I am Hollywood

[Chapter 956: One Point Five Percent]

Playa Vista.

In one of the studios of Firefly Films, it had been transformed into Tony Stark's workshop. Eric had just returned to Los Angeles from Boston, where the entire creative team of the Iron Man movie had chosen this place for their first pre-production gathering.

While Eric had originally expressed his intention to take on the role of producer personally, in reality, most of the initial preparations for the film had been completed by Marvel Entertainment's CEO, Avi Arad, along with director Joss Whedon. Because of this, Eric had ended up with a role similar to that of Stan Lee as an executive producer.

Even though Eric had little time to be deeply involved in the set design, props, and other pre-production details, he still made the final decisions regarding the film's key characters. Besides himself and Bridget Fonda, who played Pepper Potts, he largely stuck with 'the original team' for the other supporting roles.

The primary antagonist, Obadiah Stane, was played by Jeff Bridges. Eric did not consider Terrence Howard, who had a mediocre performance in the first Iron Man, for the role of Colonel Rhodes, and instead, the character went to Don Cheadle. For Agent Phil Coulson, who had significant scenes in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe's first phase and would be essential for the planned S.H.I.E.L.D. series, Eric once again chose Clark Gregg.

In the original timeline, both Don Cheadle and Clark Gregg would rise to fame in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series over a decade later. However, they had both debuted in the 1980s and possessed a wealth of acting experience. Their ages were also perfectly fine; Don Cheadle was born in 1964 and was 34 this year, while Clark Gregg was two years older.

Interestingly, during the casting for the original Iron Man and The Avengers, both actors would have been seen as somewhat too old for their roles. Eric believed they were chosen because Marvel wanted to save money while still hiring talented actors.

The only source of indecision for Eric was who to choose for the role of Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. In the cinematic universe, Nick Fury remained a Black character; however, the original Samuel L. Jackson had already taken part in the Star Wars prequels.

The first of the Star Wars prequels would be released later that year, and Samuel L. Jackson's role as Mace Windu closely resembled that of Nick Fury. The release schedule of the prequel trilogy overlapped significantly with the first phase of the Marvel Universe, making it impossible to separate the two. Samuel L. Jackson was thus no longer suitable to portray a similar character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

...

"I finally told him, Denzel, you've made so many movies that nobody's watched; don't you want to be part of a real blockbuster?" In the studio, Avi Arad shared his failed attempt to invite Denzel Washington for the Nick Fury role, laughing softly, "Then I got kicked out."

Around him, Eric, Bridget Fonda, and Joss Whedon all chuckled.

Eric's top candidate for Nick Fury was unavailable, so Avi Arad quickly thought of Denzel Washington. Although Nick Fury would be a recurring character throughout the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he was essentially a supporting role, often just a cameo in some films. Denzel Washington, however, was Hollywood's only major Black star who primarily played lead roles, earning a salary on par with leading white male stars. Eric did not have high hopes of being able to convince Denzel Washington to play the role of Nick Fury, so he let Avi Arad take the lead on that front.

The outcome was predictable.

"If only Morgan Freeman could be twenty years younger, or even just ten years younger, perhaps he could try for this role," Eric shook his head and asked the others, "Do you guys have any other suggestions?"

"Eric, actually, I think there's someone who's very suitable," Joss Whedon replied hesitantly before stating, "It's the actor who played Morpheus in The Matrix, Laurence Fishburne."

After Joss Whedon finished speaking, everyone around went silent, looking at Eric, eager to see his reaction.

Two years earlier, Firefly had sold the rights for the two Matrix sequels to Amblin Entertainment under the guise of being pressured by fans. However, the details surrounding that decision remained largely unknown. Nobody thought that Eric had actively decided to sell the Matrix rights.

Overjoyed, Eric slapped the desk beside him and exclaimed, "Laurence Fishburne! How did I forget about him?" He realized that his earlier recommendations didn't include Fishburne's name.

Noticing the expressions of those around him, Eric understood why Joss Whedon had waited until now to suggest Fishburne. It seemed they believed he would never hire any actors from the Matrix series, considering Eric had been the one to relinquish those rights.

With The Matrix 2 already scheduled for release that summer and with Amblin yet to announce the release date for the third installment, inviting Laurence Fishburne for the role of Nick Fury would perfectly align with the publicity he had gained from The Matrix.

"That's it," Eric nodded and told Avi Arad, "Contact Laurence immediately and secure him for the role."

Avi Arad, surprised by Eric's swift agreement, asked, "Eric, are you sure?"

"Of course. If you guys had brought this up earlier, I wouldn't have had to ponder for so long," Eric replied, chuckling and saying, "Aren't you disappointed I didn't blow up or get angry about any of this?"

They all laughed again, and the atmosphere lightened back to normal.

After some more discussion, Avi Arad asked, "Eric, when are you planning on announcing that you're taking on the role of Iron Man yourself?"

Eric thought for a moment before replying, "I'm sure the news has already leaked out. So let's not announce anything, and just start filming. Let the media gradually discover this news; it may even boost the film's publicity."

After today's meeting, the news would surely be impossible to hide. However, as long as Firefly Group did not make an official announcement, skepticism would certainly follow this report. The fact that Eric Williams would portray Tony Stark sounded too much like a hoax at first glance.

By the time the media uncovered the accurate details, the hype surrounding Iron Man would be substantial enough to save a considerable amount on marketing.

...

As the workday came to an end, and just before leaving, Caroline deliberately arrived to hand Eric two documents.

One was Nokia's annual financial report for 1997, and the other was from Forbes magazine.

Drew had called during lunch, asking Eric to come to her house in Thousand Oaks tonight to help look at the sample footage for The Beverly Girls reality show. E! Entertainment had confirmed it would officially air the long-prepared reality show on February 17th.

After Eric got into the car, he instructed the driver to head to Thousand Oaks, then opened Nokia's financial report as he settled back into the seat.

The financial report from Nokia was quite uplifting. In the 1997 fiscal year, Nokia sold 31.2 million phones globally, capturing 32% of the global mobile market share, formally breaking away from Ericsson and Motorola to become the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world.

At the same time, Nokia's market value had soared to 163.4 billion Finnish marks, equivalent to about 30.5 billion dollars. The company reported annual revenues of 13.8 billion dollars, with a net profit after tax of 1.135 billion dollars.

As the holding entity with a direct 51% stake in Nokia, The Hawaii Fund would also receive around 580 million dollars in profit dividends for the very first time.

While companies like Cisco and LTD under the Firefly investment umbrella had begun generating profits, the detailed financial reports for those companies had yet to be released. However, the cumulative profits from these companies would still be enough to support Firefly Investment's expansion in the current year.

...

In addition to the 1 billion dollars investment into Yahoo and continued support for Firefly Electronics' growth, Steve Case was increasingly inclined to distance himself from Eric's original "Cisco-AOL-Yahoo" information industry alliance plan. This year, the dispute between Firefly Investment and Steve Case's management over the control of AOL had become almost unavoidable.

To gain control of AOL, Firefly Investment would definitely have to increase its stake in the company. Currently, AOL's market value had exceeded 23 billion dollars, and the available circulated shares had almost been exhausted by major investment institutions.

To increase their stake, they would have to pay a premium to purchase shares from existing investors. To ensure control, Firefly Investment needed to push its holding in AOL as close to 40% as possible, requiring a massive influx of capital.

Juggling these thoughts about AOL while flipping through the 80-plus pages of Nokia's financial report, the car had already arrived at Drew's mansion in Thousand Oaks.

...

After Eric handed over the folder to Natasha behind him, the girl affectionately linked her arm with Eric's as they walked into the villa. "Eric, do you want to take a shower first?"

"Maybe later," Eric shook his head and asked, "I haven't really kept up with the Fast and Furious lately; is the filming going smoothly?"

As they sat down together on the couch in the living room, she nodded and said, "Of course! Amy and I just visited the set this morning. The filming for Mission: Impossible 3 is also going well. Both films should be able to hit theaters by the end of this year. Desperate Housewives has also started filming, and we've scheduled the airing date for February 26th, on Thursday night."

Eric took the coffee that Eve handed him, relaxed as he took a sip, and nodded, "That sounds good. It's a bit earlier than most shows in the spring lineup, so we can capture more attention. You and Amy must have seen the sample footage for The Beverly Girls already - what did you think?"

"It's interesting, but I still want you to take a look and let me know if there's anything that needs changing." The girl nodded, then seeing Eric glance at the two documents on the coffee table, she took them and asked, "Eric, what's this?"

"It's Nokia's financial report, and this one is from Forbes magazine," he replied, "I haven't looked at it yet; it should be this year's list."

As he spoke, Eric noted that Forbes had finally wised up this year. Last year's billionaire list special had completely ignored him, directly using the sensitive topic of 'oligarch' as a headline, leading Firefly Group to cut its advertising budget for the Forbes Group media by half.

Hearing it was this year's billionaire list, the girl instantly became excited, tossing aside the Nokia report to eagerly open the material sent by Forbes. After glancing at the headline, her brow furrowed slightly.

"Eric, they're using 1.5% as their headline - what does that even mean? It's so strange."

For a moment, Eric couldn't recall what it suggested either, then he looked at the content of the document alongside her and felt a sense of exasperation. Forbes still wasn't content, always trying to concoct a juicy story to grab public attention.

In 1937, when John D. Rockefeller, the head of the Rockefeller family, passed away, his personal wealth was valued by the media at 1.4 billion dollars when the GDP of the United States was 92 billion dollars.

In other words, Rockefeller's wealth alone accounted for 1.5% of the nation's GDP.

After reading the introductory part of the article, Eric began piecing together what was going on.

Beneath the introduction was a striking table showing the asset data for Firefly Investment Company up to December 31st of last year.

Cisco: Market Value $63.5 billion, holding 26% - 16.51 billion.

Sprint: Market Value $30.2 billion, holding 10% - 3.02 billion.

Nokia: Market Value $30.5 billion, holding 51% - 15.55 billion.

AOL: Market Value $23.3 billion, holding 30% - 6.99 billion.

LTD: Market Value $11.7 billion, holding 35% - 4.095 billion.

Qualcomm: Market Value $5.76 billion, holding 41% - 2.36 billion.

Amazon: Market Value $5.6 billion, holding 27% - 1.51 billion.

Apple: Market Value $3.3 billion, holding 12% - 396 million.

Yahoo Network Inc.: (estimated) $15 billion, holding 85% - 12.75 billion.

Firefly Electronics: (estimated) $3 billion, holding 100% - 3 billion.

Simultaneously, according to each company's holding proportion and Eric's personal stake in Firefly Investment at 97%, his individual asset level had reached $63.18 billion. Chris's 3% shares in Firefly Investment also brought his personal wealth to $2 billion.

Due to Eric's other significant asset, Firefly Group, being a privately held entity, Forbes didn't provide detailed statistics on the values of Firefly Group's subsidiaries, simply giving an overall valuation of the group at $100 billion, consistent with the majority of Wall Street institutions' assessments.

With Eric holding 73.7% of Firefly Group, his personal wealth had surged further by $73.7 billion.

Ultimately, Eric's total net worth had reached $136.88 billion, while the publicly reported GDP figure for the United States in 1997 was $8.58 trillion. Eric's wealth accounted for 1.59% of the U.S. GDP, perfectly matching Rockefeller family's wealth peak.

*****

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