Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"In the final days of the Oscar campaign, before the final ballots were filled out and mailed, rumors circulated in Hollywood claiming that Kevin Costner was not the only director who directed "Dances with Wolves." Costner's old friend Ronald Lee actually directed some of the best scenes in the movie."

After commenting on this year's major awards, the Los Angeles Times' film review began to tell other stories surrounding the awards in two reports.

The first one was the gossip that Ronald was Costner's double. However, the Los Angeles Times is a major newspaper, so he still started from the perspective of analyzing that this gossip was not true. Why is there such a rumor circulating? In fact, it makes sense:

First, Ronald and Costner have known each other for a long time. Costner had previously completed the first released film in Ronald's film "Night of the Comet".

Secondly, Ronald had visited the filming site several times during the filming of "Dances with Wolves". A series of people who are closely related to the main creators said that in fact, Ronald was the director of some major scenes in the movie.

However, this rumor is not credible. All the crew members interviewed said that Ronald did not do any directing work. And the Directors Guild would not let this happen. Not to mention that Ronald did not direct, even if he directed many scenes, if the film he shot did not exceed two-thirds of the entire script, it would be Costner who was signed as the director instead of him.

The purpose of this newspaper repeating this unfounded rumor is to tell readers how unscrupulous they will be in order to snipe the leading competitors for this award that is not the most authoritative in terms of artistry...

Last year, Oliver Stone's critics managed to link Stone with the unpopular political ambitions of Kovic, the original author of "Born on the Fourth of July", which may have changed the outcome of the Oscars.

In the end, Stone won the Best Director Award, but his sharp satire and anti-Vietnam War film lost to the exciting and politically correct "Driving Miss Daisy".

...

The Los Angeles Times is a serious media, but its film review column is also very professional because it is located in the city of Hollywood.

Ronald read the report over and over again several times, and finally he found a clue. The suspect should be found among the other nominees for the awards Kevin Costner was nominated for.

Ronald was acquainted with Penny Marshall, the director of "The Silence of God", who was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actor. He called her right away. After listening to Ronald's analysis, Penny laughed and said that she was not even nominated for Best Director because she was not Jewish.

However, she confirmed that during the award-winning stage, someone did come to public relations and actively provided ammunition to target other nominated films.

The most suspicious one was "The Debt of the Rich Family", which won the Best Actor Award and was also nominated for Best Director.

This is a low-cost production directed by a French director, starring a British actor, and distributed by Warner Bros., and the domestic box office is also average. Therefore, winning the award is of great benefit to all parties involved.

This time, Dances with Wolves is a hot candidate for the award, so many public relations points and competitive tactics of others attacking Dances with Wolves are endless. It is really eye-opening.

The tricks of award judging are actually not simple compared with the box office promotion of movies. It is not that investing some money can increase the chances of winning.

This time I just paid the money, and I was able to watch all kinds of award-winning methods up close, which is a very rare opportunity.

The key points here are to break through two key points. The first is that when nominating, the film must have enough technical breakthroughs to satisfy the Directors Guild and critics. Otherwise, like Penny Marshall and my Ghost, it will not be able to pass the nomination battle.

The second is to satisfy the members of the Screen Actors Guild when competing for the award. This group of talents is the key to determining the final award. The decisive factors in the previous nomination battle are no longer the focus at this stage. The taste of the actor judges still prefers the stories with the largest number of white people and stories that conform to American values.

This is a bit like the election of the President. If you talk about a lot of things that voters in your party like to hear, then the probability of passing the primary election is high. But if you still talk about these things in the finals, then you will not be as good as those candidates who are more inclined to ordinary people on those topics in winning the majority.

Fortunately, in the interview after the award ceremony, I denied the claim of proxy. Otherwise, it would be troublesome if Costner and himself had a conflict.

Ronald deliberately hung up the phone with Costner, who was still in the joy of winning the award and just laughed it off. He was also rushing to go on vacation with his wife Cindy.

The second report of the Los Angeles Times was about Scorsese's defeat again. Even the title was very sad: "Everyone likes Martin Scorsese, except for the Oscar..."

"There are many reports that speak up for you." Ronald hosted Scorsese at home. Pointing to the reports in the newspapers that said that "Good Guy" should win the award, he said.

"Hey..."

Martin Scorsese was in a bad mood these two days. In fact, he has had three more likely opportunities to win the award. In addition to Raging Bull, there was also "Taxi Driver" with Jodie Foster. But at that time, because of the violence of the movie, he didn't even get a nomination for Best Director. The other four nominations of the film were also nothing.

Earlier, his first commercial success, "Once Upon a Time, Nothing Can Change Water", made actress Alan Bernstine famous, but his work as a director was not recognized.

"You don't know, I received the trophy for Alan Bernstine." Scorsese was in such a bad mood that he even talked about the past many years ago.

At that time, Bernstine didn't think she could win the award, so she was still performing on Broadway. The performance contract she signed at that time had an Oscar clause. If she was nominated, she could take a leave to go to Los Angeles to attend the awards ceremony.

But she didn't take a leave, but just said that if she won the award by chance, Scorsese would accept it on her behalf. This obviously showed that she lacked confidence in herself. Who would have thought that Scorsese's first time on stage to receive the little golden man would be like this. He also thanked himself on stage on behalf of Bernstine...

Talking about these Oscar stories with Scorsese, Ronald was more certain of his research results on Oscar rush.

Taxi Driver was not nominated because it was not well received by fellow directors (the story was quite antisocial...). If it gets nominated, this kind of story will be more popular with actors. After all, he made Sybil Shepherd and Jodie Foster so beautiful...

But Raging Bull is the opposite. It was nominated without a doubt, but the actors didn't like it. There is not a single good-looking female character... and half of the actors with voting rights are women.

"I'm going to the bathroom." Scorsese and Ronald talked a lot, and his mood became a little better.

"It's just over the aisle." Ronald smiled interestingly and arranged a little joke for Scorsese.

"Do you think winning the award depends on luck?" Diane said.

If Dances with Wolves hadn't happened this year, or if another movie had been nominated ten years ago, Scorsese would have a great chance of winning the award.

"It's hard to say. It's indeed related to luck. However, the more important thing may be the skill of winning the award."

Scorsese stayed in the bathroom for several minutes. When he came out and returned to the living room, Ronald and Diane looked at him, trying to hold back their laughter.

"Damn it, ... you kid, did you arrange this on purpose?" Scorsese couldn't hold it back and laughed out loud.

Ronald put the little golden man he won yesterday on the washbasin in the bathroom. Everyone couldn't miss it when washing their hands.

For an industry insider who has never won an award, how could he resist the desire to pick up the little golden man and give an acceptance speech in front of the mirror?

Sure enough, Scorsese couldn't escape. He took the little golden man and practiced the acceptance speeches he prepared in the past two times when he didn't win the award.

When he returned to the living room, he reacted. After so long, he must have betrayed what he had done.

However, it was this kind of laughter that relieved a lot of his mental pressure. Putting it in the bathroom is also a good metaphor. Winning an award doesn't mean anything, it's just an award. The real recognition is given by the market and colleagues in the industry.

"Take a break for a while, I will explain to them about the Coca-Cola advertisement." Ronald took the initiative to mention the advertisement that Scorsese still owed.

"No need, you made me very happy today, I will be able to direct soon." Scorsese smiled. The advertisement was actually just a gimmick, and he could finish it in half a day. He just didn't have the heart to create because he was rushing for awards some time ago.

"Okay, I'll go and coordinate the time with them..."

"Bye..."

Scorsese said goodbye and left, and Ronald immediately rushed into the bathroom and picked up the little golden man. This gold-plated trophy is very heavy, and it needs electricity to hold it, so there are many handprints on it, fingerprints are everywhere, and there are some water stains on it...

"Oh, really... I spent a lot of money to cheer you up..." Ronald took out a suede, blew on the little golden man's head, and then slowly began to wipe the handprints and traces on it.

The box office of "Dances with Wolves" has increased...

The weekend before the awards ceremony, because of the popularity of the Oscars and multiple nominations, the audience suddenly became interested in this western film.

The box office statistics for this weekend have been released and placed on the table in front of Ronald. It has increased by more than 40% compared with last week. It has returned to the top five of the box office list.

Since the film was released 20 weeks ago, it has accumulated 130 million domestic box office. With the overseas screenings that are about to begin, it is expected to have a good harvest.

The best thing is that when it was screened overseas, the film just happened to win six Oscars and won the most important Best Picture and Best Director.

The highlight of the overseas box office is Europe and East Asia. The audiences in these two places have a similar characteristic, that is, their mass and elite audiences do not have the polarized preferences for movies like Hollywood.

Many times, European audiences will go to movie viewing parties to listen to experts explain the content of the movie. They will also read professional film review magazines such as Film Handbook to try to accept the views of the elites. In Japan, there are also similar magazines such as "Movie Junpo".

In mainland China, the situation there is a bit like America. The most popular and popular mass movies completely cater to the tastes of the mass audience. Sometimes, these two countries, because of their large size and large population, have similar phenomena in many markets.

…

Another week later, Ronald met Kevin Costner again.

"Hahaha, it has been rising for two consecutive weeks"

Kevin Costner and his wife came back from a vacation in Palm Springs and came to Ronald again to talk to him about overseas distribution.

The star was still in ecstasy. The Oscars brought not only honor and recognition to "Dances with Wolves", but also real money.

The audience returned to the theater because of the award, and there were many new audiences who heard about this movie with a strange name because of the Oscars and went to the cinema to watch this western for the first time.

This weekend, the box office rose by 45% on the basis of last weekend, earning more than 5.4 million box office. This box office figure has returned to the box office level of December last year, which was the fifth week of release.

In terms of ranking, the movie also returned to the third place. This is the longest time for a movie to fall out of the top three in the box office list in the past few years, and then return to the top three after the longest interval, a total of fifteen weeks.

The domestic box office of the movie has approached 150 million, and the premiere in Britain and other places is also being prepared.

Ranked second is another movie invested and produced by Ronald, "The Silence of the Lambs". Anthony Hopkins's ugly face stayed at the top of the box office for five weeks, and finally fell to second place.

The top box office this week is the sequel to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", an unexpected success of Golden Harvest in Hong Kong. It was released exactly one year ago, and the four teenage turtles wearing masks sold 200 million. This made Golden Harvest overjoyed, and they immediately took out the Hong Kong speed to shoot the second part.

However, their production costs cannot be kept unchanged like Hong Kong productions. The rule in Hollywood is that you must increase your salary if you want to shoot a sequel. Golden Harvest's production costs doubled to 30 million US dollars.

Even if the four actors are wearing masks and their faces are not shown throughout the movie, the Screen Actors Guild can still ensure that they will not be replaced. As long as the second sequel uses their makeup images, even if they are not used, they have to pay them expensive licensing fees, so Golden Harvest might as well invite them back and increase their salaries.

This is the result of the lawsuit caused by the replacement of Crispin Glover, the actor who played Marty's father in "Back to the Future" Part II. In the second film, his role was changed, he didn't appear much, and he wore a hood and stood upside down. Crispin Glover was furious and sued the film company.

The Back to the Future crew thought that they couldn't lose the case because Crispin Glover didn't appear in the second film. Who could recognize that it was Crispin Glover wearing an old man's hood?

But the judge's decision disappointed them. The judge believed that Crispin Glover in the first film had become a character image. No matter how the second film was changed, the character was still called George McFly.

Crispin Glover won the lawsuit, and this case became a Hollywood practice. Characters wearing hoods also have the right to claim their own character image. The producers can't simply replace them, they must give priority to them to negotiate.

Ronald and Costner drank whiskey and Italian salami, very comfortable. Costner also wanted to find the mysterious Chinese wine he drank last time, thinking that it brought him good luck.

Ronald was reluctant to drink the remaining bottle of old Moutai, so he opened a new one bought in a Chinese supermarket. The packaging was not a five-star trademark, but a new flying dancer image.

"By the way, Ronald, I have an idea..."

After three rounds of drinks, Costner suddenly said to Ronald.

"I want to add the parts that were forced to be cut in the version released in America."

"Isn't this version good? It won an Oscar." Ronald disagreed. The film has a loose structure. The current version of less than three hours is actually a balance between the Indian landscape and culture and the plot narrative?

"But there are still many good pictures. This time we won the Oscar. Now the audience will definitely not be afraid of it being too long."

"But..." Ronald originally wanted to convince Costner from the perspective of editing technology and director's aesthetics, but looking at the other party's confident eyes and a smile on the corner of his mouth, he suddenly thought of the key to the problem.

Ronald changed his mind when the words came to his lips. Costner is the Oscar for Best Director, and I haven't won it yet? What is there to teach?

"You have a new idea? Then give it a try, maybe try it out at a British screening and see how the audience reacts."