Chatty Hollywood

"Judy, you sold that villa to Charlotte Booth at a super low price, wasn't it just to express your gratitude for that thing?"

Anna asked while helping to arrange Judy's personal belongings.

"certainly!"

Judy answered casually.

She was gesturing around the bedroom to see where it would be more appropriate to place the mirror Charlotte gave her.

——For her, this is very important.

Now, they are in Jodie Foster's new home on the beach in Malibu.

In fact, after "Silence of the Lambs" became a hit, Judy had the idea of ​​​​changing to a new home. After all, although Beverly Hills is an area where wealthy people gather, from the perspective of protecting privacy, it is actually not very favorable.

There are too many celebrities and too many paparazzi gathering there. Judy can often feel the pressure from the spotlight.

In comparison, Malibu Beach is much better. The natural environment here is beautiful. Compared with Beverly Hills, it is more sparsely populated and the land price is relatively cheap.

Judy can find a secluded place here and build herself a larger house.

——Space is the best tool to protect privacy, isn’t it?

In fact, before the whole series of events happened, Judy had already bought a new house on Malibu Beach, but it was still being renovated at the time.

Now, the house has been renovated for a period of time and is ready for habitation. As soon as Judy sold her house in Beverly Hills to Charlotte, she moved here immediately.

"The reason why I sold the house to Charlotte at a very low price is that I can maintain a long-term cooperative relationship with him."

After finally choosing the location to place the mirror, Judy continued,

"His abilities as an exorcist and as a director were very important to us."

"is that so?"

Although Anna also knew that Judy was optimistic about the development of Charlotte Booth, she did not expect that she would attach such importance to it.

"His ability as an exorcist is indeed indispensable - after all, we don't know other similar strange people - but we shouldn't encounter so many strange things, right?"

"It's hard to say!"

Judy gave a wry smile,

"There have always been a lot of strange rumors in Hollywood. Before this incident, I always thought they were just rumors, but now..."

"Do you think there might really be other ghosts in there?"

Judy's guess made Anna's whole body shiver.

As a weak girl, just seeing the heart with her own eyes is enough to give Anna nightmares for a while. If there are other ghosts and monsters——

"That's why we need Charlotte's ability to exorcise demons!"

Anna's fears are actually shared by Judy, but compared to her life assistant, the actress's nerves are much tougher.

"For a person with such strange abilities, I don't know if it will be useful to ask him for help when the trouble comes, so it is necessary to maintain a good relationship."

"That's true!"

Anna understood what Judy meant,

"On the other hand, through "The Turn" and "Happy Death Day," we can also see that Charlotte Booth also has great potential as a director, right?"

"That's right!"

Jodie Foster nodded. She was very confident about movies, a field she was familiar with.

"Charlotte is definitely capable of growing into a commercial film director. Isn't it a natural choice to be friends with such a great director when he is just starting out?"

"Judy, are you trying to—"

"That's right!"

Judy's eyes sparkled with ambition,

"My "Egg" company has just started. Wouldn't it be great if at this time, I could establish a long-term cooperative relationship with future commercial film directors?"

"..."

Judy's vision is not without precedent in Hollywood.

Although most famous directors have their own independent studios or companies, they will eventually have a production and distribution party that they are most happy to cooperate with——

Like Spielberg and Universal;

Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros.;

Quentin Tarantino and Miramax;

and James Cameron with Fox;

——Although now in 1994,

Except for the first pair, the middle two pairs have not yet been combined, and the last pair...

Well, people at Fox would love Cameron if he wasn't so fond of bouncing tickets and burning money.

Of course, on the other hand, facing Cameron, who is burning a lot of money and has never changed his bad habit of skipping tickets, Fox still can't help but jump in every time the other party digs a hole. It can only be said that it is true love.

Jodie Foster now has similar ideas.

"It's not easy to meet a rising great director. And investing in such a director's work itself means huge profits -"

"But Judy, isn't the scale of the "egg" too small?"

As an assistant, Anna couldn't help but interrupt her boss's imagination or YY about the future.

"In Hollywood, those who can maintain long-term cooperative relationships with those big directors generally have to be medium-sized or above companies, right?"

"……You're right!"

Judy also frowned,

"However, you still have to try it first!"

——What if it’s going to happen!

Although Judy didn't say this, Anna already knew what she meant.

In fact, the fact that Jodie Foster values ​​Charlotte's ability as a director is also related to the current situation of "Happy Death Day"——

It has not been released for more than ten days. This campus youth comedy under the banner of a horror film has already grossed nearly 30 million in box office. Not only has it recovered its costs, it has also begun to make a substantial profit.

In fact, excluding "Dumb and Dumber" starring Jim Carrey, a comedy great who has a box office halo during the Christmas period, "Happy Death Day" has almost swept the entire Christmas period.

What's especially scary is that this low-budget movie still has a lot of potential.

At present, the daily box office curve of "Happy Death Day" is not declining seriously. This means that in the next few weeks, it may continue to kill other released films.

——For other movies released at the same time, this is an out-and-out "horror" movie.

What's more, the movie's reputation has remained pretty good.

Kenneth Turan and Richard Manson, who had previously participated in internal preview screenings, all gave high evaluations, and a large number of other film critics also gave good evaluations of "Happy Death Day".

And Bonnie Clyde, known as the "box office amplifier", directly started "licking the screen"——

"Hollywood blondes, your enemy is here!"

——In this alternative film review by a face-obsessed person, she praised Charlize Theron’s beauty as unique, which aroused the interest of a large number of teenagers who only like to look at faces.

The box office of "Happy Death Day" continues to rise due to these reviews, and people are curious about the film's wonderful and exquisite narrative structure——

In 1994, the story structure of infinite repetition was still very novel, and the foundation laid by "Groundhog Day" made it no longer difficult for the audience to understand.

Even Roger Ebert, who was very harsh on Charlotte in his evaluation of "The Turn", gave a rare "two thumbs up" this time——

"...Mr. Booth's concept is very interesting. What's even more rare is that in "Happy Death Day", his narrative and rhythm control abilities as a director have been greatly improved, which makes the whole story become like a complex and complex story. Exquisite handmade clocks and clocks, people can't help but be fascinated..."

"Roger Ebert rarely praises a young director like this!"

Thinking of "Thumb Man"'s past pickiness, Jodie Foster couldn't help but sigh.

"Isn't this also the reason why you took a fancy to Charlotte Booth and sold the villa to him at a very low price?"

"yes!"

——Besides, I actually didn’t lose anything!

Judy thought in her mind.

Because of the "Blair Witch" that Charlotte introduced before, Judy's "Egg" company actually made a lot of money.

According to industry rules, as the introducer, Charlotte can actually use the title of producer to share part of the profits. But because he was filming "Happy Death Day" at the time, the two parties didn't have time to talk about this part of the matter.

Although the actress is shrewd as a businessman, she is also very humane.

She sold half of the villa and half gave away the land to Charlotte, to a certain extent, to compensate for this part of the profit.

In fact, she initially thought about simply giving the villa away or selling it to Charlotte for a dollar—she didn’t plan to live there anyway.

But after thinking about it, Judy gave up the idea.

It's not that I feel it's too much of a loss, but that my intention is too naive.

In comparison, selling at a super low price is much better.

After all, the house did have the reputation of being a haunted house, so it was difficult to sell.

As for the other things inside, although Judy didn't say anything, she believed that Charlotte, as someone who had been in Hollywood for some years, should be able to understand.

"Now we'll see if he comes to me when he's planning to make his next movie!"

"Or maybe I'm preparing a movie and ask him to direct it!?"

Judy suddenly had such an idea.

PS1: "Rise" is a documentary released in 2011, which includes Dakota Fanning. This chapter should actually be called "The Rise of Charlotte"? PS2: Malibu Beach is the location of many celebrity mansions. At the same time, in the Marvel Universe, Iron Man’s home is also here; PS3: Before DreamWorks, many of Spielberg’s films were distributed by Universal, such as ET and Jurassic Park. Of course, he also has a good relationship with Paramount; PS4: The bad relationship between Nolan and Warner is mainly Batman Wayne; PS5: Quentin and Miramax, or the cooperation between the Weinstein brothers also continues for a long time, including "Pulp Fiction", "Kill Bill", etc.; PS6: In fact, in the 1994 North American Christmas season, the strongest Christmas movies should be the two Christmas movies, "The Santa Clause" and "Dumb and Dumber". But the former was released on Singles’ Day. For example, December 23rd is quite far away, so I won’t talk about this one; PS7: By the way, I checked the information and found that there is a movie called “Santa Claus” every year in the United States on Christmas Day. It was released during the holiday season and seems to be doing well at the box office. This is a big IP!