Exploiting Hollywood 1980

20th Century Fox executives were very dissatisfied. Bruce Willis proposed all kinds of outrageous shooting conditions, which is a classic symptom of a movie project in which the leading man star actor loses control.

Joel Silver wasn't too pleased either. The star cost of the project is out of control, and the budget is still so large. The reasonable and unreasonable profits he can obtain will be greatly reduced.

It was obvious that Bruce Willis must have been dissatisfied when he invited Ronald over for an interview at his home.

20th Century Fox provided production costs and distribution channels for this project. Joel Silver needs to solve various problems and contradictions from beginning to end according to the group. Bruce Willis contributes his unique screen presence and desperate (seemingly) action performances.

So, Ronald only participated in the filming of the first part and had part of the production rights. In the sequel, he is neither with the team, nor the cast, nor the director, nor has he contributed to the special effects. How can he cut his own lucrative piece from this sequel cake that is very likely to be a hit?

Ronald's unique value is his ability to settle these people, let them settle in their positions, and accept the share that they can get for their efforts. If there is no such person to share the cake, then everyone will fight together and want to eat and occupy more. The final result of the quarrel was that the project collapsed, the filming could not be completed, and no one could eat the cake.

…

"Diane, Ronald, welcome..."

Bruce Willis and Demi Moore let Ronald and Diane into their home.

The first thing Diane did was to check on Demi and Bruce's almost one-year-old daughter Rumer, who was sleeping on the crib. "Ah, the baby is so cute. Will it be noisy at night?" Dane looked at her sleeping soundly. little Rumer asked.

"Oh, I always have to wake up at night to feed the baby. It's very troublesome..." Demi Moore began to complain. Bruce Willis was always very chauvinistic. Sometimes when his daughter woke him up at night, he would throw out a few 100s. Big dollar bills, leave it to Demi.

The two women gathered around Demi's eldest daughter and naturally chatted about parenting.

"Ah, brother. Marriage is really a troublesome thing for us men. Demi often does some things that are very difficult to understand. Women become another kind of animal after marriage."

Bruce Willis took Ronald to visit his new room of honor and opened a bottle of fine whiskey in an attempt to get closer to Ronald.

The two drank wine and ate salami, and naturally talked about their married life.

"What about?" Ronald raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect that a new woman like Demi Moore, who was full of independent spirit, would actually become arrogant after marriage.

"For example, we could obviously hire a nanny to stay at home and take care of Rumer. But Demi thinks this will affect our family life. When the baby starts crying in the middle of the night, she kicks my ass and asks me to give it to her. Changing the baby's diaper...I think she just wants to instruct me to do this or that..."

"Um..." Ronald touched his forehead. It seemed that Demi Moore, like Diane, had some personal identity crises. She always wanted to do something to attract her husband's attention, so that she could show her independence. Personality.

In contrast, Diane just tried different new dishes to satisfy herself, which may be considered her luck...

The two of them drank and watched TV. Today happened to be the MLB All-Star Game, and Bo Ja hit a leadoff home run at the beginning. This can be regarded as a rare exciting scene in the baseball All-Star Game in recent years.

"Is there anything you want to tell me, Bruce?"

The two high-fived each other and drank the remaining wine in the glasses. Ronald signaled to the other party that it was time to get down to business.

"Ronald, you know I'm not a greedy person, but my salary in the sequel is still significantly less..."

"Tell me how you feel. Why do you think this salary figure is too low? I don't know much about the current salary levels of male stars..." Ronald smiled, and all kinds of excessive demands turned out to be because There is a problem with the salary figure. Those were Bruce Willis's deliberate attitudes toward 20th Century Fox and the producers.

"Actually, this has nothing to do with money, but everything to do with respect..." Bruce Willis curled his lips and explained his truth.

Recently, People magazine did an inventory of Bruce Willis and male stars with similar characteristics to him, and gave it a very alarmist title, "Battle of the Biceps..."

"They were panting, sweating, their faces twisted, showing pain. They lifted barbells and dodged bullets. Beautiful girls clung to their overdeveloped chests. They galloped and roared into the cinema. The real battle was in Opening up at the box office, they’re the hotties of the summer and their ranks have never been bigger…”

While listening to Bruce Willis, Ronald picked up the People magazine that Willis had prepared and placed on the table, and started reading the article he opened.

First up is Australian star Mel Gibson. Among these male action stars, he is a lightweight (the size of his biceps is the smallest).

His Lethal Weapon series has become a special branch of the action field, "with some crazy action stars"... and his salary has reached more than $7 million.

By contrast, the one with the largest biceps is of course Arnold Schwarzenegger. The highest salary he received was $10 million, plus a share of the profits in the later period.

Bruce Willis's muscle size is in the middle of the two, but his blue-collar temperament and the storyline of ordinary people being forced into adventures make his Die Hard unique and memorable to the audience.

It is reported that 20th Century Fox paid him $7.5 million for the Die Hard sequel.

The last member of the biceps club is Eddie Murphy, a famous black comedy action star. His new film American Journey was a great success at the box office in the summer, and Paramount paid him $9 million.

And he is about to shoot the sequel to his famous work "48 Hours" in 1982, "Another 48 Hours", for which he received $12 million, plus a suitable share of the profits in the later period.

If there were no such report, Bruce Willis might still be able to tolerate his $7.5 million salary. Now, the media has lined up his income with that of three other action male stars. This involves male stars of the same type squeezing each other out.

It seems that what Bruce Willis said is not (entirely) about money, but about dignity, and it is not 100% bragging and nonsense.

In terms of the explosion of box office and the craziness of the audience, he is at least better than Schwarzenegger. Mel Gibson is Australian, and ordinary American audiences do not like him as much as they like Willis for such a foreign star who occasionally reveals some Irish accents.

Bruce Willis is most dissatisfied with Eddie Murphy. Strictly speaking, he is not completely a muscular action star, but mixed with a lot of comedy elements in the movie.

Such an actor can get nearly twice the salary of Willis, and a lot of dominance over the project, which makes Bruce Willis very dissatisfied.

"But this salary does not completely represent the degree of recognition of you by the studio. There are many historical and contractual reasons, and we have to consider..."

Ronald scratched his head. How should he explain these reasons to Bruce Willis reasonably and make him recognize it?

First of all, Schwarzenegger's salary of more than 10 million US dollars was the result of Menahan Golan's extravagant and unruly behavior after he got a huge amount of financing during the Cannon era.

At that time, Schwarzenegger and Stallone were two action stars standing side by side. Menahan took the lead in raising Stallone's salary to more than 12 million US dollars, which also raised Schwarzenegger's salary.

He only received such a salary for a short period of time. Later, because pure muscle action movies fell out of favor in the market, they soon could not get such a high salary.

Mel Gibson's basic skills are very good, and his performance has surpassed the scope of those action stars with only developed muscles. He got this slightly lower salary now because he is not an American.

As for Bruce Willis himself, his hit movies have not caught up with the number of the previous two. The market still has some doubts about his Die Hard. The reason for this box office hit. Is it because of the male lead or because of director McTiernan?

Fortunately, in the sequel, Ronald and Joel Silver changed directors, and it was soon possible to prove who was more important in the Die Hard series.

"Bruce, let me put it this way, do you know how much Tom Cruise was paid when I was filming Top Gun?"

"How much?" Bruce Willis really didn't know, "3 million or 4 million?" He guessed a number at random. At that time, Tom Cruise had already filmed his famous work "Crazy as Hell" and several movies with big-name directors.

"It's just over 1 million. You can ask your agent for confirmation. This is not a secret in the industry."

Ronald thought about it and decided to use the comparison method.

Let Bruce Willis look in the mirror and compare himself with other popular male stars to see what his salary level was in his debut movie.

Generally speaking, when a male star first tries the big screen, he will get a relatively cheap salary. Considering Tom Cruise's popularity at that time, 1 million US dollars was a more suitable price.

In the first episode of Die Hard, Bruce Willis received a salary of $5 million, which is the standard for top male stars. This has a lot to do with the fact that Barry Diller, the small boss of 20th Century Fox, wanted to deliberately give him a hand to prove that his strategy of integrating film and television was successful.

In other words, if we look at it at a normal price, Bruce Willis actually earned more than 3 million in the first movie. If we take the first and second episodes of Die Hard as a whole, then the other stars who are comparable to him actually earned about the same amount of money as him in the sequel.

In other words, if we look at it at a normal price, Bruce Willis actually earned more than 3 million in the first movie. If we take the first and second episodes of Die Hard as a whole, then the other stars who are comparable to him actually earned about the same amount of money as him in the sequel.

"I believe what you said, Ronald. You are one of the few people in Hollywood who tells the truth. I completely believe your explanation." Bruce Willis heard this and agreed with Ronald's statement, but he changed the subject...

"But that was several years ago. The current film market is completely different from the previous years. Paramount also offered Eddie Murphy $12 million for the sequel, plus the profit sharing in the later period...

I don't understand, is the gap between me and Eddie Murphy so big?"

Whether it is worth money or not is actually a comparison. Ronald had to shake his head and smile bitterly, "Murphy is different..."

"What's the difference?" Bruce Willis was full of dissatisfaction. Why can black stars get higher pay than white stars of the same status? He felt that he was not racist, but the natural audience population could represent some box office potential.

"Uh..." Ronald actually had many explanations in his mind. For example, although Eddie Murphy is a black man, white people also like to watch black people making trouble on the screen and get a kind of pleasure of looking down on them.

For example, Eddie Murphy is not just an action star. He has a very deep comedy foundation and his face is hilarious.

For another example, the combination of action and comedy was originally a very successful commercial film direction in the 1980s. The movie "Beverly Hills Cop" that Eddie Murphy really became famous for was the one that he took over after Stallone gave up and made this type of film shine.

Ronald didn't say any of these reasons in the end, but chose one that Bruce Willis could accept more:

"You have to understand that he signed a contract to sell himself, and you enjoy much better creative freedom than him..."

"Creative freedom?" Sure enough, Bruce Willis became interested.

"Ah, yes, Eddie Murphy and Paramount signed an exclusive contract for five movies. So no matter what bad movies Paramount gave him, he had to shoot them (of course, Paramount usually wouldn't do that, but Ronald didn't say that...).

If other studios have suitable movies and want to find him, he can't shoot them. (In fact, it can still be negotiated, and the scripts from other studios may not be as suitable for Eddie Murphy as Paramount's).

"It's just like before... before..." Bruce Willis had a word, but he couldn't remember how to say it. He heard his agent say it.

"Just like the big studio system in the past, actors were exclusive to the studio..." Ronald continued.

"Yes, yes... the big studio system, it's very bad for actors. ”

“But it’s good for the director, whoever he wants to shoot the film can shoot it…” Ronald thought, did he find Bruce Willis’s button?

“So that’s the case, then I can hardly imagine that if I had signed a contract like Eddie Murphy’s with 20th Century Fox, I could still shoot the movie I just shot…”

Bruce Willis was talking about his new film, “In Try”, which he co-starred with Canadian director Norman Jewison. In this film, he plays a Vietnam War veteran who is deeply troubled by PTSD. Only his niece, a 17-year-old girl, treats him well.

It’s no longer the time for Hollywood to shoot Vietnam War blockbusters. Such a film with a strong director’s personal color and Vietnam War background is not optimistic about the box office. Bruce Willis also went for reviews and awards. The film will be released by Warner Bros. in the fall.

To be honest, if he signed an exclusive contract like Eddie Murphy, he would probably not have the opportunity to shoot such a movie.

“Okay, I can accept a salary of $7.5 million, but can I also add a profit-sharing clause? "Bruce Willis told Ronald what he really thought.

In fact, if Willis said some words directly to 20th Century Fox or producer Joel Silver, both parties would doubt each other's sincerity in cooperation.

But if the message is passed through a middleman like Ronald who is trusted by both parties, everyone knows that what is said must be close to their bottom line, and there will be no false alarms or deliberately misleading each other by offering a high price.

"This is a different time, Bruce. I really doubt that after the Jack Nicholson incident, there will be anyone like me who would give you a profit-sharing contract as a poor pauper..."

Ronald mentioned two things. The first one was that Jack Nicholson got a huge profit-sharing income for playing the Joker in "Batman".

Of course, there was a lucky element in this matter, because no one thought that a comic book adaptation like "Batman" could achieve such a great commercial success like "Superman" ten years ago.

And Jack Nicholson signed a global box office profit-sharing contract, not a profit-sharing contract that is convenient for accounting. This makes the distributor Warner Bros. very likely to bleed tens of millions.

After this incident, most of the major studios are very cautious about giving such a box office figure that is not convenient for accounting when operating such commercial films. They would rather increase the star's salary to a ridiculous level than let them get the profit-sharing right.

After all, for those senior managers, giving a fixed salary figure can be completely explained from a financial point of view because of the market price.

But given such an unimaginable share figure, when the annual report is disclosed, Wall Street analysts will be besieged, saying that their box office estimates are completely wrong, and they are simply not suitable for working in such a large studio.

The second thing was "Look Who's Talking", which Ronald asked Bruce Willis to dub. The film directed by Amy Heckerling is in post-production and will be released this fall.

Because it was a small production invested by Ronald, he had no money to pay Bruce Willis a salary commensurate with his status, so he had to give him a share contract.

Bruce Willis didn't take it seriously and completed the dubbing of the little baby in a weekend with only half a helping hand.

"Hahahaha, that's not the same thing at all..." Bruce Willis laughed. How could such a movie be on par with 20th Century Fox's 50 million-invested large-scale production in terms of box office revenue?

Finally, Ronald agreed to convey his request for an increase in salary to the producer, and Bruce Willis was relieved, knowing that Hollywood would not treat his celebrity just because his salary was much lower than that of Eddie Murphy. Bit of doubt.

It happened that Demi Moore and Diane were almost finished chatting there, so Ronald asked to leave.

In the end, Demi Moore took Diane's hand and sent the couple one extra mile to the driveway at the gate.

Dane was already in the car. Suddenly, Demi Moore took Ronald's arm, leaned close to his ear, and said something in a small voice.

"Ronnie, let me star in your movie about ghosts. Is it time for you to direct me?"

"Huh?" Ronald's ears were very itchy from Demi's blowing...

"I have obtained Diane's consent." Demi Moore hit Ronald's arm hard, then leaned down and waved desperately to Diane, who was already in the car.

"Accidentally", the low-cut dress exposed a piece of white.

"What did you promise him?" After Ronald got into the car, he waved goodbye to Demi Moore, and then turned back to ask Diane.

"I promised him that if you have the opportunity to direct his movie, I will let you go to work." Dane also put his chest close to Ronald's arm, hugging him tightly and refusing to let go.

"I've been very busy every year since I entered Hollywood. Now that I'm married to you and our child is about to be born, I want to have a good rest. Don't you think it's a long time to do nothing like this, go home on time every day, and wait for the birth of your child? Are you happy?"

"But then every other actress in Hollywood would scold me," Diane chuckled. Hollywood actresses know that Ronald is good at filming women-centered scenes.

However, it is difficult to find a suitable big star to be the leading actor in a movie about ghosts. If it is a small production, Diane is not worried.

"But I feel that my current life is very happy. I don't want to give up the days of going home on time and seeing you every day." Ronald actually still yearns for this kind of ordinary nine-to-five family life.

"You always have to go out and make movies..." Diane actually also likes this kind of family life. The two people, who had shortcomings in their families when they were young, cherish this time very much.

"Unless someone is willing to invest money and let me shoot the entire movie in Hollywood, Los Angeles, this way, I can go home to see you on time at six o'clock every day..."

Ronald also laughed. How could there be such an easy target nowadays who would be willing to invest in a movie like this that was all shot in Los Angeles?

Everyone either went to Canada or Australia, or went to some poorer and backward states in the Midwest or the south, doing everything possible to reduce production costs.