American Entertainment: Starting with playing the role of Little Beaver

Chapter 61 Screaming, Twisted, Dark, Crawling

Anyone who follows the Western entertainment industry should know Miramax and its founders, the Weinstein brothers.

For a long time, they were known as the Oscars God.

Projects they promote generally win an Oscar.

The craziest one was in 1999, when the brothers' "Shakespeare in Love" completely overshadowed "Saving Private Ryan," sweeping four Academy Awards that year: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Screenplay.

From then on, anyone who coveted the Oscar would be invited to dinner and tea.

This year, the brothers have three projects to work on: Gangs of New York, The Hours, and Chicago.

These three films are all vying for Best Picture and Best Director this year;
Then, Daniel Lewis, the male lead in "Gangs of New York," is aiming for the Best Actor award;
Nicole Kidman, the lead actress in "The Hours," and Renée Zellweger, the lead actress in "Chicago," are vying for the Best Actress award.

Meanwhile, Julianne Moore, who has a significant role in "The Hours," and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah, who have significant roles in "Chicago," are also vying for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

While launching three Oscar contenders in a single year seems absurd—take Best Picture for example, even the most ambitious Oscars can't possibly award three Oscars in a tie, right?—the Weinstein brothers don't really care about such things.

Because qualifying for the Olympics is a business, they'll do everything they can to help whoever pays the most.

As for the others?
I am sorry.

Since you submitted fewer entries, we can only ask you to accept the nominations.

Of course, if someone is simply unable to afford a high price due to financial constraints, but still harbors a profound yearning for art and is willing to dedicate themselves to it, then Harvey can reluctantly help these people find a wealthy patron.

Ask them to pay the funds for the Olympic bid on your behalf.

Well, Harvey Weinstein from the Weinstein Brothers not only enjoys having fun himself, but he also works as a pimp. Those who know, know.

However, all of the above ease refers to the previous situation.

The current situation is that if "The Voice of China" wants to compete for the Oscars, then they will be in a very passive position.

There are two reasons:

First, those are people who know their own situation. Miramax is not as magical as outsiders say. They cannot control the Oscars. Their continuous success in winning Oscars is simply because they spend more money than others.

As for other companies, or even giants, why not compete with them in spending money?

Very simple.

Winning an Oscar is a business, but not a good one. Sony made more money developing a failed film like Man than five Oscar-winning films combined could ever catch up to, except for Titanic, and that's just in terms of box office revenue.

If you include the surrounding area...

The money earned from one failed film, Man, is more than twenty Oscar-winning films could ever match.

I can earn in one year what you would earn in twenty!

That's how exaggerated it is.

Therefore, Miramax's victory wasn't due to their superior skill, but rather because they could never reach what big companies were pursuing. In the eyes of those big companies, the Oscar race was a low-return, high-investment game that could be played, but only in moderation.

Therefore, when The Voice is backed by Warner, if the giant really puts in the effort, how can Miramax compete with Warner in terms of spending money?
Secondly, the base audience of the movie "The Voice" is too abnormal.

Director Chris Columbus is in the same league as Steven Spielberg, meaning he has a built-in Oscar-caliber following.

Then, the entire project still features an all-British cast, with Isabella Heywood as the project initiator and lead actress. With Hermione Granger on board, she essentially has a solid foundation for an Oscar run.

That's the entire entertainment industry, including Dai Ying's.

Because J.K. Rowling's support for the British entertainment industry has reached a saintly level.

HP is an IP that could be used to create many different things, but Rowling didn't want that; she insisted on using an all-English team.

When Rowling was willing to fight tooth and nail with Warner Bros. for an actor's nationality, determined to reserve an epic project for her own people, to put it bluntly, everyone in the British entertainment industry owed her a favor.

Since she is not in the entertainment industry, how can she repay this favor?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear—

This is such a difficult question!

"If The Voice is really aiming for the Oscars, then the British members will probably all vote for this movie."

Bob Weinstein squinted.

Leaning back on the sofa, he gritted his teeth. "Spielberg and Rowling's core support base can influence at least a thousand judges. That number of votes would basically guarantee victory in any edition. Then, if Warner Bros. just buys a few more votes, then..."

"All our previous efforts will be in vain."

The game of "competing for the Olympics" is actually just the simplest addition and subtraction.

The addition here is to garner votes for yourself.

The subtraction involved here is to prevent the judges from voting for the opponent.

The former can be purchased directly with money.

The latter is actually smearing the opponent.

Because you can't possibly win over six thousand judges at the same time; being able to influence a thousand people is already invincible.

In this situation, wouldn't it be more advantageous to buy negative press releases about potential rivals, letting the judges know that a particular contender this year is untrustworthy?
Earlier last year, the Weinstein brothers thought their biggest competitor at this year's Oscars was "The Pianist".

As a result, Roman Polanski's scandal spread throughout the world.

Yes, the Weinstein brothers brought up a case from 25 years ago.

The Weinstein brothers have already spent two million dollars to publicize Roman Polanski's scandals, and they thought things were settled, but now it seems... that money was wasted.

This year, their biggest enemy seems to be "The Voice of China".

“Bob…”

"Ok?"

"What do you think about us publicizing the issue of the script credits for 'The Voice of China'?"

Harvey Weinstein took a puff of his cigar, exhaling a smoke ring while simultaneously squinting his eyes in enjoyment. He leaned back comfortably on his red sofa, his gaze lowered as he looked at his younger brother—

“We can get Michael Arndt to come forward and say that he wrote The Voice project.”

"Isabella stole his project and erased his name."

"Once this news gets out, The Voice will be unable to apply for this year's Oscars."

"Because the Oscar application rules clearly state that films applying for the Oscars cannot be involved in copyright, plagiarism or other controversies at the time of application. If they are, they will automatically be disqualified from the competition."

Because the official selection process for the Academy Awards, from nomination to final announcement, is very short, it's too late to smear others after the nomination is announced; potential competitors must be eliminated beforehand.

So……

Since The Voice of China was aiming for the Oscars, the Weinstein brothers instinctively drew their guns.

Harvey then felt that attacking The Voice by questioning the script's authorship was the best approach.

However, even Robert Shea, who has Ted Turner as his backer, doesn't dare to directly address the issue of script credits for "The Voice," fearing public outrage. So, someone already notorious in the industry would be even less likely to do so.

However, Harvey felt that their silence did not mean there was no way to make a fuss about the authorship issue.

They could give the original screenwriter of "Little Miss Sunshine" a sum of money and have him stand up to Isabella.

Furthermore, the result doesn't really matter; as long as they can ruin the reputation of "The Voice of China," they can win.

But this...

"no!"

Without even thinking, Bob shook his head and said, "Harvey, manipulating public opinion and creating storms are attacks that can only be used against people of lower or the same social class. We can't use this method to attack people of higher social class."

"Isabella is now not only a Warner Bros. employee, but also a Disney employee. When she can bring tangible benefits to Warner Bros., and Disney has already acquired her, no matter how much money we spend, we can't outdo the combined efforts of Warner Bros. and Disney in criticizing her!"

"Most importantly, our own hands aren't clean either!"

“If Barry Mayer and Robert Iger find out that we wanted to destroy Isabella, they might send us to jail, and then, without a trial, they’ll just cut off the power, and we’ll hang ourselves with our underwear!”

Although they only wanted to attack "The Voice of China" and didn't want to offend big capital.

But isn't attacking "The Voice" by using the issue of script credits to target Isabella?

Isabella is Warner Bros.' cash cow right now!

If you touch someone's cash cow, it would be a miracle if they didn't punch you to death!
Then, as a subsidiary of Disney, they are well aware of the internal situation of Disney!

After Robert Iger hugged Pixar, what were they going to do about Isabella?
Does someone's kind appearance necessarily mean they are kind?
When someone can climb from a lowly weather forecaster to the COO of a Fortune 500 company, it would be strange if they weren't ruthless!

"What can we do? We can't just give up!"

"We've already collected a lot of money!"

Harvey was getting a little irritated.

The three projects attracted a total of 15 million in funding to launch their Olympic bids.

He's already spent most of the money; not winning the Oscar is a minor issue compared to ruining his reputation.

Besides that, there was something else that really bothered him: there were a lot of actresses vying for the Oscars this year.

Some of these people were sealed away by the red sofa, while others were pampered by wealthy patrons. In that case, he should at least satisfy some of them, right? If he can't satisfy even one...

There's no need for Warner to intervene; he'll instinctively shoot himself in the back and commit suicide.

Since going left or right is the same as certain death, we might as well take a gamble!
Bob pursed his lips at his brother's complaints.

In fact, he had never been able to accept his older brother's bad habits.

While it's normal to have fun in the industry, why do you insist on tying your pants to your career? You can have fun, but can't you have fun one at a time?
Can you fucking deliver on your promise to play with a whole bunch of people at once?

If this isn't handled properly, the whole thing will be a complete failure!

So……

"Bob? Oh—my dear bro—what kind of look is that—"

Although the look of disgust only flashed across Bob's face for a fleeting moment, Harvey caught it completely.

Then he became very unhappy.

"Aren't we talking business right now? Why are you bringing other emotions into your work?"

"Let me tell you, you spent that money too! And you spent just as much as I did!"

"If I don't get through this, you won't have a good ending either!"

"..." Bob was convinced.

He pressed his hands down and said to the angry older brother, "Okay, okay, let's talk things over."

"Isn't your current goal to sabotage 'The Voice of China'? This..."

"What do you think about New Line joining the fray?" "Right now, the person who most wants 'The Voice' to die is New Line, it's Ted Turner, so..."

"Stirring up trouble?"

Bob stuck his tongue out at his brother.

Harvey frowned at the clown-like performance.

In fact, New Line Cinema was the company Harvey least wanted to face.

Because the Lord of the Rings IP originally belonged to them.

In 1997, they partnered with Peter Jackson to acquire the development rights to The Lord of the Rings.

Because the expected production cost of 3 million was too high for Disney to accept, they turned to other companies.

After a series of setbacks, a new line opened its doors to them.

but--

New Line does not allow Miramax to hold the film copyrights, and is even unwilling to share the copyrights with Miramax.

Yes, it's an unwritten rule in Hollywood that big studios have exclusive rights to copyrights.

Since the birth of Hollywood, there have only been two people who could say no to the big studios and independently control copyrights.

One is Lucas, the other is Spielberg.

No one else, including Cameron, would do.

Cameron doesn't have exclusive rights; he shares the rights with industry giants and operates the business together.

So Miramax, unable to compete with New Line Cinema, had no choice but to back down. After some haggling, the Weinstein brothers sold the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to New Line Cinema for $1200 million.

In the end, all that was left was 5% of the box office revenue.

This fact made Harvey hate Robert Shea!
But he dared not utter a sound.

Because Robert Shea has Ted Turner standing behind him.

With the huge success of "The Lord of the Rings," Harvey even wanted to stab Robert Shay to death!

But he dared not make a move.

Because Robert Shea has Ted Turner standing behind him.

It was precisely because Harvey and Shay had a blood feud that his interest was instantly piqued when his younger brother suggested that they could hand over the task of targeting "The Voice" to New Line Cinema and use a double-cross to eliminate the enemy!

"Bob, what are your thoughts?"

Harvey's eyes suddenly lit up.

"No one in this world is clean."

Bob smiled and raised his eyebrows.

"and then?"

Harvey pressed for more information.

Bob then said slowly, "The only way to take down The Voice is to attack Isabella, because the others don't matter."

"Tell the important point!"

Harvey was getting impatient.

Bob sighed and said, "Okay, I heard Isabella's dad was in finance? He bet on the September crisis in '92, the peso in '94, and shorted the baht in '97? No one can be that lucky, right?"

Bob, leaning back on the sofa, spread his hands and laughed, "And even if Isabella's dad made his money by luck, because he lost it all in the dot-com bubble, it doesn't matter, does it?"

"As French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon wrote in his book 'The Crowd': 'The masses never thirst for truth; they prefer to worship falsehood. Whoever provides them with illusions can easily become their master.'"

"So... if Hermione Granger is the daughter of a financial fraudster, she enjoyed a life of luxury before she even entered the industry, and all of that was the blood and sweat of the people that her father plundered through financial games..."

"You feel……"

Will the public still like her?

"Will not."

"And after this comes to light, let Michael Arndt come out and say she's a thief."

What do you think the public will think?

"They'll definitely believe it, right?"

"Because the daughter of a criminal will inevitably be a criminal."

"Although my plan was a bit vicious, that doesn't matter, right?"

"Or rather, Ted Turner's current goal is to kill the Ross family. Therefore, the more vicious our plan is, the more likely Robert Shea will accept it. Once he accepts it and reports the plan to Ted Turner, our goal will be achieved. As for how they ultimately carry it out, that's their business."

"It has nothing to do with us."

Bob's eyes flashed with a cold light.

Harvey grinned.

As I said before, only the living are qualified to talk about martial virtue.

The dead...

They can only be slowly forgotten.

"I think this idea is fantastic!"

"But we need to make some preparations!"

"We must gather some authentic materials!"

"Only in this way will Robert Shea willingly fall into the trap!"

The thought that the person he hated most would attack his greatest rival filled Harvey with uncontrollable excitement.

I picked up the phone and dialed a number.

A few seconds later, the call, "Honey, come to Miramax right now, I need a sourdough chef," reached Bob's ears.

This made him...

I felt nauseous.

He glared at his older brother with disgust, knowing that his brother would first deal with his own problems before looking for an opportunity to compete in the Olympics. So he decisively got up and left the other man's office.

Meanwhile, in London, England, Leavesden.

Isabella was sitting in front of her computer, scrolling through her latest emails—

"Okay, Bob, I've received your email."

"Okay, I'll call you back after I've read it."

"Yes, yes, I know you're not in a hurry, and my priority is to finish filming 'Azkaban', so I don't have time to start new projects. But I just wanted to put your mind at ease. We have a collaboration, even if it's just verbal, I remember it."

"No problem~ I'll definitely find time to have dinner with you when I go to Los Angeles~"

"I'll make sure you get a hefty sum from me then, just you wait!"

As the phone call ended, Isabella shook her head at her older sister with a smile.

"Bob is really..."

She pursed her lips.

"I'm still very anxious."

Catherine finally said what her younger sister had been holding back.

Upon hearing this, the two immediately locked eyes, and after a moment...

"hahahaha~"

The large room was filled with cheerful laughter.

Although Vivian had previously stated that Robert Iger did not press them too much about their project when he called to congratulate The Voice on its global box office surpassing $100 million, when Isabella called back to say she wanted to check Disney's film library to see if there were any interesting projects, Iger, as if prepared in advance, immediately sent Isabella a Disney email address and a list of all Disney's undeveloped projects.

Once this fact came to light, his thoughts became clear.

He still wanted to produce results as soon as possible.

Because he's vying for the chairmanship of Disney.

Since everyone has the desire to reach the summit, therefore...

"Sister~~"

Isabella pouted and began to whine, "I can't have any energy without something to drink when I'm working overtime."

"..."

Catherine rolled her eyes, got up and left. When she reappeared, she was carrying a tray.

Inside were a teapot, cups, and snacks.

This scene made Isabella chuckle, and she poured herself a cup of tea and took a small sip...

Oh~~~
The lingering sweetness of Anji White Tea is refreshing.

Taking a bite of a bear-shaped biscuit...

"Huh? This isn't sweet!"

Her eyes lit up.

Catherine picked up a piece and tasted it. "It seems to have less sugar?"

Before she could finish speaking, she shouted again at the closed door, "Marg?"

"Eh~"

"Were today's cookies made separately by the restaurant?"

"Hmm! When the restaurant was preparing breakfast this morning, I asked them to make sugar-free cookies. They didn't put any sugar or sugar alcohol in them; the flavor is all from milk! Because Sister Isa doesn't like things with added sugar..."

"Oh, okay."

Catherine looked at her younger sister again.

Isabella shook her head with a smile—precocious children are truly terrifying—and popped a bear-shaped biscuit into her mouth, chewing as she said, "Alright, enough of that, let's get back to the book—"
-
(Polanski accuses Weinstein of smearing his sources)
(End of this chapter)