It was the headline of the front page the next day, accompanied by a photo of Eric, Cruise and Hanks walking out of the Firefly headquarters side by side.

In the photo, Eric looks like a high school student in a gray tracksuit, which is very appropriate for his age. Cruise was dressed in a black casual jacket with no buttons, revealing a white T-shirt inside, and only Hanks was dressed in a black suit and tie very seriously, looking like an office worker. Because of the script that they talked about all morning, the two superstars left with their guards down and did not wear sunglasses, so the expressions of the three were quite clear, talking and laughing at each other and walking towards the door, which happened to be captured by a lucky paparazzi.

"Yesterday at around 8 a.m., it was discovered that Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, two superstars, had entered the Firefly headquarters of emerging director Eric Williams. After receiving the news, the reporter quickly arrived at the relevant location, and after waiting for four hours, Eric Williams walked out of the Firefly headquarters with the two superstars of Cruise and Hanks, surrounded by everyone.

Although the three did not accept an interview with this reporter, they left in a hurry by car. But according to some clues provided by people familiar with the matter, the meeting is related to the new film that Eric Williams is preparing.

Since his debut as an actor and screenwriter last year, Eric Williams, the wonder boy who burst into Hollywood, has been soaring at a rocket-like pace, directing his first low-budget comedy that sent him directly to the 100 million dollar box office club.

When many people attributed the teenager's success to Lady Luck, just four months later, Williams' second romantic comedy was released again, grossing nearly $30 million in the first week, which completely proved the strength of the teenage director.

In the first film, Eric Williams used only a group of TV actors and the boy next door to create an amazing box office miracle, while the two leading actors of the second film, Al Pacino, although he won many Oscar nominations, has been out of the film for four years, and the box office appeal is close to none, Julia Roberts has only played a small role in a low-budget comedy, but Eric has sent both of them into the ranks of Hollywood A-list actors at the same time.

And this time, the young director directly chose two A-list male stars who are just popular in Hollywood, and we have no doubt that his next film will once again create a box office miracle.

However, although the appearance of the three people talking happily in the photo gives people the appearance that this cooperation is a natural fit, we have to mention that Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks currently belong to the CAA agency at the same time, and it is well known that Eric Williams angered the senior management of CAA because of the acquisition of the agency of a well-known Hollywood gold agent at the beginning of the year, and the industry has been rumored to be quite dissatisfied with Eric Williams, and during the casting period, he also blocked the cooperation between his artist Richard Gere and Eric Williams。 For this, he did not hesitate to compensate Richard Gere for a blockbuster MGM-United American film.

In this case, we can't imagine that the cooperation between Eric Williams and the two Toms will be full of twists and turns. Of course, Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks also has enough strength to ignore the CAA's obstruction, after all, both are now Hollywood A-level superstars, and even if they lose the support of CAA, their careers will not be affected too much.

And, judging by the impact of Eric Williams' first two works, his new work is likely to take the careers of the two superstars to the next level.

I believe that in Hollywood, no actor can resist this temptation, but I don't know if the senior management of CAA still has enough courage to strongly obstruct this cooperation again.

According to the recent critics' test screenings of the film in which he starred, the prospects of this film are not optimistic, and the possibility of a box office explosion is very small, which is not enough to 'compensate' Mr. Richard Gere's 'loss' of giving up the leading actor. So let's wait and see how Cruise and Hanks will choose, and how the CAA's top brass will handle Williams' invitation. ”

Eric smiled wryly and threw the newspaper on the table, wanting to blow up the editor who wrote the manuscript alive. In the previous situation, Michael Ovitz would only raise the salary offers of the two superstars at most to express his dissatisfaction, but he would not strongly block the cooperation between the two sides as he did last time.

After all, now that the rise of UTA has become unstoppable, Michael Ovitz will not only lose more than he gains, but will also be considered narrow-minded if he spreads out. The narrow-minded person is, the more fearful and resentful he is of other people's accusations in this regard.

When the contract is signed in the future, the cast is announced, and some media are hinted at to blow the whistle, no matter what open and secret battles there will be in private, but in the public's mind, even if the two sides shake hands and release their previous suspicions, this is good for both CAA and Eric's public image.

But now, after the tabloids' hype, if the deal goes along, Michael Ovitz's just-earned title of 'Hollywood's most powerful man' will be a joke.

Sure enough, the day after the article was published, Eric ushered in a disturbing news.

"It's too much, the $6 million salary offer is reasonable, but the other party actually opened his mouth and asked for 20% of the North American profit share after the movie was released. I've been in Hollywood for so many years, and I've never heard of an actor who would put forward such non-specific conditions. Eric, do you have to use Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks? It's not that other agencies don't have top actors, it's really not good, you can play a role yourself, you can write and direct yourself, this gimmick has a greater impact. After talking to Cruise and Hanks' agent, Jeffrey rushed into Eric's office with a look of frustration and complained.

Although he had expected it in his heart, the conditions proposed by the two of them still startled Eric. The 'bad ethos' of Hollywood stars demanding profit sharing began with Tom Cruise, and later on, the salary plus profit sharing model slowly became a popular fee model, and the share ratio is generally between 10% and 20%.

The so-called profit sharing is completely different from the box office share of the movie, specifically referring to the producer getting the box office share that he deserves, minus the part of the gross profit of the production cost, multiplied by the share ratio required by the actor, which is the profit share that the actor can get. Moreover, the profit sharing is also divided into two types: global box office share and North American box office share.

While Cruise and Hanks' agents haven't lost their minds enough to come up with a global profit share, that 20 percent North American share isn't easy to get, even years later. Those who can get the highest percentage are either the kind that can't be done without it, such as Johnny Depp in Parallel Space, or they give up their salary altogether and exchange gambling for the highest share ratio.

But now, this kind of charging method has just appeared, and Tom Cruise also proposed this charging model 'whimsically' when filming last year, because of Cruise's strong box office appeal, plus the production cost is not high, after considering it, the film felt that as long as Cruise joined, the film would be easy to make a profit, so he agreed to Cruise's non-cent request, but this was also agreed to Cruise's self-reduced salary, and the profit sharing ratio was only 10%.