Hollywood starts with an agent

Chapter 2 Assistant Broker

In Beverly Hills, on the west side of Beverly Boulevard stands a 10-story building with its exterior walls and atrium covered entirely in glass. This is the headquarters of CAA (Creative Elite Culture Agency, Ltd.), one of Hollywood's hottest talent agencies.
This building is also known in the industry as the Death Star Building. The "Death Star" is hailed as invincible in "Star Wars"!
After Aaron Anderson reported in, he was quickly assigned to Paula Vagla, one of CAA's ace agents, and became one of her five assistants.

Paula Vagla, now 43 years old, can be called the number one female agent at present, because she holds an absolute trump card in her hand: Tom Cruise, whose original name is Thomas Mapother IV;
From the early 1980s when he personally discovered Tom Cruise, to the release of the globally popular movie "Top Gun" a few years ago, Tom Cruise became a national idol and he is unrivaled!

"Aaron Anderson, 19 years old, you're pretty good to have lasted half a year in the mail room;"

"Now you're an assistant broker. If you can find clients, you can become a full-fledged broker!"

CAA originally did not have any clear job divisions, but this kind of internal invisible hierarchy is definitely indispensable. Assistant agents are actually licensed agents, but they do not have any formal clients, and the work they do is actually not much different from that in the mail room.

The mailroom was in a probationary period, but now that the probationary period has officially passed, I can go find clients on my own!
Paula Vagla patted Aaron on the shoulder while speaking, "Our two bosses at CAA, Michael Ovitz and Ronald Meyer, both came out of the mail room at WMA (William Morris Agency);"

"Barry Diller, the current chairman of 20th Century Fox Entertainment Group, Michael Eisner, the chairman of Walt Disney Group, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chairman of Disney Motion Pictures, all came out of the mail room of WMA!"

Aaron Anderson looked at Paula Vagla and couldn't help but speak: "And David Geffen of Geffen Music Group also walked out of the WMA mail room."

After all, I've been in CAA's mail room for six months. Shouldn't I be very familiar with these things?

CAA, WMA, and ICM (International Creative Management) are currently the three major entertainment agencies in Hollywood. WMA, as the oldest agency, has dominated Hollywood's artist management business for half a century.

The five founders of CAA are former WMA executives who "defected" from WMA in 1975 and founded the current CAA. The package deal made CAA a major force in Hollywood. Another ICM was also established in 1975!
Paula Vagla smiled and looked at her watch. "Very good. Now go to the Starbucks downstairs and buy me two cappuccinos. And bring them up as quickly as possible."

Isn't that what assistant managers are supposed to do? Without any artists to look after, are they supposed to know how to select scripts or arrange activities for artists?
Taking care of the artist's daily life is already very good.

Aaron Anderson nodded, then turned and left.

After a while, Tom Cruise, with a bright smile on his face, arrived at the CAA headquarters building. After kindly returning greetings to some people who greeted him, he came to Paula Vagla's office!
"The family drama 'Rain Man' you co-starred with Dustin Hoffman has received unanimous praise from critics and the media, and it will definitely gain some recognition at the upcoming award ceremonies."

Paula Vagla sat in her chair, keeping an eye on "Rain Man," which had been in theaters for two weeks and was doing well at the box office.
At present, after ten days of release, the movie’s box office has exceeded 2000 million US dollars!

"By the way, is there any problem with the filming of 'Born on the Fourth of July'?" Paula Vagla asked.

Tom Cruise shook his head. "Everything is going smoothly and the film is about to be wrapped."

Born on the Fourth of July is the second film in Oliver Stone's Vietnam War Trilogy.

Oliver Stone's "Vietnam War Trilogy" is a series about opposing the Vietnam War. The first one is the famous "Platoon", which won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director!
"Regarding Tony Scott's car racing action film Days of Thunder, producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer are slated to start filming in June or July of next year;"

"The leading actor has signed a contract with you, and Paramount has given you a budget of 6000 million US dollars this time!" Paula Vagla said about Tom Cruise's next movie.

6000 million US dollars is a surefire top blockbuster in this era, and "Days of Thunder" is also a purely commercial film.

Stallone's new film "Rambo: First Blood" released this summer cost 3 million US dollars, making it the most expensive movie in Hollywood so far!

"Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July are both dramas and art films, and commercial works like Days of Thunder are also indispensable. Hollywood always looks at the box office."

"Don't worry, of course I know!" Tom Cruise is not against commercial films, but he is now very eager for the Oscars;

Since "Top Gun", he has devoted himself to literary and artistic dramas. He wants to prove that handsome guys can also have acting skills!
A while later, Aaron Anderson knocked on the door with coffee, glanced at Tom Cruise, and left the office.

"Tom Cruise, who is less than 30 years old, has such a great appearance," Aaron Anderson couldn't help but sigh. If the future Leonardo DiCaprio didn't have the blessing of the movie "Titanic", he really couldn't compare to him.

"Hi, Aaron," after arriving at the office next door, I met my colleague Jack Wells who was sorting documents. They were from the same group of assistant brokers!

"Are they all scripts?" Aaron picked up a few and looked through them. The important job of the mail room was to open these sent items.

Jack Wells nodded. "Now the company receives hundreds of scripts every month. CAA has become Hollywood's script factory!"

Aaron shrugged. "The package deal that CAA offers is a one-stop service from screenwriter to producer to director to actors. The script is the beginning."

The recently released "Rain Man" is a complete package deal, with everything from the screenwriter to the director and actors being handled by CAA.

Even the marketing plan for the film was developed by CAA on behalf of MGM.

"Aaron, we need to quickly go to the streets, shopping malls, parks, and universities to find suitable young people who can be trained;"

"Otherwise, I'll have to repeat some of the work in the mail room and run errands!"

Jack Wells reminded Aaron.

Aaron patted the other person's shoulder and said, "Let me help you organize these scripts first."

Well, Aaron Anderson is quite willing to do these things now. After all, many good movies in his memory are in his mind, and the script is the starting point of the movie;
In this era, you don’t just come to serve tea and water, run errands, drive, and be an office errand boy!

(End of this chapter)