Chapter 318 New Balance Operations Director

Kevin Costner's new movie is a science fiction movie. The budget is definitely not low, but the box office is unlikely to be high, so Warner will definitely not make any money on this movie. It would be good if it doesn't lose a lot.

Chris doesn't care whether "The Postman" can make money. After all, it's not a project he is responsible for. What he cares about now is whether Kevin has time to participate in "Shutter Island".

But nothing has been decided yet, so he can't ask directly.

Chris looked at Catherine again, thinking that if Kevin is really invited to play the male lead in "Shutter Island", can Catherine be invited to play the female lead.

There is actually no female lead in "Shutter Island". The female characters Chris can think of are the missing female prisoner Qin Yu and the male lead's deceased wife. They don't have many roles.

Chris definitely wants Catherine to play the male lead's wife, after all, Catherine and Kevin played as a couple before.

After thinking for a while, Chris asked Catherine, "Miss Jones, when will your next movie start shooting?"

Catherine shook her head, "I'm not sure either. Now I'm not even sure if I can take on this role."

Hearing her say this, Chris smiled and didn't ask any more questions.

Zhou Yan guessed that Chris might want to invite Catherine to play in "Shutter Island", but he didn't care much about it, because the female characters in "Shutter Island" didn't have much presence, so it didn't matter who played them.

In addition to the male protagonist, the more important roles are the male protagonist's attending physician, who is also the male protagonist's partner, and the chief physician of psychiatry.

In the original version, the former was played by Mark Ruffano, who played the Hulk, and the latter was played by veteran actor Ben Kingsley.

The casting of Ben Kingsley is very interesting, because his appearance gives people the feeling of a mastermind behind the scenes.

This time, Zhou Yan also hopes to follow the original idea.

I just don't know what Ben Kingsley's image is like now. If possible, let him play it.

...

The few people chatted for a while, and the food they ordered came up.

Chris's recommendation was right. The steak in this restaurant is really good.

Whether steak is delicious depends mainly on the raw materials, and secondly on the chef's skills. The materials in this restaurant are very good, and the chef's level is also very high.

When the four people were almost done eating, a man in a white shirt came over with a smile.

When he came to Catherine's side, he slightly bowed and said very politely, "Excuse me, is this Miss Jones?"

The four people looked at the newcomer with surprise, and the latter introduced himself with a smile, "I am Jack Williams, the operations director of New Balance. I just noticed Miss Jones here, but I didn't go up to disturb her."

He had just finished introducing himself, and suddenly saw Kevin Costner, who had his back to him, and was surprised, "Is this Mr. Costner?"

"Hello, Mr. Williams." Kevin stood up and shook hands with Jack Williams, "Nice to meet you."

Catherine also stood up and said hello.

They both stood up, and out of courtesy, Chris and Zhou Yan also stood up.

Jack Williams asked, "Can you introduce these two?"

"Chris." Chris took the initiative to shake hands with Jack Williams.

"Zhou Yan." Zhou Yan also introduced himself.

"Oh, hello, I'm very sorry to disturb you. Please forgive me, I really don't want to miss this opportunity to meet them." Jack Williams said with a smile.

Zhou Yan nodded, "No problem, nice to meet you."

"It's a coincidence today. I've been to this restaurant several times, but I didn't expect to meet you here. Miss Jones, are you here with Mr. Costner because of the "Sixth Sense" event?"

"Sixth Sense" is very popular in the United States now. It was also because of this movie that Jack Williams recognized Catherine. Seeing her and Kevin appear here together, he guessed whether they were participating in the movie event.

Kevin smiled and said, "Tomorrow is the celebration party for "The Sixth Sense". We are all going to attend the celebration party."

"Oh, I seem to have heard about this." Jack Williams nodded, and then asked with a smile, "Since it is a celebration party, will Y come this time?"

"Y?"

Catherine and the others looked at Jack Williams in surprise, and then looked at Zhou Yan standing next to him, not understanding what Jack Williams was doing, wasn't Y standing in front of him?

Chris coughed lightly, "Ahem, Mr. Williams is concerned about Y's whereabouts?"

"It's not that I care about you deliberately, but I thought of you when I saw you. Isn't "The Sixth Sense" adapted from Y's movie?" Jack Williams said with a smile.

"Then do you know what Y looks like?"

"That's right..."

Jack Williams just opened his mouth and suddenly saw the strange expressions of several people. He realized something and looked at Zhou Yan in surprise, "Could it be..."

Chris laughed, "Yes, this is Y."

Hearing that Zhou Yan was Y, Jack Williams said apologetically, "I'm really sorry, I didn't pay attention to your appearance before, and the name you introduced just now was not Y, so I didn't think much about it."

"Zhou Yan is my Chinese name, and Y-Chou is their translation." Zhou Yan explained.

"Zhou Yan... I'll remember it. I won't make the mistake next time." Jack Williams shook hands with Zhou Yan again. "Nice to meet you. I like your movies and music very much. The song that was played in the restaurant just now was your work, right?"

Zhou Yan nodded. "Yes, "Young and Beautiful" is the interlude in "Sense and Sensibility."

"Mariah Carey also sang it." Chris added.

"Yes, Carey also sang it." Jack Williams nodded.

...

Jack Williams didn't stay too long. After asking for their contact information, he left.

Zhou Yan didn't have a fixed contact information in the United States, so he gave Jack Williams the phone number of Tomson's office in the United States.

Tomson has offices in many countries, and North America is no exception.

Their office in the United States is located in Los Angeles, not far from here, and it is not small in scale. There are five staff members, which is a little larger than the office in Neon.

Although Zhou Yan's main market is still Neon, Neon is close after all, so it is relatively easy to go there, and the office does not need too many people.

It was different in the United States. It was not easy for Zhang Youan and his team to come here. Often, if there was any business to be handled in the United States, it could only be handled by the staff of the office, so more people were needed.

The appearance of Jack Williams was just a small episode, and they didn't take it seriously. After he left, they continued to chat.

When the time was almost up, the four of them got up and left.

…

The next morning, Zhang Youan came to the hotel where Zhou Yan was staying and met with Chris. The two sides began to discuss the matter of "Shutter Island" in detail.

At the beginning, Zhou Yan participated in the negotiations between them, but Zhou Yan withdrew as the talks went on, because the bargaining methods of the two sides were no different from those of the aunties who went to the vegetable market to buy vegetables.

They were all testing each other at the beginning. After a long time, Chris finally offered a price, but it was only 1.2 million US dollars.

Zhang Youan would definitely not accept this price.

Zhang Youan was also very powerful. He asked for 5 million US dollars at the first moment, which directly scared Chris.

One side asked for a sky-high price, while the other side paid the price. They kept going back and forth, and neither side was willing to give in too much.

Zhou Yan originally thought that Zhang Youan asked for 5 million US dollars, and if he took a step back, he should give it back to 4.5 million US dollars or 4 million US dollars, but Zhang Youan was very stubborn and only gave it back to 4.95 million US dollars in the first step.

In Zhang Youan's words, that was "a full 50,000 US dollars."

Chris raised the price almost every time, by 50,000 or 100,000.

Zhou Yan was amused watching from the side. Both sides knew that the price they said was impossible to achieve, but they had to grind slowly and never tired of it.

So after watching for a while, he decided to leave the bargaining to Zhang Youan and he went to do other things.

By noon, Zhou Yan had already written a score, and Zhang Youan and Chris were still there.

Zhou Yan listened roughly and found that Chris was willing to offer 1.6 million US dollars, while Zhang Youan was willing to reduce it to 4.2 million US dollars. The reduction of both sides was not high.

Chris also sighed secretly. He knew that Zhang Youan was difficult to deal with, but he didn't expect it to be so difficult.

If he had known that Zhang Youan was so difficult, he would not have offered 1.2 million US dollars at the beginning, but would have lowered the price a little bit, so that they would have more room to raise the price.

Now he has raised the price to 1.6 million US dollars, which is only 400,000 US dollars away from the upper limit he can decide, and Zhang Youan still insists on more than 4 million US dollars.

He is worried that if it goes on like this, it will be difficult to reach a deal in the end.

Just when Chris was at a loss, the doorbell of the room rang.

Zhang Youan immediately stood up, "I'll go open the door."

Then Chris heard Zhang Youan say to the person outside the door, "Anthony, you're here."

Chris turned his head and saw Bregman and Zhang Youan walking in together.

"Come on, Chris, let me introduce you, this is..."

Before Zhang Youan introduced him, Bregman laughed, "No need to introduce, Chris and I know each other, we met before in China. Chris, why did you go back to Los Angeles?"

Bregman was asking Chris why he went back to Los Angeles, but actually asking him why he was here.

Chris's mouth twitched, the thing he was most worried about happened.

He was worried that Columbia would get involved in the script of "Shutter Island".

Thinking of this, Chris turned his head and looked in Zhou Yan's direction. Zhou Yan had promised him before that he would not discuss the script of "Shutter Island" with Columbia before he finished talking to them. Now it depends on what Zhou Yan says.

Zhou Yan heard Bregman's voice and walked out. He asked Bregman with a smile, "Why are you here? Didn't you say you would come to see me in the afternoon?"

Bregman glanced at Zhang Youan and smiled, "I just finished my work and came to see you. I wanted to have lunch with you. I didn't expect you had guests."

Zhou Yan nodded, "In that case, it's almost time, so let's go eat. Chris is here too, so let's go together."

Bregman also extended an invitation to Chris, "It's a rare meeting, let's have a meal together. Do you have time in the afternoon? Do you want to attend the celebration party of "The Sixth Sense"?"

Chris smiled and waved his hand, "I have some things to deal with at the company this afternoon, so I can't attend your celebration banquet. I'll treat you to lunch."

"How is that possible? I have to pay for it. There is a restaurant nearby that serves very good steaks. It's not far away. You can just walk there."

…

The restaurant Bregman was talking about was the one Chris took Zhou Yan and the others to yesterday.

During the dinner, the four of them chatted and laughed, covering a wide range of topics. They did not talk about movies, let alone the cooperation between Warner and Zhou Yan.

Bregman is a good person and naturally knows that Chris cannot appear in Zhou Yan's room for no reason. There must be some cooperation between the two parties.

Bregman had heard before that Warner wanted to buy the rights to remake "Springtime of the Cowherd", so when he first met Chris, he thought Chris was here to talk about it.

But then I thought about it carefully, and it didn’t seem like it.

If we want to talk about the remake rights of "Springtime of the Cowherd Class", is it necessary for Chris to return to the United States and come to talk to Zhou Yan? He can definitely negotiate this matter with Tomson in China.

And looking at Chris, it seemed like he didn't want him to know what they were talking about.

Therefore, they are most likely talking about other cooperation, and it is a more important cooperation.

Although Bregman was curious about what kind of cooperation they were talking about, he did not ask. Today was not the right time to ask. He thought that he would wait until the celebration banquet was over before asking Zhang Youan what was going on.

The meal didn't last long, and Chris was the first to get up and leave.

He is now anxious to go back and report the situation to Terry Semel. After this morning's negotiations, he feels that the upper limit of 2 million US dollars may not be enough. He must go back and ask Terry Semel what he thinks.

This needs to be done quickly. The longer it takes, the worse it will be for him. If you are not prepared, you may be intercepted by Colombia again.

After Chris left, Bregman didn't ask about Chris. He just smiled and said to Zhou Yan, "I'm here to tell you something else. There is a temporary signing session added to this afternoon's event. Maybe 30 lucky fans will show up at the celebration party, and I hope you can sign your autograph for them.”

When he heard that there were only thirty fans asking for autographs, Zhou Yan nodded readily, "No problem." (End of Chapter)