Chapter 270: City of Liberty
Eric"s words made Carolina Cody hesitate for a moment. She soon realized that her hesitation was ridiculous. She was well aware that Brad Pitt had only been able to make small appearances in movies and TV shows during the past six months. Given this situation, what was there to worry about when she had the chance to be the leading male actor in a major TV series? After all, many of Hollywood"s second- and third-line stars had competed for the roles of the male and female leads in "The X-Files".
Carolina Cody said, "Mr. Williams, I believe the X-Files would be an excellent television show, and what does it matter if he is typecast if he is the lead actor?"
Eric thought to himself, what a woman!
Cody then went on to say, "However, Mr. Williams, isn"t signing a contract for five seasons a bit too long?"
Eric immediately shook his head and said, with no room for negotiation, "Not at all. The six main actors of Friends all signed contracts for five seasons."
Eric did not know if what Eirek said was true, and even if it was, she couldn"t find a reason to bargain. Let alone five seasons, even if it were more, she and Brad Pitt seemed to have no qualifications or chips to bargain.
Eric watched Carolina"s expression and said, "If you don"t mind, I"ll go and watch Brad Pitt"s audition tape tomorrow. If his performance satisfies me, I will notify you to sign the contract."
The next day, Eric arrived at Fox"s audition venue, found Brad Pitt"s audition tape, and watched it repeatedly. He confirmed that Brad Pitt"s current acting skills were enough to take on the role of Fox Muller. He then discussed it with the producers from Fox and Firefly. Soon, it was decided.
The rest was the selection of the female lead and some other minor roles. Of course, Eric couldn"t care about those minor roles. He just put some energy into the selection of the female lead.
Fox"s other variety show was finally launched, and after much consideration, Eric finally chose the safest variety show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
This show originated in the UK at the end of the 90s and became popular all over the world. Eric remembered that many domestic TV stations on the other side of the Pacific had similar imitation programs. Until Eric crossed over, the show had not left the TV screen. It was often heard that a millionaire had appeared in a certain country"s show. This show seized the psychology of ordinary people wanting to get rich overnight, so there was no limit of time, unlike some other programs that could be successful now, but would be more troublesome to operate. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" is much simpler.
Therefore, after writing out the plan, Eric first sent people to many countries with strong protection of intellectual property rights to register the program"s copyright. When this program caught fire, it was believed that a large sum of money could be earned solely by selling the copyright.
"Hey, hey. Eric, what do you think of this question. How many siblings do Kevin have in Home Alone?" In the car on the way to Maribor, Drew, sitting in the pa.s.senger seat, held a hard-covered notebook, writing and drawing on it from time to time.
Hearing the girl"s question, Eric shook his head and smiled: "No, I said it before, the questions have to be closely related to life and have to be very interesting. This question is completely testing people"s memories. Who would be bored enough to care about how many siblings Kevin has."
Drew pouted. He retorted: "Then your question is even more boring. Who would be bored enough to care about how insects breathe?"
Eric rolled his eyes at the girl and said in resignation, "You obviously weren"t paying attention in school. This question is definitely in the biology textbook."
"You"re beating around the bush. Only nerds would care about these kinds of questions," the girl shook her head. Biting her pen for a moment, she asked, "What about this one? What year did the Hollywood Sign appear?"
Eric nodded and said, "That"s a good one. Write it down, write it down."
The girl smiled proudly and wrote it down in her notebook.
Eric thought for a moment and then asked the girl, "By the way, I really don"t know when the Hollywood Sign was established, what year was it?"
The girl gave Eric a blank look and said, "How would I know?"
"...What?"
Eric asked in disbelief, "Then how did you come up with this question?"
"I just pa.s.sed by there yesterday." The girl bit her pencil and started to think again before looking up the road in front of them, "How much further is it?"
"Five minutes, we"ll be there soon."
The car stopped outside the mansion in Maribor"s Corner and Eric opened the door to get out, but heard a strange cry from inside the car: "Oh, Eric, I b.u.mped my head, come and get me out quickly."
"Climb out yourself," Eric thought the little girl was playing pranks again, and ignored her, walking straight towards the people waiting for him at the entrance of the mansion, Frank Gair and his private lawyer Edward.
"Oh, Eric, you"re so cruel," just as Eric was about to reach out warmly to Frank Gair, a soft body suddenly jumped onto his back.
Eric gave the little girl a slap on her bottom: "Stop messing around, can"t you see there are so many people here? If you continue to act up, I"ll stuff you into the trunk."
Eric picked up the little girl hanging from his back and embraced her, looking at her white and tender legs revealed from the knee-length skirt underneath. Although there was a small red and blue spot, it neither bled nor swelled.
"You won"t be lame; just run two kilometers on the ground," Eric said while releasing Duke. The little girl giggled and continued to fool around for a while before reluctantly letting go.
Just as Eric let go of Duke, he felt like someone in the distance was looking in this direction. He looked in the direction of his instinct but didn"t find anyone. He thought he might be too suspicious. He had been feeling like he was being followed these days.
Eric had the thought of hiring a bodyguard team, but he put it aside and focused on the people in front of him.
"Sorry, the girl always likes to make trouble," Eric shook hands with Frank Gair and Edward Lewis and others.
"No problem," Frank Gair laughed, Edward Lewis also echoed.
"Let"s go in, we"ve been looking at the plans for more than half a year, and finally it"s built."
Eric was impatient. This made Frank and the others laugh.
Frank said, "Come with me," and the group got into their cars as the gate to the estate was opened by a temporary guard. They drove straight to the luxurious cliff-side mansion, and Eric had no time to look at the other buildings on the estate; as long as they pa.s.sed the inspection, it was all good. These buildings were all where servants or guests would stay.
The cars drove along a winding road until they reached the main building, which Eric called "the city of freedom."
The group got out of the cars, and Eric saw a more exquisite and grand silver-sh.e.l.led building than the one he had imagined in his mind. He couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise.
The Mansion in his memory was just a concrete building, but the building in front of him was also inevitably made with some reinforced concrete, but most of the main structure was built with granite, special gla.s.s, and low-alloy, high-hardness steel. The sh.e.l.l-shaped building surface was also covered with silver t.i.tanium alloy material, shining in the sun.
Frank Gair originally submitted a budget of only five million dollars to build the estate, but with Eric"s promise of unlimited funds, Frank Gair increased the budget first to ten million, and finally to twenty million. At the end of the construction, he also applied for two million dollars in the budget, and 90% of this money was spent on the building. To put this into perspective, in this era, twenty million dollars was enough to build a twenty-story building. Nowadays, the prices of houses in Malibu have not yet reached the level of tens of millions of dollars. Most Malibu villas are only worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and luxury homes with private beaches are only worth a few million. This shows how luxurious the single building that cost twenty million dollars was. Eric remembered that Bill"s hundred million dollar mansion that many people praised in the past was actually only worth fifty million dollars, and that was after the year 2000.
Frank Gair lead the group of people to the silver building and after a few minutes, he said with a proud tone, "Alright, let"s go in and see what the inside of the building looks like, I believe it will be more surprising."
The staff opened the door to the mansion, and Frank Gair led the group inside.
As soon as they stepped into the hall, the first thing they saw wasn"t the wide living room, but a glittering sea view.
"Wow, it"s so beautiful," the group of men kept their restraint and politeness, but the little girl ignored this and exclaimed, rushing to the 10-meter-long, two-meter-high floor-length window.
"Eric, Eric, come look," Drew disregarded the manners and pressed himself against the gla.s.s window, looking out to the sea.
Eric was a bit worried, "Mr. Gair, is it okay for these windows?"
"No, of course not," Frank Gair said: "This is a special kind of gla.s.s, it looks no different than ordinary gla.s.s, but this gla.s.s is actually three layers, with a layer of polycarbonate material in the middle. Even if it is shot at, as long as it"s not a large caliber sniper rifle, it can be blocked. So ordinary collisions won"t cause any harm."
Edward"s a.s.sistant heard Frank Gair say this and was surprised: "Mr. Gair, according to what you said, isn"t this bulletproof gla.s.s, and shouldn"t it be expensive?"
Frank Gair shook his head and said honestly, "It"s not quite up to the level of bulletproof gla.s.s, but it"s almost there. As for the price, two hundred million dollars was spent on these things. Eric, shall I take everyone to have a look?"
Eric nodded as he followed Frank Gair around the villa, not paying further attention to the girl laying on the gla.s.s to look out to the sea.
Frank Gair explained as they walked, "This floor is mainly the living room, kitchen, gym and reception room. According to Eric"s design draft, the bas.e.m.e.nt is a studio. The second and third floors combined have eight bedrooms, a study room, a small screening room, and twelve bathrooms throughout the villa."
Eric nodded and followed Frank up the spiral staircase to the second floor, taking in the details as he looked around. Finally, they reached the top floor, where a large master bedroom with gla.s.s windows surrounded them, giving them a view of Maribor City and the sea in the distance.
Eric took a look around and suddenly had a question for Mr. Gair, "Mr. Gair, are these gla.s.ses one-sided?"
"Of course, I wouldn"t possibly miss such an important detail. All the gla.s.s windows in this building have been specially treated. Although you can see the light from the outside, you can"t see anything inside."
"That"s good," Eric nodded and looked at the scenery around the master bedroom. It would be terrible if he and a certain lady were rolling around in the big bed and someone looked in through the window with a telescope.
After more than ten minutes of turning around, the group returned to the living room, but the little girl had already disappeared.
Frank Gair smiled and said, "I think Miss Barrymore must have gone to the pool outside. Perfect, the view is great, let’s go there to talk."
They went through a door next to the living room and came to a huge open-air swimming pool facing a cliff.
Although the indoor business was also very good, there was no obstruction here, only an open sky without any obstruction after pa.s.sing through a layer of gla.s.s.
"Mr. Gair, are we swimming now?" The little girl"s voice came from behind a sun lounger.
Only then did they find that the girl had found a pair of sungla.s.ses and was lying on the deck chair, sunbathing.
"Of course, Miss Barrymore," Frank Gair seemed to like the little girl, and said with a smile, "But it"ll have to wait until Mr. Williams signs the contract for the engineering inspection."
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