Because of Michael Ovitz's insistence on CAA's private partnership strategy, CAA has now developed into an industry giant, but it has not been listed, so although this turmoil is menacing, as long as it is dealt with properly, in addition to causing CAA's business to be affected in the next period of time, it will not cause too much substantial harm to CAA, and even a group of second- and third-tier artists poached by other brokerage companies will not have any impact on CAA, although the number of CAA's current artists has not reached the scale of more than 6,000 people after more than 20 years, but there are thousands of people, and it is a trivial matter that is completely painless for CAA to embark on dozens of them。

But under this kind of turmoil, it is different when a big-name star, especially a star of Tom Cruise's level, leaves, Tom Cruise's influence in the Hollywood actor community is very large, and his departure will definitely give other superstars a wrong signal.

Michael Ovitz's reaction was not unfast, on the day Cruise left, all CAA's co-agents and contracted artists received a letter written by Michael Ovitz himself, clarifying the reasons for Crew's departure from CAA, and earnestly enumerating CAA's brilliant achievements over the years and the great changes brought to the actors, hoping that everyone would not be influenced by public opinion, and CAA's future would be more brilliant.

But the letter didn't stop the situation from getting worse, and within three days of Tom Cruise's departure, several more A-list superstars quit the CAA for various reasons.

The reason why these stars joined the CAA in the first place was because of a series of bundled measures by Michael Ovitz, which greatly increased their incomes, but with the general increase in the income of Hollywood stars, even in other agencies, they can get paid just as much, coupled with the panic caused by Cruise's sudden departure from CAA, and the fact that someone has offered a lower commission, these people's departure has become logical. At the same time, more stars began to waver.

Michael Ovitz was anxious for a while, and while scolding Cruise, he had to start to put down his body and personally come forward to persuade those big-name actors who wanted to leave, which he hadn't done for a long time.

And in another corner of the city, Eric, the original author of the turmoil, is certainly not immune, and this is a good opportunity, an opportunity to prevent the CAA from becoming a monopoly in Hollywood for the next decade.

"Eric, if you suddenly find me something, I can state in advance, I already have the four of them under my command, this is already the limit of my ability, don't think about stuffing people for me again. ”

Kapoor appeared in Eric's office in Firefly with a red face in a frenzy, because of the bad luck that CAA has encountered these days, it would be hypocritical for Kapoor to say that he was unhappy, and his bald head seemed to be a little shiny.

Eric leaned back in the Taipan chair and smiled, "What if it's Tom Hanks?"

"Who?" Capper pricked up his ears and leaned forward slightly.

"Tom Hanks. Eric repeated.

Kapoor gave a meaningful smirk, "Eric, are you sure that if it's him, then I'll be reluctant to put another burden on myself." ”

"You're still struggling, you're about to laugh in your heart, aren't you?" said Eric.

Capper didn't pay attention to Eric's teasing, and asked, "Eric, are you really sure you're poaching Tom Hanks?"

Eric shook his head: "No, but I'm going to try, I've already asked Hanks to have dinner tonight, and he agreed." ”

Capper is full of confidence in Eric, the young man has already given him too many surprises: "Eric, why don't you try to bring Cruise closer to the UTA, he doesn't have an agency now." ”

"Don't think about this, Mr. Cruise is very ambitious now, and wants to follow the path of making people, and it is estimated that he will soon set up his own film production company. ”

Eric didn't expect that because of his appearance, Cruise would be caused to embark on the road of his previous life seven years early, probably stimulated by the huge profits he made from several consecutive movies.

Immediately after leaving CAA, Cruise approached his agent, Paula Wagner, to the Fireflies and began a new salary negotiation.

The conditions offered were not as outrageous as the CAA's original offer, with a salary of $5 million plus a 10% profit share, which was very reasonable for Eric, who was used to hearing about a $20 million salary and a 10% to 20% profit share in his previous life. However, after all, the profit-sharing model has just appeared, and the conditions previously offered by the CAA are completely nonsense in this era, and Cruise is this condition as soon as he opens his mouth, indicating that there is still a lot of room for negotiation, and Eric made up his mind to press Cruise's share to 5%.

And he thinks the success rate of this matter is very high, because he got the latest news that Tom Hanks promised to give up the profit-sharing model and only get a simple salary.

Although Cruise is now a little more famous than Hanks, the difference is not too much, once Hanks's salary conditions are exposed, Cruise estimates that he does not have much confidence in his heart to ask for a high profit share, this is a limitation of the times, although Cruise has tasted the sweetness of profit sharing once, but in this era when actors generally have no profit sharing, his last attempt was more like a special case, as mentioned before, the reason why Cruise was able to get the production cost was insufficient, and Cruise had to reduce his salary for the sake of the share, that share was more like compensating for the loss of Cruise's salary, but the box office was too good, and the compensation was a bit much。

And it was only after hearing that Hanks gave up the profit-sharing plan that Eric had the idea of poaching Hanks. He felt that it should be easiest to dig Hanks at this time, CAA had just vowed to fight for him a profit share, and suddenly it was gone, and it was impossible for Hanks to have no idea in his heart. Others may not know, but Eric knows Hanks' potential, and the next ten years will be the explosion of Hanks's acting career, not only won the total box office of billions of dollars, but also became the second person to win the Oscar after more than half a century.

Although he said that he was not sure about poaching Hanks, in fact, Eric felt that he had a more than ninety percent chance of winning Hanks, and the chips in his hand were more tempting than those of CAA.

"Alright, don't mention Cruise, Kapoor, I'm calling you here for another reason. Eric said, pulling out a manuscript he had spent several nights writing and handing it to Kapoor, "Help me see how I summarized?"

Kapoor took it and glanced at the title.

Flipping through the manuscript, Kapoor read it slowly, and the more he went back, the more solemn his expression became, until he finished reading the manuscript, Kapoor slowly raised his head and stared at Eric with a look at a monster.

This manuscript is very long, more than 10 pages long, and it describes in detail the process of the CAA five-person team from the WMA job, starting with the Guò TV series, attracting stars in the way of chasing stars, and gradually developing a bundled sales system, forming a new and unique business philosophy in just 15 years.

The reason why Kapoor was shocked was because what Eric mentioned in the manuscript, as the gold medal agent of the CAA back then, he could understand it at a glance, and he had experienced most of the operation methods. However, he does not have the ability to systematically plan these things and form a relatively complete set of brokerage company management theories.

And, he wondered how Eric knew this.

In addition to Michael Ovitz's personal business philosophy, there is another important reason why CAA insists on not going public, that is, in order to prevent the leakage of CAA's business strategy, once the company is listed, it has to disclose a large amount of CAA's information to investors.

A company's way of doing business is not something that can be patented, and if other brokerage firms do the same, then the advantages of CAA will not be extended.

Swallowing his throat, Kapoor carefully raised the manuscript in his hand and asked, "Eric, did you write these?"

"Well, I just wanted to help me see if there was anything wrong in it, by the way, Kapoor, you wouldn't object to me sending this article out, would you?"

Kapoor hurriedly shook his head and said with a wry smile: "If I had the ability to summarize these things, I would have sent them out a long time ago, so why wait until now." Eric, I'm getting more and more incomprehensible about you, I understand all the theories you said above, but if I had to put an end to it, I wouldn't know where to start. ”

Eric just smiled and didn't explain, although in this era, CAA's set of business strategies is full of mystery in the eyes of other companies, even if other brokerage companies poach some brokers from CAA and want to arbitrage their business strategies, they can only get an incomplete information.

I remember that in the previous life, it was about 96 years when the CAA had grown into an unshakable behemoth that attracted the attention of a reporter, who spent more than a year and collected a lot of information to completely unveil the mystery of CAA, and the public suddenly realized why Michael Ovitz, the head of CAA, was named the most powerful person in Hollywood.

But by that time, the CAA had grown into a giant monster, and even if Michael Ovitz, who had single-handedly built it, wanted to challenge the beast, he would only end up with a feather.

And CAA's brokers are completely parts of CAA's huge machine. They can help CAA keep going forever, but if you ask a part to tell how this huge machine works, you can only get the result of a blind man touching an elephant. The only person who can fully explain this set of business theories is probably Michael Ovitz himself, and of course, there is now one more Eric.