Eric didn't deny it, saying, "Both telecommunications and Comcast are careful on their own, and it's strange that Barry can successfully acquire Paramount in this situation." ”

After this incident, even if Barry Diller will not part ways with Telecommunications and Comcast, the cooperation between them will not last long, Barry Diller's talent in running a television network is undoubted, if it can be enveloped into the company, Eric believes that it will never repeat the embarrassment of Disney after the acquisition of ABC in the original time and space.

Katzenberg also realized Eric's idea, and said with a smile: "Your idea is very good, but unfortunately it is unlikely to be realized." ”

"It's not a possibility without trying," Eric replied.

While chatting, Katzenberg's assistant knocked on the office door and came in and said, "Mr. Williams, Mr. Katzenberg, Mr. Cooper has arrived." ”

"Let's go see the sample for Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Katzenberg said, rising.

As soon as the two of them walked out of the office, Peter Cooper had already walked over with a smile and enthusiastically gave Eric and Katzenberg a hug, Eric noticed that Peter Cooper's deputy Jan Peters did not follow, and when he returned to Los Angeles these days, he vaguely heard that there was a conflict between Peter Cooper and Jan Peters, which seemed to be related to Warner's "Superman" rights.

In the 80s, Warner launched four "Superman" movies in a row, but the box office was not as good as one, and the fourth part of "Superman" in 1987 even only got a pitiful box office of $15 million. As a result, the "Superman" series was completely refrigerated, and DC Comics, which was attached to the Warner system, also fell into business difficulties for a while. Disheartened. DC sold the rights to the film adaptation of the Superman franchise. The buyer was none other than Jon Peters, who owned his own production company at the time.

Although the second part of "Batman" is not as good as the first part in terms of reputation and box office, it is also much stronger than the "Superman" series in the eighties, and it seems to see the potential of DC superhero movies, and many people are thinking about the "Superman" movie rights in the hands of Peters.

As for the detailed entanglements, Eric is not very clear, but with the memory in his mind, he knows that until more than 20 years later, in the end credits of "Superman: Man of Steel", the name of Strong. It can be seen that Warner has been hated for thousands of years as soon as he made a mistake, and he has never been able to get back the film copyright of "Superman" from Peters.

At the moment, Eric can almost guess that it is estimated that Peter Cooper has taken a fancy to the copyright of "Superman" in the hands of Qiang Peters and wants to let Columbia develop it, but the two should not have negotiated on the distribution of benefits before there was a conflict.

After some pleasantries, the three of them walked together to the screening room, which by this time had gathered many high-ranking Disney and Columbia executives, and of course, the director of the film, John Wu. And Nicole and Pierce Brosnan, the two leading actors, did not come to participate in the preview because they had already started the promotion of the film.

After learning that Eric was positive about the success of John Wu's shooting. Peter Cooper changed his previous dissatisfaction with Eric's insistence on using John Wu, and greeted John Wu with a smile on his face.

Eric didn't make much changes to the plot of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The film still begins with the Smiths couple, who have been married for five or six years, having marriage counseling.

However, it is precisely because Eric has not changed much of the plot of this movie that it looks very amazing in the eyes of the audience in the screening hall. Because of the series of high-tech equipment that appeared in the movie, although many shots were done by the digital field using special effects technology because of the times, it was very cool, even cooler than the 007 with high-tech equipment as its selling point.

John and Jane, who work together with two rival killer groups, fall in love at first sight after meeting in the chaotic Colombian capital, and the two get married in a flash and live a seemingly ordinary middle-class family life in the United States, but behind this life is a series of assassinations that they each conceal from each other.

Although John and Jane hid their identities from each other very well, the incident was learned by the killer group behind the two of them, and in order to get rid of the two of them' instability, the two killer groups coincidentally cooperated and launched an operation.

John and Jane soon understood each other's identities, and after a lot of twists and turns, the two had a confrontation in the villa where they had lived for six years, and then they also understood their feelings for each other, and fought back in order to survive.

In the tense and exciting plot of the movie, there is also occasional warmth and humor, and after Eric's re-editing, the plot of the movie seems more compact.

After 120 minutes of viewing, the movie ended with the sound of fiery rock music, and the executives in the screening room patiently waited for the subtitles to finish and the lights to come on before applauding.

"Thank you, Mr. Wu, for bringing us such a wonderful movie," Peter Cooper applauded as he complimented John Wu, who was sitting next to him.

John Wu was humble in his Oriental fashion, but he could still see the smug and satisfied look on his face.

The schedule and publicity plan of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" have been determined before the completion of the film, and the release date is placed on December 18 during Christmas, and this test film is only for all the executives involved in the project to make one last confirmation to fine-tune the original publicity plan, but after watching the movie, whether it is Disney or a few people brought by Peter Cooper of Columbia, they have no opinion on the film's $25 million publicity budget.

It is worth noting that Warners seems to be creating a gimmick for each other by putting Eric as an executive producer for "The Bodyguards" in order to get the contract of "Jurassic Park" actor Sam Neill to fight "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on December 18.

Now that the executive producer has been named, it is certainly impossible for Eric to ignore the film, although Warner just wants to use Eric's fame to increase the box office of "The Bodyguard", and does not really mean to involve Eric in the project. However, a few days ago, Eric was specially invited to participate in the test film of the movie. Eric felt the biggest selling point of that movie. Other than Kevin Costner, the winner of the last Oscar for Best Director and Best Actor, and, of course, a few songs by Whitney Houston, Eric didn't think there was anything special about the story.

The whole month of October was spent in this hectic way, and in addition to focusing on the films that will be released at the end of the year, he also started discussions with Firefly's management about next year's production and distribution plans.

End of October. Roland Emmerich's nearly 20-week filming of "Heaven and Earth" has finally been successfully closed, Emmerich has never controlled such a big-budget film, so compared to Eric's smooth shooting of "Jurassic Park", Emmerich is much more cautious, and the filming process seems very slow, but fortunately, Roland Emmerich did not overspend, and the film soon began post-production work in the digital field.

November is fast approaching, the end of the year is Thanksgiving-Christmas schedule, and the beginning of the month is Halloween, and Firefly is like several other big movie companies. Both released their own small-budget horror films, but Eric didn't pay much attention to these small productions, which cost less than $10 million. Instead, it was handed over to the management of Firefly with peace of mind.

In addition to the movie, another important event for the United States also happened in November, on November 3, the results of the quadrennial US presidential election were announced, and the Republican presidential candidate William Jefferson Clinton was elected as the 42nd president of the United States by a narrow margin of 42%, defeating the Democratic candidate George H.W. Bush, who had 37% support.

Eric finally breathed a sigh of relief, the course of history has not changed, if Clinton is not elected president, then many things are unpredictable, and perhaps the United States will not have the fastest economic growth rate in history.

At the Sharp Corner Manor, Eric was talking to Kathryn Bigelow, who had come to visit, about it: "Now you believe me, I said a long time ago, even if I didn't have to release "Insurrection" in advance, Clinton would still win the election because his economic policies were better than the Bush Sr. team. ”

Kathryn Bigelow only gave Eric a light glance and took a sip of boiled water in his hand, Clinton's election was almost a narrow victory, and even before the final vote, the elder Bush's support rating was higher than Clinton's, so the final result surprised many people.

In the process of making a documentary about the Los Angeles riots, Catherine Bigelow gradually became a supporter of Clinton, in fact, many Hollywood directors and stars are Clinton's supporters, including Spielberg, George Lucas and others.

Therefore, after Catherine completed the production of the documentary "Riot", she proposed to Eric to release the documentary in September in solidarity with Clinton, but Eric refused to do so, which was still in France at the time.

After a detailed investigation and analysis, the documentary "Riots" blamed a large part of the causes of the Los Angeles riots on the high unemployment rate in southern Los Angeles, and although the Bush administration won the Gulf War, which greatly excited the American people who had not won several wars since World War II, the economic policies implemented by Bush Sr. during his four-year term of office have all failed, and the unemployment rate in the United States is as high as 9 percent Not only has the fiscal deficit been running for years, but it even owes as much as $4 trillion in national debt, which is $4 trillion in the early 90s when the dollar was strong.

After a while, Catherine said: "It's only a 5% lead, and if you don't pay attention to it, you may fail, didn't you say that you are also a supporter of Clinton, why did you oppose my release of this documentary in the first place?"

"Because your purpose is so obvious that it may even backfire. ”

"How is that possible?" Catherine was surprised.

In the process of Bush Jr.'s re-election, Michael Moore forcibly released this documentary about the 911 incident under pressure in the process of Bush Jr.'s re-election, sharply criticizing the Bush Jr. administration, but in the end, this documentary not only did not play a role in suppressing Bush Jr.'s approval rating, but even aroused the rebellion of some voters because of the too fierce views of "Fahrenheit 911". In short, the result was that even George W. Bush's opponents disagreed with Fahrenheit 911 and sided with Michael Moore, but Bush was re-elected.

Katherine's documentary about the Los Angeles riots, although not as sharp as Michael Moore, still points the finger at the failed economic policies of the Bush administration, and at this sensitive moment, it may be used by the Bush Sr. campaign to turn black and white upside down as evidence such as the deliberate smear of rivals.

"The human heart is hard to fathom, and sometimes you may think that what you are doing is right, but in the eyes of others, it is a completely different situation. Eric thought for a moment and replied.

Catherine is not stupid either, and when she heard Eric say this, she quickly understood, and couldn't help but sigh lowly.

Eric looked at the woman's rare expression, and couldn't help but comfort: "Don't worry, Firefly is already planning to release this documentary in mid-December, and I promise you that at least one Oscar nomination for Best Documentary will be won for this film." ”

Catherine knew that Eric had good intentions and nodded, she also knew very well that the subject matter of "Riot" was too sensitive, although profound, it was not something that too many people wanted to see, and this documentary was too close to the time of the event, less than a year, although some people wanted to reflect, but most people subconsciously did not want to mention it, so it can also be said that it is not time to reflect.

In this case, being able to get an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary is already the limit, and it is not too likely to win.

"Now, you can concentrate on Saving Private Ryan," Eric said, then smiled, his expression a little bad: "One more thing to tell you, Jim's True Lies was also added to Firefly's project plan for next year last month, and I plan to put it in the summer of the year after that, what do you think?"

It's been a year since the incident, and Catherine's hatred for Cameron's cheating has dissipated a lot, and when she heard this sentence, she just gave Eric a blank look: "You like to do this kind of thing." (To be continued......)