That evening, at Capet Manor, Evelyn Capet drove over to visit her son.
After receiving a coffee from the maid, Evelyn watched Charles half-lying on the sofa, holding a Chinese edition of "romance of the three kingdoms" and reading it.
"Charles, how is it going? Is Donna Langley willing to join Capet Pictures to help you?"
Charles put down the book, sat up straight, and said with some uncertainty, "She should be interested. I offered her an annual salary of 1.5 million US dollars, and with bonuses and other incentives, her annual income would easily exceed 3 million US dollars."
"Moreover, Cape Entertainment is currently in a period of rapid development. There will be equity incentives in the future. She is an ambitious person, so she should consider it!"
"If you offer any higher, even Mom would want to come to the company to help you," Evelyn chuckled. Currently, Evelyn's annual income is also over 3 million US dollars, depending on the projects her artists participate in that year.
Charles shook his head and said, "You can come over and help me anytime! Cape Entertainment now has over 450 employees!"
"Alright, Mom can also help you in many ways at ETA!" Evelyn Capet shrugged.
"ETA shouldn't just be positioned in the entertainment industry; it needs to expand its influence. The sports industry, the financial sector, and overseas business all need to be developed. Ari Emanuel always limits his vision to Hollywood. How can ETA grow strong?" Charles pouted.
"Helping clients with financing, forming projects, or even creating our own projects, copyright transactions, and so on. Artist management can only be a business module, not the entirety!"
"Currently, the company has a sports and entertainment division, as well as TV and film businesses. Music and novels are all within our business scope," Evelyn Capet also felt that what Charles said made a lot of sense, but expansion requires capital injection to support development.
"Your overseas business and sports divisions still have a lot of market potential. In Hollywood, CAA is very difficult for us to surpass, and UTA and IC also have more substantial foundations than us," Evelyn Capet still saw things very clearly.
"Hey, I heard that Nancy Josephson, one of the co-chairmen of IC, had a conflict with the company and wants to leave. Wasn't she very interested in you before and kept trying to recruit you?" Charles said with a smile.
The mutual poaching between ETA and IC is very fierce, after all, several of ETA's founders came from IC and then formed ETA.
"If I went, could IC give me such great power?" Evelyn said, shaking her head. Moreover, Nancy Josephson was originally the daughter of an IC founder.
Charles nodded and then suggested, "In that case, you should buy more ETA shares to increase your say, and suggest to the shareholders to introduce external capital to support the acquisition of some independent talent agencies!"
Evelyn nodded. Ultimately, if she could directly control ETA, that would also be good. As long as she had enough talented individuals as leverage, ETA would never dare to turn against Evelyn.
"Alright, I'm leaving. You're actually staying home reading on a weekend!" Evelyn said, patting Charles's head.
"How about I transfer 10 million US dollars to your account? Is that enough?" Charles didn't know how much cash Evelyn had at the moment, but ETA's valuation was probably around 100 million US dollars by now.
"Okay, consider it a loan from your mother," Evelyn knew that Charles wasn't short on this money; Charles's personal account had over 25 million US dollars in cash.
"Oh, right, I think I heard you invested in some CDS. Remember to sell them. The housing price increase has slowed down, and the Federal Reserve started its interest rate hike cycle last year. I feel a bubble is coming!" Charles reminded his mother.
"Now? Housing prices have been rising since 2001, and they're going to stop already?" Evelyn was a bit disbelieving.
Charles said seriously, "Trust me, it won't be long before the bubble bursts. Housing prices can't rise indefinitely. This is just like the tech bubble of 2000. When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to a certain extent, a large number of subprime mortgages will default. While housing prices are high now, quickly sell those credit default swaps!"
Evelyn stared at her son's serious face for a few moments and then nodded, "Mom actually didn't invest much, just over 2 million US dollars!"
"Wait. When the time comes, you can come with me to Wall Street to make money. Most investors have been blinded by the surging housing prices of the past few years. Low-credit loans have made buying a house too easy. Many homebuyers have no ability to pay at all, relying on rising housing prices to offset bank interest. The Federal Reserve raising interest rates will burst the bubble, and a housing market collapse is inevitable!"
This is the best opportunity for a harvest; missing it would truly be letting himself down, letting down his fellow countrymen, and all the gods and buddhas.
"Got it!" Evelyn said, then picked up her bag and walked out.
After Evelyn left, Charles opened his laptop and checked his email for some information.
"batman begins" had been released for half a month and had already grossed 100 million US dollars in North America. "mr. & mrs. smith" had been released a week earlier and now had a North American box office of 100 million US dollars.
"war of the worlds," which premiered at the end of last month, opened in 3,908 theaters in North America with an opening weekend of 64 million US dollars. Its production cost was 100 million US dollars.
The drawing power of Tom Cruise plus Steven Spielberg is truly not to be underestimated.
However, given the status of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, they would take at least half of the profits from "war of the worlds," and that's from the initial gross box office (only deducting theater shares).
And for subsequent revenues like DVD and TV rights, given their status, the base points would certainly be very high!
Fortunately, Spielberg would not personally direct the live-action "transformers" movie, otherwise Hasbro would not even consider other companies.
Michael Bay, the director Spielberg recommended to Hasbro, has "the island" opening on the 22nd of this month, while "wedding crashers" opens a week earlier on the 15th.
Michael Bay's sci-fi blockbuster was easily defeated by his own romantic comedy. Would Hasbro still have faith in Michael Bay?
Charles took out his phone and called Phyllis Jones, instructing him to arrange for Charles to visit Hasbro's executives again.
"Boss, when will we travel?" Phyllis Jones asked over the phone.
"By the end of this month. I'll visit Rhode Island then!" Charles replied, as it would be more convincing at that time.