r/todayilearned • u/Milwambur • 2d ago

TIL that Eva Longaria spent 6 million dollars saving a film after her agent told her it was the right call. She now says its the best money she ever spent. That film? John Wick

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/eva-longoria-john-wick-checks-1236196504/
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u/TanAllOvaJanAllOva 2d ago

It actually wasn’t her agent so I wonder what made him reach out to her:

An agent, and he wasn’t even my agent, he called me and said, ‘You got money, you should put your money here,’” she continued. “And I didn’t even know how a movie was made. I was like, ‘What do you mean gap financing?’ But something that I’ve learned, looking back, I love investing in people. You can tell me you’re opening a chicken farm, but if you’re fucking passionate about it and you’ve done the work and know the market, I mean, [directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch] did their work. They put in their 10,000 hours as stunt guys and second unit directors; they had seen all the bad movies and knew how to make a good one. It was that. They were undeniably passionate and I knew they were going to make an undeniable product.”

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u/xkise 2d ago

It actually wasn’t her agent so I wonder what made him reach out to her:

Dude probably had a big list of numbers and just cold called them hopping to get 6 million lmao

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u/Financial_Ear2908 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yup I work in media and can guarantee this is exactly what he did 😂

Very likely he worked for them and needed to find an investor to keep cashing his paychecks.

Bro must've been a heck of a sales person to swing 6 mil. The "he was undeniably passionate" line has me cracking up

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u/SamSibbens 2d ago

What I wonder is how do they even get these people's numbers ?

If I had the best idea (and the means to turn it into reality) but needed 6 million dollars to do it, I have no idea how to get in touch with people who actually would gamble that money on my project

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u/Biscuitsandgravy101 2d ago

IMDB Pro includes contact info for many people's reps. 

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u/xkise 2d ago

What I wonder is how do they even get these people's numbers ?

If you're an artist, you want your number with as many agents and producers as possible

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u/Financial_Ear2908 2d ago edited 2d ago

You'd be surprised what a little bit of money can buy.

Even the post office sells databases of people's info

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u/ThePatientIdiot 1d ago

Can you give me some links of this?

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u/topkeksimus_maximus 2d ago

Salesman here. Half of any outbound sales job (being an agent for producers, actors etc. is just a fancy sales job) is finding the right people's phone numbers. That's actually the easy bit since most of it is networking. The hard bit is the "hear me out" part.

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u/WastingTimeIGuess 1d ago

And luckily it sounds like she had just had a financial windfall and was looking for multiple investments - which is why she did hear him out.

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u/rbrgr83 1d ago

Sushi. Glory. Hole.

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u/Optimal_Anything3777 2d ago

The "he was undeniably passionate" line has me cracking up

she clearly was talking about the directors....did you not read the quote?

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u/thatsmypeanut 2d ago

Why? She's talking about the directors there, and I don't doubt they were very passionate. She likely didn't sign a check for 6 million after the phone call, but rather got to meet them several times, and over that time realised that they were "undeniably passionate"

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u/BoazCorey 1d ago

She has to make it seem to her fans that she was undeniably smart and saavy in her business decisions, as opposed to a bit of those and a lot of luck. We don't really hear about the millions invested in sloppy flops.

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u/swentech 1d ago

When the option is I get the money and I keep making the movie or I don’t and I’m on the street you’d be surprised how passionate you can be.

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u/cinderubella 1d ago

Bro must've been a heck of a sales person to swing 6 mil. The "he was undeniably passionate" line has me cracking up

I'm super curious how that line cracked you up so good, considering that it wasn't even in the story. 

She said that about the directors. I get that reading the article would be a tough sell for you, but can't you at least accurately read the comments you're replying to correctly before sticking your extremely dumb oar in? 

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u/Yabba_Dabba_Doofus 2d ago

They may be digitized in 2025, but:

A 'Rolodex', by any other name, is a cold call donation spree.

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u/Spyk124 2d ago

I wanna know who turned it down lol

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u/RiseAgainSteve 2d ago

That agent's name? Smith.

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u/darklotus_26 2d ago

Mr Anderson

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u/menasan 2d ago

.... keanu probably could have financed it im confused

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u/L3m0n0p0ly 2d ago

God damn. The fart scene in over her dead body was one thing ill always remember her for lol im glad to know that in her acting hiatus she supports her fellow actors.

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u/briancalpaca 15h ago

If its had to guess, id say a different agent in her agency. We hear from them sometimes. If it was just some random agent message would have almost certainly never reached her.

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u/CapoExplains 2d ago

Man, capitalism is a bullshit system that favors the greedy and sociopathic, but even so I can't help but smile when someone has a shit-ton of money and says "Y'know what? I wanna spend this helping cool people do cool things" in this particular way (as opposed to the cynical way which is "I wanna make more money investing because I am greedy and yeah whatever it can be cool people doing cool things I guess.")

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u/ZombiesAtKendall 1d ago

I imagine there’s a lot of networking in the industry. People know people who know people.

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u/CapoExplains 2d ago

Man, capitalism is a bullshit system that favors the greedy and sociopathic, but even so I can't help but smile when someone has a shit-ton of money and says "Y'know what? I wanna spend this helping cool people do cool things" in this particular way.

(as opposed to the cynical way which is "I wanna make more money investing because I am greedy and yeah whatever it can be cool people doing cool things I guess.")