Robert Downey Jr.'s role in Two and a Half Men could be considered a coincidence, mainly because Adriaan had no interest in letting Charlie Sheen play the lead role in the TV series. In his previous life, he had a certain level of understanding of the popular TV series. Charlie Sheen's various bad deeds had brought a lot of trouble to the production team. Although he managed to play the role, and although the production team had given him a lot of tolerance, he was eventually kicked out of the show. However, that was something that happened several seasons later. The character was already deeply rooted in people's hearts, and even though everyone felt that the actor should be changed, the ratings inevitably dropped a lot.
Therefore, when Adriaan decided to cut off the source of the problem, he first eliminated Charlie Sheen after the production of the TV series. However, there had to be a suitable actor to play the lead role, right? Hence, Robert Downey Jr. entered the picture.
Like most young actors, Robert Downey Jr. became reckless after he became famous, especially after he was nominated for an Oscar. He became even more arrogant and unscrupulous when he did things, such as taking drugs, speeding, trespassing, and so on. In 1996 alone, he was arrested multiple times, and because he repeatedly broke probation and bail rules, he ended up serving two sentences in jail for a total of 16 months.
Even so, he was still involved in a prisoner brawl at the beginning of 1998. Then, he was released from prison for treatment due to his facial injuries, and it was only at the end of July that he was released on parole.
Although Robert Downey Sr.'s relationship with his son had always been rocky, he still cared about him as a father, so he went around trying to find an opportunity for him through his connections. As Robert Downey Sr. had been a screenwriter for the TV series Mission: Impossible, Adriaan had worked with him when the first Mission: Impossible movie was produced, so he eventually came to him.
Without much thought, Adriaan decided to let Robert Downey Jr. play the role that originally belonged to Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men. Although Downey Jr. had not been much different from Charlie Sheen in the past four years, and many people in the industry were avoiding him, believing that he would never be able to pull himself together, Adriaan knew how things would develop in the future.
As long as Downey Jr. succeeded in his drug rehabilitation, coupled with his top-notch acting skills, this investment was definitely worth it. Timely help was always more appreciated than icing on the cake. Of course, a proper beating was also necessary.
"I still remember how high-spirited you were when you were nominated for an Oscar, Robert. At that time, I had just become a little famous. Time flies. I really didn't expect that the talented you would fall to this point. It's such a pity," Adriaan said after greeting Downey Jr. at his seaside villa in Malibu.
"Life is always full of temptations. When your mind isn't clear, it's easy to make mistakes." Downey Jr. sighed. He was clean-shaven and dressed neatly, but he was a little thin and did not look well. Apparently, he could not bear to look back on the ten months he had spent in prison.
But at the same time, he had also grown up a lot. So, although Adriaan spoke a little like an old man, he always maintained a respectful expression. After all, he was two or three years older than him. Of course, even if Downey Jr. was still the same person he was a few years ago, he would not have dared to act rashly. Adriaan was a well-known figure, and like Solomon, they were about the same age. Ten years ago, he was just a small director. Ten years later, he was already a media mogul. How could he stand up straight?
"It's great to hear you say that. Although we often say that God will forgive young people when they make mistakes, the premise is that they have to know where they are wrong and be willing to correct it." Adriaan looked at him and smiled. "I've asked someone to look into what happened in Los Angeles County Prison. After you were imprisoned, you behaved very well. You were involved in the fight. The reason why I decided to let you play a role in this TV series, in addition to your father's words, is that you have a desire to correct yourself. I believe that you won't let your father and me down, right?"
"I won't," Downey Jr. answered briefly. When Adriaan mentioned his father, a complicated look appeared on his face.
"Then you will accept some necessary arrangements, right?" Adriaan asked immediately. Downey Jr. did not say anything. He frowned and looked at Adriaan inquiringly.
"I will ask the company to monitor your behavior, urge you to cooperate with the parole officer, make sure that you will not touch drugs again, and supervise you to participate in drug rehabilitation activities." Adriaan spread out his hands. Then, without giving Downey Jr. a chance to speak, he continued, "All these will be written into the contract. As long as you do things according to the rules, we will also endorse you. Also, if you want to stay in a hotel, be sure to arrange it well."
Downey Jr., who had been suppressing his dissatisfaction, frowned again when he heard the last sentence. He was not a fool, and he could tell that there was a hidden meaning in Adriaan's words. But who would target him? Adriaan could not answer this question. He had made this decision mainly based on a piece of information he found in his memory. It was about Downey Jr. being sent to prison again in 2000 for drug possession.
At that time, Downey Jr. also acted in a TV series, which was one of the reasons why Adriaan considered him. One day, when he checked into a hotel in Palm Springs, the police received an anonymous call saying that Downey Jr. had hidden a lot of cocaine and Valium in his room. When the police went to the hotel, they found a lot. Although Downey Jr. argued that he was under the influence of drugs, he was still charged.
Since he had a criminal record and was caught red-handed, he naturally lost his new job. After he was released from prison, he was found wandering barefoot on the streets of Culver City. He was suspected of abusing drugs, and he was sent to the police station again. Although he only stayed for a few hours this time, some of the film crews that had been in contact with him at the beginning all backed out. After that, he made up his mind to spend two years in rehab, and then slowly got back on his feet.
Leaving Downey Jr.'s problem aside, the anonymous call was very interesting. If it had been made by someone in the hotel, the media would have mentioned it. But from beginning to end, everyone, including the police, said that it was an anonymous call. So, there was no guarantee that someone was not targeting him. In the 1990s, he had offended a lot of people.
So, Adriaan gave him a reminder and urged him to get rid of drugs. If Downey Jr. made a mistake again, he would end up even more miserable than he had in his previous life. After all, Adriaan had personally invited and arranged the contract. If he still did something wrong, it would mean that Adriaan had bad taste, and the consequences would be obvious.
If Downey Jr. really had a strong desire to turn over a new leaf, he would have agreed even if he had not experienced the last two unfortunate incidents. Of course, he could choose not to agree. That was his freedom. But in the future, certain movies would no longer have anything to do with him. Adriaan was not interested in training people who were not his own people. In Hollywood, no one was irreplaceable.
In the end, Robert Downey Jr. agreed, and Two and a Half Men was scheduled to be released in the fall. Adriaan, who had seen the sample, was quite satisfied with his performance. At the same time, he told the crew to keep a close eye on Downey Jr. It was one thing for him to mess around, but it was another thing for someone to deliberately do something to him. If it was the latter, Adriaan would teach someone a lesson.
Other than that, there were a few TV series to be released, one of which was Double-Faced Spy, starring Hu Kaili. Although Charlie and Dolls 2 had already finished filming and would probably be released next year, and she had a good relationship with Drew and Cameron, she still agreed to act in the TV series.
Hu Kaili was very clear about her position. Her natural conditions had already determined that it would be difficult for her to have a long-term career in the film industry, so she was not against a role in a TV series. Moreover, as for whether having a Chinese female lead would affect the ratings, Adriaan did not take it to heart. Putting aside the fact that Hu Kaili was only a quarter Chinese like Reeves, Double-Faced Spy was scheduled to be broadcast on a cable channel, and the cable channel had to be subscribed to. Regardless of whether the subscribers liked the other shows on the channel, they still had to watch it.
At most, the time slot would be slightly worse, but they could adjust it to a better date. If Tuesday was not possible, then Wednesday would be fine. These two days were always the peak of the ratings, and if a TV series was moved to Friday, it was generally equivalent to announcing that it was going to be axed or ended. In order to fight for a good time slot for American Idol, Charlize argued for a long time in the executive meeting.
Many people thought that although this talent show had potential, it had not been tested by the audience, and ABC already had enough shows with high ratings, so there was no need to make room for this show. However, Charlize took out the audition data that was in full swing and debated with the executives one by one. The detailed information and sharp words left them almost speechless.
"This is not only related to the success or failure of this show, but also our spirit of enterprise! Gentlemen, the reason why ABC has been able to develop to this point, even in the face of losses, is because of continuous experimentation, innovation, and exploration, not by pinning our hopes on a few shows with high ratings! "Apparently, this was how Charlize ended his speech.
Although this was slightly exaggerated, with Charlize's impassioned tone and the temperament of a strong woman that had always been shown, several executives at the meeting were stunned. So, they finally made a compromise. They could appropriately put part of the competition on Wednesday, and then decide whether to put the finals on Tuesday based on the ratings.
"Your assistant secretary is an amazing woman, Eide," Paul Pollard, the current CEO of ABC, said to Adriaan at a cocktail party.
"I'm just telling the truth," Charlize said.
"How did you train her?" Claude was full of curiosity.
"She's doing a good job." Ivanka pretended to not care.
In any case, now all of ABC knew that the new female director of the planning department was a very bold and capable woman. The other executives were not angry after being rebutted by her. One reason was that they knew who was standing behind her, and another reason was that Charlize did not embarrass them when she rebutted. In addition, her swift and decisive style made the planning department run quite efficiently. So, the title of "Ice Queen" began to slowly spread.
Alright, back to "Double-Faced Spy." As long as a suitable time slot was arranged, and the TV series itself was very attractive, the ratings might not be high at the beginning, but it should slowly become popular later on.
As everyone knew, American TV series only had one episode per week. For many TV series, it was very necessary to set up a sufficiently attractive cliffhanger at the end of each episode and season. "Double-Faced Spy" did this very well. Adriaan still remembered that in his previous life, someone commented that this TV series was the most brain-draining compared to a certain sci-fi TV series. There were all kinds of big and small conspiracies intertwined together, making it difficult to tell which were real and which were fake.
This was actually a very good way to make up a story. After all, as long as one conspiracy was about to be completely exposed, it would be enough to introduce a bigger conspiracy. As long as the degree was well controlled, once the ratings dropped, it would be no problem to end the show or directly cut it. There was a saying, "As long as you dare to underestimate the IQ of Americans, you will be successful."
Although there were a lot of shows with high ratings, Adrian had given some good shows to CBS, NBC, and WB. This fall, in addition to "American Idol," "The Apprentice," and "Project Runway's Prodigies," were also going to air. Therefore, some adjustments had been made to the reality shows. For example, "Millionaire" was upgraded to "The Wise Ones," which had been handed over to wireless stations. But the more shows with high ratings, the better.
With the rapid development of cable TV, other than TNT and ABC's ESPN, many other channels were spun off. Needless to say, CNN News, ABC Family Channel, Hearst Women's Channel, Youth Channel, and so on, needed a lot of high-quality shows to fill their slots. For example, ABC Family Channel was targeting Disneyland, so they were going to release "New Growing Pains," and the lead actress was Shirley in the "Resident Evil" movie, Hilary Duff! Another example was TNT, which was targeting HBO. After "Sex and the City," "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," and "Band of Brothers," they poached Larry David to produce "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
Larry David was the scriptwriter of "Seinfeld." After "Seinfeld" ended in 1998, he switched to film scriptwriter. Although film scriptwriters did not have as much power as TV scriptwriters, their influence was much greater, and there were many more film scriptwriters than TV scriptwriters. Unfortunately, he was good at small stories instead of long scripts, so he had been running into a wall. So, Adriaan, who had organized all the famous HBO TV series, found him and produced "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which was supposed to appear at this time.
Similar to "Seinfeld," "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was also a comedy in the style of a skit, and Larry David played the role of Larry David, which showed the semi-real life of an actor. Because the investment was very small, he worked as a part-time scriptwriter and lead actor, and also took on the heavy burden of production. As long as he maintained his consistent standards, it should not be a problem to produce eight seasons like "Seinfeld."
In last year's ratings list, ABC's shows occupied six of the top ten positions, and had greatly surpassed NBC to become the number one of the four major television networks. With the rapid development of cable TV stations, it would enter a chaotic situation in a few years at most. Even without his support at that time, his TV stations could still leave others far behind, but they also had to consider the situation of a tall tree attracting the wind. They were already considering it now, otherwise they would not have handed over "The Interns" to CBS and "The Office" to NBC.
So, they simply pushed ABC to the peak at this time. On the one hand, they could fulfill their wishes and increase their cohesion. On the other hand, they could fully demonstrate their strength, and then slowly retreat, continuing to maintain a certain advantage.
That was all for the TV series. As for the movies, the post-production of "Winter's Bone" and "Never Compromise" was basically coming to an end. They were both low-budget movies, and they did not need CG effects like "The Lord of the Rings." In particular, "Winter's Bone" only had an investment of two million yuan, and the plot was relatively simple. After Natalie came over to dub some of the scenes, they basically only had to do the publicity work. "Never Compromise" might take more time, but it was not a big deal as long as it could be released at the end of the year. So, Adriaan still had the energy to do other things, such as putting the production time of the remaining two parts of "The Matrix" on the schedule.
After the animation studio in Japan worked overtime, the first animation about the rise of robots was broadcast on TV in advance. Although it was only one episode, it was enough to cheer up the already somewhat depressed fans of "The Matrix." After the first part was released in 1998, countless fans were looking forward to the next two parts. Even though they already knew a lot of the plot from the novel, they were still very looking forward to it. What's more, Adriaan himself said that part of the content of the movie version would be different from the novel version, especially the ending.
However, what the fans did not expect was that in the following year, Adriaan went to New Zealand and spent all his time on the filming of "The Lord of the Rings." One could imagine how disappointed they were. Adriaan also knew that this matter could not be delayed for too long, and as Monica grew older, the pairing with Reeves would be a little unsuitable.
However, because he produced two movies this year, although the investment was very small, the two parts of "The Matrix" had to be filmed together. He did not want to reminisce about the days when he was in New Zealand, so he moved it to next year. Next year's time was just right. Although he had to shoot another movie first, some of the early preparations could be completed this year, such as the recovery training of Reeves and the others, or the layout of some props and venues. There was no hurry, there was plenty of time.
So, when the person in charge came to ask about which highway to communicate with the transportation bureau, Adriaan waved his hand in a very domineering manner. "Find a place to spend some money and build a brand new section specifically for filming!"
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