Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Huh? A beautiful woman was knocked out of the top spot on the box office list by a B-level movie?"

While eating breakfast, Ronald looked at the Hollywood Reporter's box office rankings for the new weekend. Disney's "Pretty Woman" had been pushed to second place.

"This is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They opened in more than 2,000 theaters. It's higher than Pretty Woman in 1,500 theaters. It's normal. It's their first weekend..." Richard also took I came over to take a look and said I understood.

"New Line Cinema, what is the distribution capability of this company?" Ronald saw that the distribution company column was a small company called New Line Cinema. There were many such companies in the 1970s, so in the Drive-in theaters made a living by releasing European art films (with far more nudity than Hollywood).

But in the late 1980s, with the addition of Hollywood's PG-13 rating and the demise of drive-in theaters, they gradually disappeared like Roger Corman's New World. By chance, he saw a movie that was at the top of the box office list but was not released by Big Seven. Ronald also wanted to learn from the experience.

"Robert Chayer founded this distribution company at the age of twenty-seven. He initially screened art films in college. He was heavily in debt in the early 1980s, but he had a good classmate, Michael Lynn, who not only helped him We restructured our debts and purchased the rights to two blockbuster horror films, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Nightmare on Elm Street, and we have been operating through the horror film series in the past two years.”

Richard had done some research on New Line, and he told Ronald the history of New Line.

"But this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I don't really understand. When I went to see it last night, I found that it was just a B-level comic adaptation movie with a rubber leather jacket. It didn't seem to have much in common with the Fantastic Four. gap……"

"Huh?" Ronald didn't believe it and planned to go to the cinema to watch a movie at noon. Is this kind of movie adaptation of a man in leather comic book really so attractive?

…

"Ah, hahahaha..."

The audience in the cinema made hilarious sounds from time to time. Many of them were fans of the original comics, and there were also many young viewers who came to watch the fun. The fights in the plot have a lot of the style of Xiangjiang's martial arts director, and some of the dialogues also have a sense of humor. It is indeed the best choice for young couples to watch on the weekends.

Ronald certainly saw more than those viewers. Not only did he discover that Xiangjiang Martial Arts was highly involved, but he also discovered that the film’s producer was Jiahe from Xiangjiang.

This movie was shot very cleverly, because most of the shots were night scenes, which made the four actors wearing rubber leather suits, accompanied by the big green turtle named after famous artists and scientists in history, not too much. There are many scenes of cheating.

This is much better than the leather holster worn by the rock man in the Fantastic Four. That leather holster often required twice as much effort under natural lighting, but the final result was not as good as the dark Ninja Turtles.

…

"Jackie, this movie was made by Golden Harvest? You guys are really good. America is now ranked first at the box office."

After returning home, Luonager called Jackie's home phone number in Xiangjiang and congratulated them on the Xiangjiang people's success.

"What turtle? I don't know. Wait a minute, I'll ask my brother. Hey! Did you hear that a movie about turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is being made?"

Jackie, who happened to be having dinner with her brothers, asked about the family members at the dinner table.

"Boss, yes, Jiahe paid for the Hollywood shoot, but the money wasn't much..."

"Is it really true? Wait a moment..." Jackie stood up. He seemed to have heard Ronald say that it was the number one box office on the weekend, so he quickly walked to the back room with his mobile phone to ask for more information.

"Of course it's true. The second place is the beautiful woman I supervised. The handsome guys and beauties were all defeated by your small production of 12 million US dollars. The box office in the first weekend was 25 million US dollars..."

"How much? Twenty-five million? How much can Jiahe get?" Jackie became excited when she heard this number.

"There are different adjustments. On the first weekend, you can probably get 70% of the shares..."

"Wait a minute, is it $25 million in the first weekend?" Jackie did a quick calculation and found that just this one movie was more than the income he earned from years of hard work and even injuries.

"How about you come to America for inspection? I can introduce you to some people in Hollywood, but I may not be able to accompany you the whole time. My son was just born..."

"Oh, congratulations, Luo Sheng has a successor. I'll ask Sister Jiao, and I'll go over and have a look after buying the tickets..." Jackie, who has always wanted to go to Hollywood, has always been frightened by language barriers and cultural barriers, and is afraid that she won't go there again. I was tempted to take a supporting role like "The Killer", but with just one phone call, my mind was piqued by the numbers that Golden Harvest's production topped the box office charts in America.

"Don't keep Sister Jiao busy, I'll find a private plane to pick you up. I'm familiar with this. Just wait for the call." Ronald has always liked Jackie's action movies. He came to Hollywood to inspect, and Yu Gongyu Being private is a good thing.

…

"If Fantastic Four hadn't been sold to Warner Bros., would it have been possible to get good results by just putting the internal copy out?" David Simkins, Ronald's script supervisor, also knew that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had topped the box office. After watching it, he was just like Ronald, not impressed by the production level. It was just a normal B-level exploitation film, how come it did so well at the box office?

"It's hard to say, but it's useless to say it now, it's a done deal..." Ronald pointed to the script of "Other People's Money" he bought, and asked David Simkins to advise him and change it from a stage play script to a movie script.

Because the script of the stage play had to comply with the three unities and was convenient for rehearsal on stage, the characters were simplified to five.

The most important of them was Jorgensen, a veteran industrialist in New England and the second-generation owner of the cable factory. (The role of Gregory Peck in Ronald's dream).

Then there was the Jewish capitalist on Wall Street, the crocodile who acquired the company, Garfinkel. (The clown played by Danny DeVito in Ronald's dream.)

The third character is the storyteller, Mr. Coles, the general manager of the cable factory.

Of course, the movie cannot be shot like this, and more characters must be added. Ronald and David Simkins discussed for a long time and decided to add the workers of the cable factory and some supporting roles of Garfinkel.

Of course, the role of the daughter of the lover and secretary of the cable factory owner Jorgensen, a practicing lawyer in New York City, was Ronald's original idea when he bought the script to please Diane.

Ronald also called the author of the play, Jerry Stayner, who was absolutely overjoyed that his film could be handed over to a director like Ronald who made a very realistic film reflecting business like "Working Girl".

He told Ronald about his mentality. This film that promotes the long tradition of respecting entrepreneurs in America is to correct the stereotyped image of business people in negative dramas on Broadway caused by the "conspiracy of left-wing college dropouts".

Now in Hollywood or Broadway, artists with left-wing ideas definitely occupy the majority. The kind of upbeat, positive, and entrepreneurial movies that praised starting from scratch and leading a group of people to create a great foundation are almost extinct.

A group of playwrights, actors, and directors who don't understand business operations at all, when they encounter entrepreneurs in the plot, they add a villain role to them. In short, when the contradiction can't continue, just arrange an evil capitalist to do all the bad things.

Ronald also thinks that this trend is not good for the whole society. There are good and bad entrepreneurs, and they are actually the same as ordinary workers. The image of a certain industry continues to be presented negatively in film and television dramas, which is never a good thing for the whole society to bridge contradictions and strengthen consensus.

And the playwright Jerry Sterner is obviously a pure British-German white man, and the image of the liquidator of Wall Street in his movie can be seen. He is called Garfinkel, a very Jewish name, likes to eat donuts, wakes up alone in bed every day, and has no one to share his wealth.

The owner of the cable factory, although he has an illegitimate daughter, has an extramarital affair with his secretary, is not very good at running the factory, and is unwilling to take measures to protect himself from being maliciously acquired, he is a loser, but he is the backbone of this society.

This kind of "restoring order" is actually going from one extreme to another. It seems that there are no bad guys who run the factory. Even if they have done many wrong things, they are the most pious people under God.

Ronald put stars behind these characters with pencils. He had to modify the background stories of these characters. Director Jorgensen is no longer the tall and handsome man, but has various shortcomings such as arbitrary and tyrannical. And under the very boring surface of the Jewish liquidator who acquired the factory, he actually hides a heart that longs to love and be loved.

This movie actually reverses the case of bankers and industrialists in America who have been criticized in recent years, showing their weaknesses and helplessness from another perspective. Like ordinary people, they also face family blame and grievances, as well as the desire for lovers.

So you have to be very careful when handling it. Ronald didn't have much clue yet, just organizing the fragments of these stories.

"Ronnie, Jacky's plane is coming..."

Diane came over to remind him.

"Okay, let's go pick him up." Ronald smiled and hugged Diane.

"Have you chosen the male lead for me?" Diane glanced at the script, and her heart began to fluster. If she could work with a male actor with superb acting skills, it might be an opportunity for her acting skills to be recognized by the critics again.

"I found Mr. Gregory Peck, he is a little interested, and asked me to talk in detail after revising the script." Peck always likes to play the role of the conscience of America.

"I mean the young one..." Diane came over to act like a spoiled child.

"I asked Niceta to make a list, let's meet and talk one by one..." Ronald opened the drawer and took out a list, which was full of the names of actor-level male stars.

Al Pacino,

Dustin Hoffman,

Danny DeVito,

Tom Hanks...

Diane noticed that there were all acting talents here, and few of them were good-looking.

"The role of Garfunkel is a role that is first suppressed and then praised, so I have to find someone who looks average. If I ask Tom (Cruise) or Warren Beatty to play it, the audience may not hate them at first." Ronald explained.

"I know, let's go pick up Jackie." Diane looked back at the list, and it seemed that Al Pashno and Tom Hanks were more handsome.

...

"Jackie!"

"Luo Sheng..."

Ronald hugged Jackie at the door of his house, who came on Sony's business jet. This time he came with his wife Jiaojie in the name of vacation. He didn't bring any Golden Harvest management or martial artists with him, for fear of leaking the news.

"Is this my nephew? Come here, Uncle Jackie will give you a gift..."

Jackie looked at the chubby little Roger and liked him very much. He asked Jiaojie to take out the precious jade Guanyin with a red string and put it on little Roger.

"You are a noble kid." Jackie praised little Roger and translated it to Ronald through Sister Jiao.

"Unlike my son, who has double bones (especially strong bones) like me, is slow to learn to read, and is mischievous."

"That's not easy to take over your job as an action star, hahaha..."

Jackie didn't wait to adjust to the jet lag, and was very energetic to talk to Ronald about Hollywood movies. The last time he came to film, he was still "Killer Hao", but the director looked down on him and made him a supporting role, which made his first foray into Hollywood come to an end.

"Is this Ninja Turtles really that great?" Jackie returned to the topic.

"Of course, it's better than the beautiful women produced by Disney and produced by me." Ronald showed him the newspaper.

"Can I go and see it?" Jackie is a person who acts immediately and wants to go to the movie right away.

"Don't you want to take a break first?"

"I can't sleep. I've slept enough on the plane. I'm so anxious that I want to watch this movie."

"The box office in America is really amazing."

After watching the movie, Jackie was full of sighs. The martial arts in this movie were actually very ordinary, and he didn't understand the jokes. On the way back, he kept muttering $25 million, $25 million.

"Can Golden Harvest really get so much?" Jackie's mind is now full of box office.

"Of course, you can make up a lot of martial arts moves. American audiences have never seen a juggling action movie like yours. Let me tell you, your movie videotapes are very popular in rental stores."

"Really? I haven't seen a penny of it." Jackie felt more and more upset the more he listened.

"Golden Harvest doesn't give you a share of the money?" Ronald was also surprised. In Hollywood, this is handled by the actors' union, and the actors will not lose a penny.

Ronald analyzed some knowledge about the film distribution system, and Jackie was shocked. It turned out that Golden Harvest had been deceiving them all along.

Golden Harvest always said that the cost of overseas distribution was very high and it was not profitable. Only in Japan, the box office revenue was relatively regular, and Jackie could get some, plus the endorsement contract given to him by the Japanese manufacturers, so he could get some money back.

As for America, Southeast Asia, and Europe, basically no money was ever returned.

"You don't have a union... Forget it, don't you protest to Golden Harvest?" Ronald was also shocked by the backwardness and recklessness of the Hong Kong film industry.

"We can't see the accounts of overseas costs, and it's still what Boss Zou said it was? Over the years, not only my company, but also the satellite companies of Golden Harvest of my fellow apprentices have not seen a dime of overseas box office revenue outside of Japan."

"Not all movies make money, but Golden Harvest made a fortune with this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Ronald touched his chin.

"Why?" Jackie asked. He had made up his mind to start exploring the American market through Ronald's relationship.

"This movie is actually played by a few unknown actors. Because they wore rubber headgear, they didn't show their faces. Only the female reporter had a few close-up shots.

So the audience didn't recognize these people. The audience only recognized Einstein, Michelangelo and other turtles. What can they bargain with in the future? So Golden Harvest still has money to make from the sequel."

"Won't Golden Harvest make a fortune?" Jackie scratched his head. He hadn't worked hard in recent years after being seriously injured. Instead of working hard for Golden Harvest, it would be better to develop himself in Hollywood.

"Don't worry, you can live in Hollywood for a while, and I will accompany you to slowly explore the industry here." Ronald laughed. If Jackie really came to Hollywood to develop, he would definitely be able to make a name for himself based on the rental rate of his videotapes.