The news of Ovitz's departure from CAA shook the entire Hollywood for a while.

Although the news of his imminent departure has been circulating in the newspapers for a while, similar statements have not stopped since the day CAA became the No. 1 agency in Hollywood, and everyone has become accustomed to treating this as boring hype in the media, so when the news was confirmed, everyone was a little unable to react for a while.

Everyone is thinking about one question together: what will happen to CAA after Ovitz is gone?

The five partners who founded CAA, Perkins and Meyer, left last year, and with the addition of Rodriguez, who retired earlier, only Ovitz and Hubble are the only two veterans of the company.

Hubble was left alone after Ovitz left, and there are rumors that Hubble will soon be leaving CAA as well.

CAA, which dominates half of Hollywood, seems to have fallen apart overnight.

William Morris, an old rival, certainly won't let go of this great opportunity, taking advantage of the turmoil in the CAA, they poached several CAA heavyweight stars such as Whoopi Goldberg and Sylvester Stallone from CAA in one go.

William Morris, who was busy prying into the corner of the opponent's wall, naturally didn't care about such an inconsequential matter as blocking Jude.

For several days, the newspapers and TV reported on the incident, and Jude finally ushered in a relatively leisurely holiday.

Leet held the apple that Kate washed and handed over, looked at Jude who was reclining on the sofa and said: "You and I should be grateful to Mr. Ovitz for this matter, if he didn't choose to announce the news at this time, I'm afraid the negotiations with Denzel Washington would have dragged on for a while, his agent Scott told me that on the morning that Mr. Ovitz announced his departure from CAA, William Morris was holding a board meeting to discuss whether to block you, although Scott persuaded the majority of the directors to veto the proposal, But it was Mr. Ovitz's decision that ultimately accomplished the kill. ”

Jude shrugged indifferently, apparently not impressed by Leeter's rhetoric.

Ovitz didn't know in advance that William Morris was holding a board recall to discuss whether to ban Jude, he just announced his long-considered decision at a time that he saw fit, and the two things just happened to come together, so Jude felt that it was not Ovitz who should be thanked, but luck.

Jude stood up and patted Ritt on the shoulder as he passed him.

"Before you care about your old boss, I think you still want to think about yourself!"

"What did you say?"

Litt turned around and looked at Jude who walked into the kitchen to get coffee with a look of incomprehension.

Jude took a sip of the coffee on the table, smacking his lips and saying, "The temperature is just right, but you need to add some sugar." ”

Kate, who was in charge of pouring the brewed coffee into the cup, turned her head to look at the dazed Leet at the kitchen door, "What about you?" ”

"I don't need that cup." Litt declined Kate's offer to help add sugar, and continued to chase Jude and asked, "What did you mean by that?" ”

Jude stirred the coffee with a small spoon and said without raising his head: "Don't tell me, you haven't read the newspapers and news lately, the CAA after Ovitz left is facing a round of power reshuffle, this is a great opportunity for you to return to the CAA." ”

After Ovitz officially announced his resignation from all positions in CAA and transferred all of CAA's shares, most of the media and industry insiders felt that CAA was finished, and the younger generation was likely to stand on its own, and CAA fell apart, but these people forgot that Ovitz thought of this many years ago and made arrangements in advance in the system.

The CAA has indeed experienced a period of turmoil recently, but Jude knows that this state of affairs will not last long, and the CAA in the post-Ovitz era will complete the transition between the old and the new very calmly and quickly, and this time will definitely not exceed a month.

"You think everything I did was to be able to return to CAA one day, and if that was the case, I wouldn't have had to leave in the first place!" Litt shook his head, and clearly rejected Jude's offer.

"Do you want to switch to William Morris? It's not surprising that you've been in contact with that side lately, but if you do, your old boss, Mr. Ovitz, will probably be very sad. Jude took a sip of his coffee, and there was no lack of sarcasm in his tone.

"It's not funny at all!" Leet glared at Jude gravely, he had never had this idea before.

Jude put down the coffee in his hand and sighed regretfully.

"Well, it seems that you have chosen the most difficult path, and you are ready to stand on your own!"

"Really?" Kate, who had not intervened in the conversation between the two, also stopped what she was doing and looked at Leete with a curious expression.

Under the gaze of Jude and Kate, Leet had no choice but to shrug his shoulders and say, "I do have such an idea, but it is only an idea at the moment. ”

Jude winked at Litte and joked, "Then as a veteran customer of your company, can Kate's brokerage fees be lowered a little more?" ”

"No matter how low it is, I can't even afford to pay the rent of my apartment, so can you bear to watch me sleep on the streets?" Litt deliberately put on a pitiful look, but he was telling the truth.

Generally, agents will take 10% of the artist's income as their own brokerage fee, so there is another title in Hollywood agents called "ten percent people", and in order to protect the rights and interests of artists, American law stipulates that agents can only take so much at most.

Of course, most agents will not set the ratio so high, and the more big-name stars and directors, the lower the brokerage commission, but there are really not many agents like Leet who only take 4% of the income as a brokerage fee from the beginning.

Jude took a sip of coffee and continued to tease: "Okay, put this issue aside for the time being, and then talk about your old boss Ovitz, who is about to become the president of Disney, and it is also a good choice for you to hug his thigh!" ”

Litt frowned when he heard this.

"You also think Mr. Ovitz went to Disney as the right choice?"

Jude pursed his lips and replied with a smile: "No matter how good CAA is and how big it is, it is only a few hundred agents with an annual profit of hundreds of millions of dollars, and it definitely can't be compared with Disney, Universal Pictures, Viacom, and other giants with tens of thousands of employees and tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue." To be able to serve as these presidents, command thousands of employees, and have tens of billions of dollars in resources at his disposal should be a huge step forward for Ovitz, at least on the surface. But it's a pity that Ovitz chose the wrong partner this time, if he goes to Warner, Universal or Viacom as president, maybe he can really make a career, but at Disney obviously can't. ”

Li Te listened attentively, and subconsciously asked, "Why?" ”

"If Ovitz is compared to a tiger, then Eisner, the chairman of the board of directors of Disney, is a lion, and in fact Eisner has always had the nickname 'The Lion King' within Disney, and his style of doing things is tough and authoritarian. If Ovitz could put down his frame and be a docile cat, maybe the two would work together happily, but if he wanted to be a tiger, he would inevitably clash with Eisner, chairman of the board of directors and president, who do you think is most likely to be driven out in the end? ”

Litt was silent for a while, for the answer was already obvious.

Ovitz is going to lose this fight, and he's going to lose badly.

"But there is one thing I still don't understand, Eisner and Mr. Ovitz have been friends for many years, and he should know that Mr. Ovitz's character is not so easy to compromise, so why did he invite Mr. Ovitz to be the president of Disney?"

Jude shrugged and replied: "Eisner values Ovitz's influence in Hollywood, but he will soon find out that Ovitz who left CAA is actually nothing, and Ovitz's biggest mistake is also in this place, he is too confident in himself, he feels that even if he leaves CAA, he can exert enough influence on the company he founded, but the truth is that even a cronie like you feel that staying in CAA will be isolated and excluded, let alone a former founder who has left and does not have any shareholdings?" I dare to say that the first thing the new board of directors of CAA did was to clean up the traces left by Ovitz, and the two sides would greet each other politely when they met in the future, but Ovitz said that the era of indifference has passed, and without the support of CAA, it is definitely difficult for Ovitz to gain a foothold in Disney. ”

[PS: Some readers pointed out that the box office of "Two Big Smoking Guns" was too high, because Frog referred to the box office of "Pulp Fiction" when making the setting, because the two movies are relatively close, and the box office of "Pulp Fiction" found on Box-Office-Mojo is over 100 million in North America, so Frog set the North American box office of "Two Big Smoking Guns" at $80 million accordingly, but when I checked the information, I didn't find that "Pulp Fiction" had been released twice in North America, After 2000, it was re-released once, and the cumulative box office only exceeded 100 million, and the box office was only more than 50 million when it was released for the first time, so it is not appropriate to set the box office of "Two Big Smoking Guns" to 80 million, and some changes will be made to the box office data in the previous chapters, and the North American box office will be revised to 50 million US dollars, which only involves the modification of specific figures, and does not affect the reading of the plot. 】