Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Huh? I just want your company to produce this movie. I've seen your movies, and that's what I think this 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' should be like."

Joss Whedon did not dare to direct by himself. He felt that he had too little experience and hoped that his script could be directed by an experienced director.

"I'm also a screenwriter, and I have to tell you that there's often a huge difference between what you imagine a movie to be like and what it looks like in the end..."

"I have never been a director. I think it would be better to leave it to someone with experience."

"Okay", Ronald understood that this person Whedon was probably not the kind of very enterprising person, the kind of screenwriter who felt very happy when he could see his words turned into images on the screen.

"I'll give David Simkins, our script supervisor at the company, a call and the rest is up to you."

Ronald handed the script back to Joss Whedon. Not to mention that he had dreamed of a TV series of the same name, the quality of the script itself was more suitable for Daydream Pictures. It's the kind of movie that can be made at low cost and is attractive to a specific market.

…

After Ronald finished these things, he set off for New York. He wanted to check out the scenery there and find the exteriors of old-school New England factories. His royal art director, Polly Platt, had already gone there in advance to visit the earliest places in America such as Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Treasure hunting began in Thirteen States.

"How about here? This is the 'Seymour Specialty Cable Company' in Seymour, Connecticut. The most important thing is the factory director's office, just above the annealing furnace. If we take a picture from the factory director's office, You get a shot that instantly reminds you of a factory.”

Polly Platt took out a stack of photos and discussed it with Ronald. This job seems simple, but it is a bit difficult to do.

The biggest advantage of the original thirteen colonial states was the architectural style and green plants on the exterior. The climate during filming met the needs of the script. If it were a factory in the south, the shot of workers exhaling white breath at work in winter would not have been possible. Moreover, local viewers will be keenly aware that the scenery and plants are not suitable for the Northeast.

But the Thirteen Colonial States were also the areas with the earliest economic development and the fastest evolution. Needless to say, the metal machine product processing and manufacturing industry in New York State has basically disappeared. Massachusetts has also completed high-tech transformation in the past decade and is now a place where IT and high-tech pharmaceutical companies gather. In the Rhode Island in the plot, most factories have been relocated due to strict environmental protection policies. This is also an important reason why the New England Cable Factory was not preserved in the story.

In the end, the only state that met Ronald's requirements was Connecticut. There are also some military manufacturing and aerospace manufacturing industries here. In addition, it has a long history and you can find original factories from the founding period of the People's Republic of China.

Ronald looked at the factory and found it to be a very suitable location. But he looked carefully at some details and found that the interior of the factory was dirty and not well maintained. He clicked his tongue and asked, "Do the factory owners here support our filming?"

"The factory owner is very supportive. He hates the local unions. Those unions instigated workers to strike, which put his factory in the same predicament as the factory in the movie script. If we want to shoot there, the union will definitely put forward various suggestions. Such a request is inevitable. After all, the scenery here is very suitable, and they can probably guess that we don’t have many choices.”

"This is not possible. What other options do we have?" Ronald opened a factory on Staten Island. He knew that this kind of union was very powerful. When the time came, the leader of the union shouted and refused to allow filming. A day's loss would be All are hundreds of thousands.

"There is also this factory in Georgetown, Connecticut. This factory has a long history. It was built in 1818, but it was renovated in the past few years and the old house was demolished." Polly Platt He took out another stack of photos.

"Really, why should we demolish it? Such cultural relics and historic sites should be preserved. How many years of history do we in America only have?"

Polly laughed at Ronald's weird words. He knew Ronald was disappointed and talking nonsense. This old factory called "Gilbert and Bennett" has recently been considered by real estate developers to redevelop it and allow people to maintain the appearance of the old factory. Wouldn't this not make people rich?

"Here, and here, we can build the factory director's office..." Ronald pointed to one of the photos, which showed a small attic on the second floor of the factory building. Just enough for the props to be remodeled.

"We shot the exterior scenes in Seymour and the interior scenes in Georgetown. On the Seymour Cable Factory union side, I sent Rachel Talalay to negotiate and reduce the filming time as much as possible. If the union wants to cause trouble, go through the union. The boss hires them to act as extras, so that they can save a lot of extra money..."

"Very good," Polly Platt also agreed. "For the Wall Street scene, we will continue to rent Building 7 of the World Trade Center just like last time... but the floor on Bannon's side has now been rented out. , The depression after the stock market crash has almost recovered, and the rent for rooms in the World Trade Center is now very expensive.”

"It's okay, I'll give it

…

"Ronald, I brought today's box office statistics..."

Even if Ronald is not in Beverly Park, but in New York

"Thank you, please sit down. Here are bagels from Cher's ex-boyfriend's bakery. It was rated as New York

"Thank you, um, the coffee here is very good...", Richard took a sip of professional coffee, then picked up the pot and refilled it for himself.

"Hmm, you performed very well..."

Ronald found "The End of the World" on the box office charts, and it's still firmly nailed

The total box office of "The Love of Ghosts" has exceeded 110 million, continuing to set the record for the fastest box office. And there is hope that this trend will rebound during the Labor Day weekend next week.

In the past three weeks, although "The Love Between Humans and Ghosts" has been ranked

Before "The Exorcist", Champion Zhou was the star of the evergreen horror series "The Exorcist"

Every week, "The End of the World" loses at the box office by a very, very slim few hundred thousand, and then continues to hold strong the next week. However, last week's box office champion plummeted and was surpassed by new films, and then it became further and further away from "The Love Between Ghosts and Humans"...

It seems that this romantic film masterpiece will not be a problem until next year.

Speaking of romance films, "Pretty Woman", another film that dominated the box office in the first half of the year, is finally being released from first-tier theaters.

After 20 weeks of release, this modern Cinderella fairy tale has been released in less than 1,000 theaters and the box office of a single theater has fallen below 1,000 US dollars. Both of these are hard indicators for its release. Theater managers will begin to reserve screening rooms for new films that can generate more profits.

As of the weekend, the film had grossed more than $160 million at the domestic box office. It is Disney's highest-grossing live-action film under the leadership of Michael Eisner. Since the establishment of Disney,

This represents a great success for the transformation path laid out for Disney by Eisner's predecessor, Ron Miller. But having the right route does not mean that you can get good results. This son-in-law of Disney is not as good as the cunning Eisner, who relied on Wall Street money to sow discord among a group of old ministers, and finally tasted the mature power of Eisner. peach.

Encouraged by this strong box office, international distribution is also proceeding very smoothly. It was released simultaneously in Mexico and Canada and America, and also received very good box office results. Then there are English-speaking countries such as Australia, Britain, and the Philippines. Next are the countries of Western Europe and Northern Europe. Today, Eastern European countries have also officially introduced copies. Although pirated copies have passed through the collapsed Berlin Wall, a large number of copies have been released in Poland, the Czech Republic, East Germany and other places.

Moreover, although the English proficiency of the people in these countries is not as good as that of Western Europe, after being influenced by romantic movies such as Ronald's "Dirty Dancing", the audience also particularly likes Hollywood romantic movies, which are very popular.

As for Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong, due to language barriers, they had to wait for the last round to squeeze out some box office before the video tapes were released.

With the success of "Pretty Woman" internationally, there was much less resistance to the international release of "The Last Day". Comparing the same period, the domestic box office of the PG-13 "The Last Day" was about 1.8 times that of "Pretty Woman".

Such a movie has fewer troubles to release, and it has religious elements that European and Asian audiences love. The plot is simpler than that of "Pretty Woman," and there are fewer language and cultural barriers. Therefore, the momentum of international orders is even greater than that of "Pretty Woman." Be good.

The international distribution of "The Last Day" was quickly accepted by distributors due to the local box office endorsement and the popularity of Ronald's films in Europe and Asia. Most European and Latin American, plus Australian studios have scheduled an October release date, just in time to succeed "Pretty Woman."

Japan, Xiangjiang and Korea, where Ronald is most famous, are scheduled to compete in the ring at the same time as "Pretty Woman" in November.

…

"Your son looks good... He has the forehead of a lawyer, the eyes of a businessman, and the chin of a movie star..." Lindsay Dole, Ronald's personal lawyer, looked at the Ronaldinho in Ronald's wallet. Nader, Diane and Roger Jr. took a photo together and praised it a lot.

"Hahaha, you're right..." His son is all good for him. Ronald also praised Lindsay's son, "We can only monitor the overseas box office where people and ghosts have unresolved affairs. It’s come to this…”

Overseas box office is the hardest hit area of ​​Hollywood's "creative accounting". Nowadays, no matter what industry it is, monitoring cross-border sales revenue is a difficult problem. Many manufacturers are too lazy to bother and just wholesale to local retailers in order to find a safe solution.

It turns out that this is also the case with movies. They only charge a rental fee for one copy. No matter how many times you play it, the money will be calculated based on the price of one copy and sold to overseas distributors.

But as Wall Street has invested heavily in Hollywood in recent years, there's nothing more frustrating to a banker than not making all the money on the table. Therefore, under the guidance of Wall Street bankers and the urging of listed companies' performance requirements, overseas box offices are now gradually turning to box office statistics and sharing.

But this is another troublesome matter for stars or producers. When collecting copy rentals, it is very easy to monitor. Just look at how many copies the film lab has made. But the current box office figures overseas are not as transparent and open as they are in China.

"This is a measure, Ronald." Lindsey Dole emphasized to Ronald again. There is actually a cost to monitoring overseas box office, and the cost of this supervision is very high.

Not to mention the labor costs, even if you find out there is a box office problem, who will you claim for compensation from? To the publisher? Paramount says I'm a victim too. To overseas theaters? A cross-border lawsuit just for this little box office? You don’t even have enough lawyer fees.

"I understand, I just want a bargaining chip," Ronald said that he understood. If Paramount concealed the box office, he could also provide some evidence.

In fact, not all overseas box office should be underestimated.

For example, "Pretty Woman", Disney wanted to compete for the global total box office

Another example is "Valmont" which failed at the box office last year. For their own jobs, everyone has the motivation to calculate it higher. It's just that the American box office is too low, and no one believes that the international box office is too high.

And "Batman", Jack Nicholson's outrageous box office dividend, Warner Bros. must report it lower.

This "Ghost" is a similar situation. Ronald and Jack Nicholson have exchanged a lot of experience. Now Los Angeles lawyer Mickey Kanter is negotiating with Warner Bros. for him, and Ronald is also making some preparations based on his experience and lessons.

...

"Rich, you are really different from when you were my assistant now, your eyes are full of light..." In the evening, Ronald had dinner with his former assistant, fat girl Rich Lake. She is now a TV host and is in her element...

What is more touching is that when she was the heroine in "Hairspray", no fans would ask her to sign autographs or take photos with them. Now that she has become a host and a celebrity, several groups of guests have come to ask her to sign autographs or take photos with them during meals.

"Boss, I learned all this from you..." Richie Lake smiled. After getting busy, she actually lost a little weight and was in better shape than when she was an assistant.

"Haha, cheers..." Ronald raised his glass to celebrate with her.

"By the way, how is the TV version of your Working Girl?" Richie Lake had made a cameo appearance in the movie version of Working Girl and was a little curious about the TV version. She was too busy with work to watch it.

"Oh..." Ronald put down his glass, "Don't mention it. The ratings are neither up nor down, hovering around the passing line. If they can't be improved, it might be cut early."

The second chapter will probably not be finished tonight, so it will be postponed to tomorrow.