Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Understanding Ronald's concerns, Mike Medavoy made an arrangement that had both ends. premiered in the most famous theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

On the first night at the Alice Theater of Lincoln Center in New York, Meg Tilly and her boyfriend Colin Firth, as well as Firouza Balker and other leading actors, attended the premiere in New York.

The next day, it was moved to the Samuel Goldwyn Cinema in Beverly Hills for the Los Angeles premiere, so that Ronald could help support it without any psychological burden.

Hollywood is a big stage, and it's important for everyone to praise each other. Ronald made a round of phone calls and found the likes of Melanie Griffiths and Alec Baldwin to support him. The marketing investment of this movie is not as good as that of a big production, so it can only match stars like this who are just starting to get their careers off the ground.

"Our premiere in New York was very good. Many famous Hollywood stars came." Lead actor Colin Firth was the only one of the main actors to attend both premieres. He needs more exposure. degree, and the opportunity to socialize with the powers that be in Hollywood.

So he came to chat with Ronald. Colin Firth, who was wearing a black crew-neck shirt and a suit jacket, seemed to have gained weight. It seemed that his life with Meg Tilly was going well.

"Who is there?" Ronald chatted casually.

"Jessica Tandy, her new movie will be released next month, just make an exchange with us." Colin Firth was talking about the famous actress who acted in the 1940s, who is 80 years old this year.

"Oh?" Ronald also had to admire. This was not just a guest appearance. She also played the heroine in "Cocoon" in 1985, and performed well in this science fiction film about aliens who rejuvenate the elderly. , was nominated for the Best Actress at the Saturn Award, which is specially designed for science fiction movies.

The film was also a box office success. In a movie market where teenagers are the main audience, a movie with the main characters being elderly people can still be successful at the box office. I have to say that her acting skills are really superb. Moreover, her body is also very strong and can withstand high-intensity film shooting...

"And you American girls, Brooke Shields is here too..." Colin Firth tried his best to name some celebrities, otherwise he wouldn't know how to chat with a Hollywood person like Ronald.

"Hmm..." Ronald didn't know what to say. The publicity route for "Valmont" seems a bit unusual, with the New York premiere featuring some has-been stars.

"Hi, Ronald..." At this time, some stars who lived near Beverly Hills were also invited to walk over to watch the premiere.

"Mr. Parker..." Ronald greeted him. This was an old friend who went to the other side of the Pacific with him. "Nice to meet you... Do you have any new movie projects recently?"

It just so happened that the movie I dreamed about on the transoceanic flight was starring Parker, so I took the opportunity to find out his schedule.

"Hey, it seems that you haven't seen the movie I released last month..." Gregory Peck sighed helplessly.

"Um..." Ronald thought for a long time, but he really had no impression.

"It's a pleasure to work with Jane Fonda... but the audience no longer likes to see my old face..." Gregory Peck laughed at himself.

"Where? I really want to have the opportunity to work with you in a movie. It's mainly a matter of luck. I heard that Ms. Jessica Tandy will also have a movie released next month. Hollywood stars are all treasures... …”

"Hahaha, you make me very happy, little Ronald. When we have the opportunity, we can travel to the other side of the Pacific together..."

Gregory Peck is very happy that Ronald still respects him, but he also knows in his heart that the current audience has long forgotten them. At most, he can only act in TV series and have a bit of drama... He does not regard Ronald as Nader’s invitation is serious…”

Ronald sent Gregory Peck in and found that Colin Firth had hooked up with the middle-aged female star Jacqueline Bisset. This bold British actress was very interested in Colin Firth. A fellow countryman was also very interested and ignored his boyfriend, Swiss actor Vincent Perez, who came with him.

Looking at Fiers, who still didn't quite understand what Bisset meant, Ronald pushed Mike Medavoy, who was standing next to him and chatting with director Milos Forman. As soon as Mike Medavoy saw something was going to go wrong, he quickly went to pull Colin Firth away.

"You Americans always make a fuss and take romantic encounters between men and women too seriously..." Milos Forman grabbed Ronald to complain when he had no one to chat with.

"So, the quality of Dangerous Liaisons produced by us in Hollywood is not as good as the works of European directors with the same theme. The depth of the relationship between men and women is much more profound than this Valmont..." Ronald complimented Milos. ·Forman.

This is not to say flattery, the unprovoked love between men and women in this movie is definitely more realistic than last year's Dangerous Relationship. That movie was basically simplified into a story about a good woman, a bad woman, and a girl meeting true love.

"Ah, hahaha...didn't you see the movie review?" Milos Forman was also very happy. Roger Ebert's review of the film from the Chicago Sun-Times came out yesterday:

He gave the film a three-and-a-half-star rating. And compared it with the Warner version of "Dangerous Liaisons" which was adapted from a play rather than a movie. Albert believes that "Valmont" is completely different from the previous one. "Dangerous Liaisons" is "rational and closed, an exercise in sexual psychological games", while Forman's version is more "physical" and the temptation is more exciting.

These European directors are much better than Hollywood directors at using the language of the lens rather than the lines to express human desire.

"Diane and I watched the preview, it was really good, it's hard for Hollywood directors to shoot such a picture..."

Ronald thought, this is strange, Adrian Lane in Europe, obviously didn't show anything, but he could make the audience excited and lustful, and this Valmont is the same, European directors just have this kind of power that is not directly revealed.

While chatting, Melanie Griffith came with her remarried ex-husband Don Johnson.

"Melanie... I heard it's a girl?" Ronald went up to greet her and then introduced her to Milos Forman.

"Oh, yes, Don and I named her Dakota, an Indian name that means friendship, and it's unisex. We decided on the name a long time ago..."

Melanie Griffith is the kind of actress that European directors like very much, with expressiveness and explosiveness. She had a pleasant chat with Ronald and Milos Forman.

Dressed in a white shirt and pants suit and with short hair, Melanie Griffith looked obviously more haggard than when she was filming Working Girl. She just gave birth to a daughter last month and is still recovering.

Don Johnson seemed a little impatient. The male lead of the TV series Miami Vice has been in trouble because of this daughter. First, Melanie Griffith was pregnant, and he fell out with his live-in girlfriend Barbra Streisand.

Then he lived with Uma Thurman, the supporting actress of "Dangerous Liaisons", but the 18-year-old actress could not accept the fact that her boyfriend had another woman's child, and the two broke up.

Coincidentally, the ratings of "Miami Vice" also dropped due to the writers' strike, and NBC decided not to renew it next year. Don Johnson saw that Melanie Griffith's career had revived because of "Working Girl", and with the birth of a daughter, Don Johnson reconciled with the child's mother Melanie... But he was able to remarry only after the child was born.

Ronald didn't like this kind of relationship that was very based on interests and reality, but Melanie loved him deeply and kept promoting her husband...

...

"I came back before I finished watching it, so as not to be caught by them and have to promote myself again..." Ronald read half of it and slipped back home to talk to Diane.

"The main thing is that I met Mr. Peck this time. I told him that if there is a suitable script, I will ask him to be the male lead..."

"You really want to cooperate with him? He is a rare decent man in Hollywood..." Diane was surprised. Gregory Peck is already 73 years old.

"Well, I'm looking for a script. I want to make a movie that reflects real commercial competition..." Ronald remembered the movie clips in his dream. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was a big deal, so he started looking for the script.

"Melanie gave birth to a daughter? Do you like a boy or a girl?" Diane touched her belly...

"I like both. By the way, Melanie said she had already named the baby before she knew the gender. What do you think?" Ronald asked her.

"I don't know. My name was given to me after I was born. My parents had a big fight and divorced. What do you think?"

"Then we will name the baby after I was born, but the middle name must be Vaille..." Ronald remembered the tradition of his great-grandfather Li Enfu, who used the name of Mrs. Vaille, the family he lived in Connecticut, as the middle name passed down from generation to generation in his family.

"Is this a girl's name? Why do you want to give it this name?" Diane didn't understand.

"This is a family tradition. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all used this middle name..."

"Hey? You too? So this is what the abbreviation V in your name means?"

"Yes, it is said that a lady has done a great favor to my family, so we have been naming it this way."

"Oh..." Diane even went to Ronald's Directors Guild card to check, and it was indeed Ronald V. Lee's name.

…

“Valmont is finished in America…”

Who would have thought that by the weekend, Orion would report the news of the film’s box office failure.

This film adopted a release strategy aimed at winning the Oscars. It was first released for a week to meet the minimum requirements for the Oscars, and then the number of theaters where it was released was controlled to allow word of mouth to slowly ferment, so as to create a phenomenon where tickets were hard to get.

In this way, the number of screenings was gradually expanded, and when it was nominated for an Oscar, the screenings were expanded on a large scale. If it was lucky enough to win the little golden man, it could be released in the mainstream for the second round next year.

However, the necessary condition for this strategy is that the audience’s word of mouth is really good, and someone really recommends this film to their friends.

“Valmont” is a film of good quality, but it obviously has no word of mouth among the audience.

In order to slowly hype up its reputation, “Valmont” was premiered on Tuesday and Wednesday, but by the weekend, no one was talking about this film. All the audience’s attention was attracted by the three films that were released.

One was a Southern girl movie "Steel Magnolias" with Ronald, Julia Roberts, Diane, and some other actresses. American audiences have always had a preference for dramas written by Southern women. Whether it is Little Women or Gone with the Wind, these are their preferred themes.

The other is Disney's new animated feature film, "The Little Mermaid," relaunched many years later. Needless to say, after many years of giving up animation and mainly making live-action films, Disney still captured the hearts of all children when it came out.

The last one is "Harlem Night Club", a new work written, directed and starred by black comedy star Eddie Murphy. He has not had a new drama for a long time, and the audience's expectations are high.

In this way, these three new works have wiped out all the popularity of "Valmont". There was no buzz when it was released in the middle of the week, and word-of-mouth didn't pick up at the weekend. The major theater chains showed one show at a loss, and the film studios have been notified that more profitable movies will be screened offline.

"Why?" Ronald was also confused. He asked many questions to Richard who brought the news, but unfortunately Richard didn't have the answers.

"I don't know why, but this movie just isn't popular, and the audience didn't react much after watching it..."

"What does CeaSre's investigation say?" Ronald asked.

"They didn't ask CeaSre to do the investigation..." Richard flipped through the materials and replied.

"They should ask at least to know why it failed at the box office..."

The more Ronald thought about it, the weirder he became, and he asked some generals, including Daydream's Michelle Cannold and David Simkins, to come over to his home for a meeting to discuss.

Several experienced directors also couldn't figure it out. The direction, acting, and script of this movie are all excellent, and it is more utilitarian. The erotic scenes in the movie are much more interesting than last year's "Dangerous Liaisons."

Glenn Gross' figure is not as alluring as when she played a cheating woman with Michael Douglas.

How beautiful does Annette Bening look? The bathing scene at home is much more alluring than last year's Warner version.

"What do you think, Dan? And you? Wang Ma? Wang Ma?"

Ronald couldn't find the reason and remembered Cea Sre's on-site investigation method. He also called a few ordinary viewers at home and asked them what they thought.

"I'm not very interested in costume dramas to begin with..." Dan was very responsible as a bodyguard when Ronald went out, but his home was very safe, so he wouldn't accompany Ronald to watch a movie that didn't interest him. Movie.

"Didn't you watch it last year? Why is it still available this year? Did you show it again?" Wang Ma's English is not very good, and she can't understand the elegant lines of this kind of costume drama, so she is even less interested.

"Could this be the reason?" Ronald turned around and asked several generals.

"I guess that's it. Costume dramas, especially costume romance dramas from the Kingdom of Lao, don't have a large audience to begin with. However, the plot of Warner's version of Dangerous Liaisons has been simplified a lot, so it may not be difficult for the audience to understand."

"Well, I watched the same movie last year. Among friends and colleagues, there is no one to talk about..."

Several senior executives reacted and blamed the same story on last year's "Dangerous Liaisons".

"Does this have such a big impact on the box office? Has this kind of thing happened in Hollywood before?" Ronald still had doubts in his heart. No one would watch the subject he had filmed?

He called Gregory Peck and asked the veteran Hollywood actor for information.

"It wasn't like this before. Once a movie becomes a hit, there will be movies that follow suit. But Hollywood is a mystery. If I knew how to make money by making movies, I could have many more influential roles."

Ronald searched around and found no conclusion, so he could only accept this reason for the time being.

But Orion couldn't accept it. They invested 35 million US dollars in this movie and found Milos Forman. They wanted to recreate the grand occasion of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Mozart". As a result, it has not even been released yet. The dilemma of not being able to find it in any theater...

Orion's vice-president of distribution has flown to London to do urgent PR for UK and European copy sales. Will use "Valmont" to take the initiative to withdraw the film as an excuse to persuade the film studio there to continue ordering.

The film's failure caused greater unease in Hollywood than Ronald imagined.

Such a lineup, such investment, such performances, such meticulous craftsmanship, yet suffered a rare fiasco in the history of Hollywood.

For a time, everyone in the Seventh Group felt insecure and began to take stock of the projects they were currently filming or had completed. All films with similar plots that had been released before would be suspended or re-evaluated.

Ronald's two projects with Orion were particularly affected. "Silence of the Lambs" had another adaptation of the same series a few years ago, "Red Dragon," which didn't do well at the box office.

The filming of "Dances with Wolves" has not yet been completed.

For a time, Mike Medavoy was also under a lot of pressure and had to come to Ronald to discuss what to do.