Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Jean-Claude Van Damme learned all his editing theories from Walter Murch, and his hands-on skills were learned from two Chinese directors, Corey and Tsui, when he was filming "The King of Fighters" in Hong Kong.

Whether "Bioman" can be revived, and whether he and Lundgren's star path can be smooth again, all depends on the results of this editing.

With the editing room that Ronald gave him to use for free, he also wanted to add some insurance, so he contacted Corey Yeun and Tsui Hark, and asked them to come to Hollywood to guide his editing work, and when he needed to reshoot action shots, the two Hong Kong directors would help.

In the office, knowing that Jean-Claude Van Damme was working so hard, Ronald thought he could help such a hard-working actor. He also called the two Hong Kong directors and invited them to come over. Daydream would take care of their food and accommodation in Los Angeles.

The two quickly left their affairs in Hong Kong and rushed to Los Angeles as soon as possible. When Ronald saw them and Jean-Claude Van Damme coming in together in the office, he asked his assistant to make tea for them.

"Jean-Claude and I have known each other for a long time. He is not only a good action actor, but also very ambitious to be a director. There are some problems with this movie, and I hope you can help him."

"Yes, Ronald. It is the saddest thing for an actor to see that the movie he worked hard to shoot cannot be released because the producer withdraws the investment." Jean-Claude Van Damme is good at karate and gets along well with Corey Yeun. It should be no problem for him to help him a little.

After talking about the problem of "Bioman", Ronald called the assistant to make another pot of black tea, "Jean-Claude, please let me and the two Hong Kong directors have some private space."

Ronald saw the assistant close the door and took out two checks from the drawer. Corey's "Dragon and Phoenix Swords" and Tsui Hark's "The Unparalleled Two Heroes" have both made some gains in the videotape market. Ronald generously gave them both some bonuses.

Especially "Dragon and Phoenix Swords", Rothrock, a white woman, coupled with the sharp action design of the Hong Kong martial arts instructor, made many low-level audiences feel very happy. The popularity of "The Legendary Heroes" is not so good.

Many viewers don't understand why Qiu Yunbo and Cynthia Rothrock are flying in the sky. Is it a fantasy like the Lord of the Rings? And what is the identity of the man with a lot of powder and gorgeous clothes (the eunuch of the East Factory in the plot), and how come there were drag queens in ancient China?

However, this ancient fantasy time travel "The Legendary Heroes" is more popular than "Dragon and Phoenix Swords" in one place, that is, the major Chinese, Japanese, and Korean settlements. It seems that East Asians have their own national legends and stories, and can better understand this style of action movies.

Both directors are very happy. Corey Yeun likes modern action movies. He decided to help Jean-Claude Van Damme do some post-production work. The two went to see the unedited film first.

Tsui Hark's bonus was much less than Corey's, so he stayed to ask Ronald, "Ronald, why is my movie not popular in America? Is it because I made worse than Corey?"

"From a personal appreciation perspective, I actually like your movie more." Ronald felt very familiar with the flying scenes in "The Legendary Heroes". On the contrary, he felt that the fighting scenes in another more realistic action movie "Dragon and Phoenix" were much worse than Jackie's.

"This is actually a question of viewing habits. Your video sales in Chinatown are still better. I hope you can make more of this kind of movie, so that you can slowly attract audiences in America who like movies with Chinese cultural backgrounds. Just like the Japanese movies decades ago, which were broadcast late at night on many TV stations, they cultivated a group of Kurosawa fans."

Ronald has a long-term plan. Various movies in Hong Kong and the mainland are completely different from Hollywood methodologies, and have their own special cultural backgrounds. In fact, the viewing experience is different from Hollywood commercial films. In America, there are many Asian people. As long as we insist on distributing Chinese films and videotapes, we can meet their viewing needs.

This trend of watching Chinese action movies and flying martial arts movies will gradually penetrate into the mainstream population. Anyway, this type of movie has little language barrier, and the exciting action scenes are not available in Hollywood.

As long as there is a certain audience base, low-cost exploitation movies can be continuously produced and old Hong Kong movies can be released. As long as these movies with low production costs can make a profit, they can expand the audience.

And the expansion of the audience can in turn support higher production budgets, and a virtuous circle can be entered.

Of course, this kind of production upgrade requires a masterpiece that can go out of the circle and enter the mainstream audience. Just like Kurosawa Akira's role in Japanese movies, after him, America has a place for Japanese movies.

"Then maybe we need a Hong Kong movie that suits the tastes of American audiences..." Tsui Hark and Ronald had the same idea, and he immediately started thinking about making another Hong Kong-style English movie in Hollywood.

"Well..." Ronald didn't speak immediately. This was to be considered as a Hollywood commercial project. He had never dreamed of any Chinese English movies, so the risk was still not small. At this stage, Ronald would rather operate at a low level with low cost to cultivate the market.

"This is very risky, unless it's a sequel to a movie, so you can try it... Hey, wait a minute..."

Ronald remembered the story he had thought of for the third part of "The Karate Kid". Anyway, he didn't want to shoot it, but Tsui Hark's style was very suitable for his idea:

Daniel and Master Miyagi dreamed of returning to Master Miyagi's ancestor, the founder of the family martial arts, who drifted to the South China Sea due to a shipwreck, learned Tang Shou from a Chinese master, and came back to establish Ryukyu Karate.

Isn't this style very suitable for his plan?

"You stay here for a few more days, I'll go to talk to Winterraub, if he's interested, you can go together then." Ronald told Tsui Hark his idea and asked him to start thinking about some plots and actions.

...

"Jerry, why are you so hard to find? Can't even I call you?"

A few days later, Ronald called Winterraub and someone finally answered. This guy didn't know what he was busy with. Ronald made several calls himself, but only his secretary answered. He asked Richard to pass on the message, but it didn't work. Finally, he found his wife Jane Morgan's phone number and called the house where he didn't often go.

"It's me, Susan, Jerry..." The person who answered the phone was Susan Akins, Weintraub's lover. She had a strange relationship with Mrs. Weintraub. Usually, Weintraub and Susan lived outside, and went back to Jane Morgan's place on weekends and holidays. The two women didn't avoid suspicion, and occasionally they got along well in the same house.

"What's wrong with him?" Ronald thought Weintraub had a physical problem.

"He locks himself up at home every day. No matter how Jane and I persuade him, it's useless. Can you come over? Now only you, the person who helped him achieve great success, can cheer him up."

"What's wrong with Jerry? Is he depressed?" Ronald found it funny. How could such a tycoon who started his career by tricking Elvis Presley into holding a concert hide at home because of depression and not come out to see people? Could he be hiding from debt? Thinking of this, Ronald backed off a bit.

"No, he is... Can you come over? Please..."

"Give me the phone..." Jane Morgan took the phone from Susan who was talking incoherently on the other end of the phone.

"Ronald, come over. Jerry is a fragile man who can't get hard because of a few failed projects. This Jew without balls, come and talk to him about what the true American spirit is."

Jane Morgan's voice was loud and her words were unpleasant, just like pointing at her husband's nose and scolding him.

"I'm not depressed, woman, don't slander me to others..." Weintraub hid in the bedroom upstairs, opened a crack in the door, and yelled at his wife.

"You Luther, I knew you were no good. Apart from secretly sleeping with your best friend's daughter, you have never done anything with balls. Ronald, he needs a Winner to teach him what the most important quality of a man is, balls!"

"I fucking have balls..." Weintraub couldn't stand Morgan's ridicule and rushed out in pajamas, "Are you on the phone with Ronald? Come on, ask him to come over, maybe I can be saved if he comes."

...

Ronald came to Weintraub's mansion the next morning, where an artificial river for swimming was dug to the door of the living room.

Before entering the door, he saw several people in suits and leather shoes sitting in the living room, drinking coffee. When he got closer, Ronald was surprised to recognize that the tall man behind him was his frequently hired lawyer, Mickey Kanter, nicknamed Gray Eyed Mickey Mouse.

"Mickey, why are you here?"

"I can't tell you, attorney-client confidentiality agreement..." Mickey Kanter patted his briefcase and winked at Ronald.

"Oh, then, good morning..." Ronald didn't understand what was wrong with him and why he came to block the door so early in the morning.

"Let me introduce you, this is William, the best bankruptcy lawyer in our law firm..." Mickey Kanter's introduction, the word bankruptcy lightly made Ronald raise his eyebrows.

"I'll go talk to him first..." Ronald said goodbye to Kanter and went upstairs to see Weintraub.

"Jerry, what the hell are you doing? What the hell happened?" Ronald asked him when he saw him. Only Susan was in the room, and his legal wife Jane Morgan was nowhere to be seen.

"Fuck, I was fucking careless." Weintraub saw Ronald and regained some of his former confidence.

He told Ronald why he fell into this big pit.

It turned out that after being used by MGM's Kerkorian and ruthlessly kicked out, Weintraub founded Weintraub Pictures.

He was very angry that he did not become the CEO of MGM. Since he became successful in the record industry, few people looked down on him like this.

In order to express his anger to Kerkorian, Weintraub did several big things right from the start.

First, he lobbied major studios, using his fame of two films, The Karate Kid, which grossed over 100 million yuan, to try his best to obtain financing. Finally, Columbia Pictures and a Canadian theater group jointly guaranteed and injected capital for him, and he eventually raised more than 460 million US dollars in loans on Wall Street.

Second, he also signed a 20-year distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures. As long as the quality of the film is acceptable, Columbia will distribute his film. He therefore contacted many Hollywood producers and negotiated projects everywhere. Weintraub fully absorbed the successful experience of Ronald, and he read the news from all over the world that Susan sorted out for him every day.

What UFO kidnapped a man for 20 years of research, and he stayed young after returning; the CIA abandoned the American prisoners of war in Vietnam and let them fend for themselves. Then find a screenwriter to write a script.

He thought these scripts would sell well, and invested in six new directors in succession, all of which were big productions of more than 10 million US dollars.

Third, he also took over Marvel and Mattel Toys, which were spit out by Cannon Pictures after financial difficulties. Weintraub Pictures not only wants to sell blockbuster movies, but also has to engage in the entire industry chain.

Toy companies can just sell all kinds of peripheral products. He has a superior vision, and the scripts and directors he likes will definitely sell well. In this way, he stocked up peripheral toys in advance to avoid insufficient production capacity after the release and wasting a great opportunity.

And comics have a huge fan base. As long as the comics are adapted, people will come to support them. He only needs to come up with one or two comic stories every year, and comics are also a huge market opportunity for peripheral toys.

With such a great plan, Weintraub felt that within five years, he could become a production company as big as the seven major Hollywood studios. Then he could acquire MGM, which had been half-dead by Kerkorian... Let him also have a taste of being kicked out.

By the way, when the time comes, he can take back the name of MGM so that his hotels can no longer use the MGM trademark, so as not to dirty such a good film company.

However, the stall was too big, and after the stock market crash, it became a big hole. All six film projects encountered investors' withdrawal. Weintraub had to make up the investment himself.

Those scripts were repeatedly revised by others in order to make a hit. As a result, they encountered a screenwriters' strike, and the previous investment was all stuck there. Up to now, none of them has been finalized, let alone attracting stars to join and confirming the release date.

Just when Winterraub took advantage of the end of the screenwriters' strike and finally finished the scripts for two movies and started preparing to start work...

Bang...Another unexpected tragedy happened.

Because of the contraction, Wall Street began to set its sights on the 460 million loan. Wall Street lawyers are very skilled and found loopholes in some of Winterraub's financial operations. They also seized on the fact that he had not approved a film project for more than a year and announced that they would stop lending.

In a bad economy, the most terrible thing, such as loan withdrawal, happened to Winterraub.

Therefore, Winterraub, who couldn't figure out why he was unlucky for a while, was depressed under the huge contrast and didn't want to see anyone, especially his friends when he was successful, hiding at home and getting moldy.

"Oh, God, are you really going to file for bankruptcy?" Ronald didn't expect such a thing to happen.

Since the establishment of Winterraub Pictures, no movie has been made yet, so how can it go bankrupt?

If the movie failed at the box office and went bankrupt, it would not be difficult to understand. The film industry has always been a high-risk industry, and there are many such things.

But Ronald didn't know if Weintraub was the first Hollywood filmmaker to fail before he made any movies.

Perhaps it was because the two films Ronald made for him, The Karate Kid, both earned more than 100 million yuan at the box office. Weintraub had an illusion that he had a good eye and that movies were a high-return investment strategy for him. But he ignored the fact that high returns always come with high risks.

Or perhaps Weintraub never thought that risks could happen to him.

"Okay, do you want to make the third film of The Karate Kid?" Ronald asked.

Anyway, with the reputation of the first two films of The Karate Kid, it would not be difficult to raise funds. But he had to make some financial and legal preparations to prevent Weintraub Pictures from becoming the producer to avoid being dragged down. Ronald was still confident that he could make money just from this sequel.