The suggestions put forward by Douglas Jr. touched Ronald's heart. He himself is also a film director and artist. Sometimes, there is no need to spend too much energy on business operations. He can just listen to the opinions of professionals he trusts and then make a judgment.
In his apartment, Ronald met with his personal lawyer and personal accountant.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen lawyer Lindsay Dole. She still looks like a college girl, slightly mellower than before.
"Are you already a partner?" Ronald asked, looking at the new business card given to him by Lindsay.
"Yes, I brought about half of the paid business to the law firm in a year." Lindsay said proudly.
"Congratulations." Lawrence Wang, a private Chinese accountant, also congratulated the young female lawyer.
"Getting back to the subject, I think you should accept Atlantic's offer, buy out the proceeds and leave." Lawyer Lindsay put forward his own idea.
"I have a different opinion. The marketing expenses they gave are too false. This is no longer a bill that a professional accountant can see. Even students who have just studied the balance sheet know that there is a big problem in it." Lawrence said greatly.
Dissatisfied, This kind of fraud is simply an insult to my professional ability.
"Look, the 5.5 million marketing expenses here are simply too bizarre. Even if they made a lot of posters and pop-ups in every theater to promote it, it's impossible for a theater to spend close to 10,000 U.S. dollars.
Moreover, the distributor did not do a lot of advertising on TV media or mass print media, nor did they do any trailer advertising before other movies were screened. I think here they at least falsely reported more than one million US dollars.
There are also distribution costs. The unit price of large-scale production of copies cannot be so expensive. Even if the distributors negotiate with each other, they will not spend so much.
In total, they falsely reported costs of close to 1.4 million, from which we can get an additional share of about 300,000."
Ronald looked at lawyer Lindsay.
"I agree with you. But if you want to litigate, there are several difficulties. First, obtaining evidence in the film industry has always been the most difficult. Marketing materials will be discarded after use. If the movie theater has this on its account
Compared with expenses, it is difficult for us to rationally convince him or the jury in front of the judge that Atlantic Company has made false accounts.
Second, in order to shoot and distribute this film, Atlantic Company actually established a separate project company to handle all matters. So even if we win the case, we will face the situation of bankruptcy or cancellation of this project company.
If he then seeks recourse from his shareholders, he will face a series of legal troubles.
Third, the money is not too much. To win the lawsuit, you have to summon multiple theater owners as witnesses and spend money to hire expert witnesses from the film industry. You need to pay these expenses in advance. So,
It may cost you more to win the relationship than the compensation you receive.
Of course, if we win, we can also pursue punitive damages, which will be far higher than your cost. But this is assuming that you can win the lawsuit. And in this case, you are in the film industry...
"
"Will you have no friends?" Ronald then asked with a wry smile.
"In fact, it would be difficult for you to get this share of dividends. Film companies can easily use various inflated costs to make the entire movie's profits disappear. The reason why Atlantic didn't do this is because of your
The movie's box office far exceeded their expectations, so they couldn't make false accounts to wipe out all the profits.
In addition, they may also want to cooperate with you, so they offered a monthly bonus of 100,000 yuan and the option of early settlement."
Attorney Lindsay Dole made a pencil mark under the number in the contract, "So my advice is, accept him."
Ronald looked at Lawrence Wang again.
"Lawyer Dole is right, I have no objection."
"Okay, that's it, let them write the check." Ronald nodded to Lawrence.
When lawyer Lindsay Dole saw that nothing was going on, she stood up to leave, "Helen asked about you recently, do you want to meet her?"
"Um... I'm very busy when I come to New York this time, so I may not be free." Ronald swallowed as he thought of Lindsay's roommate, prosecutor Helen Gable, wearing a black uniform and the feel of stockings on her legs.
saliva.
"Okay, Brooke Shields, eh?" Lindsay also heard about the scandal, winked at him, and then went to the office to work on other cases.
Ronald then checked in with Lawrence Wang about his finances.
"With the $600,000 deposited into my account this time, plus my stock account, am I already a millionaire?" Ronald was very happy. After working hard for several years, he has made some small achievements. In the future, he will become a millionaire.
Ordinary people have no worries about food and drink. But if you want to support a movie star like Diane or Brooke, you have to continue to make money.
"No, you are already a millionaire without this income." Lawrence opened the report and showed Ronald his stock price.
"The economic policy of the General Secretary has been loose in recent years, and last year's inflation has dropped significantly to only 3.2 percent. The economy has begun to recover, and this year's GDP is expected to grow by more than 4 percent.
Coupled with the implementation of the tax cut bill and various deregulations of the financial industry, more funds have entered the stock market. In short, your stocks have performed very well this year. Because you buy stocks because you want to receive quarterly dividends.
So I don't advise you to sell at a high point.
IBM performed the best, nearly doubling its price. McDonald's and Coca-Cola all saw their share prices rise by more than 50% this year. Only Kodak's share price did not perform as expected, falling 10%.
So your stock assets total more than 850,000 US dollars." Gu Qian
"Oh, really?" Ronald didn't expect that his investment, which he just wanted to earn some dividends and outperform inflation, would actually have such a good growth in stock price. But it's not even one million yet?"
"Have you forgotten the royalties for your best-selling book?" Lawrence took out another record, "Your 'Word Star Book for Dummies' has sold very well. The publisher has reprinted it many times, and the royalties have exceeded 150,000.
Dollar."
"Ah? So many?" Ronald suddenly felt that he had a bright future in writing and selling books.
"Yes, it's very interesting. The number of books you have sold has exceeded the software sales of WordStar Company."
"Oh?" Ronald thought for a moment, "Is it because of piracy?"
"Yes, many people who write using pirated WordStar software want to buy your book because they don't have the manual for the genuine software."
"So with these two incomes of yours, do you still want to invest in any stocks?" Lawrence Wang saw that the prices of the stocks that Ronald bought continued to rise, and he was already quite impressed by his vision.
"Buy me a Coca-Cola." Ronald thought for a while. "Their competitor Pepsi-Cola always cooperates with some losers, such as Burger King. And they are very rich and bought Columbia Pictures. I think
They must be making a lot of money."
"You're right." Lawrence looked at Coca-Cola's annual report. The revenue and profit were both good. "In addition to keeping your taxes next year, I will buy you Coca-Cola shares for the rest."
Ronald nodded and signed the required documents to confirm.
"By the way, there is one more thing." Before Lawrence Wang stood up and left, he hesitated and spoke to Ronald.
"Do you still remember the Chen Guoren case?"
"Remember", Ronald remembered the Chinese man who was beaten to death by two unemployed white auto workers on the street in Detroit because he was regarded as Japanese. He had even donated two thousand yuan to him.
"The Illinois state court decided that the two murderers' charges were reduced from second-degree murder to manslaughter by the white judge.
The prosecutor and the two murderers reached a plea bargain under the arrangement of the judge. Because the charges were minor, they were sentenced not to serve jail time and could be acquitted after only paying a fine of US$3,000.
The judge also said that the two murderers were good people and should not be imprisoned."
"This..." Ronald looked at Lawrence's yellow skin and guessed the reason, "This is not fair."
"Yeah, it's unfair. Ms. Chen, the mother of the deceased, also said that if a Chinese beat a white man to death, this would never be the final verdict. We Chinese are very angry because of this incident.
Chinese-American lawyers also came forward and initiated a federal lawsuit on behalf of the deceased, using civil rights grounds of racial discrimination to re-prosecute the murderer at the federal level."
"In this case, I will write another check for two thousand dollars, and you will donate it to the deceased for me to use for legal proceedings."
"I'll take care of it, thank you, Ronald." Lawrence seemed to have something to say.
"Do you have anything else?"
"I know that this matter may be an unwelcome request to you, but our Chinatown Chamber of Commerce plans to take to the streets before Christmas to fight for this matter and let the media seek justice for us. You are a famous director in Hollywood,
Can you also participate, so that we can attract TV stations other than Chinese TV stations to interview us?"
"It seems that you have a bit of a misunderstanding about my status in Hollywood. Even if I stand on the streets of New York or in front of the three major TV stations, no reporter will recognize me."
"No, you're not with Brooke Shields..." Lawrence asked tentatively.
"I understand your sympathy for your compatriots, but it is impossible for me to bring trouble to Po Ji for this kind of thing." Ronald was also very unhappy with the blind judgment of Chen Guoren's case, but this did not mean that he could
Drag Bogie into the water.
What's more, I still have Diane.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have made such a request. It's just that our Chinatown power is very weak and cannot attract the attention of mainstream media. Several of my uncles have agreed to unite with the Japanese in Little Tokyo in the lower East Village of Manhattan.
Let’s take to the streets to protest together.”
"Aren't you...I remember that China and Japan were feuding people during World War II. How could you be willing to join them?" Ronald asked.
"Hey, this has also caused a lot of controversy. My uncles all fought with the Japanese when they returned to China, or donated the ration money they saved.
But most of the rulers of America are white people. In their eyes, whether they are Chinese, Japanese, or the recently increasing number of Koreans, they all look the same. They are all completely different ethnic groups from them.
The Japanese have now defeated America's manufacturing industry, and now they are also under pressure from the commander-in-chief and the Congress. In this incident, two workers in the automobile industry who were squeezed out of work by the Japanese regarded us Chinese as
Japanese people, so they took the initiative to find us and want to unite."
"Why don't they protest on their own?" Ronald didn't understand. There are many Japanese Americans in America, and their economy is very strong now.
"Huh, they are just defeated countries, we are victorious. In the United Nations, Chinese and Americans are both permanent members of the Security Council and have great power. And on the streets and in American politics, we are far better than those Japanese.
There are many more influential people. They used to follow us Chinese and take advantage."