1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Kevin Costner's new movie is a science fiction film. The budget is definitely not low, but the box office is unlikely to be high, so Warner will definitely not make any money from this movie. It would be good enough if it doesn't lose a lot of money.

Chris doesn't care whether "The Postman" can make money. After all, it is not the project he is responsible for. What he cares about now is whether Kevin has time to star in "Shutter Island".

But nothing has been decided yet, so he can't ask directly.

Chris looked at Catherine again, wondering if Kevin was really invited to play the male lead in "Shutter Island", then could Catherine be invited to play the female lead.

There is actually no female lead in "Shutter Island". The only female characters Chris can think of are the missing female prisoner Qin Yu, and the male protagonist's deceased wife, and they don't have many roles.

Chris definitely wanted Katherine to play the male protagonist's wife, after all, Katherine and Kevin had acted as a couple before.

After thinking for a while, Chris asked Catherine, "Ms. Jones, when will your next movie start shooting?"

Catherine shook her head. "I'm not sure. Now I'm not even sure if I can take on this role."

Hearing her say this, Chris smiled and didn't ask any more questions.

Zhou Yan guessed that Chris might want to invite Katherine to star in "Shutter Island", but he didn't care much about it, because the female characters in "Shutter Island" had no sense of existence, so it didn't make any difference who played the role.

In addition to the male protagonist, the more important characters are the male protagonist's attending physician, who is also the male protagonist's partner, and the chief physician of psychiatry.

In the original version, the former was played by Mark Ruffano, who played the Hulk, and the latter was played by veteran actor Ben Kingsley.

The casting of Ben Kingsley is very interesting because his appearance gives people the feeling of being the mastermind behind the scenes.

For this casting, Zhou Yan also hopes to follow the ideas of the original version.

I just don't know what Ben Kingsley's image is like now. If possible, I would like to let him play the role.

……

They chatted for a while and then their orders came.

Chris's recommendation was correct, the steak in this restaurant is indeed very good.

Whether steak tastes good or not mainly depends on the raw materials themselves, and secondly on the skills of the chef. This restaurant uses very good materials and the chef is also very skilled.

When the four of them had almost finished eating, a man in a white shirt came over with a smile.

When he came to Catherine's side, he bowed slightly and said very politely, "Excuse me, is this Miss Jones?"

The four of them looked at the newcomer in surprise. The latter introduced himself with a smile, "I am Jack Williams, the operations director of New Balance. I just noticed Miss Jones here, but I didn't come over to disturb her."

He had just finished introducing himself when he suddenly saw Kevin Costner, who had his back to him, and asked in surprise, "Is this Mr. Costner?"

"Hello, Mr. Williams." Kevin stood up and shook hands with Jack Williams. "Nice to meet you."

Catherine also stood up and greeted them.

They both stood up, and out of courtesy, Chris and Zhou Yan also stood up.

Jack Williams asked, "Would you please introduce these two to me?"

"Chris." Chris took the initiative to shake hands with Jack Williams.

"Zhou Yan." Zhou Yan also introduced himself.

"Oh, hello, I'm very sorry to disturb your meal. Please forgive me, I really don't want to miss this opportunity to get to know them both." Jack Williams said with a smile.

Zhou Yan nodded, "No problem, nice to meet you."

"What a coincidence today. I've been to this restaurant several times, but I didn't expect to run into you here. Miss Jones, are you and Mr. Costner here because of the event for The Sixth Sense?"

"The Sixth Sense" is very popular in the United States now. It was also because of this movie that Jack Williams recognized Catherine. Seeing her appear here with Kevin, he guessed whether they were participating in a movie event.

Kevin smiled and said, "Tomorrow is the celebration party for "The Sixth Sense". We are all going to attend the celebration party."

"Oh, I think I heard about this." Jack Williams nodded, then asked with a smile, "Since it's a celebration party, will Y come this time?"

"Y?"

Catherine and the others looked at Jack Williams in surprise, and then looked at Zhou Yan who was standing next to him. They didn't understand what Jack Williams was doing. Wasn't Y standing right in front of him?

Chris coughed lightly, "Ahem, Mr. Williams is concerned about Y's whereabouts?"

"It's not that I'm particularly concerned, but when I saw you, I thought of it. Isn't "The Sixth Sense" adapted from Y's movie?" Jack Williams said with a smile.

"Then do you know what Y looks like?"

"That's true..."

Jack Williams had just opened his mouth when he suddenly saw the strange expressions on the faces of several people. He realized something and looked at Zhou Yan in surprise, "Could it be..."

Chris laughed, "Yes, this is Y."

Hearing that Zhou Yan was Y, Jack Williams said apologetically, "I'm really sorry, I didn't pay attention to your appearance before, and the name you introduced just now was not Y, so I didn't think much about it."

"Zhou Yan is my Chinese name, and Y-Chou is the translation they gave me." Zhou Yan explained.

"Zhou Yan... I'll remember this. I won't make the mistake again next time." Jack Williams shook hands with Zhou Yan again. "Nice to meet you. I really like your movies and music. The song that was playing in the restaurant just now was your work, right?"

Zhou Yan nodded, "Yes, 'Young and Beautiful' is an interlude in 'Sense and Sensibility'."

“Mariah Carey sang it, too,” Chris added.

"Yes, Kelly sang it too." Jack Williams nodded.

……

Jack Williams didn't stay long. After asking for their contact information, he left.

Zhou Yan didn't have a fixed contact information in the United States, so he gave Jack Williams the phone number of Tomson's office in the United States.

Tomson has offices in many countries, and North America is no exception.

Their office in the United States is located in Los Angeles, not far from here, and it is not small, with five staff members, which is slightly larger than the office in Neon.

Although Zhou Yan's main market is still Japan, Japan is close after all, so it is relatively easy to go there, and the office does not need too many people. It is different in the United States. It is not easy for Zhang Youan and his team to come here. Many times, if there is any business to be handled in the United States, it can only be handled by the staff of the office, so more people are needed.

The appearance of Jack Williams was just a small episode, and they didn't take it seriously. After he left, they continued chatting.

When the time was almost up, the four of them got up and left.

……

The next morning, Zhang Youan came to the hotel where Zhou Yan was staying and met with Chris. The two sides began to discuss the matter of "Shutter Island" in detail.

At the beginning, Zhou Yan participated in their negotiations, but as the talks went on, Zhou Yan withdrew because the bargaining style of both parties was no different from that of the aunties buying vegetables in the vegetable market.

They were testing each other at the beginning, and after a long delay, Chris finally offered a price, but it was only 1.2 million US dollars.

Zhang Youan definitely cannot accept this price.

Zhang Youan was quite powerful. He asked for five million US dollars right away, which scared Chris.

One party asks for a sky-high price, while the other party pays a low price. They go back and forth, and neither party is willing to give in too much each time.

Zhou Yan originally thought that Zhang Youan was asking for 5 million US dollars, and if he could take a step back, he should retreat to 4.5 million US dollars or 4 million US dollars, but Zhang Youan was very persistent and only retreated to 4.95 million US dollars as the first step.

In Zhang Youan's words, that was "a full 50,000 US dollars."

Chris raised the price almost every time, by fifty or one hundred thousand.

Zhou Yan was watching from the side and it was hilarious. Both parties knew that the price they agreed on was impossible to achieve, but they still took their time to bargain and never got tired of it.

So after looking at it for a while, he decided to leave the bargaining to Zhang Youan and went to do other things.

By noon, Zhou Yan had already finished writing a score, while Zhang Youan and Chris were still working on it.

Zhou Yan listened and found out that Chris was willing to offer 1.6 million US dollars, while Zhang Youan was willing to lower it to 4.2 million US dollars. The price reductions on both sides were not high.

Chris also sighed secretly. He knew that Zhang Youan was a difficult person, but he didn't expect him to be so difficult.

If he had known that Zhang Youan was so difficult to deal with, he would not have offered the price of 1.2 million US dollars at the beginning, but would have lowered it a bit, so that they would have more room to raise the price.

Now he has raised the price to 1.6 million US dollars, which is only 400,000 US dollars away from the upper limit he can decide, while Zhang Youan still insists on more than 4 million US dollars.

He was worried that if things continued like this, it would be difficult to reach an agreement in the end.

Just when Chris was at a loss, the doorbell of the room rang.

Zhang Youan stood up immediately and said, "I'll go open the door."

Then Chris heard Zhang Youan say to the person outside the door, "Anthony, you're here."

Chris turned his head and saw Bregman and Zhang Youan walking in together.

"Come on, Chris, let me introduce you, this is..."

Before Zhang Youan introduced him, Bregman laughed and said, "No need to introduce. Chris and I know each other. We met before in China. Chris, why did you go back to Los Angeles?"

Bregman was openly asking Chris why he returned to Los Angeles, but in fact he was asking him why he was here.

The corners of Chris' mouth twitched. The thing he was most worried about happened.

He was worried that Columbia would get involved in the script of "Shutter Island".

Thinking of this, Chris turned his head and looked in Zhou Yan's direction. Zhou Yan had promised him before that he would not discuss the script of "Shutter Island" with Columbia before finishing talking with them. Now it depends on what Zhou Yan says.

Zhou Yan heard Bregman's voice and walked out. He smiled and asked Bregman, "Why are you here? Didn't you say you would come to see me in the afternoon?"

Bregman glanced at Zhang Youan and smiled, "I just finished my work, so I came to see you. I wanted to have lunch with you. I didn't expect you had guests."

Zhou Yan nodded, "In that case, it's almost time, let's go eat. Chris is here too, let's go together."

Bregman also invited Chris, "It's rare for us to meet, let's have a meal together. Do you have time this afternoon? Do you want to attend the celebration party for "The Sixth Sense"?"

Chris smiled and waved his hand. "I have some things to deal with at the company this afternoon, so I can't attend your celebration party. As for lunch, I'll treat you."

"How can that be? I have to treat you. There's a restaurant nearby that serves really good steaks. It's not far away, so you can just walk there."

……

The restaurant that Bregman was talking about was the one Chris took Zhou Yan and the others to yesterday.

The four of them chatted and laughed during the dinner, and the topics they talked about were very wide-ranging, except that they did not talk about movies, let alone the cooperation between Warner and Zhou Yan.

Bregman was a smart man and naturally knew that Chris couldn't appear in Zhou Yan's room for no reason. There must be some kind of cooperation between the two parties.

Bregman had heard before that Warner wanted to buy the rights to remake "The Chorus", so when he first met Chris, he thought Chris was here to discuss this.

But then I thought about it carefully and felt that it was not the case.

If he wanted to discuss the remake rights of The Chorus, was it necessary for Chris to return to the United States and come to talk to Zhou Yan? He could have negotiated the matter with Tomson in China.

And judging from Chris's expression, it seemed that he didn't want him to know what they were talking about.

Therefore, they are most likely discussing other cooperation, and relatively important cooperation.

Although Bregman was very curious about what kind of cooperation they were discussing, he did not ask. Today was not the right occasion to ask about this. He thought that he would wait until the celebration banquet was over before asking Zhang Youan what was going on.

The meal didn't take too long, and Chris was the first to get up and leave.

He is now in a hurry to go back and report the situation to Terry Semel. After this morning's negotiations, he feels that the $200 million cap may not be enough, and he must go back and ask Terry Semel what he thinks.

This matter must be done quickly. The longer it takes, the more disadvantageous it will be for him. If he is not prepared, he may be intercepted by Colombia again.

After Chris left, Bregman did not ask about Chris. He just smiled and said to Zhou Yan, "I came here to tell you something else. We have added a signing session to this afternoon's event. There may be 30 lucky fans who will show up at the celebration party. I hope you can sign for them."

Hearing that there were only 30 fans who wanted autographs, Zhou Yan readily nodded and agreed, "No problem." (End of this chapter)