ronald dreamed of a scene, which seemed to be a movie based on this script. Demi Moore was wearing a white men's shirt and had shoulder-length hair. She was walking forward powerfully to the beat of the music, and then with a force, the white button-down flew off.

"Oh my goodness, Diane or Helen can't play this role...but why would Demi Moore take such a role?"

Ronald didn't quite understand what was going on, and then he saw several actors who often appeared in TV dramas, such as Burt Reynolds, who played a congressman.

As for the part of the movie he saw, what could he say about it? It was very boring, like a Roger Corman-style B-movie.

If it weren't for Demi Moore's figure and face, which were obviously her current appearance as a middle-aged actress, Ronald would have doubted whether this was the kind of movie Demi Moore shot when she was broke.

"Damn it, how can you make so much money in such a short time!"

On the plane, Ron Meyer hung up the phone and complained angrily. It was exactly the same as what Demi Moore said in the movie in Ronald's dream, but Demi's voice was so inconsistent that Ronald woke up after feeling strange.

"What's wrong?" Ronald touched the blanket placed on him by the flight attendant and said to Ron Meyer.

"Sorry, Ronald, did I wake you up? Well, I shouldn't have said this to anyone else, but since you are the boss of a listed company, it doesn't matter if I tell you. Stallone is in a bad state right now..."

Ron Mayer knew that Ronald and Stallone didn't get along well, and perhaps to show his loyalty to Ronald, he talked about some of Stallone's recent behavior.

He had a ten-hour phone call with Mayer yesterday. Stallone is a very self-centered person, and he wants Mayer to provide him with a movie that can earn him tens of millions of dollars and regain recognition from critics.

Ron Mayer patiently explained to Stallone what kind of film he needed. But no matter what Mayer said, Stallone would eventually lose interest. And Stallone had a very bad habit. When he lost interest, he would press the reset button and ask Mayer to think of a new way and start all over again from the beginning.

Sometimes, Mayer acted as if nothing had happened, being very patient and not showing any dissatisfaction at all. But the resentment accumulated in this way was also very shocking. After talking to Stallone on the plane, he once again encountered Stallone's malicious restart. A very cultured person like Mayer couldn't help but get angry.

In his decades of career as an agent, Ron Meyer's first big client was Stallone. But now, when faced with such a thing, Ron Meyer was a little defeated by such a bad client.

After saying this, Mayer seemed to realize that he had lost his composure, and asked Ronald not to care about his sudden outburst, then sat back in his chair and went back to read his script.

Ronald didn't care. Stallone was a fool. Meyer had taken a fancy to the script of Beverly Hills Cop and wanted to persuade Stallone to take the role, but Stallone himself didn't want to play the role, so Eddie Murphy got the role for nothing.

Now he has to torture Meyer again to get a script that can help him turn things around. God may have run out of patience with him. Those missed scripts were caused by Stallone's arrogance and ignorance. Now even Meyer can't find a new good script that can help him turn things around.

Thinking about all these things, which were what the poor second-party brokers had to endure, Ronald felt sorry for them. No wonder Ovitz and Mayer rushed to escape the brokerage industry and become first-party brokers when they got older.

However, I shouldn't be so arrogant and rude to Richard, right? Ronald fell asleep with this in mind.

However, the Demi Moore movie he had just dreamed of was not continued. Ronald woke up again six hours later. The plane had begun to circle at a lower altitude, preparing to land at the airport in New Jersey.

"Oh my god, you didn't take a break in the past five hours?" After waking up, the first thing I saw was Meyer, holding a cup of black coffee, which he drank in one gulp. The two scripts next to him had been filled with many sticky notes with his comments, densely packed.

It seems that he has used the time on the plane to carefully read the two scripts.

"Oh, poor Ron. Ronald waved and asked the stewardess to pour a glass of fine red wine for himself and Mayer."

"Aren't you working too hard? You are the vice president of CAA, is it necessary?" Ronald took a sip of red wine and looked at his script. He could read it if he wanted to, and not read it if he didn't want to.

"Hey..." Mayer looked envious, and he didn't say anything else. In his heart, he was very envious of Ronald. With his status, everyone in Hollywood would call him, but he didn't have to call anyone back.

Arriving in New York, Ronald attended a buffet attended mainly by Wall Street investors and analysts. Ed Bastian mainly dealt with them, and he could relax a little and didn't have to answer those tricky questions.

Occasionally someone would ask him questions about art, but Ronald was very satisfied with this state, especially after being compared with Ron Meyer.

"It seems that having a good CEO is really important." Bronfman Jr., who was also attending the buffet, watched for a while and came over to Ronald and said something. He was very interested in becoming the chairman of a listed company, but as a CEO, he felt that he did not want to live such a life as a second party.

"Of course, Ed was my accountant. He was a very young man, but he became a partner at Pricewaterhouse. If I hadn't offered him good conditions, he would have gone to other multinational companies to take up a high-level position like CFO."

Ronald raised his glass, suggesting that it would take a lot of effort for him to find a suitable CEO.

"Ronald, who is this?" Ron Meyer "happened" to come over, and pretended to have just recognized Bronfman Jr., "You must be Mr. Edgar Bronfman of Seagram, and I am Ron Meyer, a partner of CAA."

"Mr. Bronfman is my father. You can call me Edgar." Bronfman Jr. was moved when he heard Mayer's self-introduction. As a partner of CAA who is also very familiar with the history of Hollywood in the past 20 to 30 years, Mayer's professionalism is comparable to Ovitz's.

And compared to Ovitz's reputation as a "tyrant", he seems to be much easier to get along with.

Seeing that the two of them each had what they needed and were having a very pleasant chat, Ronald quietly walked away. Just then his own agent Richard came up to him.

"Ronald, Christy Turlington is in New York preparing for the Dior, Chanel and Versace ready-to-wear shows and she would love to meet you..."

"You know, I'm here to see Helen and Linda." Ronald raised his glass.

"Christie said that there are some new models this year who have great potential, and they also need some protectors like you and her did back then..."

"Richard, does it bore you to do all this for me? Am I a difficult client?"

"On the contrary, Ronald, you are one of the best clients in Hollywood." Richard smiled and pushed up his glasses. "This is not a problem at all. I have experienced it myself and I know the weird and difficult requests that CAA stars have made to their agents regarding opposite-sex or same-sex relationships... Your life is simply equivalent to the ascetic life in Hollywood. I have to say that it is necessary to relax appropriately."

Richard said to Ronald that he had nothing to say, and that everything was arranged. "If you are not interested in new people, then the German supermodel Claudia Schiffer is also coming to New York and will open her fashionable coffee shop here. I think Turlington will understand..."

"Hmm..." Ronald couldn't help but start to imagine, and suddenly he was alert. The magic of Party B was really strong. Although Party A was relaxed, he had to be careful not to fall into the gentleness arranged by Party B and think that he was really charming and omnipotent.