Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 522 Orion's Counterattack
Yoram knows a little French, and after watching the news from several TV stations, he translated for Minahan and Ronald. Today, the two countries are negotiating to discuss the issue of mutual opening of the cultural industries of the two countries.

"Jack Long, representative of the French Minister of Culture, and Jack Valenti, President of the Motion Picture Association of America, had a pleasant meeting at the hotel and issued a joint communiqué.

The summit between the two Jacks seems to be developing into an annual event.Like last year, the two met at the Eden restaurant at the Hotel du Cap not far from here.

In the joint communiqué, Mr. Lang promised to launch a special operation in Lanxi to combat piracy, mainly video tapes, and to carry out international cooperation on this rampant illegal phenomenon.Mr. Valenti said he would do everything possible to help French films enter the United States.

The French "Liberation" called this communiqué the "Eden Eagle Armistice Agreement."It is not too much to use the analogy of the armistice agreement.

Because just a few years ago, Mr. Long and Mr. Valenti had a bitter dispute over Mr.Valenti believes that China is practicing trade protectionism against American films, which is inconsistent with the spirit of the memorandum on cultural industries between the two countries under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. "

"So, China's import restrictions on Hollywood films are about to be loosened." Minahan knew this well, "Quack, our lucky moment has come, the market in China has embraced us, so Belgium, And Italy will also take off their pants obediently, plus we are making progress in Britain, Germany, and Greece, and soon we can conquer Europe"

Minahan loosened the belt as he spoke, and made a few obscene movements to lift his hips.

Soon, the three leading actors also came to Cannes in an emergency to create momentum for the screening of Breakdance.

They put on their costumes and began to perform live in a temporary projection tent on the beach in Cannes.

The trio practiced well in the nightclubs on the east coast, and their ability to improvise and mobilize the enthusiasm of the audience has grown a lot, and the girls in Lancey are fascinated.

The assistant who accompanied them reported to Minahan.

"The box office of the third weekend was 520 million, a drop of 17.00% compared to last week. The total box office has exceeded 340 million box office. Next week is the Memorial Day weekend. With one more day off, we estimate that we can still maintain this A week's worth."

Minahan is very happy. This timely good news means that after the screening, he will have a strong bargaining chip when negotiating the price and copy number with distribution companies in Western Europe.

He glanced at Ronald and found him chatting with the audience, so he pulled his assistant aside, "After Memorial Day, how is the theater arrangement for our Cannon self-release?"

"MGM expects to cut [-] theaters one month after its release. For those theaters that have been reduced, we have already contacted them privately, plus the second-round theaters we contacted, small town theaters, and old-fashioned theaters. A total of [-] theaters can be assembled. We can also gradually take over the theaters that MGM will give up in the future.”

"Aw... Aww..."

Temporarily renamed "Break Dance" as "Hot Dance", and hastily changed the opening and ending subtitles.The audience finished watching the wonderful dance scene, and finally Michael Jackson appeared.People from China also started to listen to his records, and saw the familiar voice, which blew up the audience again.

Those sitting in the back row, mainly film distributors from Western European countries and East Asia, saw the audience's reaction, but they didn't understand the power of "hot dance". They immediately stepped forward, surrounded Minahan and Yoram, and pulled them to to sign.

The Israeli brothers took them all to the back of the tent, where the assistants had prepared coffee and refreshments, and there was a small door leading to the smaller tent next door.

Distributors in these big markets will not bid on the spot like movie buyers in small countries two days ago.They entered the small tent one by one, and individually negotiated with Yoram about the number of copies needed and the amount of copy money.

Ronald was sitting in the back corner, watching one person stepping forward, one by one coming out with a smile on his face, and watching Minahan, who was smiling happily beside him, come out to call the next one, Ronald knew that their progress was going well.

At this moment, a young man wearing a T-shirt and running shoes ran quickly, grabbed Minahan, and whispered hurriedly in his ear.

Minahan's expression changed, and he quickly asked his assistant to block the door.

But they were still a step too late. Several men in suits and leather shoes came in, looked around, saw Minahan, stepped forward and said:

"We are the lawyers of Orion Films. Your film counterfeit the name of the Orion Cannes film 'Hot Street Boy'. This is an infringement. We have reached an agreement with the organizing committee that you cannot continue to sell under the name of Beat Dance."

As he spoke, he flashed a notice to Minahan's eyes.

Minahan didn't expect Orion to have this show, he didn't want to argue with clients in front of them, he wanted people to come into the small tent to discuss.

The person who came did not intend to discuss privately at all. He took the notice and said to all the publishers in the tent:

"The movie of the same subject filmed by Orion is called Beat Street, and this movie is called Beat Dance. We have reason to suspect that they are plagiarized.

We're launching legal action against them in America, and folks, if you're here to buy a musical with a new dance theme, I suggest you go to Orion, which premieres in Cannes the day after tomorrow. "

Ronald also couldn't help standing up, watching the drama on the scene.It seems that Orion has discovered the name change of their movie, trying to scare overseas distributors with this confusing statement.

The break-dancing frenzy has begun, and whoever can snatch the first release will grab most of the cake.

Ronald pulled over the boy who had just come in to report, "What's the matter? When did they come?
"It was a warning sent to us by Nike's distributors. They also represent Puma's products. I heard that Puma will cooperate with Orion in Cannes for joint marketing."

When "Breakdance" was filming, Minahan found Nike as a sponsor, and they provided shoes for everyone in the movie.The camera gave that Wan Gou a close-up many times.

Puma, on the other hand, sponsored "Hot Street Boys", and two sports shoe manufacturers are also betting on two movies, which will bring good publicity effects.So Cannon and Nike are standing in the same trench.Sent a warning to Minahan.

"Impossible!" Minahan tore his face with the Orion people in front, and said to distributors from various countries, "Our breakdance will be released in the United States a month earlier than you. You can ask them, they are all experts. How can there be a movie released after the movie that was released first plagiarized?"

The following distributors began to whisper, in most of their countries, the film needs more than a year of preparation and shooting, the post-production time, where would you expect, and the Hollywood low-cost exploitation film has Roger Corman this week A miracle that can finish a movie?And the director of this film is his direct disciple?

"Then why is the name of your movie so similar to ours?" Orion's lawyer cited a powerful piece of evidence. On the flyer revised by Minahan, some of the original titles have not been crossed out, and it clearly says "Breakin "The English title of the film.

"Uh...uh..." Minahan's sweat dripped from his forehead.It's solid evidence that they did change the title to make their movie more like "Hot Boys."

In fact, Orion can't really do anything to the cannon, but now in front of publishers from all over the world, if such a problem occurs, it will be short of breath after all.

If they have doubts about this, they will go to see Hot Street Boys instead. Even if they finally choose "Breakdance" because of the quality, but under the competition between the two, the price may not be as good as it is now.

What's more, "Hot Street Boy" also has a large section of breakdancing and fighting dance performances, which may not be much inferior to the dances in "Breakdancing".

"This gentleman," Ronald saw that Minahan couldn't think of a way, stepped forward to replace him, and faced the Orion lawyer.

"Thank you for the reminder, this is a typo we made." Ronald took a pen from Minahan to sign the contract, circled the flyer, and crossed out the beginning of "Beat" , and then put on Break.

In this way, the title of the film was changed to "Break Dance" by him.

"In America, this kind of dance is called Breakin, which is a common name. But in other parts of the world, they don't know the name of this dance, so we added a word of dance (Dance) afterwards to remind Ami Audiences outside Liga, this is the name of a dance".

Ronald offered a reasonable explanation.

"That's right, the temporary staff we hired from Hair Country are not familiar with English, so they mistakenly wrote Break as Beat." Minahan reacted, and immediately explained to the distributors, "Our Cannon movie is the first to be released in It was released in America, and it was first released in Europe and Asia. We reserve the right to use legal measures to fight back against your slander.”

"Everyone, Breakdance is directed by me. You have watched it and seen the audience's reaction. You don't need my guarantee. You also know the potential of this movie. As for other people's movies with the same theme, I will not comment. You can see with your own eyes." Ronald, by the way, gave the distributors a review of the audience's enthusiastic response.

"Don't forget that we are Oceania, we are from Australia! We want to copy too!"

An Australian distributor doesn't care about Orion's entries. This film obviously has unlimited appeal to young audiences, so let's start first. "

"Very good, I'll give you a discount." Minahan laughed and hugged each other.

Soon, all publishers began to negotiate with Yoram in an orderly manner.

Mr. Orion's lawyer, seeing that he failed to achieve his goal, put away the notice and left.

"Ronald," Minahan called Ronald aside, "I owe you a big one today. When I go back, I will share all the box office data with you, so that we won't have any problems with the share.

Next month, our Cannonball will also join the domestic distribution of 'Breakdance' and release it in second-tier theaters.Although the theater share we got is not as high as the percentage of the first month negotiated by MGM, but this movie will obviously enter a long-term screening, and it is a lot of money when calculated together.

Get your lawyer and accountant team to find Yoram as soon as possible. We are good friends. I don't want to have conflicts with you because of money matters. "

"That would be great. I will. Thank you for letting me see the overseas market development channels." Ronald felt that this trip to Cannes was worthwhile.

"Did you tell Ronald?" After Yoram heard about Minahan's arrangement, he was surprised that Minahan would tell Ronald all the box office revenue that he wanted to hide secretly?

"He helped us a lot today. It wasn't that he came up with that excuse. We would lose more than half of our overseas distribution income. I understand that Ronald is not only a director and artist, but also a material for business.

He may be called a big man in the future, and I don't want to offend him because of these little money.Besides, if everyone makes a fortune together, we may still have room for cooperation in the future. "

"What you said is also reasonable. Anyway, the box office share we get is not very high through our own distribution channels. Don't lose the big because of small things."

"How much did we sign today?" Minahan asked.

"In addition to Britain and Greece, major countries such as the European continent, Italy, and Belgium have all paid deposits. In addition to Japan and Korea in Asia, in total... a total of nearly 800 million copies of the contract have been recorded."

"So many?" Minahan was surprised.

"Yes, the North American box office in the first three weeks made these distributors very excited, and they took the initiative to order additional copies."

"This is the first time we have sold so many copies in Europe, right? It takes more than 200 million moviegoers in a major country."

"There are also Dongying and Korea, and they also have a lot of ordered copies."

"Based on this calculation, what Ronald earned for us is much more than what we paid him."

"Are there any other countries that haven't ordered?"

"Among the main Western European countries, there are West Germany and Spain. In addition, several Nordic countries are not active."

"It's okay, let them go to see Orion's literary feelings first, and then increase the price for them."

(End of this chapter)