Exploiting Hollywood 1980

The script of "Fantastic Four" is based on the plot of Stan Lee's comics. It tells the story of four astronauts who were exposed to radiation in space and became superpowers, and then defeated the evil Doctor Doom.

The script had to be written quickly. Roger Corman asked Craig Neves, the screenwriter of last year's movie "Happy Together" starring Helen Slater, to write the script. It's fast, although the quality is very average, and it smells like Disney's inferior cartoons.

A director had to be found quickly, and Oli Sasso, a director who had made TV movies for Disney, was chosen. He himself is a photographer, so he does the work of two people for one salary.

The actors were quickly found, and they were all ambitious and talented actors from B-movies and TV series. In addition, Roger Corman has a wealth of special effects and makeup resources. Most of the special effects are solved through costumes, props, and makeup.

Including the effect of the stone man, it was created using a leather sheath. Just let the actors put a lot of fake muscles on their bodies and wear a leather sheath painted with stones. It’s just a little bit harder when performing.

The only thing that needed Ronald's help was the computer post-production special effects artist to do two key space radiation to mutate the protagonists, and the final scene where Doctor Doom explodes. Ronald assigned two engineers to the three teams that worked on special effects for "Ghost" to help, and the project started running with great fanfare.

…

"Jim, you're here..."

Ronald, who was on the phone coordinating the deployment of special effects crews and resources, saw Cameron and his new wife, Kathryn Bigelow, visiting the house. He quickly hung up the phone after a few words.

A few people chatted about the progress of Spider-Man. When Ronald saw Bigelow going to chat with Diane, he immediately pulled Cameron and lowered his voice to talk about more private things.

"The outline script of Spider-Man has been submitted by Minahan to Columbia. If they approve it, we can start financing. In addition to the advances from Columbia and Viacom, I have a lot of Wall Street money that I want to invest. About half the budget is no longer a problem.

In addition, I will invest some as the first round of financing. If you are interested, you can also invest some? "

"I don't have much money now, and my divorce from Gale... took away a lot of my salary for filming the Alien sequel and The Abyss. I also hold half of the copyright of The Terminator. When I was a director in order to make a movie, I also spent a lot of money on it. The US dollars were given to Gale. The most valuable thing to me now is this 25% copyright, but the producer Heimdall has already owed me a lot of dividends.”

Cameron touched his nose. Now he has no worries about food and drink, but there is not much wealth left from the three movies. It's a bit risky for him to invest in Spider-Man.

"It doesn't matter, I'll keep the investment amount for you. Then you can sell it to investors in the next few rounds and make a fortune and leave. You can use your remuneration to invest in projects to offset the investment amount, or use Heimdall's terminator. You can also get a copyright mortgage loan. In short, we will pay the first round of dividends after the box office is obtained, and we will not treat you badly..." Ronald knew that everyone now making movies based on comic books is aiming at Jack Nicholson, who became rich overnight. At this point in time, letting the main creators see the big pie is a necessary condition for making high-quality movies.

"Thanks, brother..." Cameron was also grateful for this and patted Ronald on the shoulder. There is no need to be polite as an old friend.

"What are you talking about?" Bigelow and Diane came over.

"Let's talk about going to the Golden Globe Awards ceremony and going to the Sundance Film Festival with you." Ronald changed the subject knowingly. It's not that he's afraid of talking about Cameron's ex-wife in front of Bigelow, but generally it's better for everyone to keep such financial matters as personal privacy. Who knows how the couple arranged their finances?

"Ha, I was just talking to Diane about what dress would look better during pregnancy."

Kathryn Bigelow's new film "Blue Steel" has been edited with the help of Cameron. Because the lead star of the movie is actually the heroine Jamie Lee Curtis, and the male protagonist is not well-known. So the distributor MGM took the independent film festival route and sent the film to this year's Sundance Film Festival.

In this film festival led by Robert Redford, last year there was a phenomenal independent film "Sex, Lies, Videotape", which swept the Palme d'Or in Cannes, as well as various film critics associations, writers' unions, and other Oscar outposts. Awards.

Therefore, major companies began to pay attention to this independent film festival in Utah. This kind of award-winning in turn aroused the curiosity of the audience, and obtained the film schedule of many theaters, making this small production with a shooting budget of over one million, It earned close to 40 million at the box office.

This is Bigelow's first time making a mainstream commercial film worth tens of millions. If it succeeds at the box office, it will be officially accepted by Hollywood. Ronald was also very happy when he saw her, and the ambition and excitement hidden behind the smile almost spilled out.

"It's a very conservative design, but Diane seems to think it's okay..." Ronald smiled and pointed to the cloakroom next to him, asking them to see the dress specially prepared by Diane, a floor-length black dress, elegant. Be elegant and wear flat shoes to make Diane more comfortable.

"Did you spend a lot of money on this?" Cameron trailed behind and asked Ronald quietly.

"Yes, it took me a lot of effort to achieve a balanced result... ugh"

In Hollywood, people say that you should choose Oscars and buy Golden Globes. This so-called award selected by the Foreign Correspondents Association can be manipulated in many ways.

But Ronald's troubles also lie here. There are too many stars in "Steel Magnolias" starring Diane, and Ronald cannot have the final say. For example, Sally Field was nominated for the leading actress in drama.

Julia Roberts, who also had a lot of scenes, was adjusted to the nomination for Best Supporting Actress. This made Diane Lane's eligibility for the selection a problem. It is rare for a movie to receive two nominations for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globe Awards.

The nominations for leading actors and actresses at the Golden Autumn Awards are actually divided into two major categories: drama and comedy or musical. Another movie led by Ronald, "When Harry Met Sally", was nominated for the Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical, and both were nominated.

But there is only one place for the Best Supporting Actress because there are not many stars. Diane's scenes are less than Julia Roberts, so it is not easy to nominate Diane and replace Julia Roberts. Especially when the latter is highly sought after by critics.

If Tiger asked Diane to apply for the Best Actress, it would make people more suspicious. If it is not done well, it will become the scandal of rich men buying awards for their girlfriends in previous years, which would be more trouble than gain.

Fortunately, Diane had a mini-TV series before, "Lonesome Dove". In it, she played a kind prostitute, Lorraine, who accompanied Robert Duvall's Gus and Tommy Lee Jones's Woodrow on their last cattle drive north to Kansas.

The ratings of this mini-series were good, with a 28% rating and a total of 44 million viewers. More importantly, Diane's performance was praised by critics.

Last year's Primetime Emmy nomination happened to be when Diane was still busy with her marriage with Ronald, so there was not enough public relations to help her win. This opportunity was given to Anjelica Huston, another outstanding actress in Lonesome Dove.

At this year's Golden Globe Awards, Ronald directly designated Diane to be nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Mini-Series. His public relations consultant Michael Gray launched a large number of parties and celebrity meet-and-greet events in Los Angeles, "bribing" enough members of the Foreign Press Club, and with the help of Richard, Niceta, Paula and others, it was a big expense to make Diane happy.

Generally speaking, the difference in the weight of the Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards for TV series is smaller than that of the Oscars and Golden Globe Awards. Therefore, if there are two female protagonists in the crew who perform well, the general treatment is that one goes to the Emmy Awards and the other goes to the Golden Globe Awards.

Just like Diane's biggest competitor this year, the heroine of the TV series based on the most famous case in American women's rights, "Roe v. Wade".

Just like Diane and Anjelica Huston applied for the Emmy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards respectively, this TV series with a very advantageous theme, Holly Hunter, who played the pregnant client, won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Miniseries Actress.

And the female lawyer who played the female lawyer who went to the Supreme Court to debate and finally won the case was played by Amy Madigan. She applied for the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries Actress.

…

Diane felt what Ronald had done for her, and happily talked to her good friend Laura Dern about going to the Golden Autumn Awards Ceremony. She also invited her father Bert to come from New York to attend the first award ceremony for her possible important award.

She won the Best Young Artist Most Promising Actress Award for two consecutive years for "The Love of Sunset Bridge" and "The Love of Love". Later, "The Untamed" and "Fighting Fish" were nominated for this award consecutively, and she is a famous rising star in Hollywood.

But after being delayed by Coppola, she only had the experience of being nominated for the Golden Plum Award for "Rage Street" and "The Cotton Club". She has not been nominated for any award since then.

So this nomination and the prospect of winning the award made her very happy.

Ronald waved to Laura Dern, the actress who played the punk band girl with Diane. He had a mess of things to do here, so he didn't talk to her more.

"Jim, I assure you that I have done my best. I don't know why the outline script was rejected by Columbia. The reasons I heard are not convincing. I am afraid it must be other reasons."

Ronald was on the phone with Cameron. He was participating in the Sundance Film Festival with Bigelow. But Columbia Pictures sent a piece of news that neither of them expected.

The outline script of more than 80 pages written by Cameron was rejected and sent back within two days after it was submitted to Columbia.

Ronald was very optimistic about Cameron's script. Jim's script may not be very groundbreaking, but it has always been very good in balancing the characters, plot, and commercial value.

This Spider-Man script is no exception. The grudges and hatreds are very exciting. Peter Parker, who became Spider-Man, has his main enemy Dr. Oak, his university teacher, and the heroine is Mary Jane, his high school classmate whom he has a crush on. All the clues are very fully developed. It is a wonderful commercial film script no matter how you look at it.

Ronald also felt that, let alone the fact that the script itself is very good, even if it is not good, with his good relationship with Sony, he can get the green channel, right?

Who would have thought that Columbia Pictures would reject it like this, and the reason was very frustrating. Jon Peters, the vice president who was responsible for giving the green light to the project, directly pointed out at the script discussion meeting that the script was similar to the Spider-Man comic plot and had no innovation.

Guber is still being sued by Warner Bros., the co-distributor of the previous private company. He should have been overwhelmed, but he was a master at fighting for power. He told the new company to be cautious about the quality of the first batch of films produced, and all the power to release was returned to a so-called production meeting.

Jon Peters and CEO Peter Guber were partners before, and they had a good relationship. Ronald's insider in Columbia Pictures, Frank Price, was weak and outnumbered.

Because of such a small matter, Ronald couldn't go to Ohga-san to interfere directly. When Sony acquired it, it also expressed its position to the president and congressmen to hire American white managers and Japanese people would not interfere in Columbia's production business.

"I don't blame you, but it seems that this difficulty will be difficult to make progress in the short term. I had planned to focus on Spider-Man this year..." Cameron is an old brother after all, and he didn't blame Ronald for this matter.

"What a pity, otherwise, you can make a sequel to Terminator? I remember that half of your plot was not filmed back then because of the technical limitations and insufficient budget at that time. Now, judging from the computer-generated special effects shots in "The Abyss", it should be possible to shoot, right?"

"Hey... Ronald. We are friends, and we can talk about these things directly. I have wanted to shoot it for a long time, but half of the production rights are with Heimdall and one-quarter are with Gale.

Heimdall also has financial problems and has no money to shoot such a big production. As for Gale, as long as she is willing to join hands with me to make requests, there is still a chance, but..."

Gail Hurd was the producer of Cameron's last movie "The Abyss". But the relationship between the two broke down. It was painful for both of them to remain objective on professional issues without any feelings. It is unlikely that he will be the producer of Cameron's movies again.

Gail didn't want to give Cameron a bargain by giving up 25% of the production rights for such a work that is likely to be a big hit.

"The problem with Heimdall is not big. Lawyer Lindsay Doll is still in Los Angeles. She and lawyer Mickey Kanter have also talked about it. As long as there is a company willing to pay, this kind of production rights can be handled by suing."

"Oh, how to sue?" Cameron was really interested.

"Didn't you say they owe you dividends..."

"That's it?" Cameron was surprised at Ronald's simplicity after listening to his plan.

"This is Heimdall's weakness. Our goal is not the dividend. As long as you can sue with Schwarzenegger, the only bargaining chip they can use to settle out of court is the Terminator copyright in their hands. As long as there is a company willing to take over..."

The two agreed that Cameron and Schwarzenegger jointly entrusted Mickey Kanter to sue Heimdall for the dividends and final payments owed.

"Now there is only 25% from Gail..." Cameron still felt uncomfortable when he recalled the painful time when his ex-wife divorced him, and he didn't want to communicate with Gail anymore.

"Let me talk to her..." Ronald took the initiative to offer, Gail is also her good friend. If she got stuck here, it would be a pity that the sequel of such a wonderful movie like Terminator could not be filmed.