Chatty Hollywood

Arrears in sharing of profits can be said to be a well-established habit for Hollywood film and television companies.

This is not simply a matter of giving up good money, but to a greater extent, it is because of a very classic saying in finance - money can beget money.

Not to mention misappropriating it for investment or other things, as long as the money can be kept in the company's account, the bank will have to pay interest. The income of hundreds of millions of dollars, which is owed for several months, is enough to pay wages to several employees.

Look, it's that simple. There is no love without reason in the world, and there is no hate without reason.

In fact, as long as there is an opportunity, most companies in the world will play this trick, and the reason why Hollywood film and television companies are notorious in this regard is just because they have a better chance——

Before the advent of the Internet cloud data era, the statistics of movie box office and subsequent peripheral income were basically a black box, which involved a large number of operations. In addition to the production and distribution companies that handled it, sometimes even the theater chains could not tell clearly.

In this case, the clearly marked remuneration is okay, but as for the box office share?

You see, our accounting staff work overtime every day to make statistics and work so hard. Are you embarrassed to ask?

In short, because the share involves the box office, it can easily be delayed for several months simply because of poor statistics or delayed payment. Why not let the money sit in your own account and continue to make money?

As for the accounting staff who took the blame for this, the worst possible outcome would be to use the money they have earned to give them some bonuses.

Therefore, whether you can get something like this depends not only on the agreement, but also on the comparison of power and status between the two parties. If you don't have enough means to ensure that the other party will not cheat you in this regard, then you can only rely on the conscience of the other company.

And expect companies that are essentially capital to have a conscience?

Classmate, you must have never read "On Capital"!

——Well, in the land of the United States, it is true that anti-books such as "Capital" will not be actively taught.

In fact, even Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, two later A-list superstars, were cheated by the Weinstein brothers' Miramax company in terms of screenwriting shares for "Good Will Hunting." That was after they had already won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and started to gain fame.

Of course, you can also choose to hire senior accounting personnel or an accounting firm to help you battle wits with the film producers. Although they can't do anything about some of the film and television companies' behind-the-scenes operations, at least they can still get you back the money on the books.

However, there is a premise here——

You have to ensure that the share of income you can get is at least worth the commission to those senior accounting personnel - sometimes even including attorney fees - otherwise, you will get a lot of share on the books, but in the end you have to pay It is very possible for someone to ask for change.

At least, Charlotte estimated that according to the share ratio mentioned by Mr. Producer before, the money he could get would be enough to afford those blood-drinking accountants and lawyers. In this case, it would be better to just throw this hot potato to the rest of the crew and use it as a carrot.

Of course, such a thing as arrears of dividends is not guaranteed to happen.

After all, it is easy for a person to do a bad thing. But it is quite difficult to spend your whole life doing only bad things and not doing good things. Hitler also revitalized Germany's economy!

The rest of the crew may not understand the twists and turns involved, but they are still attracted by the bait thrown out by Charlotte. To a large extent, they are taking a chance - even if they may default, it is money after all! !

However, reality once again proves that Murphy's Law makes sense - if something bad can happen, it will.

"How did New Line plan to trick us? Tony didn't tell us, did he?"

Lao Qiang frowned and thought of a solution.

asked Charlotte.

The latter shrugged his shoulders,

"You are actually more familiar with him than I am. You can ask him yourself."

"...He can't possibly say that."

Lao Qiang sighed.

Indeed, he and producer Anthony Westwood are old acquaintances. But because of this, he understood that Westwood was not a talkative guy. In fact, the other party will reveal some information to Charlotte, and Lao Qiang will wonder if there is something else going on here——

Although people are about to die, their words are good. Now that he is about to retire or leave his job, it is not impossible for Mr. Producer to have a conscience. However, Lao Qiang feels that the greater possibility is that this guy has another plan. Want to win over Charlotte.

After all, through "Fatal Turn", Charlotte has initially proved her directing ability. He is worthy of being attracted by producers.

However, a producer is still a producer.

The butt determines the head. No matter how many reasons he has, as long as he doesn't want to completely ruin his reputation in this industry, he can't completely sway his position to the side of his group of wage earners. The limit of being able to reveal a little bit of information is already .

"But if you don't know the methods the other party may use, you will be passive when the time comes."

In fact, the same is arrears, and there are differences between superior and inferior——

Some companies will have people who specialize in this kind of thing. They chat and eat with the people who are owed every day, complaining pitifully - it's not that we intentionally defaulted, it's just that the capital chain has been difficult to turn over recently, why don't you wait a little longer? How many days?

This is playing the emotional card, and some companies will play it more technically - as soon as you ask about the share, they will directly throw you a mountain of box office statistics and financial statements. Do you want to understand them all?

You have to know that it takes four years to graduate with a major in finance, and it takes even more time to become a qualified accountant.

Of course, you may really be a genius in accounting, or you may really hire a senior accountant regardless of the cost, but even so, if one trick fails, there is another trick -

Our company recently has a new project and is raising funds. Do you think you should invest these CDs in it? Qian Jing is vast, first come, first served!

If you don't agree, they will use all their skills to keep grinding with you; if you agree, congratulations, you have become a shareholder through stock trading!

If a new project loses money, it will definitely be yours first. If you make a profit, you will soon face the cycle above again.

Regardless of profit or loss, the money that nominally belongs to you is always lying in other people's company accounts, providing them with opportunities to make small amounts of money.

As for you?

Even if you are being watched by God all the time, making money every time you start a new project, and your wealth on the books is growing like a snowball, you still can’t expect to see real money in just ten or eight years...

And these are actually quite ethical.

After all, they didn’t say they wouldn’t give you money, and they didn’t significantly conceal their income. The reason why New Line has an outstanding reputation in this regard is that it can do the first two.

I don’t know if it’s because of the lack of excellent public relations and accounting personnel. When New Line wants to default on its share of arrears, it doesn’t play the emotional card, and it doesn’t play the technical flow. The attitude of refusing to give up even if you want to die.

Of course, New Line does this on a per-person basis. Otherwise, it would be impossible for this company to survive until now if it cheats people every day——

New Line will be very honest when faced with investors who are powerful and can monitor them;

They can also try to tolerate their greed when they meet someone who has a high status or a promising future and will have the opportunity to cooperate with them in the future. After all, money now is money, and money in the future will also be money!

Note that this is already "trying". If you can't bear it, count yourself lucky. If you can't...

But if you don’t have the first two and are just a miscellaneous fish who got the share for various reasons, then congratulations, at least half of you may have been on the white list of New Line’s arrears of share.

"This is exactly what we are in now!"

Among the shares given up by Charlotte, Lao Qiang also got a share. Like Charlotte, he originally didn't care much about the money - he had been living in the world for a long time, and now he had some financial resources. In addition, he was divorced and had a lot less expenses...

But as his relationship with makeup artist Annika changed, the situation changed again. Living together will definitely cost more, not to mention Annika also has a son...

"Should I hire a lawyer?"

Resorting to law is a method that Americans are very accustomed to, but Lao Qiang thought about it and gave up this method.

The reason is simple. Just like Charlotte, Lao Gun can also figure it out. Even if he gets the share, the money may not be enough to pay the legal fees.

——This is even a threat method used by some companies when they default on their share payments. They are not afraid of the defaulted party hiring a lawyer at all, because they have calculated very clearly that as long as they delay the trial of the lawsuit, the defaulted party's share of the income will soon not be enough to hire a lawyer.

Naturally, this method is limited to those in arrears whose shared income is not large. But Lao Qiang and the others belong to this category. but--

"Speaking of which, Charlotte, now that you are telling me this, do you have any other ideas?"

Lao Qiang reacted.