Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 228: Rapid Success
Tommy acted decisively. In the name of introducing cooperation to his good friend Stephen's Paradise Productions Film Company, which had no business for years except for the boss's self-entertainment, he personally called Stephen over to help him deal with Little Turner.
Of course Stephen had heard of Turner Jr.'s name. When he learned that this film and television giant who owned three TV networks and held shares in many film companies actually wanted to discuss program production with him, Stephen's face was almost broken by laughter.
He doesn't like others to think of him as a young financial talent. If someone keeps praising him for his excellent investment vision, he may not receive an invitation to Stephen's next party.
But if someone praises him for his achievements in the film and television industry, believes that he has unique insights and views on television art and film art, and has seen him since he was a child as the winner of the Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award, then the other person is his best friend.
The three goals he has planned for himself in life are as follows: 1. Win an Oscar, 2. Win an Emmy Award, and 3. Win a Jack Kirby Award, which is comparable to the Oscars in the American comics industry.
Judging from Stephen's current influence in these three industries, Tommy can't see the possibility of him having any connection with these three awards, except for using the superhero's ultimate weapon of "money power" to bribe the villain judges.
The moment he saw little Turner appear, Stephen felt that Tommy was his true friend. With so many people around him, no one really wanted to figure out what he wanted. Only Tommy understood him.
If his Made in Heaven wins Turner's favor, it will make Stephen more recognized in Hollywood than signing those filmmakers who paid a premium to make movies all over the world. At least people will not mention him as a rich boy who knows nothing except a lot of money. Instead, he will be a film and television practitioner who can truly cooperate with film and television tycoons.
"Mr. Turner, if you want to understand the lives of young nobles, or if you want to make a competition show similar to "Born Nobles", no one knows better than Stephen." Tommy introduced the two of them and left immediately after saying this:
"He is a true born aristocrat. He possesses all the good qualities of an aristocrat. I have witnessed with my own eyes that even when he was overseas, handling the financial affairs of a country, he never forgot to take time out every day to call back to New York to care about his grandfather's condition."
In fact, when Tommy called Stephen over, Little Turner had an argument with Tommy. He thought that according to the argument of Fox's "Born Aristocrat", his son could also be considered a born aristocrat. After all, the Turner family had been prosperous since his father's generation. Now, the Turner family's advertising, animal husbandry, agriculture, film and television industries are valued at billions. If they wanted to shoot a reality show about young heirs to wealthy families, they didn't need to call Stephen Bean, a young man from another family, but could just call Little Turner's children over.
However, Tommy hit back at Turner with just one sentence: "The audience cannot accept 100% truth. They will not believe that the future heir of the Turner family, like most American farmers, stays in the Ohio countryside to herd cattle, and is even more skilled in milking than them. What they want to see is a false reality. Such a billionaire family must be scheming and living a life of luxury. You can't let your heir look no different from the son of a country farmer. Milking doesn't require the audience to pay a subscription to watch. If they want, they can just go to the cowshed and learn it."
The Turner family has a special obsession with land. The area of land that the family has continuously purchased in the past few decades is already larger than the land area of many small countries in the world. Tommy feels that the popular American TV series "Yellowstone" in the previous life may have referred to the Turner family's information.
The Turner family's ranch business is managed by his son born to his ex-wife. Strictly speaking, what Tommy said is not wrong. Most of the time, his son looks no different from the sons of ordinary American ranchers, except that he has more land, livestock, and cattlemen to help with herding. After all, the Turner family is the largest private ranch and private land holder in Ohio.
Apart from polishing the script of his movie commemorating the CS gang, Stephen doesn't seem to have anything worthwhile to do recently, and there is no pressure for his movie to be released. Anyway, he is the investor, producer, director, and screenwriter of the entire movie. As long as he doesn't urge the progress, others will not ask for it.
After leaving Stephen and Turner to discuss the happy life of American aristocrats, Tommy went to continue discussing with Siegel whether learning mountaineering or skiing would be a better way to pass the time.
It's not that Tommy was just finding topics to pass the time with Siegel, but according to his plan, the next three or four months would not be so busy. Anyway, everything that could be arranged had been arranged, and all that was left was to wait slowly for the starting gun to sound.
To Tommy's surprise, Turner chatted with Stephen for a very long time, from the afternoon until the lights came on. Many BT Entertainment employees had already left work, but the two guys were still discussing something excitedly in the conference room. Even their dinner was ordered by the BT Entertainment administration, and they did not go out to eat with Tommy and Siegel.
"I want to go back to the hotel." Herbert Siegel saw that many BT Entertainment employees had already left, leaving only a few who were still working overtime. He said with a tired look on his face, "I'm going to ask Turner to go back to the hotel with me. If there are any other issues, we can discuss them tomorrow. Thank God, I promised to accompany him for only one day and return to New York tomorrow morning. If it's one more day, I'm afraid I'll be bored to death."
Tommy accompanied Siegel to the conference room. Before they could get close, the door of the conference room was opened from the inside. Turner walked out with a happy expression on his face: "Tommy, I insist that Rick is too hypocritical, and Stephen, a good guy, has the trait of sincerity!"
As he spoke, he couldn't help but pat Stephen's shoulder who walked out with him: "Let the legal department draw up the contract as soon as possible. I believe that investing in Paradise Production is definitely worth it."
Tommy suspected that he had heard it wrong, so he scratched his ears and asked, "Who to invest in?"
"Stephen's Paradise Production." Turner smiled affirmatively, "I think this show has great potential."
Tommy opened his mouth. What the hell was going on? Crouching Dragon and Phoenix fell in love at first sight and hit it off?
Herbert Siegel was also a little confused: "You asked me to persuade Tommy's father-in-law to invest in BT in the name of Warner in exchange for BT's willingness to jump in line to help you produce some programs, but now, you suddenly decided to invest in another company? You have to know that whether you ask Tommy for help or not, Julian will make me owe him a favor, right?"
Tommy didn't care whether Turner Jr. was going to invest in BT Entertainment. He was just simply curious about what Stephen had talked about with the other party that made Turner Jr. regard him as a talent and be willing to invest in his production company.
He has known Stephen for so long, and this guy has always been the one who takes out money to invest in others. He has wanted to find someone to invest in the scripts he wrote himself, but has never been successful. Little Turner is the first person in Stephen's life who is willing to invest in his artistic dream.
Stephen's expression at this moment looked even more smug than when he usually dated a woman. He left Turner and Siegel in the corridor without even saying goodbye to them. He happily took Tommy back to the conference room, pressed Tommy into his seat, and walked to a whiteboard. With his eyes shining, he said to Tommy:
"With the help of Mr. Turner, I came up with a great idea. Mr. Turner said that Fox had produced a reality show called "Born Aristocrat" and was going to put it on their paid reality show channel. I helped Mr. Turner design another reality show. If Fox wanted to tell Americans that there were aristocrats in this country and they wanted to lead the audience into the lives of those aristocrats, then our show could tell the audience that no, there were no aristocrats in the United States, only the great American dream."
"I'm confused now." Tommy stared at Stephen, his tone a little worried. "And you seem a little unusually excited, which makes me a little worried. The disease in Turner's brain might be contagious. When he held a press conference for the acquisition of MGM, he said something similar to you, saying that he wanted to revive MGM and restore MGM's status as the king of silent films. As a result, under his leadership, MGM not only failed to become the king, but even its status as one of the Big Six is in jeopardy."
Stephen ignored Tommy's concern and said seriously, "'Born to be Noble' shows the so-called extravagant lives of the children of wealthy families, while my show focuses on emphasizing that we should not envy those people. Which is more exciting and greater: being born into a wealthy family or creating a wealthy family with one's own hands?"
"Speak humanly, Stephen," said Tommy, still keeping his calm expression.
"I decided to gather a few wealthy young people, ask them to temporarily give up their status and wealth, go to a completely unfamiliar city and start from scratch, and within a certain time limit, transform from a penniless vagrant into a rich man again. I want to tell the audience in front of the TV that if we can accomplish this miracle, then they can do it too. This is the American dream." Stephen opened his arms and said proudly to Tommy.
"What are you going to call this show?"
Stephen took two steps to the side, revealing the whiteboard that had been mostly blocked. Tommy looked over in the direction of his gesture and saw the words "Rise to Fame" written on it.
"How did you come up with that?"
"I got this idea from Rick's movie 'The Pretender', which dumped a rich girl from an upper-class family on the street and let her mingle with gangs. But 'The Pretender' can only deceive the poor at the bottom of society. It has no authenticity at all. Rick's clever plots are nothing more than making the audience feel ecstasy. But the audience who are willing to pay must have a higher level of pleasure than the audience at the bottom. Just like you, after sleeping with too many women, it is difficult for ordinary women to make you feel happy. "
"Just say it yourself. I'm still a fucking American virgin."
"So, that's it, the modern American dream, the modern gold rush, isn't that more interesting than watching a bunch of guys who inherited a bunch of money and just threw all kinds of group parties in New York?"
"Want to hear the truth?"
"What?"
"Personally, I prefer to watch group parties." Tommy grinned and then stood up. "Just kidding, I'm happy for you to have someone like Turner recognize your ability, brother. Please allow me to express my pride in your performance on behalf of your father who was not present to witness it, and your mother, Otilia, who was not present."
"Fuck You! Tommy!"
"Goodbye. Come on, future film and television mogul. By the way, if you are busy with work in the future, please recommend me the doctor or coach you had when you went skiing in Switzerland. I am planning to learn how to ski."
"But I just said that I would gather a few wealthy young men, and one of them happened to be named Tommy Hawke." Stephen raised his eyebrows.
"Come on, poor bastard, show the American audience what it means to start from scratch and rise to prominence, and teach these poor Americans what the great fucking American dream is."
