I'm in Hollywood

CHAPTER 28 - COUNTERMEASURES

CHAPTER 28 – COUNTERMEASURES
Posted on February 16, 2017 by Elawn

Sure enough, the boss was taking out his anger on him. Lester Reed couldn't help but lament in his heart, but he didn't try to refute, or he would certainly be driven out.

"Mr. Cohen, perhaps we could try ...... try to negotiate with Eric Williams again, and get him to re-sign a sharing agreement instead."

"This is your plan ?" Blount Cohen laughed loudly: "If you were Eric Williams, would you agree to re-sign the agreement ?"

Lester Reed gritted his teeth and said: "Eric Williams should know that the current situation is nothing short of unfair to Columbia who has invested so much, so..."

Before Lester Reed finished, Blount Cohen directly slammed the table as he roared: "Enough ! Unfair ? Since when has the world ever been fair, what I need are concrete ideas, not wishful thinking !"

Lester Reed bowed his head in silence, not daring to peep. Blount Cohen looked at the others when his sights finally fell at the end of the conference table where Amy Pascal was sitting. During their previous meeting, Amy was the only one to have been against Eric Williams' gambling agreement, which left him with a glimmer of hope.

Blount Cohen slightly controlled his tone as he said to her: "Amy, do you have any good ideas ?"

Although Blount Cohen had been blowing up his fuse, Amy Pascal was somewhat absent-minded. She had been disappointed by Blount's conservative style, cowardliness, paranoia and lack of composure, she didn't know how Coca-Cola had selected this mediocre president. She even thought that he should probably change jobs.

However, after she heard Blount Cohen's question, she sorted out her thoughts, and stated: "Mr. Cohen, I don't have the slightest idea on what to do about that agreement. Even if we forced out a sequel, without the Home Alone copyrights, we would face a lawsuit of several hundreds of millions."

Talking up to here, Amy Pascal paused, giving everyone room to think, and started speaking again before Blount Cohen had a chance to: "So, what we should do now, is to try to win over Eric Williams and seriously honor our part of the agreement to show our sincerity. Home Alone's box office will go past the 50 million $ mark without a doubt, and overseas copyrights are still in Eric Williams' hands. Moreover, Home Alone will certainly have a sequel, so if we maintain a good relationship with him, once he produces one, I believe Eric Williams will be smart enough to continue cooperating with us. I think that this is the only way to gain more benefits for Columbia."

When Amy Pascal finished, several seniors in the conference couldn't help but nod. While Blount Cohen somewhat agreed with Amy Pascal's point of view, he still thought that Amy, Jeffrey Hanson and Eric Williams were friends, and his paranoid personality made him feel that Amy's suggestion was biased.

So Blount Cohen could not help but open his mouth again: "Amy, you are Columbia's employee, you should work for the sake of the company instead of always trying to help outsiders. If you can get rid of the gambling agreement, I'll immediately give you a promotion."

As if the scene from a few weeks ago was repeating itself, her hard work and dedication to the company were again questioned. She had first been kicked out of the Home Alone project for voicing her opinion, but in the end felt the need to avoid arousing suspicions and didn't complain. Now she had been asked to speak up as she had been the only one to have been against the agreement in the first place, but was once again questioned once she did.

This made Amy Pascal feel cold, she felt so aggrieved her nose turned slightly sour and she had a hard time suppressing her tears. Women are made of water*, and in the end, she was one as well.