After leaving Michael Ovitz's office, Rory Toledo, looking troubled, found Sandra Bullock. She was his biggest client, and Sandra Bullock trusted him implicitly.
"What's wrong, Rory?" Sandra Bullock asked, seeing the distressed look on Rory Toledo's face.
"Mr. Ovitz wants me to push the package deal service into Director Gilbert's production team..." Rory Toledo said with a helpless expression.
"What?" Sandra Bullock involuntarily raised her voice, "Doesn't Mr. Ovitz know that Director Gilbert dislikes package deals?" After all, Sheena Boone was a former CAA agent, and everyone knew about her situation. On the surface, Sheena Boone resigned because she had no clients, but in reality, Michael Ovitz and Martin Bob had jointly forced her to resign. As for the reason, though Sheena Boone never said, everyone speculated it was likely due to a clash of their philosophies.
"Shhh," Rory Toledo covered Sandra Bullock's mouth, looked around, and seeing no one was paying attention to them, quickly pulled Sandra Bullock outside.
Once they were out, Rory Toledo finally spoke, "Mr. Michael Ovitz is very firm. He said if I can't pull this off, I'll have to leave CAA, and your agency contract will probably be handed over to someone else."
"How can that be? I'll go talk to Mr. Ovitz myself!" Sandra Bullock was about to go back in to argue with Michael Ovitz, but Rory Toledo quickly held her back.
"Sandra, don't get agitated, calm down," Rory Toledo advised. "I'll give it a try. If it doesn't work out, it's no big deal, I can always leave CAA. But this project is very important to you. It's a mainstream commercial film, and if it's a huge success, you could enter the ranks of A-list actresses. Most importantly, Director Gilbert has had two consecutive films gross over fifty million dollars in North America and over a hundred million globally. You must know what it means to star in a new film by such a director."
Sandra Bullock calmed down, and seeing Rory Toledo still thinking of her, she felt a surge of unexpected emotion. She promised, "Don't worry, if Mr. Ovitz tries to kick you out of CAA, I will absolutely go with you."
Rory Toledo gave a wry smile. "It's fine. As long as we make this film well and it succeeds, Mr. Ovitz can't do anything to us." Michael Ovitz was indeed very forceful with minor stars and their agents, but he was powerless against agents who managed superstars. Tom Cruise's agent, Pat Kingsley, never paid any mind to Michael Ovitz. Michael Ovitz had been annoyed with her for a long time but couldn't do anything about it. This shows that the so-called "King of Hollywood Entertainment Agency" was just media hype; facing A-list stars and directors, Michael Ovitz couldn't be aggressive either. Otherwise, it wouldn't be Rory Toledo trying to persuade Gilbert to accept package deals, but Ovitz himself. Why didn't he go? It was because he didn't want to rashly offend Gilbert, and his father, Old Gilbert, so he found an intermediary. If it succeeded, it would be fine; if not, he could just blame Rory Toledo.
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Time entered November, and Final Destination was still playing in theaters, though the number of screens had been reduced to three hundred, and the daily box office accumulation was limited. However, the film's North American box office still reached $61.423 million, setting a new personal best for Gilbert's career in North America. The film's subsequent North American box office potential was limited, likely topping out around this figure.
However, this automatically triggered Gilbert's box office sharing agreement; profit sharing began at fifty million, with an additional one percent for every ten million increase. So, Gilbert received a six percent share of the box office profits, which, based on the current box office data, amounted to a little over $1.5 million. This is after deducting shares for theaters, promotional costs, and production costs to calculate profit sharing, so $1.5 million is quite good. Furthermore, Gilbert also had a tenth of the investment income, and subsequent revenue from video rentals, TV rights, and overseas box office shares were all additional income. However, these remaining revenues wouldn't arrive for at least a year and a half, so there was still a long wait. Even so, it was enough to satisfy Gilbert.
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After the money arrived, he first transferred a sum to the Tolkien Copyright Trust. This was only a portion; another payment would be due next year. After his agent Sheena Boone and accountant Kevin took their respective shares, Gilbert continued to buy Apple stock, enduring the bewildered stares of his stockbroker, David. Gilbert also asked David to inquire if any internal shareholders of Apple Inc. were willing to sell their Apple stock. If there were, he would buy it without hesitation. Becoming a board member of Apple Inc. would mean making money even while sleeping. And this move had to be fast; once Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Apple's stock wouldn't be so easy to buy. What about Apple's decade of turmoil, you ask? What you see as turmoil, Gilbert sees as opportunity. It will all eventually develop. He planned to buy large quantities while no one was optimistic about Apple, then enter Apple's board and support bringing Jobs back. Perhaps Apple could end its turbulent period early and accelerate into a fast development track. This wasn't a short-term investment but a long-term one. Short-term gains could be made by investing in other internet companies before the dot-com bubble, making a fortune. As for stock market crashes, Gilbert didn't understand them much, only knowing the basics, and without insider information, he didn't want to touch them. As for Microsoft's stock, not much was in circulation, so he could only buy as much as possible.
But there was no rush; the tide of internet companies was coming, and Gilbert was ready to take a big bite out of this massive cake. No one ever thought they had too much money. He wasn't an IT expert and wasn't a businessman, but by understanding investment and relying on his impressions from his previous life, he wouldn't have to worry about money.
However, the foundation of all his endeavors was still movies. Without movies, everything else would be impossible to discuss.
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Final Destination also achieved high box office results overseas, having grossed $63.278 million to date. This brought Final Destination's global total box office to $124 million, once again setting a new personal box office record for Gilbert. This achievement might not seem like much more than ten years later, but at that time, Hollywood had just begun the era of commercial films and was still early in the globalized film era. Final Destination's performance was quite good. Tom Cruise starring in films that crossed a hundred million globally would be boasted about for ages, let alone Gilbert, who had two consecutive films gross over a hundred million globally. It was precisely because of this that Gilbert's new work attracted so much industry attention, even enticing Michael Ovitz to try pushing the package deal policy into his production team.
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Before the casting auditions began, Gilbert first scouted several outdoor locations and selected California State Routes 105 and 110 as filming sites. Both of these highways were still under construction and not yet open to the public. Producer Charles Roven negotiated for a long time with the local contractors, persistently wearing them down until they agreed to let the production use the sites. At the same time, Gilbert decided that all explosion scenes and high-speed car chases would be filmed practically, with only minimal special effects added. For this, Cain Waxman made several trips to Los Angeles County to obtain permits for practical filming, resolving procedural issues.
While scouting the highways, Gilbert noticed a broken bridge. He called over his director of photography, Dul Randolph, and the stunt coordinator for vehicle stunts, Luca Farias, to discuss. "Dul, Luca, I want to shoot a scene like this: looking at a broken bridge, what would the effect be if the bus drove directly over it?" Gilbert proposed his idea.
Dul thought it over and said, "It's possible. From a visual standpoint, it would definitely be very exciting."
"Director, you'll need to reduce the weight of the bus, otherwise it won't make it," Luca Farias said.
"Alright," Gilbert thought of a solution. "We'll prepare two or three buses, remove all unnecessary parts, leaving only the driver's seat and safety devices. Dul, I need to mount the cameras inside the bus to shoot this scene from a first-person perspective, and we also need to set up two cameras on the road outside to film simultaneously." Gilbert gestured the angles and explained his ideas to them.
With the rise of action films, car stunts were not uncommon, but no production team or director had ever been crazy enough to move cameras onto the actual vehicles for practical shooting; even James Cameron hadn't done that. However, Dul Randolph and Luca Farias were very excited. They went back, gathered their teams, and began simulating scenarios and modifying the buses.