Chapter 73 Money Relationship

At dinner that night, Tom's stepfather Seth asked tentatively, "Mary, didn't Mr. Kubrick come with you this time?"

"Oh, I called him before and asked him. Stanley said that he is busy preparing for the shooting of a new movie recently and will not be able to come over until tomorrow." Compared to others who use respectful titles such as Mr. Kubrick, Su Yun, the "favored child of God", calls people by their names directly. One can tell the closeness and distance between them just by listening to the name.

After answering, Su Yun raised her head and looked at Seth again, "Tom and I are good friends. If you have anything to say, just tell me directly."

Seth was embarrassed to be seen through by Su Yun. Then, encouraged by his wife, he asked again, "You should also understand that once a person becomes famous, people will come looking for him... We have received many invitations for Tom to audition recently."

"But we are not familiar with this area and we dare not make a rash decision, so we would like you to help us give us some advice," Tom's mother Mary added.

"No problem, but can I first see what these invitations are?" Su Yun asked.

After hearing what Su Yun said, Seth and Mary quickly took out all the invitations they had accumulated during this period.

Su Yun took it and looked at it: Ever since the two of them decided to support Tom's entry into the entertainment industry, they have been very concerned about Tom's "career". All these invitations were sorted and arranged according to the content type into a table, which looks very clear at a glance.

"For now, I should stick to my normal studies and extracurricular performing arts courses. If I want to maintain a certain level of exposure, I can take part in guest appearances in this long-running TV series, or take photos of children's clothing or sports shoes..." Su Yun helped me pick out a few that were not likely to fail.

In fact, the most popular invitations were for snack-related shoots, but food was prone to failure, and Su Yun was unfamiliar with the American food industry at the time, and could not give the two of them any useful references or opinions, so in the end they had to be cautious.

"Okay, we understand." Seth and the other man took the form.

"I don't have any movies suitable for Tom recently, but later on, there might be a small game console that's suitable for him to shoot," Su Yun added.

"Thank you so much!" Seth and the other man thanked Su Yun with a smile on their faces, and then quickly pushed Tom who was in a daze, "Tom, what are you doing? Why don't you thank Mary?"

"Oh..." Tom was stunned for a moment before he said, "Thank you, Mary."

"Don't be polite, we are good friends." Su Yun gently pushed him, and everyone at the table laughed.

"Tom is shy, you coward!" Marian, the youngest, made a face at him, as her sisters all understood each other.

"What are you talking about!" Tom was so angry that he wanted to wave his fist at her threateningly across the table as a warning.

"Okay, okay, what are you arguing about with Marian? She is only a few years old." The sisters quickly held him down, "Don't be rude to the guests!"

Knowing it would be rude to continue making such a fuss, Tom grunted and stuffed a chicken drumstick into his mouth.

They finished the meal in a seemingly harmonious and warm atmosphere, and after waving goodbye to Tom's family, Tom still took her back to the cabin.

"What's wrong with you?" Su Yun looked at him.

"Is it true that friends can no longer be true friends when it comes to interests?" Tom felt very uncomfortable when he thought about his parents' covert tests of Su Yun during dinner for the sake of his own acting dream.

"Isn't this normal? Your father and mother care about you and want to do their best to help you." Su Yun was very accustomed to it: It's not like they are trying to steal other people's things through the back door, it's just that because there are people around them who are more familiar with this circle, adults will subconsciously want to get more information by building relationships and getting close to them.

Moreover, the two adults who are parents both lowered their faces and asked her about their child in a gentle voice. It can almost be said that all parents in the world have pitiful feelings.

"Is that so? You're really not angry?" Tom asked cautiously.

"Of course I'm not angry. They don't understand, so they ask me, who knows more. This is very, very normal." Su Yun looked at Tom with a puffy face, "Is this why you're upset?"

"I'm not childish!" Relying on the experience of Su Yun always worrying about his IQ when they filmed a movie together before, Tom quickly retorted when he saw Su Yun's look.

"I didn't mean to say that." The naive person who can't stand being teased always makes people feel superior in intelligence in front of him. Therefore, Su Yun, who was pleased, stood on tiptoe and touched his golden hairy head. "You can't be awkward with me. You are my only good friend here."

"Just me? What about Vivian, Ann, Cassie and Marian?" Tom glanced over.

Young man, what do you mean by reporting four girls' names at once?

It makes her sound like a cheating, philandering scumbag - at least not yet!

"Vivian has already gone back to England with Stanley, and aren't Ann, Cathy and Marian your sisters? Why do you say that?" Su Yun replied smoothly, "What are you comparing? They can't even compare to you."

There is definitely no comparison between the sweet and soft little sisters and the future fat sheep ready to be fleeced; the former requires a friendly attitude, while the latter requires training and cultivation.

Tom didn't know what Su Yun was thinking. He only heard Su Yun's superficial response and nodded with satisfaction: "That's more like it..."

"Are you jealous of them?" Su Yun probably understood what she meant. "Please, I took the time to come to New Jersey this time, all for you!"

"You, you don't have to be so direct..." Tom was a little confused.

"Can I not be direct? Do you know how much money you took from me? If I don't come to see how you are doing now, what if my 'deposit' is wasted? Although the ending now seems to be similar." Su Yun shook his head and sighed, then looked up and was also a little confused, "What's wrong with you?"

Tom turned his back to Su Yun with a dark face and said nothing more.

"Hey, I don't blame you for wasting money. Saving lives is a good thing, and I really like this bat pendant." Su Yun took out the silver bat pendant from his pocket and waved it, "When I have time, I'll have someone make a necklace to string it on -"

"Hey, Tom! Why are you walking away the more you yell?"

"I didn't ask you to pay me back!"

After saying this, Tom, who was walking in front, paused for a moment, and then simply ran away.

Su Yun, who stayed where he was, looked at the figure disappearing in the night wind and could only shake his head helplessly once again: Alas, the thoughts of teenagers of this age are really hard to guess.

After another hasty farewell, Su Yun, who felt that gaining favor was much more difficult than making money, hurriedly took a bus back to New York early in the morning.

"Hi, Stanley, what are you busy with recently? Why don't you have time to come and get the money?" After seeing Kubrick, Su Yun greeted him jokingly.

Because she really knew that Kubrick was very short of money now: he had only distributed a small part of the profit from "Artificial Intelligence", and the rest of the big share had not been arranged at all. What's more, Kubrick was recently busy planning to shoot "Barry Lyndon", an extremely expensive costume movie.

Of course, Kubrick's original idea was to make a more expensive costume movie with Napoleon as the protagonist - but this level of money might not be enough to cover the money he made from all his previous movies combined.

"Waterloo" with the same theme also really suffered a box office failure. Faced with all kinds of resistance, even Kubrick, who claims to be his favorite character, is the artificial intelligence robot and Napoleon, he can only retreat. Secondly, I chose the story "Barry Lyndon" about a figure in the Napoleonic era.

"For this film, I want to shoot entirely with natural light, and some of the palaces in it also want to be real tourist attractions..." As soon as Kubrick opened his mouth, he started talking about money-burning operations, and the Warner people wiped their sweat after hearing it.

"But no matter how many candles there are, they still can't meet the lighting standards of a camera, right?" someone suggested.

"Didn't you give me an old Michel BNC camera?" Kubrick said calmly, "I got a space lens designed for NASA. This lens has a super large aperture of 0.7 and can capture images even in extremely dark conditions."

The person on the other side thought about it, and finally recalled: Kubrick had taken a fancy to a long-unused machine in the Warner warehouse earlier, so the person in charge generously gave it to him directly.

I just didn't expect that Kubrick's "waste utilization" would be so outrageous.

However, Su Yun nodded in sudden realization: If it was 0.7, this level might not even be accessible to her in the future. No wonder this movie has a beautiful and dreamy texture of a classical oil painting.

It's just a waste of money...

After discussing the preparation plan for the new movie, the two changed offices to collect the share of teddy bear peripherals sent by the doll manufacturer.

After finally filling his empty wallet, Kubrick felt much better. He even had time to chat with Su Yun: "I wonder how much investment Warner can give me this time?"

"Don't worry, it will be enough for you to finish your new movie." Su Yun quickly replied, "You are Stanley Kubrick!"

The two, one old and one young, who were both determined to make a lot of money to do what they wanted, were very compatible. Kubrick also breathed a sigh of relief: "Thanks to the box office success of Artificial Intelligence, otherwise it would have been difficult to negotiate this new movie."

"You will definitely succeed. If you can't succeed, then no one in this world can succeed." Su Yun said again.

“Sometimes, you have to compromise with money.” Kubrick is not as averse to money-making operations as other artists. “Recently, I met a very interesting young man. He is very talented. But in order to get the world to promise that he can shoot whatever he wants in the future, he is competing with a shark…”

"Because this commercial film requires very advanced special effects technology, he repeatedly contacted me and said that he hoped to get assistance from Future Dream Studio..."

"What's this man's name?" Su Yun seemed to have grasped something and asked hurriedly.

"Steven Spielberg."