Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 161 The Disrespectful CAA President Ovitz

Here, Brooke Stoudemire's advertisement time is undecided, and the launch time of "Endless Love" is also undecided, and many pre-order plans have been interrupted by the strike.Ronald decided to go to San Francisco first to learn editing from Walter Murch.

The itinerary to San Francisco has already been set with Mercy, but before going there, he has to go to the CAA headquarters to formally meet with Nisita and other agents. Richard has already talked to him several times.Just this time, while discussing the revised script, we got things done together.

Michelle Pfeiffer is busy with acting training classes in Los Angeles, and sometimes she can't find anyone on the phone, and she has to convey her thoughts through her agent.

Saying goodbye to his family, Ronald took a Pan Am flight to Los Angeles.This company, which originally specialized in overseas airlines, acquired China National Airlines after the Grand Commander relaxed the aviation control law, and began to operate domestic routes.

"Ronald, I'm so glad you're finally here." The manager, Richard Lovett, paid a special visit to Ronald's hotel at night, and hugged Ronald who opened the door.

Ronald took two bottles of drinks from the refrigerator, and the two young men started talking in the room.

"Richard, how is Hollywood, is it affected by the strike?"

"Hey, everyone is crazy. I just came from the office, and half of the people are working overtime at [-] o'clock in the evening. The shutdown has hit the actors hard. CAA has just made a big move into the film business, and it's all messed up."

"My new script has been brought." Ronald took out a script from his luggage and handed it to Richard.

The revised draft is a quarter thicker than the first draft, with a total of 119 pages.Ronald joined a love line, the widow of a Vietnam War veteran, who worked in the Veterans Service Department, and usually took care of the family of fools who died in Vietnam after being forced into the army.

Because the body of the fool was not found, and no comrades in arms could confirm that he died during the mission operation, so he could not be counted as killed in action, but could only be classified as missing.In this way, the fool's pension and military treatment are much lower than those of the fallen soldiers.

The retired platoon leader took the initiative to come and live in a trailer next to the fool's house, taking care of the fool's family. The neighbors around him didn't understand him, and they discriminated against him as a Vietnam veteran.Only the soldier's widow from the Veteran's Service understood the platoon leader's behavior and defended him from the crowd.

The platoon leader was bullied, spit on, and stoned by neighbor children, but he never fought back.But when the widow of a soldier came to visit him at night and was robbed by a stranger, she resolutely shot and beat the robber away.Only after showing the widow did he know that he is a master of fighting, and the two had further communication.

Knowing everything the platoon leader has been through, the soldier widow falls in love with the platoon leader, and the two have dessert on page 73.Finally, the fool's younger brother saw the platoon leader's diary and learned the truth.The family accepted the platoon leader, and the platoon leader also settled in the small town of the fool's hometown, living with the widow of the soldier.

Richard finished reading the script quietly, and then closed the cover, without saying a word for a long time, when he suddenly slammed the script on the table, startling Ronald.

"What? Is there something wrong?"

"No, this script is very good. It just so happens that Mr. Ovitz and Mr. Meyer are looking for scripts related to the Vietnam War for their clients. I will go back to the office immediately and let them see if I can recommend it to Sean Connery, and West Sylvester Stallone."

Ronald was also very happy to hear the names here. One is the original 007, and the other is the popular Italian boxing champion. "Is there hope? But Sean is old, can he play the role of platoon leader?"

"It doesn't matter, the script will be adjusted according to the star. Let's replace the platoon leader with a senior sergeant major." Richard Lovett was very excited. Under the background of the general strike, all shooting plans had to be adjusted.It happened to be a good opportunity to sell scripts to big studios, and then take the opportunity to stuff stars in.

Maybe it can also solve the current crisis of CAA. The strike has caused Sean Connery's film career to suffer another crisis. He has already confided to Ovitz the idea of ​​​​hopping to William Morris.If the first leading male star signed by CAA runs away, it will be very detrimental to the company, and even the newly signed Stallone will be shaken.

And my client has a Vietnam War-themed script that is currently hot. Who wouldn't want to be nominated for an Oscar like "The Deer Hunter" with a good script, and even win an award?

This is very valuable to Ronald, himself, or Ovitz and other company executives.As a screenwriter, Ronald can respect the opinions of the studio and is a quick shooter, which is rare.

There are tens of thousands of screenwriters who can write characters, and thousands of screenwriters who can write stories, but there are not many screenwriters who can quickly modify their scripts according to the wishes of all parties, and can still come up with a satisfactory revised draft.

Many screenwriters feel that their manuscripts are perfect. If they change a sentence or a word, they will feel as uncomfortable as picking their eyes.

Let the emotional drama be added, and a emotional line will be added immediately, and the original religion, war, anti-war, etc. plots will not be chaotic.It seems that Ronald is a gold medal screenwriter, able to cooperate with stars, and meet the demands of stars and producers with all kinds of weird ideas.

Richard Lovett hurried back to the CAA offices, leaving Ronald alone in his hotel room.

The bored Ronald called Michelle Pfeiffer again, but no one answered.I had contacted her and her agent Limato before coming here. Besides being busy with acting training classes, Pfeiffer is also trying to win the commercial shooting of Lux soap.He was not the only agent who figured out that he was relying on advertisements to show his face during the strike.

Due to the time difference, although Los Angeles is only less than nine o'clock in the evening, Ronald is already very tired, so he does not go to see old friends such as Cameron, but takes a hot bath and goes to bed, waiting to see you tomorrow Guys from CAA.

Early the next morning, Ronald woke up early, opened the door and saw the manager Richard Lovett, waiting at the door of his room.

"You came so early?" Ronald looked at his watch and it was only six o'clock. He got up early because of the three-hour time difference and was still in New York time. Richard seemed to have arrived for a while. Stand and wait at the door.

"I get to the office at seven o'clock every day and don't leave until eight o'clock in the evening." Richard smiled.

"It's hard not to succeed if you work so hard." Ronald said with a smile, "Should I be thankful that I found an agent who worked so hard?"

"I should be thankful, Ronald. Mr. Rick Nisita called me in the middle of the night last night and said that he liked your script very much and would recommend it to Mr. Ovitz this morning." Richard laughed Very happy, which is why he came to the hotel so early today.

Ronald asked him, "Shall we go to CAA now?"

"It doesn't need to be so early, we can get to the office at 9 o'clock." Richard is now centered on Ronald.

"Then where are you coming?"

"I'm here to accompany you. You just arrived in Los Angeles, and many things need to be handled by someone. I drove the car and can drive you to CAA then."

"Then let's have breakfast together." Ronald went up to Richard, had breakfast in the restaurant of the Holiday Inn, chatted a lot about CAA, and some ideas about rewriting the script with Ronald, and then the two sat down. Richard's little broken car went to CAA together.

Rick Nisita took Paula Wagner and stood at the door of the office to greet Ronald, "Welcome, Ronald, the youngest screenwriter in Hollywood."

This time Ronald was right, using the Hollywood etiquette of hugs and kisses.In the entertainment industry, any way of saying hello that is less than a warm hug will be seen as a serious conflict with the other party.

"Paula, how is Tom?" Ronald and Paula greeted with a hug.

"He's fine, we'll have an interview with Paul Newman next week, Scorsese and him last time, thank you."

As the highest-ranking of Ronald's three agents, Nisita took Ronald around the company and greeted all the agents in the office.

Ronald noticed that although it was not 10 o'clock in the morning, more than [-] brokers were already busy in the office, and some of them were still talking with clients or talking on the phone.It's really a very dynamic company where everyone works hard.

"Mr. Ovitz is busy, and his schedule secretary said he is free at 10:30, and we will have a meeting with him and Mr. Meyer to discuss your script." Nisita and the others returned to their office, Ask Ronald to sit down, "You can shop around, or I can introduce some of our clients to you."

"You go about your own business first. If possible, I would like to read Hollywood scripts in recent years. You should have quite a few here. I plan to collect scripts when I come to Los Angeles this time."

"Richard!" Nisita snapped his fingers and asked Richard to take him to the lounge next door, and then moved him a lot of scripts from his office.

"A big part of my job is reading these scripts," Richard said to Ronald. "I help Mr. Nisita read the scripts, write summaries and opinions for him, and he helps me graduate from the mailroom. I became an apprentice broker in advance."

Ronald was quietly looking at more than 20 scripts in the box by himself.First turn to page 73 for verification. Sure enough, there are more than 15 of them, and all of them have seen passionate scenes within one or two pages before and after 73.

Sure enough, the current Hollywood must use some violent and passionate gimmicks to attract the audience to go out of their homes and go to the cinema to watch something different from TV.Since the public TV stations are directly aimed at children under the age of 18, the TV dramas of the three major public TV stations in America are relatively conservative, which is only equivalent to the G rating in the movie.

Ronald has turned over a lot of scripts, mainly musicals, biographical films, and police and gangster action films.They are all the types of movies that have sold well in the past two years.Needless to say, the quality of the script is much higher than that of Roger Coleman's New World script.

However, none of these are about the Vietnam War. It seems that my "My Brother's Guardian" has been appreciated, mainly because Ronggui and the Deer Hunter detonated the theme of the Vietnam War, which fits the current hot spot.Perhaps the high-quality Vietnam War scripts have attracted attention and have not been wasted on a low-level agent like Richard.

"Ronald, let's go see Mr. Ovitz together." Ronald, who was flipping through the script, stood up quickly when he heard Richard's cry, and walked to the conference room with him.

In the largest office of CAA, the president Michael Ovitz is sitting in it. He is a gray-haired middle-aged man, wearing a pair of round glasses, full of energy, with heavy nasolabial folds on his face, square His chin shows that he is a man of his own accord.And just the right smile is a good way to dilute the stereotype of his stubborn personality.

Beside him are two secretaries, both well-dressed young women.One arranges his itinerary, the other keeps track of the calls he's about to make.

"Mary, how does my tie match with this suit? I'm going to see a big client later." Ovitz looked at his tie repeatedly in the full-length mirror in the closet, and asked Mary, the schedule secretary, what she thought.

Not long after Mary was hired as Ovitz's secretary, she was a little scared. After thinking about it for nearly ten seconds, she bravely expressed her thoughts, "It's ugly. A purple tie with a light blue shirt is not suitable."

"Thank God, I finally have a secretary who dares to tell me the truth. I feel something is wrong, but they all say it looks good." Ovitz's exaggerated expression made secretary Mary laugh.

"Mr. Ovitz, Mr. Nisita and his new client, screenwriter Ronald Lee," reminded him of the secretary in charge of Ovitz's schedule.

"Ask them to the executive meeting room." Ovitz quickly changed into a navy blue tie and said to them.

"Ah, welcome, Mr. Li." Ovitz sat on the table in the conference room, greeted Ronald, and did not stand up to welcome him.The two secretaries next to him continued to follow his instructions, fetching and sending away documents that required his signature and other small notes that needed to be dealt with.

"Hello, Mr. Ovitz." Ronald sat on the other side of the conference table with Rick Nisita, Paula Wagner, and Richard Lovett.

"I hear you have a script about the Vietnam War?"

"Yes, the Vietnam War, brotherhood, anti-war, fools, religion, love between men and women..." Ronald briefly summarized the selling points of his script.

Richard took out two copies and sent them to the conference table.Opposite Ovitz was another CAA partner, Ron Meyer.

What followed was a regular introduction. Ronald talked about his experience starting from the new world. Meyer also introduced the history of CAA and some of the main stars of the agency.

Meyer picked up the script and looked at it. "My Brother's Guardian, well, that's a good title."

Ovitz skipped the discussion and buried himself in the script.

"He is very busy, and he arranges his time according to 10 minutes." Richard whispered in Ronald's ear.

Is it just 10 minutes to meet me?Ronald thought, apparently echoing Mayer's comments on his script.

Before 5 minutes had passed, Michael Ovitz suddenly stood up from his chair without saying a word, and then went out of the conference room.

"What a rude person!" Ronald commented secretly, looking at Ovitz who walked out of the conference room without saying hello.

(End of this chapter)