This industry is filled with conflicts, and it's hard to say which film's success might touch whose interests. Situations like what Bill Rossis mentioned, where the smearing is not spontaneous, have occurred many times since Hollywood became commercialized. For instance, everyone knows about the countless dramatic incidents between Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.
Of course, it's also difficult to say whether these two were genuinely smearing each other or had reached an agreement to deliberately create topics for hype.
Murphy suddenly thought of someone. "Bill, could it be Leonardo DiCaprio?"
For someone like him, it was never a problem to view the fierce competition in Hollywood with the most malicious perspective. Moreover, his experiences over the years had shown him that this was far from a pure circle.
Indeed, this idea seemed somewhat paranoid, but a saint's mentality was never suitable for Hollywood.
"It shouldn't be." Bill Rossis shook his head. "From what I know, Leonardo DiCaprio wants to mend his relationship with you, and he has no competition with you this award season. He has no benefit in doing such a thing."
Murphy pondered for a moment and nodded, acknowledging Bill Rossis' statement.
The conflict between him and Leonardo DiCaprio was not a matter of pride but a matter of interests.
Bill Rossis took a document from his briefcase and handed it to Murphy. "I suspect it's the work of professional anti-fans from another director or crew aiming for the Oscars."
As Murphy took the document, Bill Rossis added, "These are some of the latest negative reviews I've gathered. They look like the work of professional anti-fans."
Murphy quickly skimmed through the document. Unlike spontaneous negative comments on the internet, these criticisms were devoid of insults and instead analyzed points in a seemingly convincing manner.
"'The Wolf of Wall Street' is just a verbose bad film, and I have my reasons for saying this!"
"First, the script. Murphy Stanton chose a good subject, but there's no storyline with a rise and fall, no ultimate explosion, just a flat narrative of a stock scammer's life."
"Secondly, the soundtrack. Not a single standout track, in fact, they are all pretty bad. This has always been a weak point in Murphy Stanton's films."
"Then there are the supporting characters. They cast a bunch of cute characters who look like doughnuts to play the supporting roles, turning a film full of monetary sin into a slapstick comedy."
"And the dialogues. Robert Downey Jr.'s speech dialogues are really verbose. Shouting loudly doesn't necessarily stir emotions on the scene."
"Lastly, the tedious voice-over. The intermittent inner monologue analysis is unlike Murphy Stanton's style. One might think it's the work of some art film director..."
After reading a few lines, Murphy agreed with Bill Rossis' assessment. "What about our fan teams?"
The best approach to this kind of issue wasn't for the creators to speak out, as that would only make things worse. Instead, it was better to let his supporters drown out the negative voices with louder ones.
"I've already had the company notify the Los Angeles fan association." Bill Rossis said, "They've been mobilized today."
Murphy nodded. "Can we find out who is behind these anti-fans?"
Bill Rossis shook his head. "It's very difficult."
Murphy propped his chin up with one hand, pondering. The times had changed; maybe it was time for him to establish a more professional team of anti-fans.
From what he knew, many top-tier Hollywood stars and directors in the spotlight had teams of anti-fans.
Most well-known Hollywood figures have significant fame, and in such cases, the public's likes or dislikes are magnified. Expressing this "dislike" in various written forms is the work of anti-fans.
However, not all anti-fans are the professional ones Murphy was referring to.
For instance, there are casual anti-fans, known as keyboard warriors. This group is quite large and tends to bash celebrities impulsively. For example, if a public figure's friend dies and the public figure doesn't post a condolence message on social media, the strong sense of morality in these casual anti-fans drives them to harshly criticize the public figure.
Of course, casual anti-fans often lack principles and can easily switch sides, so their combat power is relatively weak.
Another type is professional anti-fans, and they are quite formidable. They can be divided into several subcategories. First, there are natural haters who cannot control their aversion to a particular celebrity. They spontaneously, and often in an organized manner, blacken the celebrity's image. They may leave malicious reviews on the celebrity's works to steer public opinion negatively or dig deep into the celebrity's past, analyzing every detail like the "Sherlock Holmes" of the anti-fan world.
Then there are paid professionals, the anti-fan mercenaries, who take money to do the job. They work on an assembly line, taking instructions from their benefactors to sling mud.
This profession is often overlooked, and many people believe that both anti-fans and regular fans are naturally formed, which is not the case. Murphy knew that in Los Angeles, there were thousands of similar heads of studios.
Thousands refer not to the number of anti-fans or regular fans but to the heads of such studios, also known as fan leaders.
There's a saying, "Three hundred and sixty trades, every trade has its master." As long as one works hard, even being an anti-fan can become a successful career.
For example, Bill Rossis once mentioned to Gal Gadot that making tens of thousands of dollars a month was not unusual in the anti-fan industry.
Most anti-fans' business scope highly overlaps with Hollywood celebrity topics on social media. For professional anti-fans, a comment or a retweet is about 20 cents. If they add some viewpoints and a bit of literary flair, the price goes up to around 50 cents.
Although the unit price is low, the business volume is large. Don't forget, this is the City of Angels, teeming with celebrities. You can run into many well-known Hollywood actors just by walking around slightly better neighborhoods.
According to Murphy, anti-fans had become an industry chain. Once the business reached a certain volume, some professional anti-fan leaders wouldn't personally handle tasks but would recruit some subordinates, often college students.
First, they draft the script. The subordinates receive tasks from various information groups and distribute them to different communities, with wages settled daily based on the workload.
Subordinates with high "combat power" usually have hundreds of accounts. Although they earn only a few cents per post, they can still make tens to hundreds of dollars a day.
This kind of anti-fan seems good but isn't safe and may be exposed, leading to trouble.
Therefore, the wealthy top-tier Hollywood stars usually keep "professionalized" anti-fans.
Hiring anti-fans is inconvenient and risky, so maintaining a personal team of anti-fans has long been an open secret in the Hollywood circle.
For example, some celebrities hire very close fans to act as anti-fans, saving costs and reducing the risk of exposure.
These fans have clear divisions of labor. Some infiltrate rival fan groups to gather intelligence, sow discord, and most importantly, collect dirt as blackmail material. Others organize fans to attack rivals on forums and social media.
Just like the attacks on Murphy and "The Wolf of Wall Street," cursing is the lowest-level tactic. They typically have dedicated personnel to collect dirt, organize people with writing skills to compose long articles, throw out a topic, then arrange follow-ups with targeted revelations and guide public opinion.
Murphy shared his thoughts with Bill Rossis, who agreed that maintaining anti-fans was necessary.
"With the rapid development of social networks, the internet has become an entirely uncontrollable element," he suggested. "Even if you don't proactively attack others, having anti-fans allows for quick internet crisis management when attacked by competitors."
Bill Rossis paused and then added, "Additionally, if you want to achieve something in future award seasons, if your competitors have scandals, having anti-fans fan the flames can increase your chances of winning."
Murphy nodded slightly, thinking about how Julia Roberts fell into scandals a few years ago. Five or six female stars of her level simultaneously dispatched anti-fans to kick her when she was down, grabbing contracts and endorsements, and they all benefited greatly.
In this regard, the higher the level of Hollywood stars, the more willing they are to spend money.
As mentioned earlier, fans need to be managed. Not to mention the professional anti-fan team he planned to establish, Murphy alone spent nearly $200,000 annually on operating costs for fan organizations like the Los Angeles fan association. A quarter of this amount was used by CAA to specifically train these fan association leaders on how to effectively support Murphy.
Murphy naturally left the task of absorbing and cultivating anti-fans among his existing fan base to Bill Rossis and CAA. He merely asked Bill Rossis a few basic questions about cultivating anti-fans.
Becoming a "high-quality" anti-fan is not easy.
As Bill Rossis put it, even as an anti-fan, one must be an anti-fan with ideals and sentiment.
So, they must be distinguished from the "brainless sprayers" on the internet.
This isn't something everyone can do. First, one must love the internet and entertainment, both of which are indispensable. If they are humorous and good at using internet language, they can blacken someone reasonably and irrefutably, which will naturally attract many neutral fans to their side and achieve twice the result with half the effort.
With such a team, coupled with the network of internet water armies honed over the years, Murphy believed that he would never be at a disadvantage in any future internet spats.
Sunday came to an end in a whirl of activity
, and the new week, with its weekend box office statistics, was just around the corner.
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