Chapter 91: Opportunity (Update 1)

This sudden change of plan to go to the United States was not really Su Yun's deliberate trap for Bourne, but something big really happened here.

The first was what Spielberg had told her before: DC, which had received a large investment from Warner, was preparing to start filming a Superman movie. Once the news spread, it immediately attracted the attention of relevant people.

Despite such a huge investment, Superman's creators Siegel and Shuster did not get the compensation they deserved, so they held a press conference and made public the sad story that they were deceived and sold all the copyrights of Superman for only $130.

Looking back, the extremely popular comic and character "Superman" was not appreciated before 1938. It was not until it was published in "Action Comics" that it took off, not only making the company rich, but also opening the golden age in the history of American comics.

It can be said that the birth of "Batman" was also based on the popularity of "Superman".

According to the regulations, the biggest difference between American comics and Japanese comics is the concept. American comics are centered on characters and companies, while Japanese comics are centered on authors. Therefore, as long as the copyright of the character is still held by the company, even if the artist and screenwriter are changed, the publisher can still continue to launch comics related to this character. As long as the story and style are good enough, readers will be happy to accept it.

When Siegel and Shuster, who were just starting out, submitted Superman to Action Comics, the editorial department probably saw the huge potential of Superman, so they made an extremely strong offer, requiring $130 to buy all copyrights of Superman, otherwise Superman would not be published in Action Comics.

Considering the price level at the time, a loaf of bread cost only a few cents, and $130 was already a considerable amount of money. So Siegel and Shuster, who were still newcomers and had suffered from rejections, both suffered a great loss due to their lack of experience. They were deceived and signed the contract to sell "Superman".

After hearing that DC could earn millions of dollars in profits from Superman comics every year and had obtained a large investment from Warner to shoot a live-action movie, Siegel and Shuster, who had already regretted it for a long time, could no longer endure it and joined hands to start a rights protection journey.

This move immediately caused a fierce response in the comics world: "Superman" has been popular from before World War II to the present day, and is the leading star of DC, earning the company countless profits - but its two creators are in such a miserable situation!

Jerry Robinson, the artist who once spoke out for Bill Finger against Bob and is now the president of the National Cartoonists Society, supported the rights protection actions of the two Superman creators together with his friend Neil Adams after hearing the news.

Artist Adams was one of the first people who grew up reading comics and eventually worked hard to realize his childhood dream and successfully entered the comics industry. He was determined to fight for the rights of creators, and after hearing the news, he was passionate and created a famous comic in support of this - "Can Superman Save His Own Author?"

When Su Yun flew to the United States from Japan, the rights protection war here had reached a white-hot stage. With the support of their peers and readers, Siegel and Shuster sent a lawyer's letter to DC, and the two sides went to court.

After arriving here, Su Yun, Bill and others closely watched the progress of the lawsuit, waiting for this lawsuit, which might become a reference for Bill's future rights protection activities, to become a precedent for successful rights protection.

Even with the contract signed in black and white, DC does not have to worry about losing the lawsuit, but what they are afraid of is the huge public pressure from various comic industry professionals and readers.

The "Superman" film series starring Christopher Reeve was about to start filming, and Marlon Brando was specially invited to play the father of Superman at a high price of 4 million US dollars. During this critical period, there was naturally no room for any negative news.

Finally, in response to the expectations of countless people, DC finally made certain concessions and promised that in the future the names of Siegel and Shuster would be marked as the creators on all Superman works, and also promised that the two creators would enjoy a fixed subsidy of US$35,000 per year.

When this news came out, not only did the comics world and readers celebrate the success, but Su Yun and Bill also seemed to have taken a reassurance pill: when the same or similar lawsuits arise, they will generally refer to existing precedents for judgment.

With the previous successful example of rights protection, and DC's current critical public relations period, no matter how much trouble Bob makes, DC will try its best to use its power to calm the situation.

So, under the recommendation of Ovitz, Su Yun and Bill hired a well-known lawyer in the industry, and with the same lawyer's letter, they sued Bob, the father of the current Batman, and Bill's former employer DC.

Before this big melon has died down, another big melon has come out, and it is "Batman", which is as famous as "Superman". The comics world, readers, fans, etc. have all put down their current affairs and started to pay attention to the progress of the matter in a race against time.

Compared to the outsiders who were enjoying the excitement, the editorial department in DC was going crazy: Why did Bill, who is such an easy target, choose this time to cause trouble? !

Did they finally wake up after seeing the success of their predecessors in defending their rights?

Or is it that someone is jealous that they have received investment to shoot a live-action movie, so they deliberately chose this critical moment to deal with DC?

Faced with accusations from senior management, the current editor-in-chief of the Batman series almost wanted to curse the long-departed former editor Sullivan: it was this man who was in charge of "Detective Comics" at the time and signed the Batman manuscript.

It is said that Sullivan had never met Bill. Such ghostwriting was extremely common in those days, so Sullivan only knew that he paid money to buy the manuscript from Bob. As for whether the manuscript was written by Bob alone, that was not his focus.

Poor stupid Bill didn't sign his name on the manuscript anyway.

Even though Bill later managed to become the screenwriter of the Bat-series comics after Bob and Robinson left one after another, the editorial department that recognized his talent mostly believed that he was just a successor creator, rather than the original creator who actually created most of the Bat-series plots.

Later, due to Sullivan's resignation, Bob's shrewd business acumen and those secret unethical tricks, Bob, whose talent was not first-rate among his contemporaries, became the successful father of Batman.

Following Su Yun's previous suggestion, Bill presented all the evidence he had collected.

Money and connections always make the world go round. After making the suggestion, Su Yun sent a telegram to England and invited Vivian and several of her friends who liked to make documentaries from Kubrick. Under the pretext of practicing, she asked them to follow Bill to interview all the witnesses they could find and recorded all the testimonies of the witnesses on video.

This short documentary was shot very well. After watching it, Kubrick was so satisfied that he even said that if he made a movie next time, he would let his daughter Vivian accompany him to shoot a documentary about the new movie.

But compared to the powerful documentary "Witness", the most amazing thing is the information Bill has accumulated over the years to create Batman - a notebook he calls a "trick book", which is piled up like a small mountain.

Moreover, he even found the corresponding issues of comics in his collection and compared them one by one, which clearly proved that these ideas of his had indeed been thought of and recorded before the comics were published.

Although he appears to be very soft on the surface, he is the true father of Batman after all. Batman's profound knowledge and almost omnipotence are absolutely derived from Bill.

This kind of "color palette" comparison is very popular in the anti-plagiarism actions of later articles and is also a very critical piece of evidence, but it is extremely laborious to produce.

Su Yun really couldn't have imagined that during this period of time, Bill had almost hand-made such a comparison plate to prove himself.

Once a talented and honest person gets serious, you never know how far he can go.

Compared to Bill's incomparable evidence, Bob's frustrated rebuttal seemed so pale and powerless: by this time he was already living a very comfortable life with the high compensation from the copyright agreement, and his workload had been greatly reduced compared to when he was young. Even if there was some evidence in the past that could prove that he had participated in part of the creation, it is probably no longer available now.

It is very obvious who will remain relevant and who will decline between those who are immersed in making money and having fun and those who still persist in creating.

Although the lawsuit has not officially started yet, the lawyer in charge of this case said that the chances of winning are very high given the huge disparity and precedents. What needs to be considered now is the method and amount of compensation.

Regardless of whether the other party chooses to sue or settle the case privately, Bill will be able to legally obtain the status and remuneration he deserves and restore justice to history.

Su Yun, who had basically put her mind at ease, began to pay attention to the second reason why she rushed to the United States: Ovitz and his four partners, who had the dream of starting a business, had not yet fired their boss to start their own company, but because of a casual conversation, people in the company learned that they wanted to quit their jobs to start their own business...

So the five of them were successfully fired.

The five of them were single—they were all going to run away anyway. Although being fired by the boss and firing the boss sounded different in name, the actual outcome was the same, there was no difference...

Since I'm out of work, I might as well start realizing my dream of starting a business early.

Compared to saving enough money to start a business, starting a business now in a hurry will result in a lack of a lot of starting capital.

Therefore, Ovitz thought of Zou Yunhua and his Jiahe Film Company, who seemed to be stupid and rich. It just so happened that in the previous conversation, Zou Yunhua had always wanted to enter Hollywood, so it should not be difficult to get some investment from him, right?

This will make it easier for Jiahe to act in Hollywood in the future, and their new company CAA will be able to safely survive the difficult period of starting a business.

As a result, after a telegram was sent, Zou Yunhua didn't care at all: he had previously hired Ovitz and his partners because they had the support of the old company WMA. Now Ovitz and his partners want to start their own business and their target is only small and medium-sized companies. Why should he engage in such a risky cooperation with them?

The Hui Brothers' comedy films have been selling particularly well recently, and with Su Yun helping to stabilize the market overseas, Jiahe is a well-known large company in Hong Kong, and it can also connect with Warner. Even if it cannot cooperate with WMA, is it possible that it cannot cooperate with an agency that is similar to WMA or a second-tier agency?

This arrogance that looked down on small goals caused Zou Yunhua to give up a huge development opportunity.

Therefore, when Su Yun heard that Ovitz was preparing to start a business but lacked funds to the point of almost having to take out a loan, she flew over from Japan without stopping.

The mentality of buying at a low point is exactly the same as the enthusiasm when people made their fortunes by speculating in stocks back then.