Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"The question is where does this weird idea come from?"

Ronald asked Richard if it was Ovitz spreading rumors about himself again?

"I'm going to inquire about the news. I haven't heard this rumor in CAA. Maybe it came from other channels?" Richard is more sensible. This kind of thing may not be caused by rumors. Kluge is the richest man. He doesn't I will pay attention to all kinds of rumors like a Hollywood practitioner.

Richard went to search for clues, activated all his connections, and desperately called acquaintances to get information, but for a while he had no clue.

Ronald didn't stop. While editing Ghost, he found David Simkins and Lawrence Connor, whom he recommended, and finally gave him the script for the pilot episode of "Working Girl" and the overall plan. Take it out.

"It seems that after the movie story ends, Tess is in the investment company, and what will happen next?" Ronald read the script quietly, didn't say anything for a long time, and then asked.

"In fact, the direction of this story has a similar background to the movie. The overall story can be said to be a new TV series." Lawrence Connor is tall and thick, with a beard. If his nose hadn't betrayed him Outsiders can't tell that he is a Jewish screenwriter.

Ronald glanced at David Simkins in the conference room. He felt a little weird that his movie script had been changed like this.

The story begins when Tess comes to work as an attack supervisor at Teske Company. Tess's good friend Xin is still so concerned about her makeup that she avoids work. She usually enjoys cheering for Tess and seems to regard her as a secretary. Spokesperson.

Her boyfriend Jack Traynor still plays the role of a life coach. He often travels on business, and sometimes he and Tess have to talk to each other over the phone.

Tess's secretary is a veteran. She tells Tess that Mrs. Newhouse, the senior executive in charge of Tess's performance, is called a witch by people in the company. Although Tess has the recommendation of her boss Teske, she must be wary.

Tess has to go back to her home in Staten Island every day. Her two parents who love her very much, but their knowledge is limited, often give her some outdated and old-fashioned advice.

Tess's neighbor is a Latino blue-collar plumber named Romero. When he sees Tess, he uses the skills of a Latino man and stalks her.

"Ronald, the first thing to consider is the stricter classification of the TV station. Many plots in the movie version cannot be reproduced on the TV station. This is a public TV station, and many underage children also want to watch it..."

"That makes sense..." Ronald nodded. In the original movie, Tess was topless and used a vacuum cleaner, and the sex scene with Harrison Ford, who played her boyfriend, could not be reproduced in the TV series.

Compared with the MPAA's rating system for movies, the TV station's rating system is more strict. Language, nudity and violent content are generally a level stricter than movie ratings. In other words, a TV series with a PG rating is actually about the same size as a G-rated TV series that can be watched by children as young as a few years old.

If any public television station dares to put some inappropriate content in the TV series to win ratings and advertisements, parents, especially housewives, will continue to call the "Television Program Parental Guidance and Standards Committee".

This organization is similar to the Hays Commission in the Hollywood film industry. It is an organization actively established by major public television stations to proactively cater to the ideas of housewives, the main operators of TV remote controls. Otherwise, they will complain to the federal government agency in charge. There is a risk of license revocation by the FCC.

"But this plot is too..." Ronald muttered a few words and flipped through the script. His heart was very resistant to such an adaptation.

Business wars, office struggles, and love between men and women in the workplace have all become very childish in TV dramas. There is absolutely no merger plot in the movie version that has been approved by Wall Street experts, and the actors are asked to train with real Hollywood bankers, and the bankers give lectures to the actors in a rigorous manner.

It seems that the plot suddenly changed from real Wall Street to a simulated competition between high school students and Wall Street. Ronald is very proud of the movie version of "Working Girl". The plot in it can make Wall Street practitioners find it difficult to fault it.

"I understand your love for the movie version. But this is a TV series. You know, the biggest problem with TV series is that the whole family can watch it together. The real and profound commercial content will make parents and children unable to watch it. , and those middle-aged people had to listen to their opinions and change the channel.

In recent years, the TV series with the highest advertising value are family-friendly TV series with various plots. Parents can see how Tess's parents dote on their children and what their children are thinking.

Blue Collar can watch Romeo take on a beautiful girl working on Wall Street. Young people who have just entered the workplace can see real workplace competition and all kinds of gossip. These viewers originally hold secretarial jobs, and they do not understand the complicated office struggles.

More importantly, everyone needs to see love. Romantic love is in line with the preferences of audiences of all ages..."

Lawrence Connor was bolder and expressed his opinion to Ronald. He concluded, "I have also been a screenwriter for several movies. Although I have never achieved great box office success, I also understand the difference between movies and TV series. In a 2-hour movie, the audience sits in a dark room and can't do anything except watching the movie, so the level of involvement is very high, and you can lay out some complicated plots.

But when the TV series is on, everyone can stand up and do other things at any time, and when they come back, they can still connect with the plot. The script must be simple and meet the public's imagination."

"I understand the reason, but it's just awkward..." Ronald actually agreed with Lawrence Connor's statement intellectually, but his movie was changed into this way, and he always felt a little physically uncomfortable.

"Forget it, I don't care about the handling of this TV series. You polish the script again and wait for David (Simkins) to agree. I will sign and allocate funds to shoot a pilot episode, and then we will go to NBC and other TV stations to promote it."

Ronald couldn't stand his hard work being turned into a soap opera, so he simply closed the script, threw it in a drawer, and didn't think about it anymore.

"Who are you going to invite to play the role of Melanie Griffith? What about Harrison Ford's role?" Regardless of the plot, the casting still needs to be taken care of.

"Of course it's best to let Melanie Griffith..."

"Impossible, if you let Melanie play this version of Tess, she would rather die for you to see..." Ronald put himself in her shoes and knew that Melanie Griffith, who was addicted to acting, would never destroy her most representative role with her own hands.

"Then we recommend this one..." Lawrence Connor and David Simkins saw this and pushed a photo of an actress over.

"Who is this?" Ronald looked at the photo. The actress looked very similar to the photo of Melanie Griffith when she was younger. It seemed that she came prepared. "Nancy McKeon?" Ronald turned to the resume behind the photo.

"It turns out she's a grown-up child star." The resume lists Nancy McKeon's performance history. From 1980 to 1988, she played a rebellious and smart 15-year-old Polish high school student in a long-running TV series "The Reality of Life", and she played it until she was 22 years old.

The character she played finally graduated from high school with the highest honor "Valentine". This is usually the one with the best grades and the best activities in a high school, and the one who finally gave a speech on behalf of the students.

This is also very consistent with Tess's IQ in the movie version, and coupled with Nancy McKeon's ten years of TV experience, she is indeed a suitable candidate.

As for the selection of handsome guys, it is even less of a problem. The requirements for male actors in TV series are much lower. Basically, they can have a handsome face and remember the lines, and the rest can be handled through close-ups and editing.

TV series are different from movies. The most important role is the screenwriter. Because usually when shooting, each episode can be shot in parallel by different directors, and the overall characters and plot direction are to be grasped by the screenwriter.

Ronald has passed the permission to shoot the pilot episode, and the two screenwriter supervisors started to act.

"Steve, I didn't expect that filming a TV series would cause me psychological harm. I will think carefully about any movies I want to change into TV series in the future."

No one told Ronald about the depression of having the plot changed into a soap opera, so he could only call Steve Bannon. This person was responsible for the production, project establishment, and promotion of several TV series, and he could understand Ronald's feelings.

"I don't care about the content. It's just a commodity. It doesn't matter whether it is orange flavored or cherry flavored. As long as someone watches it, it's fine." Bannon was very happy to have the opportunity to talk to Ronald about this. He stood on Ronald's side wholeheartedly to enlighten him and make him happy.

"You are right, but I am still an artist, hey..." Ronald poured out some bitter water. He agreed to the project at the beginning, and no matter how dissatisfied he was, he could not cancel it, which made backbones like Simkins have very unhappy thoughts.

"Just treat it as an attempt..." Ronald felt much better after complaining. He thought of the Seinfeld biography, "How was Seinfeld filming?"

"Seinfeld (here refers to the actor Jerry Seinfeld himself) is very motivated. Although he is a little disappointed with the five episodes, it is his first big project after all." Bannon was not satisfied with the five episodes, but this was a "pity your efforts" contract given by NBC for Ronald's sake.

"Is it possible to add a normal 22-episode purchase order after the first season?" Bannon also had higher aspirations for his situation. Pretending to be a Hollywood expert on Wall Street, only selling five episodes was not a good result.

"To be honest, I don't know. I only know that TV stations look at ratings... I recently discovered that TV series and movies are in completely different fields... Hey..."

Ronald started talking again. It is human nature to be picky about the adaptation of his own work.

Finally, after talking about his mood again, Bannon saw that Ronald was in a much better mood. After hesitating for a long time, he still asked a question.

"Ronald, have you taken the initiative to contact Wall Street recently to explain and promote your company's business?"

"Why not?" Ronald felt that Bannon had something to say.

"That's right. A certain investment bank on Wall Street did an analysis of Hollywood's industry. It listed your daydream on a list of non-recommended investments. I think you may already know..."

"I don't know what the hell, who did this? Why is my company listed as not recommended?" Ronald thought to himself, could the strange ideas of the richest man Kluge come from here? No wonder he has thoughts about himself.

"They are just a bunch of fools who graduated from Harvard. They used various indicators and made a KPI to list several small and medium-sized studios in Hollywood that are worthy of investment, as well as famous directors and stars that can be used as fund targets.

Your daydream was not favored by them because it was at a disadvantage in several scoring areas..."

When it comes to Ronald's daydream, there really aren't any particularly outstanding achievements. After Dirty Dancing became famous, the investments were made in very low-cost productions.

Particularly noteworthy are the very cheap "Hairspray" and the "Sid" co-produced with Roger Corman. In short, it is to use a small cost of one to two million to win an award at an independent film festival, or to screen it in some small theaters, and then make money through video distribution.

Wall Street wants to invest in projects where the studio's own financial resources are insufficient to support filming and must rely on financing. Only in this way can Wall Street earn excess profits from the movie project.

Therefore, Ronald's Daydream received a very low score on this important indicator of "loanability."

The so-called loanability refers to how much funding gap the studio needs. The risk cannot be too big or too small. If the risk is small, they will not be able to get a suitable rate of return. The risk is too great, and they are afraid of losing all their money.

"You bastards, give me a copy of that assessment report."

"This is circulated internally on Wall Street..."

"Stop talking nonsense..." Ronald was a little angry.

"I was about to say, so I'm afraid you don't have a copy, so I'll send you a copy, Ronald. Be careful not to spread it outside."

…

Two days later, Ronald was still in the editing room editing the movie "Ghost" with Walter Murch.

"Ronald, the editing of your movie is really boring. You have reserved all the editing points. The shots of the movie are also very predictable. If it weren't for Whoopi Goldberg's performance, I think you could just find any editor. , with two assistants from the university’s film department, there’s nothing we can’t edit.”

Walter Murch said, looking at the small display on the editing machine. This is a common feature of commercial films, but it is particularly extreme in the one directed by Ronald. Except for Whoopi Goldberg, each of her shots is different, and unlike other actors who are good at improvisation on the spot, her shots can only be used as one, and there is no way to mix and edit between different shots.

"Indeed, there is a real barrier to working with such an experienced stage actor in a commercial film..." Ronald readily admitted that he was doing this to make money.

There are some particularly good acting scenes throughout the film, but the overall structure is very predictable.

"How's the progress on the special effects side?" Murch is also a very curious technical expert and wants to see how computer special effects are done.

"I'll call them and you'll give them some guidance?" Ronald knew that Murch's curiosity was coming again. Progress on the CGI was very slow, as the film had a lot of special effects shots, and a lot of time was spent aligning the scenes frame by frame with Patrick Schwytz and the background stock footage.

Ronald is not Spielberg or Lucas, and does not have the ability to hire special effects personnel on a large scale (because there is no subsequent film shooting to keep up, it is impossible to hire a large number of people and then fire them after the filming is completed), so he can only rely on time. Grind it slowly.

"Ronald, your express delivery." Assistant Lake's head popped in and delivered an envelope to Ronald.

"snort,……"

Ronald opened it and saw that it was the investment bank report that Bannon was talking about. He looked through it, and all the items containing daydreams were posted with post-it notes.

Finally, the report also made a special summary. Although Daydream is the company of blockbuster director Ronald Lee, unlike Spielberg, most of his big productions are not placed under Daydream. Instead, it cooperates with seven major studios.

As an investment target, Ronald himself has great potential, but his company is not a good target.

In addition, Ronald's recent expectations for the Oscars have been too heavy, and his requirements for artistry are increasing day by day. According to insiders who did not want to be named, the two participating films have invested heavily in cooperation with Orion Pictures ( For an analysis of Orion’s unsuitability for investment, please see page XX). Considering the box office median of Orion, a movie that has impacted Oscar awards in recent years, financing these two major productions is not recommended...

"If you don't invest, you don't invest. Why are you classifying me?" Ronald was not very happy. He called Orion's Mike Medavoy:

"Did you know? Our movie was shorted by Wall Street..."

"What? Do you have inside information? I did meet a lot of bankers recently, and they criticized the efficiency of the filming of Dances with Wolves. They also gave the movie a very bad nickname."

"Nickname? What's your name?"

“Kev’s Gate…”

"What?", Ronald didn't understand.

“It rhymes with Heaven’s Gate…”

“Who the hell did that?” Ronald stood up angrily. Nicknames can easily be spread as gossip. This is to make him look bad… Heaven’s Gate cost more than 40 million dollars and bankrupted United Artists.

Is this a satire on himself and Mike McDavoy for not being able to manage directors and being fooled by Kevin Costner?

No, it’s not a complete satire. Mike McDavoy came from United Artists. Is this a direct insult?