Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 485 Millionaire

   Douglas Jr.'s suggestion touched Ronald's heart. He is also a film director and artist himself, and sometimes he doesn't need to spend too much energy on management, he just needs to listen to the opinions of professionals he trusts, and then make a judgment.

   In his apartment, Ronald met with his personal lawyer and private accountant.

   Attorney Lindsay Dole has not seen her for a long time. She still looks like a college girl, slightly rounder than before.

   "You're already a partner?" Ronald asked, looking at the new business card Lindsay gave him.

   "Yes, I bring about half of the paid business to the law firm for a year," Lindsay said proudly.

   "Congratulations", private Chinese accountant Lawrence Wang also congratulated the young female lawyer.

   "Let's get down to business, I think you should accept Atlantic's offer, buy out the proceeds and leave." Attorney Lindsay put forward his own ideas.

"I have a different opinion. The marketing expenses they give are too fake. This is no longer a bill that a professional accountant can see. Even students who have just learned the balance sheet know that there is a big problem." Lawrence Dawei Dissatisfied, this kind of fraud is simply an insult to his professional ability.

   "Look, the 5.5 million marketing expenses here are simply too bizarre. Even if they do a lot of posters and stand-up promotions in each theater, it is impossible for a theater to spend close to 10,000 US dollars.

   And the distributor didn't do a lot of advertising on TV media, mass print media, and didn't do a patch trailer commercial before other movies, I think at least they overstated a million dollars here.

   There are also distribution costs, and the unit price of a mass-produced copy cannot be so expensive. Even if the publishers go to each family to talk, it will not cost so much.

   They overstated the cost of nearly 1.4 million in total, from which we can get an extra share of about 300,000. "

   Ronald looked at Attorney Lindsay.

"I agree with you. But if there is a lawsuit, there are several difficulties. First, the film industry has always been the most difficult to obtain evidence. Marketing materials will be discarded after use. It is very difficult for us to convince him or the jury with reasonableness in front of the judge that Atlantic has made false accounts.

   Second, Atlantic actually set up a separate project company to handle everything in order to shoot and distribute the film. So even if we win the case, we will face bankruptcy or cancellation of the project company. Going to recourse to his shareholders will face a series of legal troubles.

   Third, this amount of money is not too much. To win the lawsuit, you have to summon multiple theater owners as witnesses, and you have to pay for expert witnesses in the film industry. You need to pay in advance for these expenses. So, it may cost you more to win the relationship than you get paid.

   Of course, if we win, we can also pursue punitive damages, which will be much higher than your costs. But that's all assuming you can win the case. And if that's the case, you're in the film industry..."

   "Will there be no friends?" Ronald continued with a wry smile.

"Actually, it's very difficult for you to get this part of the dividend. The film company can easily use all kinds of inflated costs to make the profit of the whole film disappear. The reason why the Atlantic did not do this is because your The box office of the movie has far exceeded their expectations, so that there is no way to make false accounts to wipe out all the profits.

   In addition, they may still want to cooperate with you, so they offer a $100,000 bonus and the option of early settlement. "

Attorney    Lindsay Dole penciled under the numbers in the contract, "So my advice is, accept him."

   Ronald looked at Lawrence Wang again.

   "Attorney Dole is right, I have no opinion."

   "Okay, then, let them write the check." Ronald nodded to Lawrence.

  Lawyer Lindsay Dole saw that there was nothing to do, and got up to leave, "Helen asked you recently, do you want to meet her?"

"Uh... I'm busy in New York this time, so I might not be free." Ronald swallowed, remembering Lindsay's roommate, the temptation of Helen Gable's black uniform, and the feel of the stockings on his legs. saliva.

   "Okay, Brooke Shields, eh?" Lindsay also heard the scandal, winked at him, and then went to the office to work on other cases.

   Ronald then checked his finances with Lawrence Wang.

"This time the $600,000 is in my account, plus my stock account, am I already a millionaire?" Ronald was very happy. After working hard for a few years, it was considered a small achievement. In the future, he will be a millionaire. Ordinary people are not worried about eating and drinking. But if you want to raise a movie star like Diane or Brooke, you have to keep making money.

   "No, you don't count this income, you're already a millionaire." Lawrence opened the report and showed Ronald his stock price.

   "The President has loosened economic policies in recent years, and last year's inflation has dropped significantly to only 3.2%. The economy has begun to recover, and this year's full-year GDP is expected to grow by more than 4%.

   Coupled with the implementation of the tax cut bill and various deregulations of the financial industry, more funds have entered the stock market. In short, your stock has performed well this year. Since you are buying stocks to get quarterly dividends, I am not advising you to sell at high points.

  IBM was the best performer, nearly doubling, while McDonald's, and Coca-Cola, have gained more than 50 percent this year. Only Kodak's share price underperformed, falling 10 percent.

   So your stock assets have totaled more than $850,000. "

   "Oh, is that right?" Ronald didn't expect that he just wanted to earn some dividends and outperform the inflation investment, and the stock price has grown so well. But it's not even a million, eh? "

"Have you forgotten the royalties for your bestsellers?" Lawrence took out another record, "Your 'Word Star for Dummies' has sold so well that the publisher has reprinted it many times, and the royalties have exceeded 150,000. Dollar."

   "Huh? So many?" Ronald suddenly felt that he had a promising future for writing books and selling them.

   "Yes, it's interesting, you've sold more of this book than Wordstar's software."

   "Oh?" Ronald thought for a while, "Is it because of piracy?"

   "Yes, many people who write with pirated textstar software will buy your book because they don't have the manual for the original software."

   "So with your two incomes, do you still want to invest in any stocks?" Lawrence Wang saw that the prices of the stocks Ronald bought kept rising, and he was already quite impressed by his vision.

"Buy me Coca-Cola," Ronald thought for a moment. "Their competitor, Pepsi, is always working with some underdogs, like Burger King. And they're rich enough to buy Columbia Pictures, I think. They must be making a lot of money."

   "You're right." Lawrence looked at Coca-Cola's annual report. The income and profits were good. "In this way, I will buy you Coca-Cola shares for the rest except for your taxes for next year."

   Ronald nodded and signed the required documents to confirm.

   "By the way, there is one more thing." Before getting up and leaving, Lawrence Wang hesitated and spoke to Ronald.

   "Do you remember the case of Chen Guoren?"

   "Remember", Ronald remembered the Chinese who was killed by two unemployed white auto workers on the street in Detroit, who was regarded as a native of the East. He even donated 2,000 yuan to him successively.

   "The Illinois court verdict, the two murderers were downgraded from second-degree murder to manslaughter by the white judge.

   The prosecutor and the two murderers reached a plea bargain under the arrangement of the judge. Because of the minor charges, they were sentenced without serving time and only paid a fine of $3,000 before being acquitted.

   The judge also said that the two murderers were good people and should not have been put in jail. "

   "This..." Ronald looked at Lawrence's yellow skin and guessed the reason in his heart, "It's not fair."

"Yeah, it's not fair. The mother of the deceased, Ms. Chen, also said that if a Chinese person killed a white man, this will never be the final judgment. We Chinese people are very angry because of this, and the two Chinese-American lawyers have also stepped forward to initiate a federal lawsuit on behalf of the deceased to re-prosecute the murderer at the federal level on civil rights grounds of racial discrimination."

   "In this way, I will write another check for two thousand dollars, and you will donate it to the deceased for me to handle legal proceedings."

   "I'll get it done, thank you, Ronald." Lawrence seemed to have something to say.

   "Do you have anything else to do?"

"I know this matter may be unkind to you, but our Chinatown Chamber of Commerce plans to take to the streets for this matter before Christmas, and let the media do justice for us. You are a famous Hollywood director, Can we also participate, so that we can attract TV stations other than Chinese TV stations to interview."

   "It seems that you have a bit of a misunderstanding of my status in Hollywood. Even if I stand on the streets of New York, or at the door of the three major TV stations, no reporter will know me."

   "No, you're not with Brooke Shields..." Lawrence asked tentatively.

"I understand your sympathy for your compatriots, but it is impossible for me to cause trouble to Brooke for this kind of thing." Ronald was also very resentful about the blind sentence of Chen Guoren's case, but this did not mean that he could Drag Boogie into the water.

   Not to mention Diane himself.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have made such a request. It's just that our strength in Chinatown is too weak to attract the attention of the mainstream media. Several of my uncles have agreed to prepare to unite with the East Ying people in Little Tokyo in the Lower East Village of Manhattan. Take to the streets to protest together.”

   "Aren't you... I remember that China and Japan were feuding in World War II, how could you be willing to be with them?" Ronald asked.

   "Hey, this also caused a lot of controversy. The uncles all fought with Huihua and Dongying people back then, or donated the money they saved for rations.

   But most of America's rulers were white people, and in their eyes, whether they were Chinese, Eastern Ying people, or the recently proliferating Koreans, they were all the same. All of them are of a completely different ethnicity.

The   Eastern Ying people have now defeated the manufacturing industry in America, and now they are also under pressure from the Grand Commander and Congress. In this incident, two workers in the auto industry who were squeezed out of work by the Dongying people regarded us Chinese as Japanese, so they took the initiative to find us and want to unite. "

   "Why don't they protest by themselves?" Ronald was a little puzzled. There are also a lot of Japanese in America, and now the economy is very strong.

"Hmph, they are just defeated countries, we are the victorious countries, the Chinese and the Americans in the United Nations are permanent members of the Security Council, and they have great power. And in the streets and in American politics, we are far better than those East Ying. There are many people with influence. They used to not follow us Chinese people to take advantage of it.”

   (end of this chapter)