1979 Golden Age

New Line Cinema was founded in 1967, and its boss was Bob Shea.

At first, it only catered to universities in the United States, releasing some terrible European and local films. A few years ago, it entered the production industry and made low-cost horror films, but did not achieve any results. There are countless small companies in Hollywood. If they are unlucky enough to make a movie, they will go bankrupt. Bob Shea is very capable and strictly controls costs. Although the profit of each film is small, he does not lose money and has been operating smoothly for more than ten years.

By 1990, New Line's luck came.

Golden Harvest participated in the production of a film "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and 20th Century Fox bought the rights. However, they felt that the market response would not be very good and they did not dare to release it. They sold it to New Line and the result was a box office of more than 100 million US dollars.

New Line began to prosper and was acquired by Warner. Since then, it has produced countless classics, such as "The Lord of the Rings", "The Reaper", "Blade" and so on. It’s no secret that Hollywood’s accountants are as good as Wall Street’s.

The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy took in nearly 3 billion US dollars at the box office, but in the end there was no profit, and not a cent was given to Peter Jackson and the Tolkien Foundation.

According to their estimates, the gross revenue of "Lord of the Rings" including box office, DVD, cable TV and other product sales can reach 6 billion US dollars. night.

Bob Shea, 43, returns home from the set.

New Line is making a horror film with a budget of 400,000 US dollars, which contains only the elements: psychedelic drugs, blood plasma, motorcycles, and big breasts.

The American film market is large and abundant, providing distribution channels for all types of films. This type of B-level film is exclusively for drive-in theaters, late-night channels and the video market, and can earn tens of thousands of dollars.

He opened a can of beer, sat tiredly on the sofa, and turned on the TV.

The news was playing on the TV, and it was the scene of a group of people smashing cars at the scene of "Orphans". Everyone seemed to be high, well, maybe they were actually high. A female reporter appeared on camera for a report, and her big breasts attracted people's attention.

"You should be filming under such conditions. Why do you want to be a reporter? You have to spread your legs anyway."

Bob Shea muttered, and then the screen turned, and an Asian face appeared, saying seriously: "I thank them for their sincerity for art... They have built a bridge of friendship between China and the United States...

Subtitle introduction: Chen, producer and screenwriter of "Orphan". A few seconds of footage flashed by.

But Bob Shay scratched his head, found his business card holder, flipped through it, and pulled out a business card. The information on it just matched.

It seems that last year, a well-known American couple introduced a Hong Kong filmmaker to them. Please! Although he has watched Bruce Lee and some Hong Kong films, it does not mean he approves of the film industry there.

Except for Hollywood, the whole world is very backward, and those artistic guys in Europe who like nudity are even more ridiculous.

He responded politely at that time and turned around and forgot about it. He didn't expect to be able to contact each other after a year. "Is this the person who made "Orphan's Revenge"?"

"It seems that there is another film that won the Golden Bear Award."

Bob Shea couldn't help but think about the news he read in the newspaper.

He just watched "Orphan" yesterday. It was unexpectedly very good and scratched the American itch. 20th Century Fox's shameless car-smashing promotion directly caused a wave of popularity. Many people had to buy a movie ticket to smash the car.

He estimates that the box office of this film may be between 20 million and 30 million.

New Line is too small and does not consider overseas productions, focusing on local low-cost horror films. But at this moment, he saw that "Orphan's Revenge" was actually made by a Hong Konger - he thought that Chen Qi was from Hong Kong, which meant that he understood the American market.

Bob Shea did what he thought of and immediately called his friends at 20th Century Fox and inquired about the hotel where the delegation was staying.

Liu Zhigu was greatly shocked yesterday, but he is recovering today.

Before breakfast every day, he would gather for roll call and talk about the day's itinerary. He said: "The U.S. government has an event in the morning. We will go to Universal Studios to listen to their producers, directors, and technicians talk about the production of Hollywood movies. process.

In the afternoon we went to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. There was a dinosaur exhibition there, Comrade Dong Zhiming! ""have!"

"According to the arrangement, you have to give them a talk this afternoon. Are you ready?" "You are ready. You will never embarrass the motherland!"

Dinosaur expert Dong Zhiming went abroad for the first time and was extremely nervous.

During this visit, in addition to cultural exchanges between movies, an additional small project was brought, which was the exchange on dinosaur fossil excavation. Dong Zhiming also brought some gifts. Followed by breakfast.

After dinner, we set off to Universal Studios in the northwest suburbs of Los Angeles. Everyone understood that this is an American studio + amusement park, and they were all very curious. Go down to the lobby on the first floor and wait for the bus.

Liu Zhigu watched all directions and listened to all directions. He did not dare to relax for a moment after coming to the United States. The rooms he arranged were all on the same floor, and two people were on duty every night until dawn the next day. Li Wenhua and Yan Shunkai were sitting on the sofa chatting, Gong Xue was looking around in a small mirror, and several others were discussing with a magazine...

Chen Qi couldn't sit still and wandered back and forth.

When he walked to the door, a middle-aged white man happened to come from outside. He seemed to know him and walked straight up. Hiss!

Liu Zhigu is hairy again, who? stranger? What to do?

He ran over in a hurry, and Chen Qi was also confused. The other party took out his business card and introduced himself: "New Line Cinema, Bob Shea!" "Oh! It seems that Ed only remembered me a year later. He just Contact you? Mr. Shay!”

Chen Qi smiled.

"I'm sorry for my negligence. I came to visit today and hope we can have a good start." Bob Shea also smiled.

Chen Qi did not comment, and introduced Liu Zhigu: "I am with the visiting group this time. This is our leader... We have a lot of activities today. Sorry, I don't have time to receive you.

The car is here, we have to go!"

He pulled Liu Zhigu away and got in the car.

"Last year, I filmed "Orphan" and asked Ed to help contact New Line Cinema, but they didn't like me. Now "Orphan" has a good performance, and he thinks it's okay, so he came to find me..

"So that's it!"

Liu Zhigu breathed a sigh of relief. He was really afraid that there would be some private secret contact, but he said: "Xiao Chen, he came here specially, isn't it not good for you to be so rude?" "What's wrong? We have something to do, how can we have time to receive him? If he is sincere, he will definitely contact me again. "

"But our schedule is very tight these days?" "Then let him wait! "

When this was said, everyone in the car was stunned. The staff of the foreign affairs department also looked at him. They wanted to say something like "Nothing is trivial in diplomacy" and "Be polite to international friends", but were stopped by Chen Qi's gesture.

A very strange sense of disharmony slowly spread out, just like Gong Xue was puzzled.

Chen Qi felt the air in the car stagnate for a short time, looked at Liu Zhigu, and smiled: "He will be waiting!" (No more..)