The Wolf of Los Angeles.

On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a golden Oscar was erected in front of the Kodak Theatre.

The crowd continued to gather towards the intersection, and the LAPD officers, wearing helmets and holding riot shields, immediately stood on the defense line according to the formation that had been rehearsed in advance under the order of the commander of Team A.

There were several riot police cars parked on the side of the intersection near the Kodak Theater.

Hawke got out of the Mercedes next to him, greeted Erica's two subordinates beside the car, and followed one of them into the command vehicle.

The car door closed, and he sat in the chair next to Erica and looked at the situation at the intersection through the real-time monitoring screen.

The Sisters Parade and the Matthewsing Association came from opposite sides of Highland Avenue and were isolated on both sides of the intersection by riot police.

Erica, who was wearing a police uniform, glanced at Hawke and asked, "Nothing will happen tonight, right?"

"You're on duty, nothing will go wrong." Hawke unbuttoned his suit and said, "Steve is here, and with him in charge, it will only be a non-violent non-cooperation movement."

Erica complained deliberately: "You go to the Oscars, but I have to escort you outside."

Hawke chuckled: "How about I stay here with you?"

"No need." Erica pointed around and said, "I'm at work, what's wrong with my boyfriend accompanying me? It won't sound good if it gets out. Although I don't care, LAPD is a disciplinary department after all, and this will also damage my father's reputation."

Hawke saw the video surveillance screen change to a bird's-eye view and asked, "You also deployed a drone?"

Erica switched the drone's aerial video to the main screen: "The drones that the Special Operations Bureau has just equipped can fly at low altitudes for a long time and monitor the real-time conditions on the ground."

Under Steve's control, the LGBTQ community remained relatively calm, simply holding banners and posters, vigorously promoting that love is love, and continuing to speak out for Philip.

The sister parade was at a disadvantage in more than ten consecutive head-on conflicts. Seeing that the enemy remained restrained, they did not take the initiative to seek a fight.

Hawke nodded. "This thing is great. If you hang a mortar shell on it, you can launch a suicide attack."

Erica's eyes twitched and she said, "It would be a waste of talent if you don't serve as an instructor for the Iraqis."

Hawke pointed to the sky and said, "The Iraqis are too poor to afford these things."

Today's drones are still high-end products and have not been sold at a bargain price. In more than a decade, both frontal battlefields and public security battles will be changed by drones.

Da Mao and Er Mao used drones to make each other cry for their parents.

Hawke also wanted to use drones to strengthen the combat effectiveness of the security companies under him: "These things are very suitable for security companies. Is it easy to find a supply channel?"

Erica thought for a moment and said, "Let Campos call me."

Nowadays, drones are used as mercenaries and private security, and can be considered a dimensionality reduction attack.

Especially in places like Latin America and Africa.

"You go to work." Hawke stood up and prepared to leave: "I'll come over after the award ceremony is over."

Erica said, "Good luck to you tonight, honey."

Hawke got off the riot police car, met up with Edward, and together they turned into the side door of the Kodak Theater and entered the theater.

The two walked towards the entrance of the hall. Edward asked as they walked, "How many Oscars can we win tonight?"

Hawke said: "I have a good chance of winning Best Picture, but the rest depends on luck."

At the theater entrance, Leonardo came in with a young and beautiful blonde model. As he passed by, he glanced over here covertly.

Hawke didn't make any eye contact with him, and took Edward directly to the second floor and into the central box.

There were already three people sitting in the box: Roger Keane, director of the West Coast Investment Fund, was accompanying Rashid from Abu Dhabi, and Riza Aziz, the son of the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister.

Hawke shook hands with each of them.

Both men invested in L.A. Fire.

At this moment, sitting in the box at the Oscars, I feel particularly good.

Rashid said: "The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority publicly praised my investment in Los Angeles Fire at the end of last year. Hawke, thank you for giving me such an investment opportunity."

Riza was even more straightforward and directly brought over a gift box: "This is a small gift from me to Ms. Erica Ferguson. It's not a token of respect."

Hawke put it away without mercy: "You are too polite."

Rashid didn't expect the other party to use this method, and immediately said: "My gift is being shipped from Abu Dhabi, please wait a few days."

Hawke waved his hand: "Don't be so polite, we are all partners."

Riza took the opportunity to say, "We discussed last time that Director Eric's new film 'Philip' needs investment, and I have prepared the funds."

Hawke didn't respond. He never cared about these trivial matters.

Roger Keane replied, “The film studio has been established, and after the Oscars ceremony, we will be able to participate in the investment of the Philip project.”

Riza praised: "That's great, I hope this movie will also be successful."

In contrast, Rashid was relatively calm because the film could not be shown in the UAE due to its content.

Even though Abu Dhabi is relatively open-minded in the Arab world.

For the "Philip" project, Eric completed the script writing as early as the end of last year, and the crew has also begun preparations. After the Oscars, it is expected to enter the shooting stage within a month.

However, the crew encountered many difficulties. For example, the San Francisco City Hall refused to allow the crew to shoot on location in San Francisco on the grounds of safety and traffic congestion.

This was within expectations. After all, the content of the film was aimed at the Donkey Party in San Francisco.

It's normal for the crew to get stuck in the neck at San Francisco City Hall.

But these are not a problem for the Hollywood crew, they just need to set up the scene and shoot.

The crew's budget is definitely sufficient.

Tom Cruise's film company and Ethan Studios each raised $1000 million, and distributor Paramount Pictures raised $1000 million.

The Matthew Sheen Institute and the National Association for the Advocate of Colored People, along with other LGBTQ organizations, raised a total of $2500 million.

These people don't ask for much in return, as long as the film can be released widely.

Then there is Hawke's West Coast Foundation, which can drive a total of $3500 in investments through financing from the Philippines and Abu Dhabi.

The production cost of the "Philip" project will be as high as 9000 million US dollars.

The main reason for being able to raise such a large amount of funds is the huge success of "Los Angeles Fire" in terms of word of mouth and commercial success.

The film's Rotten Tomatoes rating has remained above 90%, and its IMDB score is 8.8.

In terms of box office, only a few hundred theaters in North America were showing the film, mainly concentrated in big cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago where Oscar judges live. The North American box office has accumulated to $3.62 million.

The fire in Los Angeles not only ignited the anger of Californians, but also the momentum for film adaptations.

The response overseas was also very good. After all, it was a misfortune for the world's most powerful country, and audiences from other countries and regions could watch the show to their heart's content.

Today's magical America is full of highlights.

The film's overseas box office has accumulated nearly $5 million, and there are still markets including Japan where it has yet to be released.

The final global box office is very likely to exceed $9 million.

Along with the red fireworks ignited by this film, California is also changing from a swing state to red.

Riza and Rashid went out to make a phone call. Roger Keane came to Hawke and whispered, "Last year, I used all the dividends from West Coast Environmental Technology, BlackRock Investment Group, and Butterfly Security to buy Amazon and Apple stocks as you instructed."

Hawke asked, "Investment can offset some of the tax, right?"

"Yes." Roger Keane continued, "and part of it was donated to a charity foundation."

"Okay." Hawke's accountant has already reviewed the accounts.

Today, his companies and foundations are making good profits, but Twitter, the largest of all, has limited net profits.

The funds raised by the AI ​​Manhattan project are certainly not profitable.

Before the award ceremony began, Riza and Rashid returned to the box one after another. Together with Hawke and Roger Keane, the four of them watched the award ceremony while chatting.

The most popular films at this year's Oscars are "The Departed" and "Los Angeles Fire".

"The Queen", starring Mirren Helen, is slightly less popular.

The focus of the film's publicity and public relations was also on the Best Actress award.

The political correctness in Hollywood is also quietly changing. The host of this year's Oscars is Ellen DeGeneres.

One of the most famous openly gay people in Hollywood.

Moreover, in the previous debate, Ellen DeGeneres clearly stood on the side of the LGBTQ community and posted on Twitter several times to support various radical LGBTQ views. In the lobby on the first floor, the crew of "The Departed" and the crew of "Los Angeles Fire" sat in the same row, separated by an aisle.

Each crew has a top Hollywood star.

Tom Cruise is full of confidence.

Leonardo was calm and collected.

"The Departed" performed well both commercially and critically, continuing his good personal momentum.

The film "Blood Diamond" guaranteed him a nomination for Best Actor. Leonardo is not very interested in how many Oscars Scorsese and "The Departed" will win.

Compared with these, he felt that what he should consider more was getting rid of Xilali's shadow and never eating gutter oil again.

Anyone who eats that thing knows what it is like. It's a nightmare.

Even if you can win an Oscar, what's the point if you still have to eat gutter oil? It's still someone else's crotch trash can.

Compared to Leonardo's ease, Martin Scorsese looked gloomy.

Losing the Best Director Award from the Directors Guild made him feel depressed. In order to win the Best Director Award, he not only broke the bottom line and remade a very successful Hong Kong movie, but also lowered his head to ask for help from Harvey Weinstein, whom he had always looked down upon. In the end, he was ruthlessly rejected by the fat man.

All this seems to foreshadow a bad outcome.

It’s not that “The Departed” was poorly filmed or that the crew didn’t do a good job, it’s that this city is called Los Angeles!
Hollywood is located in Los Angeles, and too many stars, directors and producers in the industry have settled in Los Angeles.

Two years ago, when the Los Angeles fire raged, countless people in Hollywood lost their properties in the flames.

And that movie directly points to the man-made disaster that the fire victims hate the most.

These are very advantageous to competitors.

Sitting nearby, Will Smith glanced at Leonardo and then turned his gaze to Forest Whitaker, who was also black.

Because of the huge impact of Philip's incident, many professional commentators have previously analyzed that this year's Oscars will award one of the four major awards to a black person.

There is precedent for this.

Will Smith really hopes that this person can be chosen, after all, "The Pursuit of Happyness" was a great success in both box office and reputation.

But the opening was a thunderbolt for black actors such as Will Smith.

The Best Supporting Actress award went to black actress Jennifer Hudson.

Awards were presented one by one. In the first half of the technical awards, "Los Angeles Fire" won Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing and Best Cinematography.

The crew of "The Departed" won the Best Adapted Screenplay.

But "Los Angeles Fire" later won the Best Editing Award.

As expected, the Best Actress award went to the crew of "The Queen".

The Best Actor award was a cold one, with Forest Whitaker taking the crown.

When the result came out, the most attention was not paid to the winners themselves, but to Leonardo DiCaprio and Will Smith.

These two teams have attempted to win the Olympic Games several times, but all failed.

“The best director is here.”

In the box, Edward whispered, "Will this guy Eric be favored by the goddess of luck?"

"Probably." Hawke said this because he saw that there were not three award presenters walking onto the stage, but only one.

Old cowboy Clint Eastwood!
Spielberg, Coppola and George Lucas did not appear on the stage.

These three people, together with Martin Scorsese, are widely referred to by the media and the industry as the four generations of Hollywood directors in the 1980s.

Hawke remembered very clearly that when Martin Scorsese won the award in his previous life, it was those three who presented him with the Best Director Oscar.

Because of his appearance, so many things have changed in Los Angeles, California, and even the entire United States.

The old cowboy didn't waste any time. After introducing the list of nominees, he announced the result directly: "The winner of Best Director is Eric Eason, "Los Angeles Fire"."

This result is not surprising, as the film has many layers of BUFF, and "The Departed" has a double layer of DEBUFF.

The crew of "Los Angeles Fire" was in jubilation, and Tom Cruise and Eric stood up and hugged each other.

Eric then turned around and kissed the square-faced girl Catherine passionately.

Inside the box, Hawke, Rashid and Riza high-fived to celebrate.

The latter was very excited: "The movie we invested in won the Oscar for Best Actor. It feels like a dream."

Rashid was not in Abu Dhabi, and he let himself go. He raised his glass and clinked it with Hawke and others one by one: "Celebrating that we won the Best Director Oscar."

“Eric finally achieved his dream,” Hawke said.

Edward muttered, "I didn't expect that he would win the Oscar for Best Director."

To this day, he still remembers Eric being harassed by the football star Miller Collins like a submissive.

Eric stood on the highest podium in Hollywood and excitedly gave his acceptance speech.

In the audience, Martin Scorsese's face was unusually calm. After all, with the result of the Directors Guild in mind, he was already prepared.

But the unwillingness in my heart is still hard to suppress.

Starting with "Gangs of New York", three consecutive films failed to win Oscars, which was a big blow to Martin Scorsese.

The phrase "winning the prize just for the sake of winning the prize" always lingered in his mind.

This time, in order to win the Oscar for Best Director, he even used his connections with George Lucas, Spielberg and Coppola.

Failure is hard to accept, but not hard to understand.

If he could win awards based on the three major directors, George Lucas wouldn't still be at zero.

Martin Scorsese is still determined as he gets older and decides to continue striving for an Oscar for his next film.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese have since been super-tied together, forming Hollywood's most persistent Oscar-winning duo.

Eric has left the stage after giving his acceptance speech. There is only one award left at this year's Oscars - Best Picture.

Jack Nicholson took to the stage with female director Diane Keaton.

The former stared at the big screen and introduced the nominated films: "The Queen," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Departed," "L.A. Fire," and "Babel."

Nicholson opened the envelope and handed it to Diane Keaton.

The latter pulled out the starter, took a look, and said, “The best film is Los Angeles Fire!”

There was warm applause at the scene, and many people stood up spontaneously to pay tribute. Some of them couldn't help but applaud hard and wiped their red eyes with their hands.

The fire left a deep impression on them.

This film will forever nail the bastards who caused the fire to the pillar of shame!

The applause continued for several minutes, and the Kodak Theater seemed to have turned into the Lumiere Hall of the Cannes Film Festival.

In recent years, the more than ten-minute post-screening applause has almost become the signature of the Cannes Film Festival.

In the past, seven or eight minutes of applause might mean the birth of a good film.

After more than ten minutes of applause, the movie is probably still a bad one.

Because clapping made the deal.

Hawke and his friends high-fived again.

For Rashid, the Oscar for Best Picture is an honor. Abu Dhabi is not short of money, but what it lacks is the soft power that can be used for publicity.

Below the stage, the crew of "Los Angeles Fire" cheered again.

Producer Tom Cruise and square-faced girl Katherine walked onto the stage together and received the golden statue representing the Best Picture from Nicholson.

Tom Cruise couldn't stop smiling. He found that his life suddenly became smooth since he started to work deeply with Hawke.

First he won the Oscar for Best Actor, and then as a producer, he won the Best Picture Oscar.

"Los Angeles Fire" won six Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture, becoming the biggest winner of the night. (End of this chapter)