Going home in the evening, Olivia couldn't wait to ask about the result of Eric's negotiation with Robert Cromwell. After getting an affirmative answer, she was naturally happy and exhorted.
Caroline didn't stay tonight. Olivia belongs to the early-to-bed and early-to-rise type. After dinner, she watched TV with Eric for a while, and left just after nine o'clock to go upstairs to rest.
As usual, Eric didn't feel sleepy. After sending Olivia away, he called the twins to his side.
Beside the glass curtain wall, looking at the girls who were sitting side by side on the sofa, as beautiful and quiet as ever, like two parallel lotus flowers, Eric couldn't help but think of all the things they had spent together these years.
In the wave of immigration after the collapse of the Soviet Union, twins were brought to the United States almost like goods, and then bought by girls like slaves.
When I first learned about this, Eric always felt a little unbelievable, and even suspected that the twins were Russian spies. The reputation of the KGB Swallow was too loud. For this reason, Eric secretly sent private detectives back to Russia to investigate the two girls more than once. background.
The detailed reports given by five detective companies successively proved that there was no problem with the identities of the twins, so Eric was relieved.
In the blink of an eye, six years have passed.
Thinking about it now, the two girls who had just turned 18 and could not even speak English well were brought to North America during the country's turmoil. They couldn't see their future at all. The situation was probably like two chicks just hatched. bird.
At this time, a certain magical creature named Yatou appeared, and a pair of chicks followed up ignorantly, identified their identities, and refused to leave ever since.
Beautiful girls are always pleasing to the eye. After looking at the twins for a while, Eric said, "So, have you learned anything recently?"
Over the years, the girl has been constantly letting the two girls learn all kinds of skills, ranging from flying a plane to opening a safe. It seems that she really intends to train the twins to be omnipotent. Super Secret Agent.
Perhaps it is a simple life and a state of mind with no distractions. The speed at which the two girls learn new skills is also staggering. This is why Eric suddenly had the idea of letting the twins follow Robert as students at noon.
Instead of studying indiscriminately, it is better to find a top teacher to teach.
Although she didn't understand why Eric asked this suddenly, Natasha replied, "Skydiving."
Eric couldn't help laughing, and said, "If you parachuted away while flying the plane, what should I do?"
Natasha shook her head solemnly: "No."
"Okay, just kidding," Eric said, "It's like this, you heard it at dinner, I'm about to hire someone to help Firefly create its own security company, that should be a very powerful person, but , He is sixty-seven years old this year, it is impossible to work for Firefly for too long, so I want him to teach you, and you can just take over his job in the future."
The twins listened carefully, and when Eric finished speaking, Natasha said, "We will do what the master says."
Eric gestured casually and said, "This will have a great impact on your future, I think you should think about it first?"
Natasha nodded: "Okay."
So the scene was quiet for a moment.
A few seconds later, Eric waved his hand: "Well, you don't have to think about it, it's just decided."
Natasha nodded again: "Yes."
"That's it, I'll take you to meet Robert tomorrow, he will definitely like students like you very much," Eric said, looking at the sister next to Natasha: "Eve, you go to rest first , Nata and I still have something to talk about."
This kind of words that even a child can't coax immediately made the faces of the two girls blush.
Even so, Eve obediently got up and left.
The patient Eve disappeared, and Eric said softly to Natasha, who was drooping in front of him, "Come on."
I didn't expect much at first, but this time Natasha stood up and walked over, but instead of sitting on Eric's lap as expected, she took his hand rarely, and walked upstairs go.
However, I thought Natasha would drag me to the master bedroom on the top floor, but when I went up to the second floor, the girl led Eric to the door of another room.
This is where the sisters live in the villa.
Just when some charming thoughts arose in her heart, Natasha opened the door, but only gently pushed Eric in, and the girl pulled the door behind herself, showing no intention of coming in.
A thought suddenly shattered.
In front of it is a group of suites, outside is a living room with a closed French window terrace, next to it is a bedroom.
The door of the bedroom was open at this time, Eric walked in, and immediately saw Eve standing in front of the bedroom wardrobe.
Eve obviously also saw Eric walking in for the first time, and she immediately looked like a small animal trapped in a trap, holding a pajamas in her hand, standing motionless in front of the cabinet with a flushed face.
Seeing Eve's appearance at this time, Eric pointed behind him and said, "Your sister let me in."
Eve was silent for a moment, then hummed inaudibly, put the pajamas in her hands back in the cupboard, went to the big bed and sat down quietly, but didn't dare to look up again.
Inexplicably, this situation feels somewhat familiar.
But something was clearly missing.
So go over.
Close the bedroom door too, and come to the girl.
Gently holding the girl's face, looking at the blushing and charming face with slightly closed eyes and trembling eyelashes, she suddenly understood that a red hijab or a whole set of bright red wedding clothes was missing.
But of course it doesn't matter.
He lowered his head and kissed Eve's lips, feeling the girl's jerky welcome. After a while, Eric gently pushed the girl down on the bed.
Then found out.
Compared with Natasha, Eve has a submissiveness that surprised Eric.
Obediently let Eric unbutton the clothes, obediently let Eric peel it into a little white sheep, and obediently let Eric admire the perfect Dong body under the light.
So it is inevitable that I get carried away, and even a little distracted thinking whether I will spoil my sister more in the future.
So he didn't even care about those long legs around his waist.
So the tragedy happened again.
When the clicking sound of joint fracture accompanied by severe pain, Eric only had time to have a thought, it really is a sister.
Then I felt that it would be better for me to pass out slowly.
And then really passed out.
sick.
Ask for leave.
Not working.
This time the situation was even worse than last time. In order to avoid being turned into a joke by the out-of-the-box natives of Hollywood, they simply stayed at home for the next few days.
"Iron Man" has been released, and the busy period of this period has paid off, and it just so happens that we can make some adjustments. Although there are still too many things in the entire firefly system that Eric needs to pay attention to personally, but sometimes, if there are too many things, it means that there is nothing to do. Do nothing for a few days, and nothing will go wrong.
However, I immediately regretted that I might as well not have stayed at home.
Seeing Eric walking unnaturally the next day, Olivia was obviously very distressed.
Although it was impossible for Eric to tell her what happened, Olivia still made her own judgment naturally. Then he gently persuaded Eric to be restrained, like a mother who carefully educated her adolescent son about sex, which made people feel extremely embarrassed.
Unable to go out, he invited Robert Cromwell to visit the manor in person.
After some understanding, Robert was very satisfied with the pair of twin students recommended by Eric, and the matter was settled immediately.
Because of a back injury, he did not attend the "Iron Man" celebration banquet on Saturday. If it was someone else, it would not be appropriate to do so. But as the boss, he didn't want to work and socialize anymore, so no one said anything, so he dared to deduct the boss' salary
However, Katzenberg and other high-level executives still called one after another, and it happened that Olivia was there, so Eric used it as an excuse.
Although Eric did not appear at the "Iron Man" celebration banquet, this did not affect the film's box office momentum in the slightest.
After the box office broke 100 million in the first three days of the weekend, after four days of release on weekdays, the box office of "Iron Man" finally reached a high of 135.75 million US dollars in the first week.
Then, on to the second weekend.
Compared with the same period in the first week, the box office of "Iron Man" fell by only 36% in the three days of the second week weekend, and it collected another US$62.11 million in three days, and the cumulative box office in ten days was US$197.86 million. The billion dollar mark, but this box office data still makes the whole of Hollywood look sideways.
Affected by the strong impact of "Iron Man", Paramount's "West Point Uncovered", which received a bad review during the test screening stage, performed extremely poorly at the box office. It only received 15.17 million US dollars in the first three days of the weekend.
According to the word-of-mouth and opening data of the film, the final North American box office of "West Point Uncovered" is likely to be only about 60 million US dollars. Moreover, as a very localized suspense drama, the performance of "West Point Uncovered" in overseas markets is even more unsatisfactory. Costing $95 million to make, the film may only reach similar levels at the global box office.
The box office performance is unsatisfactory, and various revenues in the later period will also shrink sharply. Paramount is destined to suffer huge losses on this project.
However, Paramount's doom is clearly not over yet.
On May 17, just after the new week, Firefly Group held a press conference and announced a news that shocked many people.
Due to the fact that Viacom’s Blockbuster chain store concealed the rental and sales data of video tapes and DVDs, Firefly Group decided to temporarily suspend the supply of video tapes and DVDs to Blockbuster chain stores until Blockbuster accepts Firefly Group’s accounting review and compensation If there is no loss, the Firefly Group will consider continuing to cooperate with it.
In fact, although the film industry system in North America is very complete, both the theater market and the home entertainment market are subject to very strict supervision. But because there are too many interests involved, the things of concealing the box office and concealing sales data have never been cut off.
Therefore, this time, the Firefly Group didn't even need to make false accounts. It only needed to ask the company's accounting department to conduct a strict audit of the sales data provided by Blockbuster, and easily found the loopholes.
And then everything becomes justifiable.
After Firefly Group issued a statement, MGM, Fox, and Columbia's three major film companies followed up at the same time and announced the suspension of cooperation with Blockbuster chain stores.
All of a sudden, the whole of Hollywood began to turmoil.
You must know that under normal circumstances, even if a problem occurs, the film company will only pursue responsibility and claim compensation in a small area for the sake of the overall situation. This situation of blocking a large video tape and DVD chain store has never happened.
Therefore, even a complete outsider can easily understand that the purpose of the Firefly Group is definitely not as simple as the surface.
At the same time, Viacom naturally reacted immediately.
Redstone personally denounced Firefly, MGM, Fox and Columbia, which are disrupting the market order and are malicious monopolistic behavior. Viacom will not succumb to the Firefly system and will take legal measures to protect its rights and interests.
Firefly also immediately made a public counterattack to Redstone's remarks on the Yahoo portal.
The Firefly system has not set foot in the terminal videotape and DVD retail business, and has no direct interest-competition relationship with Blockbuster. Therefore, Mr. Lei Shidong's accusation of monopoly is completely nonsense. All of this is entirely Viacom's fault. What Blockbuster chain stores should do is to face up to their own serious problems, cooperate with Firefly's accounting review and make compensation.
The two sides started a war of words in the media, but the major film companies of the Firefly system did not hesitate at all. The home entertainment distribution departments of each subsidiary immediately cut off the supply to Blockbuster chain stores.
Subsequently, the dispute quickly spread to the stock market.
A lot of news has never been considered a secret in the industry. The firefly system suddenly targeted Viacom, and many people figured out the reason immediately. Taking into account Eric Williams' strong attitude when the last Internet gossip incident occurred, the industry generally has a bearish attitude towards Viacom.
Therefore, although Blockbuster's market value of US$3 billion is only equivalent to one-twentieth of the recent market value of Viacom's US$70 billion, Viacom's stock price fell by 11% in just one day. %, the market value dropped from US$73.1 billion at the opening to US$65 billion, which is equivalent to evaporating two and a half Blockbusters.
At the same time, the stock prices of movie galleries, Hollywood Video and other similar video rental and sales chain stores, which rank next to Blockbuster in the industry, have almost all experienced sharp rises.
Even, the next day, the movie gallery company seized the opportunity to publicly announce that it would raise $1 billion and add 1,000 chain stores across North America within a year.
Once the layout is completed, the number of chain stores owned by Movie Gallery will reach 2,500. Although there is still a big gap in terms of the number compared with Blockbuster’s more than 4,000 chain stores at this time, the two parties have obviously reached the same scale. .
Affected by this good news and the decisive measures taken by the Firefly system after the announcement, the stock price of the movie gallery company rose again by 17% the next day, and its market value reached 4.6 billion U.S. dollars, even exceeding the industry's valuation of the Blockbuster chain. 50% more. At the same time, the stock prices of other competitors in the same industry continued to rise sharply. Only Viacom's stock price still did not stop the downward trend after the first day's sharp drop.