The next day, the matter continued to grow, the majority of the newspapers overwhelmingly denounced Columbia at the same time, and maybe because they started to run out of places to vent, they even begun to accuse the owner of Columbia, the Coca-Cola group, to have played a part in that lowly business strategy. Columbia Pictures results had hit rock bottom long ago, so Coca-Cola Group had originally not cared much about this trivial company.

Surprisingly, the day after the market opened, Coca-Cola who had always been very stable, had its share price directly fall by 1.7%. This figure might seem insignificant, but if you linked it to the tens of billions of dollars in market value, the higher ups werent so calm.

Coca-Colas CEO, Roberto Goizueta, directly called Blount Cohen and madly cursed at him, ordering him to quickly resolve this matter or he would have him step down from his position of Columbias CEO.

Under the pressure from the Coca-Cola headquarters, at ten oclock, Blount Cohen personally held a press conference in Columbia. He politely apologized to Eric, and promised that they would seriously uphold their part of the gambling agreement.

Eric got the news, and didnt intend to let things run amok any longer, he immediately let his personal lawyer, Edward Lewis, publish a statement in The Los Angeles Times about accepting their apology. Thus, the emerging storm started to rapidly subside.

Because of the controversy, they expected thatHome Alones tickets sales would experience a decline, but after receiving the weeks data, not only did it not fall, the sales had risen instead. The movie had made 28,760,000$, breaking the 50 million $ mark in its second week of running.

17 Againmade 14,730,000 $, maintaining its second place at the box office. Erics two movies together had made more than 50% of the total North American box office this week, which again left people in wonder.

Although the results were amazing, the medias attention slowly died down. And after several days of not being able to get any useful news, the reporters that had been camping around Erics neighborhood finally began to leave.

This week, Eric basically stayed at home and concentrated on writingResident Evilthat he had promised to Michael Klaus. His past world had two version of the series, one was the Capcom game story line, the other was the film version with Alice as the main lead. Unfortunately, Eric had only played the fourth and sixth chapters of the game series, so he didnt understand a lot about it.

As for the movie version, there was obviously not much that could be written, since it was based on game content, it only featured Milla Jovovichs badass moments.

Therefore, writing theResident Evilnovel wasnt as easy as writingJurassic Park, Eric spent three days before he conceived the outline for Leon alone. From him joining the police at the beginning, until all of them working together to escape Raccoon Citys outbreak.

The protagonists from his past, Chris, Jill, Wesker and more were cleverly integrated into the novel. Of course, the most popular amongst Chinese fans, sister Wong, was certainly indispensable. Eric very wickedly portrayed Ada Wong and Leons relationship as a Queen and her toyboy.

This was not something Eric had come up with, in the internet of his past, many fans of the game had expressed their desire for the twos relationship to be this way.

In the ga

mes, the sultry and elegant Ada Wong often appeared when Leon was in trouble, calmly helping him before drifting away.

While Eric was manipulating a water kettle into the kitchen, James Brooks was sitting on the couch in the living room, readingResident Evils manuscript.

James, what do you think ? He pushed a cup of coffee he had just brewed in front of James as he sat opposite him and asked.

It give the sense of a screen, people have a feeling of being there, like watching a movie, its very exciting.

Eric nodded, James assessment was on point. In his past career, Eric had spent a lot of time writing and had become proficient in giving a sense of vividness to his texts.

If it were to be made into a movie ? Eric asked again.

James put down the manuscript, and seriously said: I think at this stage, its not suitable for the novel to be adapted to the screen. Although people enjoy the zombie theme, the audience is still quite sparse, so you wouldnt be able to invest a lot in it for fear of making a loss. If you want to adapt it into a movie, youll need a lot of special effects, and too little investment will ruin this. So I think it would be better to wait for the technology to develop further, maybe a few years later the cost of production would be cheaper too.

Indeed a great producer, with a few words he had outlinedResident Evils adaptation prospects and limitations. In Erics past, a lot ofResident Evilfans had complained about the movie company investing too little in the series: What kind of special effects are those ? Mira again, seriously ?? They hadnt really shot the movie in accordance to the fans wishes, which resulted in them suffering a loss.

After chatting aboutResident Evila little, James told Eric why he had come.

The Fox is inviting me to a reception ? He thought James had come to discussHome Aloneoverseas copyrights, he didnt think it would be about another matter.

These days, Eric had already received several phone calls about the movie, even Michael Eisner who had initially joined hands with Columbia was no exception. But he had already his own plans in mind, so he directly refused them all.

Seeing Erics taken aback expression, James smiled and said: I heard youve been getting a lot of offers aboutHome Alonelately, I also heard that you turned them all down. I thought that maybe you were waiting for the 20th Century Fox to take the initiative, am I right ?

Erics eyes flashed briefly with surprise, he had indeed been waiting for the Foxs offer so as to have the upper hand. Now that the other party had guessed it, if Eric denied it in front of James Brooks, he would look petty.

He shrugged and smiled: That was indeed my intention James, after all, our mutual relationship is quite a happy one.

James sincerely said: Thats why I personally came today. In fact, Mr. Barry Diller would also like to meet you to talk aboutHome Alone,Jurassic Park, and your upcoming movie.

Oh my, is the Fox getting greedy ?

James smiled and said: This has nothing to do with greed, Eric, this is business. If the Fox does not do it, others will become interested instead. Besides, we are certainly not as short-sighted as Columbia, we hope that our two sides can cooperate in mutual benefit.

Of course, Eric was not stupid enough to really believe those words. That was only Foxs excuse, the real reason was most certainly because they had missed out on the priorHome Alones distribution rights. The Giants were all the same, they battled for profits on every single front, it was just that some were smarter than others.

But right now, Eric had to rely on the backing of one of those giants, so as to reduce the others covetous intents, he had to first better protect himself to secretly increase his strength. After a comparative assessment, Eric selected the Fox.

For the next few years, the companys main goal under Barry Dillers leadership would be to launch the Foxs television network, so relatively speaking, their attention in movie would certainly decrease, which would be Erics opportunity to spread his wings.