From the beginning of August, Eric spent another half month in New York before returning to Los Angeles in a low-key manner.

As hundreds of millions of dollars flowed back to Firefly and other companies, several companies that had been in a panic due to the sudden depletion of funds quickly resumed normal operations, and Caroline Elliot, Firefly's financial director, quietly withdrew Citibank's loan application in early August.

At this point, it was the dullest person who realized that Eric had won the bet.

On the Middle East side, after Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait, he did not stop the offensive, and after the 100,000 troops cleared Kuwait's internal resistance, they pressed directly to the border of Saudi Arabia.

This is because Saudi Arabia, with a land area of more than 2 million square kilometres, has only 70,000 conventional troops, which on average is inferior to Kuwait, not to mention its ability to resist Iraq's invasion.

Once Saddam Hussein invaded Saudi Arabia again and held the main route of the Persian Gulf, then the Western countries would completely lose their control over the Middle East.

The proven crude oil reserves of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia account for 45% of the total reserves of ~6 worlds, and the remaining 55% are scattered all over the world, so once Iraq annexes Saudi Arabia again, then Saddam Hussein will shout a high price of $100 per barrel, and Western countries can only obediently pay for it.

In the face of such a naked threat from Iraq, the Arab countries, which did not want the West to intervene in Middle East affairs, quickly compromised and accepted the proposal of the United States to send troops.

Meantime. Western countries quickly imposed massive sanctions on Iraq. Not only have hundreds of billions of dollars of Iraqi and Kuwait's assets overseas been frozen. The most severe embargo has also been imposed on Iraq.

However, this did not stop the price of crude oil from soaring, as the Iraqi army was ready to move on Saudi Arabia, and in just one week, the price of crude oil soared to $29, an increase of more than 40%, until August 7, 1990, when the Pentagon announced that the advance force of the 82nd Airborne Division, the most elite of the federal army, had arrived in Saudi Arabia. The panic rise in crude oil prices has only slowed down.

By the time Eric returned to Los Angeles, more than 100,000 U.S. troops had been stationed in the Persian Gulf, confronting the Iraqi army, and the international crude oil price had slowed down again, but in the face of an imminent war, the rise in oil prices still showed no signs of stopping.

A black helicopter landed in Preavista, a western suburb of Los Angeles, and Eric and a group of people got out of the helicopter and introduced them to the precinct leaders before Eric said to Stan Winston, who was coming with him, "Stan, what do you think of this place?" Less than 100 meters ahead is the former Howard Hughes airfield. Of course, it is now abandoned, and I plan to buy about 100 hectares of land here and build a shooting base for fireflies. ”

Stan Winston looked around before saying, "I'm just sure you're making a lot of money this time." ”

Eric smiled slightly, but didn't pick up the topic.

Now many people who know that he speculated in oil futures some time ago are curious about how much money he made, and the temptation in the open and in the dark has never been stopped during this time.

But he doesn't even know the exact number now, because it will take three months for New York to finish.

Stan Winston also laughed at Eric's expression, he just made a casual joke, and quickly shifted the topic to the matter in front of him: "It's less than five kilometers away from Venice, and if you're going to build a photography base here, the digital special effects studio might be able to move here, and the planned Tyrannosaurus Rex model in Jurassic Park is 20 feet tall and requires a lot of space to operate." ”

"I've got that in mind," Eric said, "I'm not just going to build a regular sound stage here, I'm going to build a special effects film base, Stan, and you'll be in charge of it if you want." ”

Stan Winston was slightly excited, but he still said cautiously: "Eric, the geographical conditions here are really good, but there is a big drawback, this place is too far from the city of Los Angeles, the traffic is very inconvenient, if you follow your plan, but you need a lot of professionals." ”

"I've thought about it, and I'm going to pay for the whole system to be built here, including residential areas, supermarkets, schools, and so on," Eric said quickly.

Stan Winston was only a little surprised, but the Preavista executives who were with Eric were already excited, and if Eric's plan was achieved, it would give a huge boost to the economic development of the borough.

"Mr. Williams, are you telling the truth?" a tall, thin middle-aged white man couldn't help but ask.

"Of course," Eric said with a serious look at the other party, "but if you can fully cooperate, I guarantee that this plan will not take more than three years to achieve, and the total investment will not be less than $1 billion." ”

The administrative directors of Preavista, who were following Eric, suddenly whispered, the big project of 1 billion US dollars, they had never dared to think of before, and they did not expect to suddenly encounter such a good thing.

Eric took Stan Winston and others to continue walking, the reason why this area was chosen was not because of Eric's whim, but because in his memory, the dream factory created by Spielberg and others in his previous life, the filming base he chose was here, and many years later, it also developed into a well-known Preavista community, where many well-known movies were filmed, such as the "Iron Man" series.

After spending the morning touring the Preavista area and discussing the preliminary plan with the district executives, it was close to noon when a group of people were standing on the shore of an artificial lake and pointing at the surrounding terrain, an SUV drove up to the road near the crowd, and several people quickly got out of the car.

The current Preavista is the equivalent of a suburb of Los Angeles. It's not an exaggeration to say it's sparsely populated. Therefore, the sudden appearance of off-road vehicles draws everyone's attention to the past. Quite a few people realized that the people in the car must be related to their group.

Sure enough, as the people in the car walked down, Eric recognized the tall girl walking in front at a glance, and was immediately a little surprised, how could Nicole find here.

Nicole in the distance, explained to the accompanying bodyguards, and soon walked over with only a blonde woman about thirty years old.

When she was still four or five meters away from Eric, the tall girl had already shown a faint look of resentment. And his gaze was undisguised, very directly locked on Eric.

Eric noticed the ambiguous gaze that was looking at him left and right, and met the girl helplessly: "Nicole, how do you know I'm here?"

"yes, it's not easy to find you," Nicole didn't answer the question, but grumbled softly.

Eric didn't ask again, there were only a few people who knew his whereabouts, and he knew where Nicole got the news. Eric turned to look at the blonde woman who was following Nicole, "Who is this?"

"Hello, Mr. Williams. I'm Pie Kinsley. ”

Eric looked the woman up and down in surprise, all he remembered was saying something casually to Nicole. Unexpectedly, it has only been a few months, and Nicole has already changed agents.

Shaking hands with the other man, Eric smiled, "Hello, Ms. Kinsley, how's Cruise?"

"Very well, thank you for your concern," Pin Kinsley said politely, while secretly looking at the young man in front of him, although Eric had worked with Cruise, but at that time, Cruise's agent was Paula Wagner, so this was the first time the two had met.

After exchanging pleasantries with each other, Eric looked at his watch and said to Nicole, "Nicole, it's a misfortune that you're here, I happen to be going back." ”

The girl's gaze suddenly became resentful again: "Do you dislike seeing me so much?"

Hearing the girl's words, P. Kinsley raised an eyebrow slightly, and quickly took a few steps back in amusement, leaving the space for the man and woman to communicate.

Eric shook his head, "No, what I said is true. ”

"Shall I be a guest at your place, then?" said the girl again.

"Okay, but I'm here by helicopter, maybe you'll have to let your bodyguard assistants go back on their own. ”

The resentment on Nicole's face immediately dissipated, and she nodded a little happily: "I'll go tell them." ”

After a while, Eric and Nicole get on the helicopter back to Malibu, and Stan Winston and Pin Kingsley and others are very amusemented not to make light bulbs.

Half an hour later, getting off the helicopter on the tarmac of Jianjiao Manor, Eric took the girl to the villa and asked casually: "When did I change the agent, why don't I know?"

"You haven't cared about me, how can you know, I'...... I still listened to your Jianyì change. ”

Eric coughed awkwardly and quickly changed the subject: "What do you think of her?"

"It's okay, I take a low-key and mysterious acting route, try to keep a distance from the public, and for the rest, I haven't seen anything special about her. ”

Eric just nodded slightly, and didn't say anything, in the previous life, Kinsley was able to take care of Tom Cruise's career in an orderly manner, and it seems that this kind of packaging route was adopted, and Cruise's image has been maintained perfectly for more than ten years, which shows that this route is very practical.

Pushing open the door and leading the girl into the hall, the villa looked empty.

Although Drew returned to Los Angeles with Eric, he only spent one day at Sharp Corner Manor before returning to Calver City, and at the same time began to work with Elizabeth on the second film of TG.

Connery has already entered the crew of "Toy Condor", and has been affirmed by Eric, Fox has given the green light to the film all the way, and now filming has begun, so Eric is once again the only one left in the villa, and the servants of the manor usually do not come here.

From the bottom of his heart, Eric actually enjoys the feeling of living alone.

"You sit down first, I'll call for takeout," Eric said with a casual look at Nicole.

"I'm going to make lunch, what do you want to eat?"

Eric didn't postpone it, and said, "I don't know, just do something." ”

The girl nodded and walked towards the kitchen, although she had not been to the Sharp Corner Manor very often, Nicole was quite familiar with the villa.

After Eric went upstairs to take a shower and change a set of clothes, Nicole had already brought a simple lunch to the table.

Eric sat down at the table, watched the girl divide her lunch and sat back across from her, and said, "By the way, how did you do in this movie?"

Nicole, who had just picked up the knife and fork, paused, and spat out a word in disbelief: "flop." ”

"Well, okay, let's have dinner first," Eric said quickly, and at the same time realized Nicole's intention to come today, but when raising funds some time ago, Eric took $8 million from Nicole, which is estimated to be all the girl's savings in the past year, and maybe the salary of the movie that hit the street, as for what that movie was, Eric turned his head, but didn't remember.

This is where Nicole's grudge against Eric comes in, and the girl thinks she should be closer to Eric than Julia Roberts.

But now, Julia has three consecutive movies "Pretty Woman", "Steel Magnolia" and "Sleeping with the Enemy" The box office has exceeded 100 million, but she only got one "Sleepless in Seattle", and then Eric stopped caring about her, the last movie was chosen by Nicole's original agent with her, "Sleepless in Seattle" has just been successful, and without Eric's participation, the girl did not dare to rashly change the way of play, and chose still a romantic comedy, but after it was released in July, it has only been more than $10 million at the box office for almost a month now. You must know that because this movie is also a romantic comedy, she got a salary of 5 million US dollars, and the total cost reached 30 million US dollars, and the box office will be at least 60 million to recover the cost, and the current situation is that it would be good if the total box office of this movie can exceed 20 million.

Because she became famous with romantic comedies like "Sleepless in Seattle", she is now hitting the streets on the subject she does best, and if she doesn't try to find a turnaround, she may soon become box office poison.

Annoyingly, she contacted Eric several times during this time, and the little bastard in front of her shirked it for various reasons, Nicole couldn't bear it, and only drove directly to the suburbs to bet on Eric today.

"By the way, I've got something for you later, I hope you'll like it," Eric said as he ate his lunch, feeling a little deserted, and quickly found a topic. (To be continued......)