Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 941 Comic Book Adaptation Movies
"He's my college classmate. Haven't you seen his graduation work? It's very good." Ronald read the name of the screenwriter that Samuel Godwin Jr. showed him, and found that he was in New York University. When I was in school, one of the three directing students surnamed Lee, Ang Lee.

The encounters between people are like rivers on the plain, split and join. When I was filming commercials, I asked him to work as an assistant director with the black director Spike Lee. I haven’t seen him for a few years. film and distribution company, while Ang Lee is still looking for opportunities to direct his first film.

"Really? He's your classmate? I've seen his graduation work, and I can make a movie just by looking at it. My new film, Mystic Pizza, couldn't find someone to change the script when it started shooting. Someone recommended it to me. Besides him, he has a bit of a knack for rom-coms.

He submitted one of his own scripts to me, and after the movie is released, I plan to invest in his new film.Just use the original hero and heroine of modern Cinderella, I am very optimistic about him. "

"You are really lucky, Samuel. I didn't know he was still in America. I thought he had gone back to his hometown. If I knew..." Ronald thought that if he knew that Ang Lee had ideas, he would definitely Prioritize investment.

Ang Lee's graduation work is a good example of his level. There have been no directors' works for so many years. It must not be that he can't shoot, and he can't find a production company willing to invest.Being a director is like being pregnant. You can tell whether you can shoot or not after seeing your work, and you can’t lie to others.It is estimated that he still insists on his own directorial works, and he is not willing to make any movies.

Ronald and Godwin nodded goodbye, and made a note in the notepad to let daydreamers pay attention to Ang Lee. If there is a suitable project in the future, they can also invest in it. Talents are rare.

After leaving the Producers Union, Ronald still found a place to chat with Minahan.

Minahan has a lot of free time now, and he doesn't need to make decisions about many things about Cannon anymore. He only cares about the movie itself now.

Maybe because he wants to understand the lessons of success and failure in the past few years, Minahan is no longer obsessed with collecting all kinds of outdated famous directors and stars, and he focuses more on his favorite type of film—— Manga adaptation.

"I have now collected a large number of movie adaptation rights for comics. After Yoram knows that his current approach is unsuccessful, I can make movies I like." Minahan's spirit is much better now, Ronald Seeing that he has somewhat regained his passion for movies back then.

"This is really suitable for you..." Ronald chuckled. Minahan really likes comic book adaptation movies. In the past two years, he has made Superman 4, Universe King Seaman, and other comic book adaptation movies.

In fact, when Minahan himself was the director, the films he made on other themes also had a kind of exaggerated, hypocritical, and specious caricature.Maybe he really came to shoot this style of film by himself, which suits his performance instead?

Think about it, at the Montreal Film Festival in Canada that year, the extremely disgusting movie "The Apple (The Apple)", if it was a comic story, wouldn't the audience throw things on the stage?

"However, comic films generally require a lot of special effects shots. I saw the special effects in your fourth Superman movie, and they didn't get much praise."

Ronald thought of the fifty-cent special effects in Minahan's movies. If he really wanted to make a movie based on comics, he would really have to spend money on special effects.

"That movie was a mistake. I released too many movies and diluted Cannon's investment in Superman movies. Now I have learned my lesson. EMI is strong. After the merger with Cannon, as long as they realize that Hollywood needs A big investment will sooner or later give up Yoram’s line and return to the right path.”

Minahan is now criticizing his cousin Yoram's thinking a lot. He waved his hand and giggled, as if in front of him was a big screen, on which he bought Spider-Man, Captain America, Seaman Part [-], Fantastic Four and more.

Then the audience in the audience cheered, stood up and clapped for a long time, and threw all kinds of flowers at him...

"That's the kind of movie we're going to make, and it's the kind of movie that audiences will like... Ronald, shall we work together again?"

"Um...", Ronald felt that the Israeli was a little dazed. After he was seized by his cousin Yoram, he was a little bit unacceptable to reality.

Until now, Hollywood comic-book adaptations have been the favorites of low-budget producers like Roger Corman.Those biubiubiu's green laser special effects don't cost a lot of money.Only the first two Superman series were really big productions that managed to make a lot of money.

Blockbusters and low-budget exploitation movies have completely different tolerance levels for them.You pay a dollar to see a Roger Corman sci-fi movie in a midnight theater, you know the stuff is fake and horrible, and you accept that cheap costume and make-up, focus on the plot and a sense of the ridiculous.

But if you're paying five bucks to see a sci-fi movie from the seven major studios, you're expecting at least something that looks real.This is why Superman spent so much money on flying special effects.It took weeks of repeated shooting for just one flying shot, and the cost of that shot alone can exceed $100 million.

"I'm not very good at shooting special effects, you have to find someone who can." Ronald still shied away, because Minahan's previous few steps in the movie caused him too much psychological damage.Cassandra Peterson, the heroine of the ecstasy, talked about the feeling of making a movie for Minahan——

She heard that millions of dollars would be invested in the production of special effects, but it turned out that a total of two yuan and fifty-three cents had been invested.

"Hey, you don't know, I now have the adaptation copyrights of Marvel, Mattel, several comics and toy companies. No one in Hollywood has more comics copyrights than me. Now Hollywood has not recognized this kind of movie. I have already collected their potential before they even reacted.

Only people from Warner Bros. have a bit of foresight. They set up a Batman movie, and it happened that we also filmed a Spiderman to fight with them.Whether you want to be a director, or a producer, or participate in investment, it's up to you. This is a good opportunity. I didn't tell anyone...

By the way, who is the best at making special effects movies in Hollywood now?That friend of yours, the one who filmed the Terminator, can I invite him to film it? "

"Hey, he's making a sci-fi film for [-]th Century Fox right now, you can ask him after he finishes filming..."

Ronald saw that Minahan had Cameron's idea to shoot Spider-Man again.Knowing that this guy must have no plans, thinking of it as soon as he comes out.It's better not to participate in the cannon project.

But he really took so many comic adaptation copyrights?This guy really has the guts to bet big. His success and failure all stem from his willingness to make big bets.

……

"The news you said is true. Minahan really bought a large number of film adaptation copyrights from several major comic companies and toy companies." Nisita took the results of the research and came to report to Ronald.

"Really bought so many? The price will not be cheap." Ronald counted, the two major comic companies, plus the copyright of comic characters owned by toy companies such as Mattel, Minahan spent a lot of money on it.

"It's not cheap, these are some of the best characters in big companies," Nisita agreed, "but not many people in Hollywood recognize the value of comic book adaptation movies. Only Warner Bros. has recently approved a Batman movie. Minahan is not a big To win is to lose big."

"This guy is always full of gamblers." Ronald recalled the past when he spent tens of millions to make Brooke Shields a desert racing movie. "When will the Warner Bros. Batman film start?"

"Now they are also stuck by the screenwriter's strike, and their large-scale auditions in the early stage have been suspended." Nisita handed the information of the Batman movie to Ronald.

"4000 million? Are they serious?" Ronald was shocked when he saw the budget figure.

"They've been wanting to do it for a long time. There was an initial script ten years ago, and it was going to have William Holden as Batman and David Niven as Robin."

"Aren't they too old at the time?" Ronald imagined for a moment, and the temperament was very suitable, but the two old actors passed away in the early 80s.

"Later, CAA knew about this project, so we began to recommend our ace actors, Bill Murray as Batman, and black star Eddie Murphy as Robin."

"This..." Ronald thought to himself that this combination is a classic Hollywood white hero with a black partner with a broken mouth. "Are they still acting now?"

"No, in the end Warner liked the new version of the Dark Knight comics more, and found Tim Burton, the director of 'Beetlejuice', which is now on sale, and now Batman is confirmed to be played by Michael Keaton. Massive auditions for actresses, asking for the sexiest female stars in Hollywood..."

"It's another strike..." Ronald really felt too difficult about the scriptwriters' union strike. The seven major studios had no way to deal with this kind of forced strike by the industry-wide union.

"Do you have any recommendations for Hollywood sexy bombs? Or potential newcomers you are optimistic about? I can work it out..." Nisita knew that this project would attract many of the sexiest and most beautiful actresses.

"Can you tell me?" The figure of Helen Slater flashed in Ronald's mind... No, Helen's temperament is not suitable for that kind of role...

"Hahaha... When the strike is over, I will update you on their audition progress..."

……

It has been more than a week since Ronald finished filming the working girl, and he has not completely forgotten the way of thinking when shooting, so it is not suitable to enter the editing room now.He continued his vacation in Los Angeles, and returned to the new office building of [-]th Century Fox on this day. Most of the projects he participated in over the past year were related to Fox.

The filming of "Die Hard" was completed on the building, and the decoration of the top floors was finally completed, and the employees moved in from the old building one after another.

Ronald, along with Joel Silver, chatted with the distribution department about the film's announcement.

After watching the sample, they were very confident in the movie, so they planned to move this Christmas story to the summer file, which has the largest number of audiences in America.

"Really that good? The plot of this movie takes place at Christmas, isn't it more suitable for the Christmas schedule?" Ronald asked Joel Silver.

"I'm pretty confident that this summer isn't very strong, with Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Tom Cruise's Cocktails, and Eddie Murphy's trip to America... ...Did you find anything?" Silver smiled and gave Ronald the list of blockbuster movies expected to be released in the summer.

"Well... there are no action movies..." Ronald found the problem after flipping through it.

"Originally, the Aussie's Crocodile Dundee 2 was a rival, but they decided to release it at the end of May ahead of schedule."

All kinds of coincidences, this summer, there are no movies starring big-name action stars.Schwarzenegger transformed into an action comedy, adding a lot of comedy elements to the movie, no longer just posing with muscles to scare people.

Schwarzenegger feels that if there is no transformation, American audiences will sooner or later dislike his muscular play.

Stallone only has one Rambo third film this year. This series of films has changed from the first film about the encounters of Vietnam War veterans and reflecting the social reality, to the second purely commercial film that beats bad guys. I heard that the third sequel is also the same. , not confident that it will be released in summer, so it was moved to May.

Stallone and Bridget Nelson have finally divorced. This high-profile divorce has been pursued by the tabloids for a whole year. It has seriously involved Stallone's energy. I heard that the quality of Rambo III has seriously declined.

"It's true that God is helping us..." Ronald agreed with Silver's opinion, and let them see how to shoot a really good-looking action movie.

……

"Your set in South Carolina has to go through a safety assessment. I have to see the report from the scientists."

When he came out of the office, Ronald heard a familiar voice. Turning his head, it turned out to be his old friend Gail Hurd.

"It's not going to be a problem, we're just using the tanks there..." said James Cameron.

"Jim, this is Fox's request. They are very dissatisfied with the constantly overrun budget. If you don't have an environmental safety assessment report, they will not allow you to set up a scene there."

"Okay, I'll take care of it."

"Ronald..." Gail turned around and saw Ronald, "I still have something to do, we'll talk about it later." She picked up her notebook, exchanged greetings with Ronald, and left.

Ronald looked back at Cameron, "You two?"

Cameron and Gail have many conflicts in film, philosophy, and life. The last time I saw him, they were getting divorced, and they were flirting with the female director Ronald hired, Catherine Bigelow. Today Seeing him and Gail seem to have restored the tacit understanding between husband and wife.

Cameron shook his head, frowning, "She is a professional producer, and I only have a professional relationship with her now."

It can be seen that Cameron is also very uncomfortable.This kind of deep-seated contradiction in the film concept is difficult to compromise, and he and Gail are combined because of the film.

Now that the personal relationship between the two has broken down, and they have to take care of the production of major projects, they have to become business partners. Switching between the two attitudes makes Cameron very painful...

"Gail handles it better than I do, I see her always working like this, I can't..."

Ronald had no choice but to comfort his old friend, "This kind of thing is different for everyone, maybe Gail just doesn't reveal it..."

"No, you don't know her well enough. When she looks at me, she treats me like a partner."

Ronald touched his nose, haven't you let go of your mood and started flirting with other women?It seems that the divorce of this kind of couple is also difficult for Cameron, who has a strong will.

Getting married without meeting the right person is really a terrible thing, Ronald patted Cameron on the shoulder, "Come on, I know a very good Japanese-style yakiniku restaurant, let's go eat some..."

(End of this chapter)