Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Isn't his income from Godfather III enough?" Diane also knew some of Coppola's bad debts. He didn't pay off the debt when he filmed "The Untamed".

"He invested in Apocalypse Now and Love and Destiny with his own money. It really hurt his finances too much. He could only get the director and screenwriter's fee for Godfather III, plus some, you know... income." Ronald still admired Coppola's courage. If he invested in full, he could only make a small production at most.

"Ah, if it weren't for him..." Diane sighed.

Ronald knew what Diane meant. Although Diane didn't become popular after filming three Coppola movies in a row, this favor was quite big. He said quickly: "I'm not not helping. I'm helping him contact the investment and distribution of his new film. Coppola's performance fluctuates too much, and I can't afford it alone..."

The most powerful director in Hollywood is now in a bad situation. Ronald can only help him a little. No one is optimistic about his new film. The theme is too fantasy. In the past few years, this kind of classic horror theme has failed at the box office for several consecutive times.

Fortunately, Frank Price, the president of Columbia that Ronald found, is also a classic producer. After reading the early script himself, he saw that it was directed by Coppola, so he was very interested.

However, Coppola's fame is no longer enough to support the financing of a big investment movie. So Frank Price forced him to find a popular star to play the leading role, otherwise he would not invest.

Of course, Ronald said a few good words to his face, but he still asked Frank Price to insist on supervision behind the scenes. Coppola will only produce fine works when he is under great pressure from the producers in production and casting, but is given full creative freedom.

…

It is the third Monday of February. This weekend is President Day, a federal holiday established to commemorate all the presidents in history. The first weekend happened to coincide with the release of "The Silence of the Lambs", which performed well and earned 14 million at the box office. It is about 10 million on a normal weekend.

For a thriller that is shown in 1,500 theaters, this is a very good opening result. The normal single-theater result is more than 9,000 US dollars.

Although there are sporadic protests from sexual minority groups in various places, which have a certain impact on the box office. But the quality of this Silence of the Lambs is very good, and the word-of-mouth effect is very obvious. The box office on Sunday exceeded that on Saturday. Although there is the influence of the President weekend, this result still makes the distributor Tristar Pictures very happy.

At the same time, director Jonathan Demme and the two leading actors went to Berlin to participate in the first international film festival after the reunification of East and West Germany. Last October, East Germany was officially incorporated into West Germany, and the first election after reunification was held in December. Former Prime Minister Kohl won a higher vote rate and became the first democratically elected prime minister to take office since 1933.

This Berlin Film Festival was very grand, and the breadth and number of participating films also set a record. One potential reason is that the new parliament will discuss whether to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin. After all, the temporary capital of West Germany has existed in Bonn for many years. Whether it is necessary to move to Berlin is still waiting for the parliamentary vote in the summer.

So the Berlin government wants to make a big splash and increase the influence of the vote. Therefore, many Hollywood movies were specially invited to participate, and a large number of quotas for Eastern European movies were increased, as well as movies that tried to introduce Arab culture, trying to create an image of Germany returning to the European family and leading the reconciliation between the United States, Europe and Arab countries.

However, things are unpredictable, and this large-scale expansion did not go as planned.

A large number of Eastern European countries did not say anything after seeing East Germany merge into West Germany. So they all clearly felt that the control of the alliance was rapidly weakening. Although the cluster of the alliance army stationed in East Germany has not been withdrawn to the country, it is still stationed in Germany. But people in these Eastern European countries can no longer hold back and start to stir.

And artists are the most avant-garde group of people in the crowd. Filmmakers from these countries ignored the original government quota control and sent their films directly to film festivals in Western Europe without domestic selection.

In the eyes of these people, the artistic level of French and Italian films is obviously much higher than that of Germans. So they also sent their films to the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival. Only two films in the whole of Eastern Europe were sent to the Berlin Film Festival.

This caught the organizing committee off guard, and they urgently contacted Ronald and included "Dances with Wolves" that was originally sent to the screening in the main competition unit.

All of a sudden, Hollywood has five films participating in the main competition, and there are seven films that have participated in the investment. This caused extreme dissatisfaction among European filmmakers, who threatened to boycott the Berlin Film Festival. The organizing committee was overwhelmed, and they greeted Ronald here, saying that it seems that the Golden Bear Award will not be awarded to Hollywood films.

This made Ronald also curse the grass-roots team. The so-called rigorous Germans are really not good at art.

This made Ronald no longer interested in going to Berlin for the award ceremony. He called Jonathan Demme directly and said that he had other things to do and entrusted all matters in Berlin to him.

Demi was very sorry that Ronald couldn't go, saying that he met a group of filmmakers representing Hong Kong, who sent a film called "The Great Eunuch Li Lianying". Many mainland actors said that they wanted to meet the legendary director Luo, who was particularly friendly to China in Hollywood. Among them, there was a leading male actor who said a lot about how righteous Director Luo was, and brought him some Beijing delicacy Fuling cakes. Fortunately, this delicacy does not spoil, and Demi can bring it back.

...

The other thing Ronald mentioned was the editing of "other people's money". After a break, he officially started the editing work. After a few days of editing, he encountered a tricky thing.

When filming the shareholders' meeting, an actor who was sitting in Acutis suddenly died.

"Again... complications caused by the virus?" Ronald sighed. The person who came to discuss with him was a male staff member of the Hollywood Makeup Artists Union, hoping that he could write a few eulogies for William de Acutis.

This actor has no representative works. In addition to playing a supporting role in this movie, he only played a supporting role in "Love You 9 1/2 Weeks" a few years ago, and he also wrote some scripts.

"No wonder he stole the show on the set..." Ronald hates people who think they know how to shoot better than the director just because they have written a few scripts that no one wants.

"Why, are you dissatisfied with the people in our group?" The visitor looked unhappy and asked Ronald directly what he thought of the sexual minority group, and he also made sarcastic remarks, as if Ronald would notify his colleagues in the industry and let him know if he didn't say what he was satisfied with.

There are indeed many people with different orientations in the makeup artist group in Hollywood. Ronald is now being raped by them in The Silence of the Lambs and doesn't want to cause trouble again.

"Everyone in Hollywood knows that I have great respect for minority groups like you, and I don't discriminate against you at all. In fact, I have worked with quite a few people."

Ronald quickly lit a cigarette for the somewhat "enchanting" staff member, and then said, "Have you seen The Karate Kid?"

"Yes." The other party took the cigarette, lit it on Ronald's lighter, and took a deep puff. This kind of treatment from a famous director still makes people feel good. He sat back and relaxed at once.

"Then you know James Crabbe, right? The director of photography, he is also..., I worked with him on two The Karate Kids, and the third one was directed by someone else because he unfortunately passed away. Hey, he is really a good partner and a good person."

"Oh, my God, I know James's... male partner. He is really a very good person, and he has introduced me to work. It turns out that you didn't direct the third one because of his sudden death. No wonder the third one is much worse than the first two."

"Hey, who said it wasn't? We added a subtitle to pay tribute to him in the opening of the third one." Ronald smiled and poured him another glass of whiskey.

"Guess what? I have an idea. We can also add a tribute subtitle to William de Acutis. You know, now movies have to release videotapes, so the image of your friend can stay in the minds of the audience forever."

"Oh, you are really, I... I didn't expect you to be so good to a minority like us... You are such a good person." The other party pretended to hug Ronald.

"Hey, hey, don't do it." Ronald shouted in his heart, and then indicated that the big table between the two was inconvenient, and gave up hugging him. "If there is anything else he needs after his death, just say it."

"I have nothing to say. Your proposal is much more important than writing a few eulogies for him. On behalf of all of us in Hollywood... people, thank you for your understanding of our group. Hey..."

This person is easily emotional, and when he was emotional, he shed several tears.

"By the way, I don't know much about you. Is what Zhou Tianna said in the recent interview true?"

Ronald saw that the other party was in a good mood, so he simply asked him what he thought of Zhou Tianna's public relations.

"This bitch, who in the circle doesn't know her, she came to take advantage of our tragedy, hey..." The staff told Ronald their views in the circle.

It's true that Zhou Tianna is heterosexual, but the hairy man she cheated with is bisexual. So what she did is tantamount to putting the tragic experience of their minority group on her head as a heterosexual.

Now their group is trying their best to use this virus to gain sympathy and become a group of people who are not discriminated against. This woman came to interfere, and the circle has a bad attitude towards her.

"Is that so?" Ronald heard a lot of inside stories of minority groups that he couldn't know. These people are also very miserable. Recently, many people of their orientation died in the Hollywood circle, all of which were sequelae caused by the virus. Because they are discriminated against, some families of the deceased, in order to avoid being pointed at, have to change the common causes of death from viral complications to some normal diseases.

And the people in these groups unite to turn bad things into good things, use the sympathy of the people to gain the general sympathy of the society, and assert their equal status.

Therefore, they actually don’t like Zhou Tianna’s interview, which talks about how a heterosexual can also be contagious.

"I want to express my sincere condolences to you. I wonder where I can donate?" Ronald thought that although this group of people were pushed to the front row by the Jews, they were not their pets. The Jews can use it, why can't I use it?

"Oh, you are so nice. We can be happy to have friends like you. If you want to do something good for our group, in fact, the veteran star Elizabeth Taylor is the best. She really loves our group of people, just like you... Hey..."

"Hey, how could I forget her." Ronald shouted that it was a mistake. This person was very high-profile in supporting minorities and comforting virus-infected people.

Elizabeth Taylor's close friend in the circle, male star Rock Hudson, died of illness in 1985. He was actually the first celebrity who died of this disease witnessed by the American people.

Yu Po also co-founded a foundation for this reason, specializing in virus research. Many fund-raisings have been held before.

Ronald sent away the union members and immediately contacted Elizabeth Taylor by phone, saying that he would donate 100,000 yuan to her foundation.

Ms. Taylor wanted to continue to hold a fundraising meeting to draw public attention to Zhou Tianna's case. The former president was not very scientifically literate and was indifferent to this. The current president followed public opinion and instructed Dr. Fuchs of the National Institute of Allergy to be responsible for the federal funding for virus research projects.

Ronald's donation made her very happy. Taylor also asked Ronald to continue to donate some props from the movie and auction them at the auction to continue to support research.

"That's no problem, but I have a small request. I wonder if Ms. Taylor can condescend to help me pass on a message." Ronald immediately pleaded.

"What? Just say it." Elizabeth Taylor liked Ronald very much.

"I want to tell the minority groups that our Silence of the Lambs is indeed not aimed at them. On the contrary, among our main creative staff, there are people with the same orientation as them. Due to sensitive reasons, I'm sorry that I can't say more."

"Ha, you are really a gentleman. I know a lot about female stars liking women." Elizabeth Taylor didn't expose it. She agreed to pass on the message and assured Ronald that she would promote it well.

"Ha..." Ronald was very happy that the thorny problem was solved. He looked at the wine glasses and ashtrays on the table, and then called the assistant, "Ask the cleaning lady to clean them up." "These cups must be thoroughly disinfected." Ronald looked at the black cleaning lady with a disgusted expression on her face. "Forget it, just throw them away. Go and help me get some more cups and ashtrays of the same kind."

...

Elizabeth Taylor's message was effective, and The Silence of the Lambs has not been protested since then. Those minority groups, it must be said, are quite clear about what they love and hate.

Ronald showed kindness to them, gave them face and donated money, which they saw in their eyes, and even organized people to come and support the screening of The Silence of the Lambs. It was considered to be a vindication for Ronald in their small circle, and he was one of them.

"Inspector Claire, when are you going to see The Silence of the Lambs? Our marketing department has prepared a special press conference to introduce you to the audience as the prototype of Starling in the movie."

It was the weekend again, and Ronald was very happy to see that the box office of "The Silence of the Lambs" had a very small drop. However, FBI Detective Claire always refuses to come to Los Angeles for promotion. Daydream has already imitated the marketing strategy of "Working Girl" and found female detectives from all over the country to promote the film, telling the story that women can also make achievements in male-dominated discipline departments.

"I'm a little busy with my case, so I don't have time to go recently. Please forgive me." Detective Claire's voice was a little tired. The serial killer who committed crimes in Michigan and Wisconsin may appear in Milwaukee to commit new crimes recently. The FBI has to rush there and form a joint investigation team with local forces. This case has now spanned three states. If the criminal cannot be caught as soon as possible, it will become a real version of Buffalo Bill.

The behavior of this serial killer is also very scary. Not only does he drill holes in the victim's brain and inject hydrochloric acid, but some crime scenes also show signs of cannibalism, which is like Hannibal's behavior.

Although the Silence of the Lambs is scary, if such a serial killer appears in real life, it will be a hundred times more terrifying than the movie.