Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Gah ga ga, our 'Lombada - Forbidden Dance' brought Yoram... Ah bah..." Minahan Golan spit on the ground, "Bah... Yoram's little bastard 'Lombada' sucked the crap out of them and their box office was only a quarter of what we were."

The fat Israeli brought the box office statistics of the movie to Ronald's office, and he was very happy.

"Tuk tuk" a blond beauty came in and brought coffee to Ronald, Minahan, and several colleagues from the distribution department.

"...Ah, thank you...Ah, you're not..." Minahan took the coffee and was stunned for a moment when he saw the beauty's face.

Ronald's fat assistant Lake became the host of a new TV station. Now an employee of the marketing department, Claudia Wells, who played Jennifer, the original heroine of "Back to the Future" came over to give Ronald a visit. Nader guest stars for a few days.

She delivered the coffee to the conference room, shocking Minahan Golan. The heroine of the annual box office blockbuster was actually serving coffee to Ronald. The strength of this old friend was truly unfathomable and unfathomable...

"Thank you, Claudia." Ronald thanked Wells. Seeing Minahan's surprised look, he knew he wanted to give up. "My new assistant is still interviewing, and Claudia is now The assistant manager of our marketing department, she is very talented in film distribution..."

"Oh? That's, that's..." Minahan Golan didn't quite believe it. How could any Hollywood star who had ever been a heroine be willing to be an assistant marketing manager?

Ronald looked at him looking unconvinced and said, "Actually, Claudia Wells is a Jew who converted to Catholicism..." Then he said that Claudia Wells was rejected by many people in Hollywood because she left the Jewish faith. I briefly talked about the Jewish executives joining forces to block it.

"Humph, personal freedom of belief must also be interfered with. Who are they Jewish? Look at me like this..." Minahan Golan pulled up his shirt sleeves and stretched out his thick arms to show Ronald , there is a scar on it.

"People like me, who went back to join the Air Force and fly fighter jets when Israel was founded, don't take themselves so seriously. These people who fled the European continent in the late 1930s, in turn, bullied a beautiful girl who changed her beliefs. , and now he has become a ‘real Jew’?”

Minahan's complaint was true. His parents were Russian Jews who immigrated to British Palestine after World War I. There is actually discrimination among Jews. In Europe, there is always some discrimination against Russian Jews, because many of them can only speak Russian, not even Yiddish, which is spoken by Eastern European Jews.

However, during the founding of Israel and the subsequent wars, these Russian Jews with experience in serving on the Eastern Front of World War II were an important pillar of the army's victory.

Because Minahan Golan is a soldier who has really shed blood and fought for Israel, although these Jewish executives in Hollywood can usually laugh at him as a country bumpkin from behind, they really dare not insult him in person.

Otherwise, if Minahan showed off his Distinguished Service Medal from the IDF's First Middle East War, they would be humiliating themselves.

"That's good, that's good..." Ronald took the "Lombada - Forbidden Dance" report and looked at it for a long time. Domestic box office revenue of more than $28 million is a moderate surprise.

This movie collides with Minahan's cousin Yoram's Lombada. Although the name cannot be directly called Lombada, there is an authentic "Lombada" super-popular song as an interlude, and the audience still made an obvious choice.

After the movie was released, copies were quickly sold in Europe, Japan and other places, and the video tape distribution process was about to begin. It just picks up the popular tail of this song.

All in all, Daydream and Minahan's new company made a small profit. Next up is the movie tape, and the big head.

After talking about "Lombada", Minahan burst into laughter again and looked at the other people in the conference room with a bit of embarrassment.

"Please give us some privacy..." Ronald understood that something important was coming and asked several colleagues from the distribution department to go out.

"How about we work together again? Not on a small production like this, but on a really big project, like Warner Bros.' Batman?" Minahan said excitedly about his project when only two people were left in the conference room. Intention.

"Batman" has just been released and has grossed 250 million at the domestic box office. The overseas copy sales are also very impressive. The total box office is expected to exceed 400 million US dollars.

The film is Warner Bros.'s highest-grossing film of all time and the highest-grossing comic book adaptation...

Director Tim Burton instantly became one of the hottest directors in Hollywood. His next work, "Edward Scissorhands", is considered a niche work of his own. The publisher 20th Century Fox alone allocated 20 million for his use.

The rising star in Hollywood, Winona Ryder has promoted "The Godfather Part III" and will star in this film with her boyfriend Johnny Depp.

Batman's heroes and heroines are also having an easy time. Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger also have the power to select scripts and can take films according to their own preferences rather than market requirements.

It doesn't matter if their next movie fails. The already planned sequel to "Batman" can get back on its feet as long as they are willing to act in it.

Of course, the happiest person is Jack Nicholson. This actor who played the villain Joker not only received the most praise from the comments, but also his name was above the male and female protagonists on the poster, occupying a row. People who didn't know him thought he was playing Batman.

And Jack Nicholson, because Warner Bros. was overwhelmed by the 48 million budget at the beginning, signed a global box office revenue sharing contract with Nicholson. Who knew that Batman would be a hit after its release, and it was released for more than half a year, becoming the domestic box office champion in 1989.

If the contract is executed safely, Jack Nicholson may earn more than 60 million US dollars in share. He has now hired a famous lawyer to protect his rights, and on the other hand, he has started to buy land next to the old house and prepare to expand his house on Mulholland Drive.

This movie has brought so many benefits to the participants that everyone in Hollywood is envious. In fact, strictly speaking, except for Nicholson, the acting skills and the effects on the screen presented by the actors who participated in the movie are not very good.

The actors were all jealous, thinking that they were just lucky to have the second most popular Batman story in the comics.

For a time, major studios also began to examine which other famous comics could be adapted into movies.

Soon, everyone found that some of DC's current comic characters could not be sold at a cheap price. Superman was released in 1978, and many DC comic characters were sold for high-priced adaptation rights afterwards.

But compared to Superman's three sequels that sold like crazy around the world, other comic character stories were not successfully adapted (including Supergirl played by Helen Slater).

It was not until ten years later that Batman, led by Warner Bros., once again opened the craze for comic-book adaptations.

The industry watched the ten years between the two hot changes, and more than a dozen comic-book adaptations failed along the way. Finally, everyone realized that if you want to adapt a comic work, you have to choose the one with high popularity. Don't worry about the high price, because no one will watch cheap comic-book adaptations. Only Superman and Batman are good.

Of course, the people at DC Comics also understood this and immediately raised the price of the adaptation rights for all its comic characters.

It has become impossible to accept the cost of buying the adaptation rights for five years to replicate the success of Superman and Batman for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The only one with similar popularity and readership as DC characters is Marvel, which has been messed up in recent years.

Marvel used to speculate on collectibles and made a lot of money in the past few years. It even thought about making its own movies, but soon the stock market crash came, announcing the collapse of the cartoon collectibles market.

The cash flow dried up and Marvel soon became heavily in debt. After that, it was transferred to several Hollywood companies. Ronald's old acquaintance, Weintraub Pictures, and New World Pictures, which was acquired by Roger Corman, have both become Marvel's parent companies.

At the beginning of this year, these two film companies were also in danger. In the end, it was Perelman, a financier from Wall Street, who took over Marvel.

This guy is not a pushover. When the company came to him, it was only used as a tool to extract value. Through a series of messy operations, he cheated money in the stock market and Hollywood.

Several major Hollywood production companies and some ambitious independent producers all sought the adaptation rights of Marvel comics from Perelman in the second half of the year. After being educated by Superman and Batman, they only asked for the most popular comics under Marvel.

Perelman dragged them around and did not say that he would sign a contract. He just leaked that he would adapt the comics, which raised the stock price on Wall Street.

But after a long time, everyone came to their senses and hired a team of lawyers to carefully review the terms of his acquisition. In the end, they found that the film adaptation rights of the two best-selling comics under Marvel had been magically sold.

A Fantastic Four and a Spiderman, both comics were sold to one of the most radical production companies in Hollywood for $250,000 more than four years ago.

This lucky buyer was Menahan Golan, the chairman of Cannon Pictures at the time, who was sitting in front of Ronald.

I heard Menahan Golan say that he wanted to work with Ronald to make these two movies. Ronald stared at Menahan for a long time. Now this Israeli has really been marginalized by Hollywood...

"Minahan, tell me honestly, how long will your adaptation rights expire?"

When he bought the adaptation rights, Menahan kept dragging his feet, chasing various hot spots, and filmed the box office failure "Superman Part 4", and then put the matter aside.

Until he was finally kicked out of Cannon by his cousin Yoram, when he divided the family, he still put the adaptation rights of these comics into the newly established 21st Century Pictures.

"And, and um..." Menahan Golan is indeed somewhat marginalized now. Everyone in the industry is waiting for his adaptation rights to expire, and then wait for Marvel to take back the adaptation rights before buying them.

Everyone knows that Menahan is a difficult person to work with. No matter how much the budget is, he has a tendency to like to point fingers and make sure that the movie is shot according to his own understanding. There are only a few people in Hollywood who are more convinced and willing to give up their own ideas.

"Hey, I won't hide it from you, Ronald, it will expire next year." In Hollywood, Minahan Golan only admires Ronald's vision. This is the result of many experiences and lessons...

"Then, do you want to finance the shooting yourself, or do you want to take the opportunity to sell it at a good price?"

"I'll tell you the truth, I'm actually a little nervous about such a big production..."

Minahan Golan finally told the truth in front of Ronald.

In fact, when he took away the contracts for these two movies, it was not because he was very optimistic about these two characters. Instead, he made the fourth Superman movie by himself, with He-Man, the Unicron, and lost an astronomical amount of money. Cousin Yoram doesn't really believe that these two movies can bring out anything.

In addition, Minahan still had some ideas and got up wherever he fell, so the contract fell into his hands.

But as early as after the Batman project started filming, he confidently went to Marvel to seek permission to film. But the other party was very cold and created many obstacles. They just wanted to wait for the agreement to expire, take back the adaptation rights, and then sell it at a high price.

Minahan is also a veteran in the industry, and he immediately knew that it might not be easy for him to follow the trend and make money.

"There are two main obstacles. There are two additional clauses in the contract. First, my script must be approved by Marvel. Second, Marvel had a dispute with Stan Lee, the author of the comics, for some unknown reason. Agreement, the adaptation project must have his consent..."

"Well, it's pretty much what I know..." Ronald nodded.

In fact, he knew the terms that Marvel had to agree to, but he was not very clear about how much power the original author Stan Lee had.

"So, my heart is already cold here..." Minahan Golan touched his heart and made a heartbroken expression.

Ronald knew that there was an element of showmanship, but there was also real emotion. At the beginning, Minahan Golan really simply wanted to make good movies... but was scarred by the ruthless reality and the complicated and mined industry status quo of Hollywood.

After his cousin's betrayal and stars in the industry turning against each other (for example, Stallone is using legal means to pursue the tens of millions of salary promised by Cannon), Minahan's current thinking is much more realistic.

Big productions are temporarily out of reach for me, and the new 21st Century Pictures cannot withstand such a big risk. Minahan's plan was to make low-budget movies to keep the company afloat. If you are lucky and make some money, you should keep some for yourself. I have been involved in movies for decades, and it’s time to make plans for myself and my children’s family.

This time, when he came to see Ronald, he actually had no intention of persuading Ronald to make two movies. But Ronald's reputation is very good, and if his name can be associated with the movie, he will have the capital to bargain with Marvel and several major studios that have ideas for Batman and the Fantastic Four.

After all, Marvel and Stan Lee, when they hear that they want to film, most of them are unwilling. But if Ronald were to film, that was a different story.

"I can cooperate with you, but I also have something I need you to help with..." Ronald lowered his voice and spoke in Minahan's ear.

"What to do?"

"It's best to do it this way. You also know these Jewish executives on Wall Street. If you are willing to negotiate, they will squeeze out the last drop of your blood and will not give up until they negotiate a price that makes you lose your underwear... …

But if you can convince them that this thing is in demand..."

"Gah ga ga... I understand! I will do whatever you say, and I will obey your command..." When Minahan heard that he had the opportunity to extract millions of dollars from these two dead projects, he happily agreed immediately. Come down.

"However, are you willing to help me get what I want? Those Jewish executives will definitely understand what is going on afterward... By then, you may have a grudge with them." Ronald said. in front of……

"Cough...push..." Minahan rolled his eyes. It seemed that if he wanted to get these millions, he would have to work shirtless and work hard. He spit on the ground, "Bah...what do you think I want in Hollywood?" The people who don't like it are these Jews. They talk nice, but Israel is really in a critical moment. Will they go back to join the army? Will they let their sons go back to join the army?

They are all slick people who are just trying to gain fame and reputation, using their Jewish status to get benefits but are unwilling to pay for it... They still dare to talk to me about Jewish things? I spat in their faces..."