King of Hollywood - Chapter 43
Chapter 43: Would You Like To Invest?
It was hard to describe how Kate felt the moment she saw the travel-worn Adrian at her door 8 hours later. She stared at him blankly for a few minutes and rubbed her eyes as she was in disbelief before she screamed and threw herself in his arms. The huge momentum caused Adrian to stagger a few steps back before he found his footing.
Additionally, Kate kissed him passionately for a very long time. She could not be bothered about the looks of any passerby or her family, as if she could not express her excitement without doing so.
“I can’t believe it… I can’t believe it… You actually… You actually showed up in front of me…” Kate sounded incoherent because she was overly excited, and her eyes were glowing.
“I came since you wanted me to come.” Adrian shrugged and put on a weary smile. “I’m on a break now anyway, and it’s convenient for me to come to London.”
Following that, Kate kissed him again without hesitation. Women were like that, especially young ladies like her who were crazy in love. They would be extremely touched if their lover showed their importance through actions, and would be even more satisfied if their lover expressed that they would willingly make them happy at any time.
Adrian who had lived two lives was extremely familiar with those methods.
For the next few days, Kate applied for a few days’ leave from her school and stayed with Adrian all the time. They went to different places and even looked at the sea from the northernmost point of Britain. Even when Kate’s mom reminded her not to stay out for too long, she would justify that she was already an adult.
Nonetheless, Adrian had to return to Los Angeles after four days because Laverne called to remind him about a party that was going to be held at the Baccarat Hotel. Being the company’s boss, as well as the director and the producer of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Memento’, he had to attend. Besides, he had something important to deal with during the party. Hence, Adrian and Kate parted at the Heathrow International Airport after a goodbye kiss.
“Hello, Mr. Adrian, it’s a pleasure to see you.” Right after Adrian passed his car key to the attendant at the door, he was welcomed by the lobby manager.
“Hey, Mabuse, have you been well?” Adrian greeted him with a smile. Back when he was fooling around, the managers of almost all famous hotels in Los Angeles knew him—it could be considered as his network.
“Same old.” Mabuse shrugged. “Can I help you with anything? You seem…”
He was slightly surprised when he looked behind Adrian, and Adrian roughly knew what he was talking about.
“Nothing, I have a gathering here at the Blue Hall on the seventh floor,” Adrian briefly explained.
“Blue Hall?” Being the lobby manager, Mabuse naturally knew who the attendees were of the gathering at the Blue Hall, thus he raised his eyebrows. He was slightly taken aback that the playboy he had not seen for a year seemed to have changed completely. Of course, he did not say anything, and he only nodded at Adrian.
Without further ado, Adrian patted Mabuse’s shoulder, then headed to the elevator. He arrived on the seventh floor not long after and walked to the party after reporting to the attendant outside.
There were not many people in the Blue Hall, whereby people were seen conversing in groups of two of three. Most of them were employees from Bosworth Film Company, whereas some were invited guests such as A-listers, second-rate celebrities, producers and directors from other companies, and so on.
Parties were a must for the Americans, such that party animals would not even be tired after attending a few on the same night. Nevertheless, parties were not just for fun, because there were also other kinds of parties like charity dinners, political fundraising dinners, gatherings for notable public figures, etc. Therefore, parties were important social occasions and were relatively helpful for expanding one’s network. In fact, a number of people from Universal were invited to the party that night.
“Hey, Eddy, you’re late,” Brandt Erwin was the first who noticed Adrian, so he approached him and greeted him with a smile.
“I’m sorry, I needed to get used to the time difference, and the traffic was bad.” Adrian shrugged and glanced around him. “Looks like I’m probably not the latest.”
“You won’t be disappointed.” Brandt knew what Adrian was thinking about. He later introduced him to a middle-aged man who was roughly 46 years old.
“This is Mr. Elan Edo, our general manager,” he mentioned.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Edo.” Adrian shook Elan’s hand with a smile.
“Me too, Mr. Cowell, you can call me Elan.” Elan smiled back at him. “Though I know that you’re young, I can’t help but feel surprised. Has it become a time for the younger generation?”
“I only made small achievements, a lot of work still needs to be done—you can call me Adrian.”
“Those are not small achievements, Adrian. I don’t think any other director produced two low-cost, high-profit films in a year, which even received awards during different film festivals. Being overly humble is being arrogant.”
“I’m just being honest, Elan. I admit that I did quite well, but I won’t disregard the contribution of others. Without my production team, an outstanding general manager, and Universal as our distributor, I couldn’t have achieved what I did.”
The two of them flattered each other for a while before Elan left. Subsequently, Brandt who had been waiting nearby walked over to Adrian again. “Looks like you had a good chat.”
“Indeed, Universal has an excellent general manager, I learned a lot.” Adrian nodded. “Oh right, Brandt, I haven’t congratulated you after you got promoted to department manager.”
“I was just lucky.” Brandt shrugged. “I met you.”
They looked at each other for a while before they burst out laughing. Both of them knew that Brandt would not be at the party that night if he had not dealt with Adrian.
“Just be frank with me, which film would you like me to direct? ‘Scream’? Or ‘American Pie’?” Adrian went straight to the point.
“You pick,” Brandt replied. “The pre-production works for both films are ready, so you’re free to direct whichever. If you have any opinion on the cast or anything else, feel free to bring it up.”
“How generous, I’m sure nobody will reject you.” Adrian grinned. Needless to say, Universal was being kind to him due to the two films he produced in a year, as well as the scripts he previously sold.
For example, when the teen comedy he sold to Universal, ’10 Things I Hate About You’, was screened at the end of January that year, it grossed 42 million dollars with only a 10 million dollars cost. Apart from Warner, the other film companies more or less earned too. As for ‘Bodyguard’ that was sold to Warner, which Adrian also hinted to request for Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner to be in the cast, was scheduled to be released in summer due to the huge investment and to achieve the best effect. Despite that, most people who attended the preview felt that it was wonderful.
With that, the higher management from those film companies began to value Adrian more and Universal, which somewhat had a better advantage, wanted to rope him in.
“Do you agree then?” Brandt quickly asked.
“I’m sorry, Brandt. The terms are tempting, but I already have other plans.” Adrian rejected because he knew that it did not mean that they looked up to him.
“I remember when we were in London last year, you told me that nobody understands the scripts better than you.” Brandt tried to persuade him.
“I’m really sorry, Brandt. I would’ve considered if I didn’t have other plans already,” Adrian responded sincerely. “I’ve been preparing for a new film.”
Since that was the case, Brandt stopped convincing him. After all, he knew that Adrian had his own film company.
“A new film? You’re really spirited, your second work is still showing in cinemas,” He teased. “Alright, I hope that we can work together in the future.”
“We might be able to work together now,” Adrian suddenly mentioned, “but in a different way.”
“A different way?” Brandt was puzzled.
“My new film requires a much bigger investment than the two previous films, so perhaps Universal will be interested?” Adrian smiled at him.
Brandt’s eyes glowed right away. “May I ask what film you’re planning to produce?”
“It’s a drama film, and it’s an adaptation of ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’, the second novel from Stephen King’s medium-length novella, ‘Different Seasons’,” Adrian answered.
“I didn’t expect you to look into Stephen King’s work,” Brandt exclaimed. “I’ll have to discuss with Mr. Elan, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”
“I’m sure too.” Adrian nodded. Owing to the fact that he produced ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Memento’, and that he previously made a few scripts, it was easy for him to get Universal to invest in his next film.
‘I wonder how they’ll react after suffering a loss though,’ Adrian pondered. Although ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was known as the most perfect film in history, and it deserved that title, only very few people knew that its box office sales were less than 30 million dollars when it had an investment of 25 million dollars.
