Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1301: Staring at Ronald's Movie Plagiarism
"What do you think of Michelle Pfeiffer's idea?"

"It's ridiculous... I think she just got a little too deep into the role. Michelle has this problem. Otherwise, why would she cheat with an ugly guy like Malkovich?"

Ronald also had to talk to his agent Richard about this matter. Otherwise, why is it said that agents are the strongest allies of Hollywood stars? These secrets are actually privileges protected by law. Only when the little secrets in everyone's closet are they safely let the agent handle them, so as to avoid an unmanageable situation.

"Well, I'm just asking for your opinion. If you're interested, I can help you deal with it. This kind of thing is not uncommon in Hollywood, and there is a complete set of procedures for dealing with it. Okay... I won't say more..."

Richard now spends more time in New York, and there is a little biography about David Letterman. His rival Jay Leno's agent is too strong and proposed to take the producer position of the Tonight Show, which aroused some suspicion from NBC executives. Now NBC has taken the initiative to talk to Letterman about the renewal of his new contract. This is a gesture...

However, Richard always knew who his most important clients were. Once the situation there stabilized, he began to visit Ronald frequently.

"Forget about that. Ang Lee's movie won the Best Actor Award at the Golden Horse Awards. You can consider arranging for your assistant to sign him and send him to Berlin to compete immediately. There is a good chance..."

"I have already talked to him. We only provide some basic agent services. If there are suitable movies, it depends on whether he is interested. We will not force him to consider any movies he doesn't like."

"This is the proper thing to do..."

Ronald was very happy. The Chinese films shot by Ang Lee are very popular in European film festivals. Even if they are only shown through the art theaters in China, they can make back their investment. What directors like this fear the most is agents like Ovitz, who give them some commercial films that are not suitable for them to shoot. The American box office will not be successful, and the artistic advantages will not be brought into play. It is a complete lose-lose situation.

There are different ways to deal with directors from different backgrounds. Directors who come to America from overseas to develop their careers actually lack an understanding of the basic principles of this society. Only themes that interest them can achieve commercial success. If you force yourself to make some commercial films, you may not give the audience what they need, or vice versa, you may try hard to give the audience what they don’t feel.

"congratulations!"

In the evening, Ronald invited Ang Lee and his family to dinner at the best Chinese restaurant in Manhattan. His wife, who supported him in his pursuit of the film and television industry, had a hard time because of health problems. Fortunately, Ang Lee's career as a film director was finally successful, and he was nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Film and Best Director, and the leading actor, Long Xiong, won the Best Actor Award.

This achievement, together with that of Director Yang and Director Guan, who also returned from America, dominated the major awards of this year's Golden Horse Awards.

Director Yang's "A Brighter Summer Day" won the Best Picture award, and Director Guan's "Ruan Lingyu" won the Best Actress award. The returnees clearly had the upper hand. Only the Best Director award was not won by any of the above, but was instead awarded to Director Wang, a Hong Kong screenwriter who had changed his profession.

Ronald was very happy that the influence of the returnee directors in the United States was increasing, which in turn would increase America's attention to these films. When these films were shown in movie theaters where Chinese people lived, the box office would also be relatively good.

"Are there any commercial film directors in your hometown?" Ronald asked Ang Lee after having a good meal and a good drink.

When they get together, the topic of conversation is always about movies. These movies are not traditional commercial works. "A Brighter Summer Day" is also a long work, telling the story of cruel teenagers. But compared with Coppola's "The Young Boys", which is quite commercial, it still seems to reflect the director's own intentions.

"Ruan Lingyu" tells the story of a female movie star who suffered a tragedy at that time. It is interspersed with many documentary-style actors discussing how to perform the images of the film industry at that time, and uses black and white to separate the two eras, which is even more obscure.

As for "Days of Being Wild" which won the Best Director award, it seems to be a commercial film, but the plot does not have the ups and downs of a Hollywood commercial film. In essence, it is still the product of a director's auteur film.

Importing American movies, such non-commercial films can only make money in Chinatown cinemas by relying on awards. Ronald still wants the type of Hong Kong kung fu movies, which can be understood by black, white, or Latino people without knowing Chinese...

"Yes, but very few. The commercial film market there is not good and the tuition is too high. Oh, there is a director named Zhu who is very good at making commercial films. He has made the most popular local films in the past few years..."

"Which production company? I'll ask Xiao Qiu to get it. Come on, Mrs. Lee also eats vegetables. If you have any problems in New York, you can ask Ang's agent to help you solve them. CAA's services are comprehensive. You are a scientist, so you can ask them to help you with some chores..."

……

Ronald found Xiao Qiu from Time International and asked him to find all the Golden Horse movies. Their film "Raise the Red Lantern" was successfully nominated for the best foreign language film from dozens of countries. Xiao Qiu now responds to Ronald's requests...

"A Brighter Summer Day was also nominated for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but was not nominated... It was actually due to the subject matter..."

Xiao Qiu quickly got a copy of the film and showed it to Ronald and the distribution manager of Daydream. He introduced several films to Ronald.

In addition to the Golden Horse Awards, A Brighter Summer Day also participated in many film festivals, such as the Tokyo Film Festival and the Asia-Pacific Film Festival. They are stories about the Confucian cultural circle. Some of the core of this film has indeed left this cultural circle, and the audience has problems understanding it.

Days of Being Wild went to the Nantes Film Festival in Japan. I heard that the Cannes film selectors have noticed him and his next film is going to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Ruan Lingyu will also go to Berlin this time and will come to Chicago to attend the film festival.

In short, this year's Golden Horse Award-winning films appear to be quite international.

Ronald skipped through some of the films and felt that they did not have much commercial potential, so he placed his hopes on the last commercial film recommended by Ang Lee.

This movie "Seven Wolves" directed by Zhu is a very strange movie. The whole movie is a typical B-level commercial film.

First of all, the leading male actors are all singers, Wang Jie, Zhang Yusheng, Tai Zhengxiao, Yao Kejie, Tuo Zonghua... all of them have no acting experience. And the leading female actors are all newcomers, very beautiful, but the pay is very low.

Second, the theme song is very nice, a song called "Never Look Back". With the chorus performance of several singers with unique vocal conditions, it is a bit like MJ's star chorus song "We are the world".

The advantage of this is that the fans of these singers are all natural moviegoers, and they are the kind of audience that will buy tickets to watch the movie repeatedly...

Ronald was originally very familiar with this kind of operation. Isn't this how commercial low-cost B-level exploitation films are made? This made him think of Director Zhu as a "talented person".

As the plot continued, Ronald's brows furrowed more and more. When it came to a romantic scene between a man and a woman in the second act, he could no longer bear it and slammed the table and stood up:

"This is fucking plagiarism, blatant plagiarism, it's plagiarism that's been attributed to me..."

The bizarre "Seven Wolves" plot is a complete plagiarism of several Hollywood blockbuster youth films from the 1980s.

In the middle, there is a heroine named Ye Quanzhen, whose background and role were plagiarized from the heroine in "Flashdance", even the infamous chair dance was copied.

The love scene between him and the male lead Wang Jie was copied from the love story "Unspeakable" by Lea Thompson and her husband.

The background stories and street fights of several male protagonists were plagiarized from "The Little Brats" starring Tom Cruise and Diane Dion.

Another male lead, Zhang Yusheng, plagiarized the film "The Adventures of a Nanny" starring Elizabeth Shue. His entrance scene was also plagiarized from the railway scene at the beginning of "The Wonderful Ones".

Not only that, the dance scene in the middle was plagiarized from Ronald's "Breakdance", even the heroine's clothes, the leg warmers she wore, and the dance choreography were copied exactly.

The most outrageous thing is that in the middle of the movie, it starts to plagiarize "Undercover", the movie in which Ronald and Diane fall in love... The originally realistic plot is suddenly inserted with cartoon-like shots, motorcycle battles, and the final scene where the male protagonist and the gangster boss fight punches for a woman in front of everyone, all of which are copied one by one according to the storyboards (all the copied scenes are bad).

"This is too much. There are so many movies in Hollywood, why did they just copy the movie I participated in? Haven't they ever watched other people's movies?" Ronald was furious. He called the lawyer on the spot and sued him!
"Um, Director Luo..." Xiao Qiu from Era International didn't expect to mess things up. He didn't know what to do and stood there awkwardly.

“Brother Luo, don’t be angry with this bastard…” Xiao Yan is now working in Wang Ying’s crew. When he came to see Ronald today, he also stepped forward to persuade Ronald to calm down, “Don’t get angry and hurt your health. People like him will only plagiarize. They are different from the original directors over there…”

"No, it's normal for movies to plagiarize some plots and scenes, and I won't be angry. But who is targeting me for plagiarism? It's fine to plagiarize, but do you think the Chinese audience thinks I'm only good enough?"

"Calm down, calm down, Brother Luo. Their level is very low. Let's watch other movies. There's another one here... It's called Septwolves 2..." Xiao Yan didn't know if he wanted to anger Xiao Qiu on purpose, and read out the name of another commercially successful movie from the film box next to him.

"Ahh... I'm so angry. This one is even more hateful. What kind of copy is this?"

Ronald got even angrier when he saw it. The second part follows the story of the first part, telling the story of several protagonists ending their school life and entering adulthood.

As a result, Director Zhu plagiarized Ronald's "Working Girl", even the ferry scenes between Staten Island and Manhattan were copied. In the final battle scene with the gangster, the protagonist wore a forehead band, and the entire battle scene of "The Karate Kid" was plagiarized.

"I'm so angry..." Seeing the movie he had carefully shot being copied so badly, Ronald kicked the copy on the ground twice and left angrily.

"Uncle, nothing will go wrong, right?" Xiao Qiu quickly called his uncle who was across the ocean. Director Zhu of this movie had severely offended Ronald this time. Would this give Ronald the impression that all the filmmakers there are bad?

"This kind of thing is just a momentary anger. What can he do? Can he come to the court here to file a lawsuit? Isn't this telling everyone that Director Zhu plagiarized his movie? If I were him, I would rather others not know that the crappy movie was plagiarized from me..."

Ginger is still experienced, this kind of commercial film directors in Hong Kong and Taiwan use this kind of crude and shoddy method to copy Hollywood movies, which actually has a tradition. Anyway, local audiences have not seen the original version, and they applaud and sell well at the box office. Can they only envy these people's "cleverness"?

"That's not a good thing, right? We have to give him a response. Ronald has a high status in Hollywood. If you do this, and the impression he left is bad, forget about working with him..." After all, when Xiao Qiu was in America, he knew that others might not pursue the matter, but they would still think of you as a despicable person in their hearts.

"Then we will find a way to invite him to the Golden Horse Awards. Then we will ask Director Zhu to apologize in person, drink three glasses of wine as punishment, and say that he is a loyal fan of his and has admired him for a long time because he has watched too many of his movies. It will come out naturally when shooting..."

"Alas, uncle's vision is still behind the times..." Xiao Qiu put down the phone and smiled bitterly. He didn't expect his uncle to say such a thing. But it might be a good idea to invite him to present the awards. Elizabeth Taylor came to the Golden Horse Awards that year, which brought a good promotion opportunity to the officials who hosted the awards that year...

……

"Hahaha, a fight has started. Good..."

Ronald was angry, but he didn't take it to heart. Two days later, the Berlin Film Festival opened, and Ronald's company produced the film "Ultimate Soldier" starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lundgren, and went to Berlin to participate in the film festival and sell copies.

At the project launch event, a physical altercation broke out between Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lundgren. The two men assumed professional karate stances and exchanged flying kicks in the air before being pulled apart by bodyguards and staff.

However, the news media did not know that this was a pre-arranged publicity tactic, and the news that the leading actors were at odds with each other and almost had a Mortal Kombat over the order of roles and publicity, as well as the favor of the leading actress, dominated the coverage of the Berlin Film Festival and even over the news of the participating films.

The news got back to China, and before the film was even released, there was already a lot of free coverage.

Also attending the Berlin Film Festival, Ovitz's packaged project, Hit the Road starring his former bodyguard Steve Seagal, was suppressed and silent. Even the photo of Erika Eleniak, the blonde beauty and sexy lifeguard from the hit TV series "The Beach", joining the festival, failed to compete with the two muscular men Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme and did not appear on the main pages.

(End of this chapter)