Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Why are they all Die Hard? These scripts look like they are all adaptations of Die Hard. They are either Die Hard in the mall, Die Hard in the school, or Die Hard in the hospital. Die Hard, and Die Hard on a Train…”

Ronald was at home, looking through a box of various action movie scripts that David Simkins had brought to him that had been put into the studio's warehouse and had not been greenlit. However, after watching a few, he decided to watch them. Vomited.

"Boss, this is inevitable. This is the trend brought about by your success. Just like the blockbusters of James Bond movies in the early years, all companies are filming 007 of various unknown spy organizations.

The King's Man, Smart Detective, Mission Impossible, all that stuff on American TV back then. "

"But it can't all be Die Hard? Where are those traditional action movies?" On the one hand, Ronald felt that he didn't want to follow the trend of making movies. On the other hand, this type of movie has indeed reached a period of fatigue. Even Bruce Willis himself didn’t want to make a third film.

"Boss, this is what you said to me yourself. The audience will get tired of a subject much later than the creator. If you look at Qianlong, which was released last weekend, the box office shows that Die Hard on the Battleship is still..."

"Oh, don't mention that, it annoys me to death..."

The movie "Hidden Dragon Ascends" starring Steve Seagal was released with a newsreel clip of the commander-in-chief, George Sr., and the line that directly attacked the commander-in-chief was deleted, but the entire clip still strongly hinted at the old commander-in-chief. George's ignorance of the life of an ordinary sailor on a battleship.

This is especially fatal when George Sr. suffered a heavy blow in his second televised debate and his approval ratings plummeted.

Barbara was anxious and called Ronald to ask him what he could do, whether to directly sue Siegel or take a public counterattack to increase his approval rating. Ronald had no choice but to rope in Roger Ailes and teach Barbara one of the most basic concepts of public relations - don't deny your own by attacking your opponent when what others say is the truth. mistake.

Barbara got the right idea and showed her leadership's magnanimity by not pursuing the matter. However, her youngest son Jeb was dissatisfied with the matter and hired a consultant from the current campaign team to brainwash his mother.

Ronald immediately cut off further contact with Barbara, and when he answered the phone, he only mentioned that he would help the president and his wife sue Siegel for compensation later, promote Hollywood's regulation of the use of images involving political figures, and other matters related to campaign strategy. Presumably I don’t know. Roger Ailes was also banned from saying anything about the campaign.

Roger Ailes also knew that Jeb was Barbara's favorite son and would not suffer any complaints for failure, but those people involved now might be used as scapegoats... He He also completely disappeared from Washington and New York and hid in Los Angeles to write his own program plan.

"Well, no Die Hard... But, Ronald, the problem now is that no one watches traditional action movies anymore. The only ones that are still popular with audiences are Die Hard and the like, which show the protagonists. It’s not a superhuman action movie…”

David Simkins has obviously put in a lot of effort. He gave some reasons, which means that Die Hard-style scripts are still popular.

"Okay, keep picking, but don't give me things that are so obvious that they are imitating Die Hard. Find something original and exciting..." Ronald also understood. , Hollywood is constantly changing. It is not often that a script can be seen as a good one at a glance like "Back to the Future". Instead, it often requires the director's second creation before it can become a good script.

…

"This is crazy. George Sr. has offended the military industry so much. I always thought they would let Perot be elected at the last moment and then appeal to support Sr. George. Who would have known that such a thing would happen."

A few days later, Roger Ailes came to visit. After watching the TV debate of the candidates for vice governor, he had completely lost hope in George Sr.'s re-election. Coupled with some things shown in the release of Qian Long Hong Tian, ​​Roger Ailes has completely given up the expectation of making any achievements in the political arena and concentrated on developing into the television industry.

"Why do you say that?" Ronald also watched the debate. Of the three vice-leader candidates, old George's deputy Quayle was still the same silly look, and Gore of the Donkey Party performed best. In fact, if it weren't for the previous veteran If George's victory in the Cold War prevented him from challenging the election, he might not have been able to defeat the scandal-ridden governor of Arkansas in the primary. He would probably regret it now. And Perot's deputy, the admiral, performed in a mess.

However, the deputy commander's debate performance has never had much impact on the general election, because under the American system, the deputy commander is just a backup... I don't know why Roger Ailes has this judgment.

"Did you notice what Admiral James Stockdale said?"

"Philosopher-like?" Ronald watched the debate. Roger Ailes was definitely not referring to the later moments when James Stockdale would pretend not to hear a question and fiddle with his hearing aid to avoid answering.

So what is impressive about him is that when everyone said the opening remarks at the beginning, he asked himself three of the philosopher's favorite questions, who am I, where am I, and why am I here?

So much so that in what was later called the most intense presidential election debate in the past 32 years by the media, James Stockdale seemed to be playing soy sauce, watching Quayle and Gore at war with each other, and even There was a quarrel with the host and the audience who asked questions on the spot, and he didn't say anything meaningful.

Seeing Ronald's confused eyes, Roger Ailes smiled evilly and explained to this political novice. This kind of performance shows that James Stockdale has no interest in running for office, and Perot has not spent any energy on running. He just uses large donations from who knows where to do various things on TV stations. Such ads.

Why do these two people continue to fight in such a meaningless election and not withdraw from the election? Why do people continue to make large donations to candidates who have no hope of winning?

In Roger Ailes' view, their campaign ads were also targeted at George Sr., and their comeback after the election had only one purpose, which was to split votes for Sr. George as much as possible so that he could not win the support of all marginal voters of the Elephant Party. .

"This is like Akira Kurosawa's script, huh? From one detailed observation, Oda Nobunaga knew that there was a big problem inside Takeda Shingen." Ronald admired Roger Ailes' sharp thinking. Now that Wang is no longer able to suppress internal conflicts, some people may hope that the Xiang Party will lose.

…

There is new evidence for Roger Ailes's speculation. The results of California's special Senate election, which ended first, will be available weeks earlier than the normal Senate and general elections. Dianne Feinstein, the female candidate of the Donkey Party, indeed defeated the Elephant Party candidate established by the previous senator and won this key seat.

The Donkey Party and women's groups organized victory parades, and Los Angeles was very lively for a while.

"Jim, this is a good movie. I'm so fed up with Die Hard all over the place now. You are the 007 of the new era..."

Being blocked by the parade, Ronald had to discuss matters with Cameron at home. After the two made the decision to compete for special effects personnel first, Cameron was also looking for good scripts everywhere.

Cameron first booked Schwarzenegger's next schedule and also asked him to pay attention to good scripts. He didn't get the script, but Schwarzenegger's wife, Mary Shriver, recommended a Chinese movie to him.

The movie is called "LaTotale" and tells the story of François, a telecommunications employee who was laughed at by his friends for leading a boring life on his 40th birthday. His wife Helena was also frustrated that her husband had to work overtime and do boring work on his birthday.

Helena later meets Simon, a down-and-out used car salesman who lives in an RV. Simon often pretends to be a spy and defrauds women of their bodies and money.

Unexpectedly, Francois was the real spy. He didn't work overtime on his birthday, but monitored an international arms smuggler. When he learned that Helena had been deceived by Simon, he thought she had cheated. He pretended that Simon was a terrorist and persuaded Helena to cooperate with the operation to capture Simon. In the end, he was kidnapped by the international arms smuggler he was actually monitoring during the operation. After confessing to his wife After discovering their true identities, they thwarted terrorists' attempt to blow up the Paris Saint-Germain Stadium.

The whole movie is very rough, a typical B-movie. But after seeing too much Die Hard, Ronald admired this idea very much.

Cameron also liked it very much. After asking Ronald for his opinion, he planned to rewrite the script and rewrite the story according to the level of an A-level movie. Generally speaking, the original comedy color and story structure of the original movie are retained, but the scenes are enlarged, the explosions are enlarged, the action is enlarged, and the stars are enlarged.

"If you had to write a one-sentence summary, how would you write it?" Cameron roughly calculated the scenes he wanted to shoot, and estimated that it would cost more than the Terminator sequel. It is definitely impossible to film such a big scene with the money of two people. Investors must be found.

When looking for investment, this one-sentence summary is more important. Commonly known as elevator selling in the industry, when you only have a dozen seconds to sell to investors, you have to say something that can arouse the other party's interest and learn more.

Cameron knew that Ronald was a master at this, so he wanted to ask him for advice.

"If James Bond had to answer to his wife when he came home, what kind of man would he be?" Ronald pondered for a moment and said his golden words.

"It's great, but now that 007 movies are not popular, would it be better to change it to John McClane?"

"Oh, please forgive me, I'm going to vomit when I hear Die Hard, McLean, YippeeKiYay. Anyway, you just don't talk about the plot now, and people are also interested in listening to you talk about your movie project for two hours. I Just let it go?"

Ronald really didn't like to follow the trend, especially the trend of such old movies, so he just asked Cameron to come up with the script as soon as possible, then gather his connections and hold a special project investment meeting to attract Wall Street money.

…

"Ronald, I found a script that was nothing like "YippeeKiYay" from McLean in Die Hard, but had all the good qualities of Die Hard.

"Can you not say the name of the movie? Okay, come over here and let's talk."

A few days later, David Simkins suddenly found a good script that he thought was good. He thought Ronald would be satisfied with it, so he came to the door excitedly.

"This is also a movie that absorbs the advantages of Die Hard... that blockbuster action movie that takes place in a confined space, but it is not about fighting a group of terrorist villains. When I watched it for the first time, I read it all in one breath and never thought that it had any intrinsic connection with... that blockbuster action movie..."

The script brought by David Simkins is called "Speed", written by a Canadian screenwriter, Graham Yost.

The script tells the story of a detective who found a time bomb on a bus that was set to explode at less than 50 miles per hour. In the end, he found a way to drive around Dodger Stadium and dismantled the bomb with the help of his companions, saving the lives of everyone on the bus.

"It's still a bit like Die Hard, but you've done your best." Ronald can certainly mention the name of this movie. He flipped from front to back and always felt that this movie had an indescribable sense of familiarity.

"Yeah, I said, the character of this protagonist is totally unlike McClane, there is just a huge danger in a closed space, which needs to be eliminated by the protagonist. And it is not a terrorist directly on the bus, but a bomb, and our protagonist is fighting with the lowest speed."

David Simkins still appreciates this script. He thinks it is the best script he can find, which is not like Die Hard, but has the advantage of Die Hard to grab the audience's attention.

"You should talk more with this Graham Yost. I always feel that this script is very familiar. Don't worry about plagiarism."

Ronald told Simkins about his inexplicable familiarity for caution and asked him to check.

"No problem, I will ask him where he got the inspiration from, just like Working Girl..."

Simkins refers to the movie "Working Girl", in the end, Tess told the client how she came up with the idea of ​​acquiring the radio station, and then the client asked Catherine, but she couldn't say it, which confirmed whose idea it was.

This is a good way to determine originality. If you are not prepared, you will be easily speechless and unable to give a reasonable reason.

David Simkins summoned Graham Yost to the office of Daydream and informed him of Ronald's interest. When the latter was excited, he suddenly asked a question.

"Graham, you are a genius. Ronald rarely expresses surprise at people's plots. Tell me, how did you come up with this core plot that can't stop on a high-speed bus?"

"Ha, it's my father. He told me that I had seen a movie starring Jon Voight called Runaway Train. It said that the train couldn't stop because of a bomb. I thought that there were few things people could do on the train. If it was a bus, then the driver could do a lot to stop the bad guys..."

"Did he say that?" Ronald listened to Simkins' report and suddenly found that there was something wrong with this screenwriter.

"He said that, I always felt that something was wrong, so I came to report it immediately..."

"Bullshxt!" Ronald was angry and threw the script on the table. He knew the ins and outs of the movie Runaway Train very well. He was an eyewitness.

Director Konchalovsky filmed a script adapted from Akira Kurosawa's original work. This guy changed the face of the film and then thought of an excuse to say that it was inspired by Runaway Train. It can be seen that he deliberately plagiarized.

"Runaway Train does not have a bomb plot at all. That was the original script adapted from Runaway Train, from Mr. Kurosawa's script. This core plot was also used in the Shinkansen explosion filmed in Japan later. Tell this little liar, if he tells the truth, I can still give him a way..."