"Ding, ding, ding." With a few knocks on the glass, the owners all consciously stopped the small meeting and looked at the stage.

"Welcome to the New Year's Reception co-hosted by the Beverly Park North and South Homeowners Association."

Then the chairman of the association, Balabala, introduced several new owners who had just moved in this year, including Xiao Yifei. When it was everyone's turn to introduce themselves, they all raised their glasses to the surroundings with a smile on their faces.

Xiao Yifei basically didn't pay attention to what the chairman said, and he was still wondering how Stallone and Schwarzenegger appeared together. These two are rivals who have never been in touch with each other.

Let's talk about Stallone first, because he was born with dystocia, the doctor used forceps, which caused Stallone's facial nerve to be damaged and partially paralyzed. Then his father, who was a barber, and his mother, who was a dancer, divorced, and he was handed over to his father to raise, and by the time he was 15 years old, Stallone had changed 12 schools, basically one a year. Stallone himself once said that his teacher said he was the most likely person in the class to be in the Right-Error Novel Chair.

Later, his father threw him to his mother to raise, and his mother let him enter the entertainment industry after divination. It's a pity that his acting career in New York did not go well. So he came to Hollywood on the West Coast, where he was tepid as well.

On May 24, 1975, Stallone watched a boxing match in which then-boxing champion Ali faced off against an unknown fighter, Chuck, in Litchfield, Ohio. Ali's agent agreed to this match, with the intention of allowing Ali to find a weak hand to get time to rest in consecutive matches. But who knew that Chuck was like a chicken blood, and he actually fought Ali for 15 rounds, and even knocked Ali down in the middle. Although Chuck still lost in the end, his spirit of perseverance and never admitting defeat won everyone's affirmation.

Stallone was very excited after seeing the boxing match, and wrote the famous movie "Rocky" in three days, which also made him famous and rich. Wait for the script to be written. Stallone took the script and ran the movie company one by one to pull investment. At that time, there were very many Hollywood studios, more than 500 of them, and most of them turned him away because he could be regarded as unsuccessful before. Even if someone is willing to invest, they also hope that the starring role will be a big star at the time and not a nobody Stallone.

After running all the studios for the first time, Stallone had to run all over again. It is said that after being rejected more than 1500 times. Finally, a company was willing to invest 1 million, (which was later increased by $100,000) and let Stallone play the starring role. The plot of this film is relatively simple, and it is a low-budget movie, so it only took 28 days to shoot.

But after the release of such a small-budget movie, it exploded with huge energy, with the national box office reaching 117 million, and the global box office reaching 225 million. You know, the ticket price at that time was just a few dollars, less than $3. Ticket prices in the U.S. now exceed $10. And at that time, there were no higher ticket prices such as 3D and IMAX, so if you compare it now, it is equivalent to making a movie with a global box office of $600 million at a cost of less than 3 million. This is much more powerful than the "Witch's Diaries" that those people bragged, and the publicity cost of the Witch's Diary is more than 10 million.

In addition, "Rocky" also brought Sylvester Stallone nominations for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and Best Actor, as well as awards such as Best Picture. and generated $56.52 million in revenue from the rental of video tapes.

"Rocky" is not the first film made by Stallone, his earliest film was "Italian Breeding Horse" in 1970. And in this year, Schwarzenegger, who had a lifelong entanglement with him, also came to Hollywood. His first film that year was "Hercules in New York".

Schwarzenegger was originally a bodybuilder, and from 70 to 75 years he won the highest title in the bodybuilding industry for 6 consecutive times, "Mr. Olympic". Later, it received this title again in 80 years. Therefore, in Schwarzenegger's early films, he was mainly responsible for "selling meat" to show his well-developed muscles, and he was often seen in the film taking off his clothes to puff up his pectoralis major and biceps brachii if he didn't understand.

The first entanglement between Stallone and Schwarzenegger is said to have been in the casting of the 1975 movie "Hungry", when Stallone auditioned and thought that the role had been secured. But when Schwarzenegger, who is Mr. Olympic, came on the stage, he conquered the director instantly, and Schwarzenegger successfully won the best newcomer in the world with this film.

At that time, Stallone had not yet written "Rocky", and it was just when he was down. Therefore, this role competition laid the fuse for their future competition.

By 1980, Schwarzenegger was instantly popular with the invincible and vicious Devil Terminator in "The Terminator". became the best of Hollywood action movie actors, and his voice was close to that of "Rambo" Stallone, who was in full swing at the time.

At this time, the two people are still just in a competitive relationship, and it is said that their competition is that you kill 288 people in one movie, and I will kill 289 in the next movie, so it seems that it is still a healthy competition. But soon, the rivalry between the two men turned into a contradiction, and the fuse of this contradiction was a woman, an actress and model named Brigittenielsen.

In 1985, Schwarzenegger was already living with Kennedy's niece, Maria Shriver. While filming the Queen's Excalibur (Redsonja) in Europe, he got involved with the lead actor Brigitte. As a result, this woman is a kraft candy, and she can't get rid of it when she gets it, so she chased it all the way to the United States. When Maria heard about this, she forced him to choose one of the two, Schwarzenegger can be said to be a big man with great wisdom, although I don't know if he had the ideal of politics before this, but an actress must not be compared with President Kennedy's niece, even if Brigitte, who was 22 years old at the time, was more beautiful than Maria, who was 30 years old at the time.

Schwarzenegger knew that Brigitte was a fan of Stallone, and at that time, Stallone was No.1 in Hollywood with the success of action movies such as "Rocky" and "First Blood", so he used a little trick and sent someone to tell Brigitte the address of his competitor Stallone.

At that time, Stallone had just divorced his ex-wife Sasha and moved to a hotel to prepare for a new drama. This Brigitte was sent to the door, so the two got together, so Brigitte's name appeared in the cast list of "Rocky 4" starring Stallone that year, and he married Brigitte that year.

It turns out that this Brigitte is not a fuel-efficient lamp at all. After marriage, she was a big spender, and Stallone described that the speed at which the money printing factory could not print money as fast as she spent money. And Brigitte often participates in various banquets and balls, and has no scruples with other men**. After two years of marriage, it finally ended.

Stallone said that this marriage was the biggest mistake of his life. With a little scanning, he knew that it was Schwarzenegger who leaked his address to Brigitte, and the conflict between the two men at the top of the action star was completely intensified. The two often ridiculed and attacked each other in the media, and even when a reporter was writing a biography of Schwarzenegger, Stallone actually called to break the news.

Later, the two made a series of classic action movies, which made fans enjoy watching while making them a lot of money. Schwarzenegger made enough money to slowly turn to politics, first in the Bush campaign and later in his own gubernatorial run. The two are no longer in the same realm, and they are both older. In addition, the main competitor has become a new generation of "performative" action stars, so the contradiction between the two slowly faded.

But why did Schwarzenegger come here? He's not a Beverly Park owner, he lives at 12989 Chalonroad in Brentwood. This place is also a closed community, called Brentwood Manor, in addition to some businessmen, the entertainment industry also has Victoria's Secret model Heidi Krum, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Xiao Yifei has been running around some time ago. I didn't pay attention to the entertainment news at all, and I didn't know that Schwarzenegger showed a small face in Stallone's "The Expendables 1". And on October 24, Schwarzenegger had already gone to the crew to finish filming his scene.

There was a burst of applause, and Xiao Yifei realized that the chairman had finished speaking. Next came Governor Schwarzenegger's speech.

Fortunately, Schwarzenegger is the governor, but he doesn't talk much about politics, and he doesn't have much to talk about. It is said that this on-screen tough guy is also sad, and he wants to show his strength when he becomes governor. Reducing the fiscal deficit has been repeatedly pulled back by Democratic-majority state legislatures, resulting in many laws that have failed to pass his political ideas.

Later, when the financial crisis hit, he could only continue to borrow. Soon the amount of debt owed by the California government continued to soar, and it is believed that he also lost confidence in being re-elected.

But overall, the governor is not bad, he doesn't have an annual salary of more than 100,000 yuan a year, and the cost of a private jet from his home in Los Angeles to Sacramento, the state capital, every week is all self-absorbed.

To put it mildly, California has always been the territory of the Democratic Party, and only 30% of registered Republican members are registered voters, and the Kennedy family on Schwarzenegger's wife's side is also a Democrat, but Schwarzenegger himself is a Republican, and he also won the governorship of California on behalf of the Republican Party, and his policy platform is also biased towards the Republican Party's "small government, tax cuts" and other ideas.

The governor didn't speak at length, and Xiao Yifei was interrupted by applause before he finished walking.

Then the reception entered the free contact stage, and a small band on the stage began to play elegant and soothing music, so that the owners who were willing to dance could dance, but at this time everyone was busy greeting each other, and no one wanted to dance.

Zhu Jianqiu went to find his real estate companion, and Xiao Yifei took Concubine Yue to Denzel Washington (No. 41) three times and two times. The person he was chatting with saw someone coming for him, raised his glass and left to look for someone else.

Denzel first took the initiative to shake hands and asked:

"Hi, I've seen you, you bought the 40th across from me, didn't you?"

"Yes, I'm Xiao, and this is my girlfriend, Yue."

"Hello, you don't have to call me Mr. Washington, just call me Denzel. This is my wife, Pauletta."

"I like your movies very much, I remember the first work I watched was "Life and Death", in which you played an investigator awesomely."

"Thank you for the compliment. Oh, that was all years ago. ”

The two chatted for a few words, raised their hands and beckoned the photographer of the association to take a group photo of several people, and then left each other. Later, Xiao Yifei found Eddie Murphy (No. 19) and Samuel L. Jackson (No. 17), the one-eyed dragon director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He relied on his youth and low net worth, so he ran around at the drinking party, and from time to time he found someone to introduce himself. Chat a few words, take a photo when you meet a fate or look familiar, anyway, there must be more than one photographer invited by the organizer of this kind of cocktail party.

He was running around happily, and accidentally got in front of the most distinguished guest, which was definitely not intentional, it was really accidentally passing by. happened to be seen by Lei Shidong. raised his hand and summoned him with a summon, and it seemed that he didn't accompany him to play ball and talk about cross talk in vain.

"Hello Mr. Summer."

"Just call me Summer, don't take Mr. with you every time."

"Yes, sir. （yes，sir）”

"Come, I'll introduce you to a few."

"This is Larry Cohen (No. 51), he's a talented guy who's worked as a producer, director, screenwriter, and the 'Sniper Phone Booth' you've seen is his book."

After watching this movie, it was an unlucky guy who wanted to go into a public phone booth to make a call, but as a result. Received a phone call saying that he was going to be killed if he dared to go out of the phone booth. No one would believe it, so he was just about to walk out of the phone booth when the gunman opened fire, and an innocent passerby fell. The call was true, and the hapless salesman was almost scared to pee.

The death of an innocent passerby attracts the police, who think the protagonist is the gunman. He had to go out of the phone booth. Then the media came, and so did his wife. His lover also came.

Xiao Yifei feels that the harmony is good, the tension is rendered very well, and the acting skills of the actors are also good, especially the mastermind behind the scenes, just by virtue of the voice, it adds a bit of tension to the film.

Then he introduced a few more people around him. They're either media moguls or actors.

"This is Marvel's former CEO Aviarad (No. 27), who can be said to be the leader of Marvel's ZTE. He is the producer of Marvel's hero movies such as "Spider-Man", "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" that you like. ”

The Alad has been the driving force behind the resurgence of Marvel Comics in Hollywood, and his string of records is unparalleled, including eight consecutive first-week box office winners.

"This is Mikemedavoy (No. 65). He is now the CEO of Phoenix Pictures and the producer of "Vertical Limit" and "Day Six". ”

This McMadavoy is a legend, when he was the vice president of production at United States, there was a very famous movie from United States, that is, Stallone's "Rocky", it can be said that he is one of the driving forces behind "Rocky". Later, he went to Orion Company and produced "Field Platoon", "Robocop", "Dances with Wolves" and other popular films. Later, he went to Tri-Star as CEO, and in his short four-year tenure, Samsung Pictures made Sharon Stone famous "Instinct", Tom Hanks won the best actor "Philadelphia Story", the famous romance movie "Sleepless in Seattle", and Spielberg's "Terminator 2", and "The Silence of the Lambs".

Later, after founding Phoenix Pictures, he produced Oscar-nominated films such as "Red Alert", followed by "Black Swan", which made Natalie Portman win the Oscar.

It can be said that this is a legendary producer, and arguably the most successful producer since the 70s, a great behind-the-scenes worker. The most important thing is that this Jew was actually born in 1941 in the magic capital of China, although his parents are also Jewish, but his mother was born in the Northeast.

"This one who definitely has more in common with you is Richardhfrank (No. 47), who was president of Paramount and went to Disney as chairman of television and was in charge of Disney Studios. His son is co-chairman of DreamWorks. Their family also has a winery in Napa, so I'm sure you will have a common language. ”

"Excuse me, Mr. Richard, what is the name of your winery?"

"The Frank family winery, originally called the Correll Champagne Cellars, in Callistoga, what is the name of your winery?"

The Frank family winery, as if I had heard of it, is between Callistoga and St. Helen.

"My winery is called Monterena."

"Oh, you're the Chinese Xiao who bought the Monterena Winery, I heard about you last time I went back."

"Look, sure enough, you have a common language. Okay, I don't need to introduce you to the remaining two. ”

"No, they're my idols, and I've seen a lot of their movies."

These two are naturally Stallone and Schwarzenegger. In reality, Stallone doesn't have that much makeup, and his crooked mouth and slanted eyes are more serious.

"Mr. Stallone, you never get tired of watching "First Blood" and "Bomb Expert."

Well, don't laugh, you old man, it's worse to laugh than to cry.

"Mr. Governor, your True Lies and Terminator are really good-looking, so cool."

It is worthy of being a politician, and he laughs very professionally.

These people in front of them are at least a generation older than Xiao Yifei, except for a few who are in their 50s, most of them are in their 60s and 70s, and they are embarrassed to put on a face to Xiao Yifei, a person in his 20s, and they were all called by Lei Shidong, and they all took a photo with Xiao Yifei with a smile.

Lei Shidong happily watched Xiao Yifei pose over there, and whispered Xiao Yifei's identity to a few people next to him, at this time everyone knew that don't look at this person is young, it turns out that he is still very rich, and there are two mansions here. Some people who like art also know that Xiao Yifei is actually the owner of those Picasso Van Gogh portraits. Moreover, there are many Jews among these people, and everyone knows about the relationship between China and the Jews, so naturally they don't say anything.

After tossing around, Lei Shidong used the elimination ** again, and raised his hand to send Xiao Yifei away.

"You can't talk to a group of old men with us, let's go play with young people."

Xiao Yifei politely said goodbye to everyone, and then continued to run around the hall, in fact, there were few young people here. Of course, these owners have children, but they will never want to follow their parents to this kind of drinking party, they have their own party. This, combined with the fact that the U.S. requires a 21-year-old to drink alcohol, makes them even less interested in this kind of drinking.

By this time, many people had finished communicating, and the president of the association duly announced that Schwarzenegger and his wife would do the first dance. After they had taken a few steps, the others began to dance with their female companions in their arms. At this time, if you want to dance, go to the middle, and if you don't want to, stand farther away and continue to chat.

Xiao Yifei had just finished dancing with Wang Nan, and she was borrowed. (To be continued......)