Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 281 How much money do I have now?
CBS hostess Pia agreed to contact David Letterman, who had been colleagues in the early days of CBS Los Angeles, and Letterman wrote Pia's interlude when he was a weather forecaster.

Letterman, who received a call from an old colleague, was very talkative and agreed to meet with Ronald and the producer. He was at home with his family.

Producer Lin Sen visited Letterman's home with Ronald.

Not long after Letterman became famous, his house was small, much smaller than the nationally famous mansion of his teacher, Johnny Carson.

Letterman is still at home doing some prep for the show.He pulled aside the documents on the table in the living room, and greeted Ronald and Lin Sen warmly.

"I'm a little busy. I heard Pia call and said, you want to ask me to be a guest in a movie?"

"Yes, we would like you to guest-star yourself as the host to interview Spiccoli, a character in the film who was invited on your morning show because he saved Brooke Shields."

"Late show, I'm starting to switch to the night time next month."

"Invitation to your late show. You'll ask him a few questions, and Spicoli will answer with that typical dorky mind."

"This is very interesting. I also have a little acting skills. You may not know that the Zac brothers first asked me to play in 'Flying All Over the Sky', but unfortunately my agent rejected it."

"That's why we want to see you, Mr. Letterman."

"Is that all? I thought you guys would give me a big role." Letterman read two pages of the script and laughed.

"If your agent hadn't refused, we would have let you audition for the role of a teacher in advance."

"That's it, I still look like a teacher."

……

Chatted with David Letterman for a while, and finally he happily agreed to comeo.

"I didn't expect Letterman to be so talkative, but his agent was too tough." Ronald said to the producer Lin Sen who came with him after going out.

"It's because he is so talkative that the agent is responsible for screening all the opportunities. Letterman is a naive person in essence. Maybe it is because of this that he can host the talk show well." Lin Sen replied.

Maybe he is right. Letterman, who is naturally friendly and close to people, if he is allowed to handle all the business cooperation invitations by himself, he will probably agree to all the invitations, and it will be a disaster.

Several of the big names who cameoed had already committed, and Ronald started putting assistants in touch with Sean Penn, who was now doing his stage play in Chicago.The three actors need to find a suitable shooting time and finish shooting the supplementary shots in one go.

Just when everything was ready, Ronald suddenly received a call from producer Lin Sen. Their reshoot plan was questioned by Ned Tanin, senior vice president of Universal Pictures, and he was needed tomorrow Universal Production, held a meeting with Tanin and other high-level executives to discuss.

"Why? I don't understand. This is just a small production, and the total cost of reshoots is only 30 US dollars. Why did this vice president Tanin suddenly come out and question us?"

"Don't be mad, this Tanin is a well-known nuisance. He has a bad reputation with directors, and often meddles in questioning projects made by other high-level people.

The film has nothing to do with him, but as a senior vice president, he does have the authority to ask questions about any project.We need to go to a meeting with him and explain his concerns, and Mr. Hinberg's people will speak for us. "

Lin Sen rushed to Ronald's editing room and discussed with Ronald how to deal with Tanin's doubts.

"You have to be careful, don't be intimidated by his doubts at the beginning, Tanin is good at scaring the interlocutor with super aggressiveness at the beginning..."

"Super aggressive?"

"It's just that when you come up, you will be labeled and accused of your film creativity, shooting techniques, editing processing, etc. As long as you refute according to the facts, you can say reasonable reasons. Tanin will not insist on objecting. He is used to using this method to scare away liars who pretend to be capable."

"What is his background?"

"The MCA mailroom started out, never made a movie, only showed their power by attacking the director, and then cutting out some other people's clips for no reason.

At the beginning, Lucas cut several minutes of content from "American Graffiti" because he made things difficult for him.After the movie sold well, he vowed not to cooperate with Tanin again, and left the world to find [-]th Century Fox to cooperate with "Star Wars". "

"It turned out to be a sprayer."

"Yes, when he accuses you rudely, you must stand up and fight back appropriately, so that he knows that you really understand how to make movies."

"To fight back his accusations of spouting", Ronald made a note in his heart.

In the meeting room the next day, Ronald really saw the super aggressiveness of the vice president Tanin.

Tanin had a traditional Jewish look, with a hump-like bump in the middle of his big nose.With slightly curly hair, the hanging eyebrows disappeared halfway from the outer corners of the eyes, and the two small eyes below were staring at Ronald with a fierce look on his face.

If you remove all the comfortable elements on the face of Minahan Golan, the boss of Cannon Films, such as big glasses, kind smile, and sincere face, and replace them with three-pointed rudeness, he is also Jewish. Tanin gives people the first feeling.

"I don't understand why you would give the green light to such a script, which is full of contempt and trampling on the traditional morals of America. This kind of script should not be filmed by us at Universal."

While attacking Ronald's film, Tanin glanced at Simberg's subordinate, a female vice president.

"Mr. Tanin, I don't know why you say that, this is originally a youth comedy..."

"Comedy? A real comedy should be like 'Mervin and Howard', suitable for all ages, and there is no such scene that purely satisfies the audience's vulgar taste." When Tanning attacked, he did not forget to mention the Oscar-winning film he produced Award-winning comedy film.

"But 'Fast Pace' is a small-budget youth comedy, we lack marketing investment and need some shots to get the audience into the cinema..."

"Walking into the movie theater? Do you want more people to watch your 'movie'?" When Tanin mentioned the word movie, he put his hands on his chest, raised two fingers each and hooked it twice.Said that he put double quotation marks on the movie, ironically that what Ronald made was not a movie at all.

Ronald's anger was suddenly aroused by his actions, why is it that I am not shooting a movie?"Melvin and Howard" that you green-lighted failed miserably at the box office, and you got a few Oscar nominations and praise from film critics by relying on public relations, so you know how to make movies?

"Of course, I don't think there is any problem with this. The director has made a movie, so of course I hope his box office will be good. Even if this is a small production, I also hope that he can make a big box office hit, not just get 500 million box office and be satisfied. .”

Ronald fired back.Tanin mentioned just now that he gave the green light to "Melvin and Howard". Although it won several Oscars, its box office was only over 400 million.

These words startled Lin Sen who was sitting next to him. He glanced at Ronald to see if the young man had misunderstood what he meant, and responded appropriately. He didn't retort like this, exposing the opponent's background.

"Mr. Tanin, Ronald means..."

"I know what he means!" Tanin looked a little angry, "You anti-Semite..."

Now even the female vice president next to her frowned. Where does the hat of anti-Semitic come from?

"How can my movie have anti-Semitic plots? My two heroines are Jewish actors." Ronald himself pays attention to such details, and the quotas for all races in "Fast-paced" are sufficient.

"Why not, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Phoebe Cates are actors of Jewish descent, and you let them be naked in the movie, playing two ignorant and superficial teenage girls who are cheated by men of other races."

"I don't understand, why is it anti-Semitic to photograph a beautiful Jewish girl? Is it pro-Jewish to find an ugly Jewish girl, or a Jewish boy with a beautiful girl of another race?"

"I'm afraid that if this is the case, the reputation of the Jews will be even worse?" Ronald still had a word in his mind.

But the female vice president next to him understood what he meant and smiled at him.She, who is also the vice president, also hates Tanin's unreasonable and arrogant attitude.

"You haven't made a movie, why should I trust you? Can you guarantee that your movie will be a hit? If so, why invest 30 in reshoots." Tanin questioned from the perspective of reshoots budget .

"Of course I can guarantee it." Ronald thought to himself that the original film has already been released in a 15th anniversary edition, can it not be a blockbuster?And the few shots I took were better than the performance in my dream.

"Do you really believe him, Lin Sen? Will the $30 reshoots have any effect on the movie's box office? If this investment can't increase the movie's box office by more than 90, we will be in a loss-making business."

The female vice president under Schinberger also raised doubts.Of course, she was actually giving Ronald and Lin Sen a chance to explain.

"Of course, Brooke Shields and David Letterman are stars with great appeal. Their participation can attract more young audiences to the cinema. The movie sold. We had no marketing budget, and the reshoots were our best marketing."

"How can you prove that your film will be popular? Our investment in reshoots will definitely be rewarded?" Tanin frowned and stared at Ronald. What he disliked most was nonsense film directors.But listening to the young man Ronald speak slowly, it seems that he does have his own set of ideas.

In this era of sluggish film market, only by finding a director who can really bring box office returns can we invest in betting.Otherwise, once the company's annual report comes out, if there are too many losses, his position will be lost.

Simberg has the cash cow of Spielberg in his hands, and he is not like him. He has to question every movie to ensure his right to speak.Anyway, if the movie is a hit, no one will raise their doubts, and if it doesn't, it is prescient.

"I'm confident in my film!" Ronald nodded to the female vice president next to Tanin, "I hope to approve our reshoot budget sooner, the two stars who promised to come as guest stars have tight schedules, Don't delay."

"Please let me make a call first, and I'll prove it to you." After Ronald finished speaking, he walked out of the meeting room, went to the front desk to ask for an extension, and made a long-distance call to his personal accountant, Lawrence Wang.

"Lawrence, I'm Ronald. I don't have time to say more. Tell me, how much money can I spend now?"

Lawrence replied without hesitation, "Ronald, I assume you need some cash urgently.

Your securities assets have not increased significantly, but the stocks of IBM, Coca-Cola, and Kodak you bought have been more than one year, and you only need to pay capital gains tax, not personal income tax.If all are sold, it will be in the early 35 to [-] US dollars.

Your tax payment on this sale will be next year, so you can use the money in the short term, which is this money plus the cash in your bank checking account of 35 US dollars.Leaving aside the taxes you need to pay this April, you'll have access to about $[-].

If you need more, then consider using the house to mortgage the bank. "

"If I write a check for $30 right now, will it bounce immediately?"

"No, only when Wells Fargo finds out that you don't have enough money in your account when they go to cash out, will the ticket be skipped. You have about two days to balance the account. If you sell the stock, I can transfer the cash into it within two days. Your checking account will not bounce checks."

"Okay, you can wait for my order at any time."

Ronald turned around and entered the conference room again, took out a checkbook from his pocket, took out a pen, signed a check for $30 on the first one, and handed it to Ned Tanin.

"This is my personal check. I can pay for the $30 re-shooting fee. Universal will share the account with me according to the investment ratio."

"No, I believe in you. You are very confident in your films, and I like people who are confident." Tanin said something unexpectedly, reversing the questioning mouth just now.

"Finally the budget is reached, we can arrange for reshoots." Lin Sen opened the car door and let Ronald get in the car.

"Why did Tanin finally agree? I thought he would let me pay the money myself.

"Of course he agrees, if you pay for it yourself, the box office sells well, and Universal has to pay you dividends, he will become a laughing stock in the industry. How can a capitalist be exploited by a director?"

　Woke up late in the morning, sorry for the delayed update

　
(End of this chapter)