Chapter 721: 721
Two months ago, when Joseph began to investigate the conspiracy behind Long Mayer and Tracy Jacobs, he had an ominous premonition. At that time, he felt that things must not be that simple. However, Joseph has always focused on Hugo-related situations, but did not find that the ominous premonition was directed at him.
Obviously, Lang Mayer and Tracy Jacobs have been targeting Hugo and want to alienate Hugo and Joseph. Then, the plan against Joseph must be very necessary. If Joseph can be truly attacked, it will be equivalent to putting Hugo in an isolated situation, which basically means directly cutting off Hugo's connections and most of the Jewish support for Hugo at that time has not yet been revealed.
Nicholas Cage, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, these three actors are all Joseph's capital and his value as an agent. If they are poached from Joseph and then successfully split Hugo and Joseph, then Joseph, a novice who has been in the industry for less than two years, will have his true meridians cut off and his martial arts are completely useless.
Although Joseph's ability is indeed limited compared to his top senior agent, considering that Hugo is his first artist, and before Hugo, he was just a novice who had just entered an internship in an international innovation management company, all Joseph's abilities started from scratch. It is really not easy for Joseph to be able to get to this day.
From this we can see that Joseph does have the potential to be an agent. But if no artist is willing to cooperate with Joseph, it is like Carl before, then even if Joseph has all kinds of martial arts, there is no place to display it. Especially the lack of connections among new agents, it is difficult to have a convincing conviction.
Lang Mayer and Tracy Jacobs' plan to disagree with Hugo and Joseph, and once achieved excellent results, even giving them the upper hand. Although they did not let the two of them tear down the contract in the end, it can still be seen that Lang and Tracy's ability. The reason why Hugo and Joseph did not break up was because of friendship, but this bond did not exist in Joseph and the others. Therefore, the plan quickly achieved results on the other three people.
Matt and Ben, after signing with Joseph last year, did get some job opportunities and very good opportunities. However, in the process of internal innovation management company, they received greater temptations. They are more experienced than Joseph, more famous than Joseph, and more capable agents, which are difficult for them to refuse.
Compared to Matt, Nicholas has already achieved great results. He can be regarded as a stage of hesitation between the first and second tiers, so he naturally attracted more attention. The olive branch extended by the innovative artist agency made Nicholas particularly excited.
After Nicholas reached a cooperation agreement with Joseph last year, Joseph quickly took over two works for him, "Red.rock.west" and "deadfall". Strictly speaking, these two works are works that Nicholas had negotiated before, and Joseph was only responsible for negotiating the details of the contract such as pay and working hours. But in any case, these two works are a good start for the cooperation between Joseph and Nicholas.
At that time, Nicholas and Joseph were definitely in the honeymoon period, which was also the time when Joseph ignored Hugo on the road tour. Joseph devoted almost all his time to Nicholas.
Unfortunately, both of these two works failed one after another, and both reputation and box office were a failure. This put Nicholas under tremendous pressure, and Joseph's life was not easy. Although Joseph did not take on the work and he was only responsible for negotiating the contract, Nicholas still inevitably took his anger.
However, Nicholas still gave Joseph a chance, and Joseph brought him the work "The First Lady's Bodyguard (guarding.tess). From the selection of works to the contract negotiations, all of them were handled by Joseph, showing Joseph's outstanding ability.
During the New Year's Eve, although Nicholas was invited by an innovative artist agency, he decided to give Joseph a chance to see the results of "First Lady's Bodyguard" after it was released.
"First Lady's Bodyguard" was released two weeks ago. The movie won the weekly championship with a record of 9 million US dollars in the first week, but the box office fell by 30 percentage points in the second week, and the performance was not as expected. Moreover, the reputation of the movie was mediocre, and more positive reviews were concentrated on the heroine Shirley Maclaine.
In fact, strictly speaking, Joseph's choice is worthy of recognition. Although it did not make Nicholas reach a peak again, his overall performance is already quite good. At least he received more positive feedback than Nicholas's previous two works. If it were placed at other times, Nicholas probably wouldn't have any ideas, but he received an invitation from the innovative artist agency, which made the matter intriguing.
In recent times, there have been few rumors about Nicholas, Matt and the three of us changing agents, but some have emerged in fragments. In the eyes of others, this is also a normal situation. It is not uncommon for us to change agents in this circle, so it has not caused any trouble.
But in Joseph's eyes, he could see the clues at once, and he finally realized what his indescribable premonition was.
"Do you know?" Carl was surprised at Joseph's reaction, and he asked in surprise.
Joseph smiled, "Of course, my source of information is more than you." Now, in terms of connections, Joseph is indeed much better than Carl, and Joseph's ability growth is obvious to all. Therefore, it is impossible for Carl to know that Joseph has no news at all, which is abnormal.
"So what?" Carl did not pursue the matter, and immediately returned to the main issue, "What are you going to do?"
"What should I do?" Faced with Carl's seriousness and urgency, Joseph was very relaxed, as if he was talking about other people's affairs.
Carl couldn't help but feel a little frustrated, and a little angry, "Cage, are you going to keep him? Are you going to let go like this?"
Joseph knew that Carl was worried about him, so he stopped the action of sorting out the clothing catalog in his hand, looked at Carl, and said seriously, "Carl, I have made a choice."
Carl was stunned for a moment, and then carefully savored Joseph's words, and he understood that Joseph chose Hugo, which obviously made Carl not know how to respond.
In recent times, although he has been too busy with office affairs, Joseph still went to the "Speed of Life and Death" crew to supervise Hugo's filming without any obstacles. This shows Joseph's determination. Among Nicholas and Hugo, he chose the latter. Or more accurately, in Joseph's own career and Hugo's career, he chose the latter.
Joseph did not choose himself this time for the multiple-choice question.
Joseph looked at the pause and doubt on Carl's face, and smiled and patted his shoulder, "Carl, make a choice, this is our job. Every choice is difficult. We don't know what consequences will be caused by choice. It may be success or failure. But this time I know that my choice is wise."
Carl opened his mouth but could not say anything. In fact, Carl knew that Joseph was still guilty. What Joseph did in the past few months was indeed not a wise choice for Hugo. He missed the "Shawshank Redemption" and almost missed the "Pulp novel"; he missed the most important concert of glory to death, almost missed the glory of "almost famous"; he missed the premiere of "Schindler's List" and almost missed the "Schindler's List" celebration banquet... The most important thing is that Joseph did not give Hugo enough trust, and it was Joseph who personally destroyed this friendship.
So, Joseph wants to compensate now. But Carl doesn't know if this is correct.
Joseph knew that he was wrong when he looked at Carl's expression. He couldn't help but smile, "Carl, I'm not feeling guilty, I don't want to make up for it. I just made the right choice." This made Carl stunned.
"Carl, in friendship and career, I chose friendship because I don't want to be an agent like Lang, remember?" Joseph said seriously. "And, among Hugo and Nicholas, I chose Hugo because Hugo is worth investing in by the broker, and his potential is far beyond our imagination. So, this is just work, don't think too much."
Although Joseph said so, Carl was not convinced by him because he could see dodging and guilt in Joseph's eyes. Carl knew that Joseph had defeated reason now, but he could not say that Joseph's decision was wrong, so he could only give up persuading Joseph.
"Joe, promise me that at least you shouldn't give up on the fight." Carl said persistently, "You may be right, but at least, as agents, when someone is poaching, we should try our best to retain artists unless the artist is voluntarily given up. This is the right thing to do. Promise me, at least you try hard to see."
Joseph looked at Carl's insistence and did not answer immediately. He paused for a while, as if he was savoring it carefully. Finally, he nodded with a smile, "I promise you." After that, Joseph put the clothing catalog in his briefcase and left the office.
Chapter completed!