Chapter 4: Herd Theory
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Looking at the four editorial assistants leaving in a hurry, Adrian smiled as he stood in his villa’s front courtyard. When he recalled their shocked faces before they left, he knew that he was halfway done with promoting himself.
He chose the scripts after deep consideration, especially the four he sent out that had different genres, which were high school comedy, romantic love, romantic thriller, and horror. Besides, three of the four scripts were profitable, but not too profitable.
When the companies sent their representatives over to negotiate with him, he revealed two more scripts with potential value—’American Pie’ and ‘Scream’. Both were models of films with low cost but high box office sales and had sequels. He knew that the assistants could tell the films’ value since they were professionals, and also because he added an informative note at the back of the scripts.
‘How will the big film companies respond next?’
Adrian shook his head and decided not to bother as he had already achieved half of his goal. As long as the four films were screened and were profitable, he would achieve the other half of his goal.
Nevertheless, he felt rather regretful and was slightly not resigned to the outcome. This was because the script sold to Warner’s assistant was ‘The Bodyguard’, which was going to be released two years later, and would star Whitney Houston. If he was not mistaken, the box office sales for that film would be 100 million dollars in North America—100 million dollars in the early ’90s!
Sadly, he was not the investor, and he only sold it for 35,000 dollars, thus he was somewhat dejected. Of course, it only took a few minutes for him to forget about it.
Adrian could not just sell low-profit scripts if he wanted to build his reputation as soon as possible, so it was necessary to include a script that would be extremely profitable. As long as the producer did some thinking, and his obscure note was understood, Warner would definitely make a lot of money.
Needless to say, Adrian was mainly unbothered because he had many scripts that would make him money. Earlier when he was totally immersed in writing scripts for three months, he purposely found time to register himself at the Writing Guild not because the guild could help him when needed, but because he could store his script outlines for two years by paying a fee to the guild.
Most screenwriters would leave their outlines under the guild’s care, and film companies often searched for noteworthy scripts or stories that were similar to their newly-received scripts.
Adrian stored ten script outlines that he worked on for the past three months, and was going to store more outlines or complete scripts in the future. While that might cause “duplicate” concepts, he would be in an invincible position due to the records in the guild.
As for the “past” screenwriters who might undergo changes in their lives because of this, Adrian was not concerned at all. Back when he was still Zhang Haoxuan, he read from a science fiction novel about a theory that stirred his emotions and gave him a deep impression—herd theory!
Herd theory was not proposed by the person who studied the bandwagon effect. The writer hypothesized—a billion sheep that lived in icefields moved in an isosceles triangle formation in order to survive; The sheep in front always enjoyed the grass or water first, such that the sheep behind could only eat or drink what was left.
No sheep could survive without the herd because they did not know when they would find grass again on the cold icefield, and when there would be a snowstorm. Only by supporting and relying on each other could they survive.
The sheep at the back of the formation would always try their best to push forward so as to gain the same rights as the sheep in front—fresh greens and clean water. As such, the sheep in front would firstly maintain their position to prevent being pushed behind, then they would think of a way to move forward as much as they could.
Some sheep that were well back at the herd never got to the front position no matter how much they fought, whereas some that were newly born naturally stood behind their parents, and gained a front position from the start.
Nothing was fair in the world.
Since Adrian was reborn, he took it as he was adopted by God or another almighty being who placed him in front and gave him an unusually tough pair of horns. If that was the case, he felt like he had no reason to not continue pushing forward.
Perhaps he would establish a foundation in the future to help frustrated screenwriters, or he might secretly support the Writers Guild to strive for his rights and interests then go on strike—the big strike in 2008 left a tremendous impact, and that many before that had failed. He knew about them when he was still Zhang Haoxuan. Nonetheless, it was impossible for him to give up on gaining funds and his reputation through plagiarism.
‘Shameless? Of course, I won’t deny that, but I don’t care.’
“I’m heading out, Mrs. Galen. You don’t have to wait for me at night.” Adrian headed out after a while as he had an important appointment in the afternoon.
“Aright, but I’ll leave two to three sandwiches for you in the fridge. You only need to heat them up in the microwave,” Mrs. Galen reminded him kindly while she tidied the living room.
“Thank you.” Adrian nodded, then left to drive downtown.
Although a screenwriter’s status in the modern era was not as lowly as it used to be, it was not that distinguished too, or there would not have been a big strike in 2008. The three major factors of a good film production were a good script, a good director, and a good cast. That being said, screenwriters never asked for bonuses. There was not even a single screenwriter from the Writers Guild with an annual salary of 500,000 dollars back then.
Adrian was certainly not going to stop even though he managed to enter Hollywood easily by being a screenwriter.
“I can’t believe that you’re earlier than me, Claw,” Adrian teased Claude as he sat down, then nodded at the waiter who approached him after. “A cup of latte.”
Before Claude spoke, he continued making fun of him, “Are you having fun?”
Though Adrian handed all his possessions to Claude and had been focusing on writing scripts for three months, he still spent time looking at the financial statements sent by his private accountant. When he saw the curve diagrams that went up and down, he only had one thought, which was that Claude was addicted!
“Hey, why would you say that? In any case, I increased your funds by four folds.” Claude put on an innocent look.
“You could’ve stopped when you increased it by five folds, then start again after the fluctuations,” Adrian replied. “Don’t forget our agreement, you must look at the situation even if you’re having fun.”
Despite that, Adrian was still quite dismayed. After all, it was just a verbal agreement, and based on his last statement to Claude, he could only accept the results if Claude really lost all his money. ‘Luckily, I didn’t mortgage my villa,’ he thought to himself.
“Don’t worry, I always keep the agreement close to my heart, and I won’t disappoint you since you have so much trust in me.” Claude smiled.
“My accountant told me that we have at most three months left.”
“To me, we have at least four or more,” Claude commented confidently and in a rather arrogant tone. It was evident that he benefited highly from the three months.
“Alright, Eddy. Tell me, why did you want to see me?” He took a sip of his coffee.
“It’s very simple. I need to buy a film company, then direct my first film.” Adrian tapped his fingers on the table gently.
Claude was this close to spewing his coffee. He quickly put his cup down, then looked at Adrian in shock.
“Warner, Universal, Fox, and Disney have bought a script from me respectively, and are fighting for the ownership of two more scripts, so you don’t have to be so surprised,” Adrian explained calmly.
“I thought… I thought…” Claude subconsciously did a few hand gestures.
“You thought that I was only saying it for fun? Please, Claude, I’m very serious about this.” Adrian raised his brows. “When did I ever joke while officially asking you for help.”
After exhaling deeply, Claude shrugged. “I know, but… Eddy, you’ve changed a lot.”
“Everyone changes. I told you, from the day I was shocked by electricity, I’m no longer who I used to be.” Adrian then waved his hand. “Alright, let’s not talk about this. I initially wanted to spend 500,000 dollars to establish a new film company, but I don’t have the time and energy to do everything from scratch, so I decided to just buy one. It doesn’t have to be too big, so long as it’s around 3 million dollars with complete departments as well as other basic relationship networks.”
Claude stirred his coffee with a teaspoon and remained silent for a long time before he sighed at last. “It’s really strange, Eddy. Although my rationale tells me that it’s a crazy idea, my intuition tells me that you’ll likely succeed.”
1
“When did you become so sentimental, Claw?” Adrian could not help but frown.
“Alright, alright.” Claude raised his hand up. “So what do you want me to do? Open a new account to keep the money? Or help look for a film company that’s going to be offered for sale?”
“It’ll be best if you can help, but I need you to fork out 4 million dollars.” Adrian pondered for a while, then added, “Apart from purchasing a film company, I need to buy the adaptation rights of a few novels, and invest in my first movie.”
“If everything is to be done as you said, your first movie’s investment will be at most a few hundred thousand dollars…” Before Claude finished his sentence, Adrian cut him off. “Alright, Claw. I know that you really care about me, but please believe in me.”
“Alright.” Claude nodded. “But if you only leave me with a fund of 20 million dollars, I can’t guarantee that I’ll make 60 million dollars in the end.”
“Then adjust it to 50 million dollars, excluding your reward,” Adrian replied immediately.
“It’s set then.” Claude downed his coffee, then stood up. “From the bottom of my heart, I look forward to your miracle.”
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
