"By the way, there's one more thing."

Jamie switches his phone to his left hand.

"How was your conversation with Gwyneth's agent?"

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and then Ovitz's voice rang

"Actually, I haven't told them about it yet."

Jamie frowned and said:

"Why?"

"Don't you think there's someone better suited to convince Gwyneth than I am?"

Jamie was stunned for a moment, and then realized that Ovitz was talking about Rebecca.

Just then, Rebecca came out of the bedroom with a change of clothes.

The long white trench coat wraps the upper body tightly, revealing only a pair of long legs wrapped in black silk below the knee and black red heels.

Jamie covered the receiver of his phone, glanced Rebecca up and down, and then asked curiously:

"Are you going to go out?"

"No, I forgot I told you before I came, I had an early Christmas surprise for you."

"So-"

Before Jamie could finish speaking, Rebecca suddenly pulled open her trench coat.

A cool and sexy red "Christmas shirt" came into view, and Jamie's eyes were straight.

Rebecca took off her trench coat and threw it on the couch beside her.

With his hands on his hips, he proudly made a flying kiss gesture towards Jamie.

"Well, do you like this gift?"

The charming brushed eyes made Jamie instantly interested.

"Wait a minute."

Jamie picked up the phone again and placed it on the right side of his face.

Ovitz, who had been waiting on the other end of the phone for more than half a minute, immediately asked what was going on.

"You go to Palmat to get the male lead, and I'll get the female lead, that's it."

Without waiting for Ovitz to reply, Jamie hung up.

……

A little over an hour later, Jamie and Rebecca, who had finished their game of Santa vs. Elk, took a shower and snuggled up on the living room couch.

It was snowing outside the window, but it was warm inside.

Rebecca lifted her head from Jamie's strong chest, and looked at the man in front of her with a pair of beautiful and charming eyes, but in fact he looked like a bull.

"When I came out of the bedroom just now, I think I heard you mention my cousin's name on the phone."

"Actually, I was about to talk to you about it."

Rebecca sat up from Jamie's arms and looked ready to listen.

Jamie continues:

"How is your cousin?"

Rebecca shrugged.

"I just know that she has been quite idle lately, not only does she call me often, but she even plans to follow me to learn yoga."

"Isn't she filming?"

"Shoot, but according to her, they are all boring movies, and she doesn't have many scenes in it."

"Really? This is different from the daily life of the Oscar-winning actress I imagined, I thought she had endless scenes and was busy all day long. ”

"I thought so at first, but later I learned that there is an Oscar curse in Hollywood, and many people think that an actor's career will definitely soar after winning the award, but in fact, after winning the award, many people's careers will strangely fall into a state of stagnation, and this bad luck will continue for several years."

One prize has been declining for three years, and Jamie had heard of this saying in his previous life.

Not only actors, but also directors.

In his previous life, when Li Yu won the Oscar for Best Director for the first time with "Brokeback Mountain", he was very beautiful, but after winning the award, he was embarrassed to fall into a situation where there was no drama to shoot in Hollywood, so he could only borrow the slope and choose to return to the Chinese film industry and make a "Lust and Caution".

After that, it took five or six years to turn over again with "Life of Pi".

In a sense, winning an Oscar is really like a curse.

On the contrary, directors like Nolan, who have always maintained a high-quality creative level and have films above the level, have no chance of winning the award.

Not to mention the Oscars, Nolan hasn't even won a slightly weighty award.

There are many nominations to accompany the run.

This actually involves an unspoken rule of the film industry - sharing the cake.

A director like Nolan who has achieved fame and fortune often suffers when it comes to competing for awards with other shortlisted works.

Because most of the judges adhere to such an award philosophy.

It's not that the award will be awarded to which work is better, but it depends on which work needs to win the award more.

To put it more colloquially, the judges tend to award the award to which work has the most benefits after winning the award.

Because the establishment of any film award is to encourage the development of film art.

Giving the award to the kind of movie that has already gained fame and fortune can play the most important role is the icing on the cake.

And awarding the award to the kind of film that is unknown and lacks exposure can play a role in sending charcoal in the snow.

That's how Nolan suffered.

His works can maintain a stable level at both the box office and word of mouth, and there is no lack of fame or profit, resulting in the Air Force every award.

There is a similar situation with small plums.

chased the Oscars and ran with him for many years, and in the end, it was estimated that even the Oscar judges couldn't stand it, which finally made him realize his dream of being an actor.

And this actor is actually mostly comforting.

Of course, there are also bulls who can break this unspoken rule, such as James Cameron and Peter Jackson.

And their award-winning "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings" series are the kind of phenomenal works that only come out in more than ten years.

If the Oscar judges do not award the award to them, it will damage the credibility of the award itself.

Gwyneth's case is even more peculiar.

She herself won the Oscar actress by relying on Weinstein's public relations, and what she received after winning the award was not praise, but abuse and doubts.

even won the title of "the most water queen".

In fact, ordinary audiences and fans really don't have that much opinion on Gwyneth's award, all of which are the interested parties who were robbed of the award cake by Gwyneth, and those female stars who are afraid that Gwyneth will snatch their own resources with the momentum of the Oscar-winning actress, tacitly join forces to buy the rhythm of the media and discredit and suppress Gwyneth.

There are only a few places in the upper echelons of the Hollywood pyramid, and if Gwyneth climbs up, it means that someone will be kicked down.

In fact, Gwyneth's experience is not unique.

Many of the actors who try to break into the top of the Hollywood pyramid with the Oscars will mostly be sniped by other parties.

It's like an invisible ceiling, and many actors will be automatically intercepted by this transparent ceiling after winning the Oscar.

There are very few who can break this ceiling and continue to climb up.

Gwyneth has no ability to rebel against the unspoken rules of the industry, so she can only choose to keep a low profile.

"I'm working with Marvel and Universal to prepare for the live-action movie "Iron Man", and the heroine is still vacant, if your cousin is free, I can arrange an audition for her."

Before Jamie could finish speaking, Rebecca got up from the couch excitedly and took out her phone to call Gwyneth.

Jamie stopped Rebecca just in time.

"The audition was just a formality, and if nothing else, the role would definitely be hers, but there are two things you need to tell her in advance."

"First of all, the salary of this film will not be very high, of course, considering her current situation, I don't think it should be an unacceptable thing."

Rebecca held her phone and nodded for Jamie to continue.

"One more thing, it's Robert Downey Jr. who plays the leading role."

Rebecca's eyes widened, she covered her mouth and exclaimed:

"The guy who just came out of drug rehab?"

Jamie nodded affirmatively.

Rebecca asked hesitantly.

"Why?"

Jamie shrugged and replied:

"Because he's cheap enough."

It took Rebecca more than half a minute to digest the shocking news.

Eventually, she picked up her phone in front of Jamie and dialed her cousin Gwyneth.

The next morning.

David Messer had just arrived at his office and sat down when there was a knock on the door.

Messer looked up from behind his desk just in time to see the office door pushed open.

Jim Schutte, editor-in-chief and founder of Warrior Comics, strode in, followed by a frightened and helpless female secretary.

She once tried to stop Schutte, but the other party chose to go straight to it after learning that Messer had gone to work.

Fortunately, Messer didn't care, waved his hand, asked the secretary to exit the office, and closed the office door by the way.

Schutte walked over to his desk and got straight to the point.

"I saw a news on the comic book forum website this morning that Marvel intends to use Robert Downey Jr. to play Iron Man."

Messer was slightly stunned, and before he could come back to his senses, Schutte's eager voice rang out first.

"I know it sounds a lot like fake news, how could the Marvel board be looking for a guy who just came out of drug rehabilitation to play Iron Man unless he's crazy."

Messer replied with his hands on his desk and a serious expression:

"I think it's the opposite, and I think there's a good chance it's true."

Schutte's eyes widened.

He had just said that the Marvel board was crazy, and now he was even more skeptical that Messer was crazy too.

Messer didn't explain right away, but asked Schutt something else.

"What do comic book fans on the forum say about Robert Downey Jr.'s role as Iron Man? I mean, putting aside the negative press about Robert Downey Jr., do you think he's suitable to play Iron Man? ”

Schutte replied:

"Everyone on the forum took this as a prank, but there were also many people who thought that Robert Downey Jr. was quite suitable to play Iron Man."

Messer nodded solemnly.

Puzzled, Shute asked:

"What does your evaluation have to do with our discussion of the truth or falsity of this news?"

"I suspect that this news on the forum was deliberately released by Ovitz, both to test the attitude of comic book fans to this matter, and at the same time to use it as a basis to convince the Marvel board."

Despite the seriousness on Messer's face when he said this, Schutt was incredulous.

Judging from his many years of experience at Marvel, the Marvel board is not a group of people who can be easily swayed by the opinions of comic book readers.

Because of this, Messer is more and more sure that Ovitz is ready to use Robert Downey Jr. as the leading actor in "Iron Man".

"As I said earlier, the comic book fan's endorsement of Downey as Iron Man could be an opportunity for Ovitz to convince the Marvel board, but that's not the reason he really used to convince the Marvel board."

"What's that?"

"Pay!"

Messer looked at the stunned Shute with a determined expression.

"Robert Downey Jr. is in a situation where Ovitz can press his salary to an unimaginable level, and Palmart and the Marvel board can have 10,000 reasons to reject Downey, but if Downey's salary is so low that it is almost negligible, with Palmart's stingy character, he will definitely support this proposal."

Schutte was silent as soon as he heard this.

He resigned from his position as editor-in-chief of Marvel because Palmat wanted to lay off some editors, which he strongly opposed.

As a result, Palmat turned around and cut Schutte as editor-in-chief.

Marvel's wave of layoffs can be said to have directly cut its own artery.

The already sluggish sales of comics were exacerbated by the layoffs of the editor-in-chief and a group of editors.

And this time the layoffs have had two consequences.

Because of the declining revenue, Marvel began to carry out various fire sales of its superhero copyrights.

Schutte, who was laid off, brought in venture capital to create the Warrior comics with a few editors.

Warriors Comics was later sold by venture capitalists to a television game production company until it was acquired by Disney.

Schutte also didn't expect that after more than ten years, he and Marvel would become rivals again.

However, this time the battlefield is not a comic, but a manga superhero movie.

At this time, Messer's voice sounded again.

"Jim, you used to be the editor-in-chief of Marvel, and from the perspective of a comic book fan, what do you think of Robert Downey Jr.'s idea of playing Iron Man?"

Schutte thought for a few seconds.

"If 'Iron Man' wasn't our match, I'll tell you, the casting was really fantastic."

"If you look back at Robert Downey Jr.'s past, you will find that his growth trajectory is highly consistent with Tony Stark's growth trajectory before he became Iron Man."

"The same young and famous, they all have an excellent father who can be called an example in their careers, except for drugs, the other vices on both of them are exactly the same."

"Even if Robert Downey Jr. can completely recover from drugs this time, then his repentance and prodigal son's behavior is exactly the same as Tony Stark's mental journey to become Iron Man."

At this, Schutte suddenly glanced at Messer.

If Downey does succeed in drug rehabilitation, it will not be good news for the Warriors comics, which will compete head-to-head with Iron Man.

On the contrary, if Downey does not really get rid of the control of drug addiction, once it is exposed in the later stage, it will definitely deal a fatal blow to "Iron Man".

(End of chapter)