"Promise?" Adriaan raised his head. After a while, he finally remembered. "Oh, yes. You said you wanted to introduce someone to me yesterday... but you didn't say it was now."
"No, but if I hadn't come to see you in advance, I would never have seen you at the hotel coffee shop at ten o'clock." Weinstein spread his hands helplessly.
"Well, it's my fault." Adriaan was straightforward. "Well, wait for me. I need some time to get dressed and..."
He pointed at the bedroom. What he didn't say was self-evident. Weinstein shrugged, made a "please don't be late" gesture, and left.
"Hey, sweetheart, I have to apologize..." Adriaan walked into the bedroom. Before he could finish his words, Zooey interrupted him. "Yes, I know. I heard what you said."
Zooey had already changed her clothes and was sitting on a chair. She looked a little dissatisfied but cute at the same time. Then she sighed exaggeratedly and said, "It's normal. Men are like this. Once they get a woman in bed, all the sweet words they said before will soon disappear."
"Oh, Zooey, I'm so sad to hear that. It's so heartbreaking." Adriaan also sighed exaggeratedly. Then he smiled and squatted down in front of her. He took her hand in his. "Well, sweetheart, I just have a small date. It won't take too long. You can wait for me here or go to the ski resort first. I'll be there soon. I promise."
With that, he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. "You are one of the sweetest and cutest girls I've ever met. How can I bear to leave you alone?"
"But my mother told me never to trust a playboy's words. I made a mistake yesterday, and I can't do it again today," Zooey said seriously.
"Well, it seems that I should find a way to prove my sincerity." Adriaan scratched his head. He glanced at the clock and grinned. "It just so happens that we still have some time."
Zooey looked puzzled, but when Adrian reached out to unbutton her clothes, she understood and immediately hit him. "Stop it, you bastard. Wasn't last night enough?" Zooey looked at Adrian with a puzzled expression.
Even so, she giggled and blushed seductively. So Adriaan quickly took off her shirt. Zooey did not want to let him get away with it so easily. She giggled and played hide-and-seek in the bedroom. Unfortunately, her tricks were useless in front of the experienced Adriaan. When she tried to climb over the bed, he suddenly pounced on her and pressed her under his body. Then, as she screamed, he quickly took off her pants, exposing her white and tender buttocks.
"Eide, you cheated..." Zooey yelled angrily, but before she could finish her words, her mouth was sealed.
Under Adriaan's teasing, the two kissed passionately. Then, before Zooey was completely naked, Adriaan parted her legs and kissed her. The unique morning exercise between men and women began with moans.
There were actually many benefits to having sex in the morning, especially in the morning of winter. It could make people feel good faster. So, when Adriaan went downstairs to the hotel cafe, he was full of energy. Weinstein was already waiting there. He seemed to have waited for a long time, but he was not late.
"Where's the person you want to introduce, Harvey?" After instructing the waiter, Adriaan asked in a relaxed tone.
"He hasn't arrived yet." Weinstein was a little embarrassed. He had specifically gone to remind Adriaan, but Adriaan had already come downstairs, but his friend had not arrived yet. "But he should be here soon, in a few minutes... Hey, he's over there."
Immediately, Weinstein stood up, waved at the door, and raised his voice. "Mike, over here."
Following his line of sight, a very stout middle-aged man walked over. His face was very fat, or rather, very fat. In the words of his previous life, it was a typical "you-you" face. He wore black-rimmed glasses and had a full beard. When he walked, his upper body swayed. He should be a very confident and even arrogant guy.
"Sorry, Harvey. I thought we were at Hayden Cafe on Solam Street. I'm really sorry." The middle-aged man came over and apologized.
"It doesn't matter. Eide and I just sat down not long ago." Weinstein shook hands with him and then introduced, "Eide, this is Michael Moore, a well-known documentary director and independent producer. Mike, this is Adrian Kewell, the famous miracle director and... philanthropist. "
Michael Moore? Adriaan quickly narrowed his eyes. The memory of his previous life and the experience of this life allowed him to quickly recall the information about this fat man. While shaking hands with him, he glanced at Weinstein.
Weinstein chuckled silently, looking a little embarrassed. He also knew that this guy was a headache for the boss of a big company, so why did he still introduce him to him?
"I'll be straightforward, Mr. Kewell." After a few words of conversation, after Adriaan vaguely asked about his purpose, Michael Moore directly laid everything on the table. "Not long ago, I talked about a concept with Harvey, a concept for a new documentary. Harvey was very supportive of me. However, this documentary will involve a lot of information that the government doesn't want the public to know, a lot of information about the disaster the year before last. Therefore, there will be a lot of obstacles when it comes to production, and the amount of investment that can be pulled in is not much. Then, Harvey said that you might be interested. "
While he spoke with confidence and composure, he did not notice that Weinstein, who was next to him, made a gesture of covering his head.
"Information about 911?" Adriaan raised his eyebrows. As expected. He could not help but look at Weinstein again, and the latter secretly smiled.
"Yes, after the disaster, many people hated Bin Laden, and Bush immediately retaliated against Afghanistan, but few people know that the Bush family and the Bin Laden family are very close." Speaking of this, Moore began to become a little excited. "I'm sorry, I can't take out more information now, but I can be sure that the 911 incident is definitely not as simple as imagined. There are a lot of complicated and shocking things in it. I need to show these things to the public and tell them what they have experienced. This is the responsibility of a citizen!"
Really … how should I put it? Adriaan shook his head disapprovingly in his heart, but on the surface, he still maintained a polite smile.
"Mr. Moore, I want to remind you that Mr. Bush Junior is an elected president. If he did this kind of thing, neither Congress nor the people will let him go. Paper can never wrap fire," he said unhurriedly.
Moore was stunned at first. He probably did not expect Adriaan to understand his meaning so quickly. At the same time, his face changed slightly. He heard the hint of rejection hidden in his words.
"You're wrong, Mr. Kewell," Moore strengthened his tone. "It's not paper that wraps this flame, but a sealed container. If no one opens it, no one will know what is hidden inside. What I want to do is to open it for the public, for all the people who have the right to know the truth!"
"Evidence? Mr. Moore, you have to prove that there's indeed such a container and there's indeed a ball of flame in the container. It's not just a wild guess. The jury won't convict a person for the reason that 'no one else could have done this except him'." Adrian spread his hands.
Michael Moore frowned, and his eyes behind the glasses stared at Adriaan. After a while, he finally stood up.
"I knew it. I can't count on the conscience of a rich man." Moore said unceremoniously, and then patted Weinstein on the shoulder. "Sorry, Harvey. I wasted your kindness, but not everyone will still pay attention to the things under their feet after their social status has improved. You are a good person, but not everyone is a good person."
After saying that, he strode out of the room. Weinstein stood up and called out to him several times, but he didn't look back even once.
Adriaan shook his head disapprovingly again, and it was very obvious. This guy was too self-righteous. He thought he had mastered the truth, so it was difficult to listen to objections or opinions that did not conform to his ideas. In particular, if this was an opinion given by a rich man, a super-rich man, then it was 100% wrong.
However, he did not have any bad feelings for him. Of course, he did not have any good feelings for him either. From the point of view of a director and producer, Michael Moore was a competent and even excellent documentary director. Last year, the documentary on firearms, "Bowling for Columbine," won him a lot of praise after it was released. By interweaving interview clips of the Oklahoma bombing and the Columbine High School massacre with news reports, speeches, and many shooting incidents, it gave people a strong sense of impact. This probably also encouraged his ambition, so he targeted the September 11 incident.
In Adriaan's view, Michael Moore was at best. According to the words of his previous life, he was a clean stream. The meaning of his existence was to find faults with the government, and he demonstrated himself by picking faults with the government. This was because this kind of thing was very simple, and as long as the bottom line was kept, there was no need to worry too much. Nothing was perfect. If you wanted to find a loophole, you could always find it. The government had always been the target of criticism, especially the US president, who played the role of a target.
It was easy to find problems, but solving them was the most important. For the clean streams, this was neither something they were good at, nor was it something they wanted to manage. They just needed to find faults. Of course, some people would propose some solutions, but they basically came up with it on the spur of the moment. If they really implemented it, it would only make things worse. Of course, the clean streams would certainly not admit this. They only knew how to quibble. If there was a problem, it was because the solution was not implemented.
In addition, although Michael Moore's documentary was very sharp, it was not necessarily fair. Documentaries were also made by people, and people always had their own standpoint and their own desires. Take "Fahrenheit 9/11", which was still in his mind. It was fine to expose the relationship between the Bush family and the Laden family, and it was fine to think that there was a problem with the collapse of the World Trade Center, but to say that it was done by the US government …
As mentioned before, this possibility existed, but the probability was very low. It was so low that it could be ignored. Once it was confirmed, the foundation of the United States was likely to be shaken. In his memory, the documentary was just short of naming the government as the one who directed the disaster. However, all the evidence, such as the vault under the World Trade Center that was moved, or the military's plan to defend the World Trade Center, etc., were all specious.
If it were Adriaan, if he really wanted to do something for the victims and the country, he would definitely blame the government for their negligence. There was no doubt that the government must have received information in advance, but for some reason, it intervened in the Middle East or attacked the Euro, and so on. It allowed the terrorists to do whatever they wanted, resulting in a huge disaster.
As long as these things were confirmed, the government was bound to lose a layer of skin, and Bush was likely to become the fourth president to be impeached. However, Moore made such a conspiracy theory. If it weren't for today's meeting that gave Adriaan an intuitive impression of him, he might have thought that he was an undercover agent of the CIB or FBA.
Of course, Adriaan also understood why he would think this way. Complete idealists either died early or changed themselves after being beaten up in society. However, Moore still played a positive role in the end. At least, it allowed the public to look at certain issues from another perspective. Regardless of whether the content of what he said was true or not, he did dare to say it.
"Damn, how did it become like this?" Weinstein sat back in his seat and sighed with his head in his hands.
"You seem to have a good relationship with Michael Moore," Adriaan asked calmly.
"Yes, Miramax helped him distribute movies in 1999," Weinstein explained, then sighed heavily.
"Well, Harvey, don't tell me that you supported his 9/11 documentary because you found your conscience." Adriaan didn't beat around the bush and mocked him.
"Why can't I do it because I found my conscience?" Weinstein asked immediately, but then he raised his hands. "Well, I just think this subject is very valuable, especially after Mike told me about his idea. It may be a little rough, but it will definitely cause a sensation after it is produced."
Speaking of this, he blinked and said, "By the way, I can also teach Mr. President a lesson."
Although at the end of 2000, because of the acquisition of AT&T Broadband, they connected with the Bush family and contributed to George W. Bush's final bid for the presidency, but after more than a year, their relationship had slowly faded and even turned cold. Claude and the Godfather were more inclined towards the Democratic Party, and in comparison, the White House definitely preferred the News Corporation, which had a closer relationship with the government, so this situation was inevitable.
And Weinstein knew this. After all, when he was asked to help with public relations, Adriaan gave him full authority and allowed him to fully mobilize resources. Although he didn't know some confidential information, he knew a little about the changes in the relationship with the Bush family. This was why Weinstein said that. He also supported the Democratic Party, and he could use this excuse to pull Adriaan in — of course, this was definitely not his only reason.
"Really?" Adriaan smiled noncommittally. "Not only that, Harvey. This is a good opportunity to enhance the reputation of Miramax. You can do something that other film companies don't dare to do, and you can also get us to endorse you."
Weinstein chuckled. He didn't feel embarrassed because his thoughts were exposed.
"You have given me a difficult problem, Harvey." Adriaan sat up straight. "You should know how big a problem this is."
"I just hope that AC Media can give a certain amount of support in the distribution, that's all," Weinstein explained.
"This is the problem." Adriaan tapped the table gently. "After all, we are a big company. Even if we appear as a neutral party, we have to consider the government's reaction on this kind of thing, especially after 9/11."
Weinstein was silent, and Adriaan also knew that this would not convince him. Making Miramax bigger and stronger had always been the wish of the brothers. If they could successfully release the documentary conceived by Moore, it would definitely cause a sensation. And Miramax, who did what other big film companies could not do, would be even more dazzling.
In his previous life, the reason why the Weinstein brothers fell out with Eisner and finally left Miramax was because they released "Fahrenheit 911" without authorization. So it was almost impossible for them to give up.
However, if this road did not work, there were other ways to go.
"Do you want to hear my advice?" Adriaan asked leisurely after a while.
"Of course." Weinstein's eyes lit up. Without the endorsement of a powerful group like AC Media, Miramax could not bear the huge pressure of independent distribution. So, even if there was a chance to get Adriaan's support, he would try to fight for it.
"It's very simple. You can continue to invest in Mr. Moore's documentary, and make it very exquisite. If it exceeds the budget, I can help you with some more." Adriaan said this with a smirk. "Then, take this documentary to next year's Cannes Film Festival."
Weinstein was stunned at first, then slowly cracked a smile.
"I like this idea!" He had the same smirk on his face as Adriaan.
With the French's consistent character, they would never let go of any opportunity to embarrass the US government. So, Mr. Moore was very likely to get a Palme d'Or, and it would be much easier for the documentary to be released in the US. In fact, in his previous life, "Fahrenheit 911" did this.
"But I want to make one thing clear." Adriaan suddenly stretched out his finger and shook it. "I didn't know anything about this matter from beginning to end!"
"Huh?" Weinstein, who did not react, was stunned again.
"So, when Miramax releases this documentary, AC Media will give you a certain amount of blame and plan to punish you for acting on your own initiative. Also, Claude has a certain conflict with you and your brother," Adriaan said slowly, word by word.
At this point, how could Weinstein not understand what he was trying to say? But …
"This is not fair, Eide!" He cried with a bitter face, his fat face wrinkled.
"This world is not fair, Harvey." Adriaan laughed.
