Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Oh, is this little Roger?"

Roger Corman arrived at Ronald's house and finally met the little guy who bore his name. Traditionally, this was a great deal of respect, and Coleman appreciated it, playing with little Roger for a while.

Diane came over and took away little Roger, leaving Ronald and Coleman to talk about business.

"Has it been cut yet? I have to take a look...", Ronald was caught off guard. Minahan Golan's Marvel comic adaptation movie "Fantastic Four" commissioned by Corman has already been filmed in Corman's style. In the fast shooting mode, the finished film was produced.

The two walked to the projection room at home. The projectionist had prepared the machine. A beam of light shone on the screen. The logo of Roger Corman's new company "New Horizons" was printed on the screen. "New Millennium" is too hard to pronounce, so I changed it back to simple words that high school students can pronounce.

The logo is gold, with blank lines drawn out like blinds. It's very similar to the "New World" logo he sold, the design, the graphics, the way the logo animation goes in and out...

But if you take a closer look, you can't find a completely consistent place. The old viewers of New World at that time would definitely think that this was produced by a company, but from a legal perspective, the evidence of plagiarism was insufficient.

Ronald gave a knowing smile. In order to spend a small amount of money and do big things, Coleman would do anything on the sidelines.

"Dang-dang-dang, dang-dang... dang-dang..." When Ronald heard the opening melody, he almost laughed again. Because it is very similar to the background music when Darth Vader, the Black Lord, appears in "Star Wars".

But upon closer inspection, not a single note in the melody is the same.

Sure enough, it was produced by Roger Corman!

The movie begins with Mr. Fantastic's college life, and soon fast-forwards to the story of four astronauts who were mutated by radiation on the space station and developed various superpowers.

The more Ronald watched, the more surprised he became. Contrary to his imagination, the special effects of this B-level movie with a budget of one million US dollars were not very bad.

For example, the one who turned into a stone man, in the long shot, it is obvious that the actor is wearing a leather sheath, but in the close shot and close-up, you can see the traces of special effects makeup, his eyebrows can still move, and it is also obvious on his body. There are many places where fake muscles are made.

Another example is the invisible woman. Her protective barrier gives her a sense of isolation when it is released. She also has sound effects so that it doesn’t look like a plastic special effect worth two and a half cents.

The most amazing thing is the actor of the villain Doctor Doom. He also has a Shakespearean dramatic accent when speaking. Although his skills are average and much worse than the British actors Ronald is familiar with, he has a somewhat literary accent when it comes to Doctor Doom. It is surprisingly suitable for the villain.

It can be seen that these actors did not shoot with the attitude of shooting B-level movies. On the contrary, they were very devoted to the filming. Just because of budget constraints, some scenes that require heavy investment still seem a bit cheap and not worthy of the actors' performances.

Ronald felt a little regretful. If he had known that these people's performances were so strong, if he had given them more money, maybe they could have made a blockbuster movie?

However, forget it, Batman has made such a big investment and cannot bear the risk by himself.

Ronald looked at Corman, stretched out his hand and shook it vigorously, "Congratulations, this film is among the best in quality even among the films produced by Corman..."

"Yeah, it's a bit of a pity, but I was able to make 200% of the profit and it was completed in twenty-five days. Even in the movie sequences produced by Corman, the return on investment is very high... "

Ronald waved the projectionist to turn on the lights. He thought for a while and said to Coleman, "Give me the list of these creators. I think their quality is good. I will give them priority when I have projects here." Casting..."

"Very good..." Roger Corman walked in Hollywood relying on word of mouth. Seeing that Ronald was so considerate, he felt relieved.

…

"Quack, quack, this quality is simply great. How much did they spend?" Minahan Golan also saw the finished film the next day. He was so happy that he just patted his chair. "Let me tell you, this movie As long as someone invests ten million dollars, it will definitely become a blockbuster movie."

"Ten million is not enough..." Ronald had already regained his composure.

B-level movies and big productions are not actually used as a quality evaluation standard. This movie was made in three weeks for a million dollars, and the audience will tolerate all the flaws in it. For example, the laser is too fake, the spaceship looks too much like a model...

Because when the audience goes to see it, they know that it is a B-level movie. Their expectation for B-level movies is that if it is good enough in a certain aspect, the movie will pass the test in their minds.

The props are not good, the costumes are not good, and the special effects are average, but the actors' performances are very close to the comics, especially Doctor Doom, whose appearance is like an image straight out of a comic book.

This is how the audience treats B-level movies. As long as one element meets their requirements, they will give the movie a thumbs up.

In fact, this is why exploitation films are so popular in Hollywood. There is no need to achieve 80% in every place. As long as one place has 90% and the others fail, they will also like to see it.

But for mainstream commercial films, the audience does not have this quality evaluation system.

They will evaluate the mainstream movies released by the seven major studios with a sense of immersion. If the actors look suitable and their acting skills are first-class, but the supporting roles are not strong enough, your feature film will be disliked.

The action scenes are beautiful and the fighting is exciting, but the plot is a bit stupid and unreasonable. Sorry, your action film will be criticized.

As a B-level movie, this Fantastic Four can indeed get high scores, and it will definitely recover the cost after being screened. But if it is to be a qualified commercial film and achieve 80 points in all aspects, then it is not something that can be done with 10 million.

The most important factors are that the male and female protagonists must be beautiful enough, the special effects scenes must not be out of place, and the final climax must have a big scene (explosions, flying, and fighting are exciting enough). Ronald found the special effects director to calculate the accounts. Don't think about making it without 40 million.

"But it's enough for you and Stan Lee to have a good chat..."

"Ha ha ha, no problem, leave it to me..." Minahan Golan took the order and left.

…

“This…” Stan Lee is the main writer of many comic characters in Marvel. He is tall and thin, wearing a pair of high-definition glasses. After watching the movie, he felt terrible.

“This movie cannot be released, my God, it’s terrible…”

Since Stan Lee learned that the “Fantastic Four” he created was bought by Menahan Golan, the nightmare he often had finally became a reality.

How can such a movie be compared with “Batman”? Not to mention that it is 1990 now, even if it goes back ten years, it can’t be compared with DC’s first comic adaptation movie, “Superman”?

The special effects pictures are behind the times, and they can’t even do the flying movements of “Superman” in 1978. In the whole movie, the flying scenes of the character “Thunderbolt” have a cheap taste.

How can the cheap sneakers bought at Walmart for $15 be compared with the Air Jordan 1 at Nike stores for $150 a pair?

"Why can't it be released? You said the flying effects in the movie are too bad? No, I shot Superman 4. Why do I feel that the flying scenes in this movie are more realistic than those in Superman IV? Look at the Human Torch, he can even emit fire when flying, isn't it much better than Superman flying?

I tell you, the quality of this movie is very good, maybe it can be compared with the Superman series, the reputation of the Fantastic Four in the future will be almost the same as that of Superman and Batman...hahahaha"

"You...hehe..." Stan Lee laughed.

In fact, if this was said at the beginning of last year, it would not be a big boast. The performance of this movie is indeed much better than the superficial performance of Superman, and the performance emotions of the four leading actors are quite in place.

Moreover, although the special effects are very bad, it is not very bad compared to Superman IV (still shot by Minahan), a super bad movie with worse special effects than the first Superman ten years ago.

But who made Batman appear?

The strong Gothic style in Batman, coupled with the super sexy and beautiful heroine Kim Basinger, and the super stylish villain Joker, who is almost more popular than the protagonist Batman, with such a gem in front, this Fantastic Four is like a pile of...

I am not afraid of bad movies, but I am afraid that the quality of movies with similar themes is too different from yours.

The audience's standard of quality is determined by comparison. In the past ten years, the audience has set a high quality impression of comic book adaptation movies for DC's Superman series (Superman IV, Supergirl).

Last year's Batman greatly raised the threshold for comic book adaptation movies. In this case, if Marvel's first comic book adaptation movie is this "Fantastic Four"...

Then in the minds of the audience, DC comic characters and Marvel comic characters will be automatically divided into two levels in their hearts.

This is not just a matter for comic fans to be very disappointed...You know, most of the audience who watch Batman are not comic fans, they just know that there is such a character image, and then go to the cinema to watch it. The storyline of Batman and Superman in the movie is their basic impression of DC characters.

This is the power of movies. Its popularity and the influence of moving images on the audience's subconscious are unmatched by other art forms.

If "Fantastic Four" is really released, then Marvel's characters will be positioned as second-rate or third-rate in the future...

Moreover, Marvel is facing a financial crisis. If a large number of comic adaptation rights are leaked (Marvel has a lot of comics, and they are cheap, Fantastic Four only costs $250,000), then there will be a group of people who follow suit and make B-level movies in the style of this exploitation film to make quick money.

If, in the future, the comic characters that I participated in creating are mentioned by the audience as garbage...

Stan Lee quickly drove this terrible scene out of his mind. Fortunately, the agreement between him and Marvel gave him the power to censor and change film and television dramas.

If he is not satisfied, he can boycott the release, as long as he can compensate the producer's losses...

"Tell me, how much money do you want to cancel the release? Seal the negatives? (It would be better to burn them!)" Stan Lee looked at Menahem Golan who was proudly talking about his release plan and said coldly.

"I am very optimistic about the box office of this movie. The actors performed very well. As for the special effects, although they are not as good as Batman, they are better than Superman IV. I plan to hold premieres in Beverly Hills and Manhattan, New York, and then appear on several TV talk shows."

"I will not let this movie be released..." Stan Lee's forehead veins were bulging.

"Hey, guess what, I can also use the original author Stan Lee's efforts to prevent the release of this film as a gimmick, so that the audience can see how bad this movie is to make the original author furious. Then they went to the cinema and saw... Haha, it's not that bad..."

"It should be worse than imagined..." Stan Lee had already understood at this time that the old rogue Menahan Golan was actually bargaining.

"I think you must know that I have talked to Warner Bros. and hope that they will take over the filming rights of this movie. Now that you have made the movie before the expiration date, the contract can be automatically renewed. Why don't we sit down and discuss a deal...

Actually, what's the good of making such a movie? After the release, my interests will certainly be damaged. Your new company, 21st Century Pictures, has such a criticized opening movie... It will definitely not be good for you to realize your dream...

I can help you convince Warner Bros. to buy the script adaptation rights from you, and then give you a compensation..."

Stan Lee signed an unequal treaty with Marvel back then. In fact, he is a very business-minded person. He changed the lobbying method and persuaded Minahan from the perspective of interests.

"Do you know my dream?" Minahan Golan still had a smile on his face.

"I've seen your interview. You want to make a movie that will shock Hollywood. In fact, this kind of special effects movie is not what you are best at. I really like the kind of breakdance you produced before..."

"Do you need to tell me that?" Minahan muttered. He came with a mission...

"My losses need to be compensated. My movie can get at least three to five times the box office of the shooting cost, as well as the revenue from videotapes, overseas distribution, and the shooting revenue of the sequel..."

"I won't tell you the specific price. I just want to ask you one question. I will go to Warner Bros., are you willing to cooperate?" Stan Lee was moved by Minahan's shamelessness and quickly asked the most important question.

"My income needs to be compensated. The people at Warner Bros. have always been stingy, but they are insiders and know the potential of my B-level exploitation film. There is nothing I can't talk about..."

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