Chapter 24: Chapter 24 - It is on!
Amy Pascal was also sitting at the conference table and she felt that things weren't as simple as they seemed. Although she had been in contact with Eric for only a few short hours, she knew that he was unlike any of his peers. He had a gentle and calm temperament and surely wasn't cocky enough to come up with this kind of crazy bet. The only plausible explanation she could come up with was that this bet wasn't made on a whim but after Eric Williams' careful consideration.
Amy Pascal, after thinking for a while, said: "Mr. Cohen, I feel it's better to be cautious. There is no such thing as a free lunch. We should slightly raise our initial offer, and share profits with Eric Williams. With the film's box office potential, we certainly won't make a loss."
"Amy, I think you're too cautious. He's just a kid." Lester Reed retorted: Do you know the potential of this movie? If we fully acquire the copyright of this movie, in addition to the box office split, videotape copyright, TV broadcast permits, and other various peripherals, we can earn tens of millions of dollars in profit, not to mention we can also shoot sequels. If you choose to share profits, the copyright is still in the hands of the boy, and we have to share a cut with the boy in the next operation."
Amy Pascal said: "We could also work on the buyout price, right, how about increasing it to 15 million dollars? I think Eric would agree then."
"Based on the potential of such small budget comedies in the past, 50 million $ at the box office is considered a dark horse, while most can only make about 2 million $. So, there's more than an 80% chance that we'll get all copyrights for free. Why do we have to pay 15 million $ when the brat has less than 20% chance of winning? He has the guts to make such a crazy bet when the odds are against him, so what are you afraid of?"
"But…" Amy Pascal could only see endless greed in her colleagues' eyes. But her woman's intuition told her that the bet definitely wasn't that simple.
"Amy," Blount Cohen interrupted her: "Jeffrey Hansen and Eric Williams might be your friends, but you're a Columbia Pictures employee and you should work towards the interests of the company."
Blount Cohen's words stunned Amy Pascal. Yes, she really was friends with Jeffrey Hansen, but her career as a manager had always been professional and ethical.
And now, just because she had expressed her reservations towards the bet, they suspected her to be fighting for the interests of outsiders? Amy felt a strong sense of humiliation as she clenched her pen and her hand trembled slightly. She abruptly stood up and coldly stated: "Mr. Cohen, now that you have made up your mind, I think I'm no longer needed, I will take my leave. Goodbye."
Then, Amy Pascal hastily put the papers in front of her back in order, silently turned around and left the office.
The entire office sunk into a brief silence.
"Ah, women!"
It was unknown who exactly uttered this sigh. Someone like Amy Pascal with a high position in a patriarchal society would certainly be subject to discrimination.
Blount Cohen felt slightly regretful, Amy Pascal's ability and her professional conduct were obvious. Otherwise, she wouldn't be sitting in this office. But, although Blount Cohen lacked courage, he was very prideful. He felt that even if he had spoken somewhat abruptly, Amy Pascal just getting up and leaving was an attack towards his dignity. So he conveniently decided that the fault laid with her.
After ten seconds of silence, Blount Cohen finally said: "Well, since we all agree, then Lester, now onward, you are solely responsible for the Home Alone project."
Amid everyone's envious gazes, Lester Reed excitedly agreed. If they won the bet, the credit would certainly be considered when he vied for future promotion, and his pay would naturally raise.
"No problem, Mr. Cohen, I will take care of this."
The next day, Eric received a notification stating that Columbia Pictures had accepted his gambling contract. Jeffrey also introduced him to a firm, and after they had assessed the value of Jurassic Park, they agreed to send a team to assist Eric in supervising the implementation of the bet.
On October 31st, though very interested in the first Halloween parade after his rebirth, Eric had to sit among a lot of boring middle-aged professionals in a meeting room at the Columbia headquarters, deciding the specifics of the agreement.
Under the conditions proposed by Eric, the contents of the agreement were gradually fine-tuned. To ensure that Columbia Pictures did their utmost for the promotion of Home Alone, he made sure they would publish the details of the bet in a well-known newspaper, check the number of daily theater attendances to increase or reduce the number of screenings, take into account the daily film schedule as well as the screening time, etc. And if Columbia violated any terms of the agreement, different penalties would be imposed for breach of contract.
Looking at the dozens of pages that had been drawn, Eric couldn't help but give his thumbs up to Jeffrey Hansen for recruiting such a professional team of lawyers and accountants.
On Columbia's side, Lester Reed, who was responsible for the Home Alone project felt that the bet was already in the bag. He didn't take that stupid dozen pages-long contract seriously, and couldn't help but hold Eric's demands in ridicule as he had probably wasted at least several hundred thousand dollars on commission alone.
Lester Reed thought that no matter how detailed the contract was, they had already estimated Home Alone's box office potential. Even their most daring estimations didn't exceed this year's currently first ranked, Who framed Roger Rabbit, a perfect combination of animation and live-action movie that had made 150 million dollars in the North American box office.
Columbia had originally proposed a December release for Home Alone, but Eric firmly opposed it. He knew about the movies that were about to be released at that time. Those blockbusters would just strangle his project. In his past, Home Alone had been released in November and had been screened for 36 weeks. It remained number one in the box office for 12 consecutive weeks and among the top ten for 23 weeks of its screening.
Eventually, Columbia yielded and decided on November 18th as the release date, the same as 17 Again. This was something Eric suggested as he was a focal point of both movies and could help promote them to a larger public. Since everyone didn't have the same tastes, if they weren't into the one, they could go see the other. For this reason, even Columbia who had originally planned a November 18th release for the film Malaysia postponed it to December, freeing up about 1000 screens for Home Alone.
Only the movies they had confidence in would start with more than one thousand screens, which showed that Columbia was very optimistic about Home Alone. However, they didn't want its box office to be over 50 million $ since they also wanted to win the copyrights. Therefore the number of screens didn't exceed one thousand.
Eric didn't have any qualms towards this. For the Columbia executives to think like this was a normal thing, but they had signed up to a dozen pages of the contract, in which it was clearly stated that if the box office reached a certain number, they had to correspondingly increase the number of screens. If Columbia refused to do it, then they could just wait to be sued. Eric believed that the gains of one movie weren't enough to make giants like Columbia throw away their reputation.
After the signing, because the contracting parties didn't intend to conceal the agreement, the entire Hollywood soon knew about it.
Thanks to Columbia Pictures Publicity Department, the next day, The Los Angeles Times made its headline.
"Genius boy gambles with Columbia Pictures! Demented or foolish?"
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