Exploiting Hollywood 1980

On the plane back to Los Angeles, Ronald and the two producers had a business class seat. The lunch here was much better than the economy class, and there was even steak and red wine on the menu.

After a full meal and a good drink, Ronald picked up the "Times" magazine exclusively for business class and started reading it, seeing that it would take some time to get to Los Angeles.

"Lady Margaret's Fall", the title of this in-depth report is very interesting, telling the story of the British Prime Minister falling in China.

"After the meeting, Lady Margaret walked out of the door dejectedly, with a solemn face. She walked down the stone steps at the north entrance of the Great Hall, looked up at the reporter on the lower right, suddenly smiled, turned her head and gestured to the reporter, trying to appear calm.

As she continued to walk down, her high heels tripped on the stone steps, causing her body to lose balance and fall to the ground. Her shoes and handbag were also thrown to the side. Fortunately, she had reached the flat ground and did not fall hard.

This year, the Prime Minister encountered several major events since taking office. At the beginning of the year in the Paris-Dakar Rally, her son disappeared midway. The Prime Minister mobilized the British armed forces to search, and finally found him without a trace. Injure the drunken son.

She used public tools for private affairs, and faced a vote of no confidence due to poor approval rating. She won the support of the people by her extremely tough performance in the Falklands War in Argentina, but she unexpectedly encountered a "fall" here.

The "Iron Lady" was in a bad mood after two and a half hours of talks, which is undeniable, even if her fall was purely accidental.

A few days later, Britain and China signed a joint statement to return sovereignty on July 1, 1997..."

"Well, it seems that the Chinese are still capable, better than that football powerhouse in South America." Ronald closed the magazine, and the plane was about to land.

Arriving at the airport arrival hall, Ronald said goodbye to the two producers. Don Simpson still looked confident, and the filming process gave him great confidence.

Jerry Bruckheimer, who actually didn't know much about movies, was a little worried. Paramount was going to sell half of the distribution rights of "Flashdance" to PolyGram, which was a sign of pessimism about the future of the movie.

"Goodbye, Ronald." The two said goodbye to Ronald.

Unexpectedly, this goodbye soon came true. The next day, Don Simpson called Ronald. Paramount's president Eisner wanted to summon Ronald again to ask him about some things related to the filming of "Flashdance".

Ronald stood outside the door of Paramount's president's office and waited. This time the secretary came quickly, "Ronald, Mr. Eisner is waiting for you."

He was led into Eisner's office by the secretary.

"Give me and Ronald some time, please go out first", Eisner politely asked Don and Jerry to leave the office first, he wanted to talk to Ronald privately to understand the filming situation.

"Ronald, how is the filming going?"

Ronald glanced at Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer who were walking out, nodded and greeted them, thinking that he would not be the one you gave Eisner advice to ask questions.

"From the sample I've seen, the director is very good, and the song and dance are shot at a very high level. It will be a new era musical.

Mr. Eisner, I'm not talking about the old-fashioned musicals like 'Grease', which is full of the texture of Broadway musicals, and the characters dance inexplicably. 'Flashdance' will be a new type of musical, and the dance scenes will happen in real life, and they will be perfectly integrated with the plot.

And the texture of the dance is great, and teenagers will like the energetic and fast-paced dance."

"It seems that you like Director Ryan's filming very much?" Eisner sat behind his desk, as if thinking about something, and he asked Ronald.

"I really like it."

"The dance scene is the highlight, eh?" Eisner continued to ask.

"Yes, the plot is a bit cliché, and director Adrian Lane also understands it, but the dance scene is really eye-catching."

"Well, Ronald, I believe in your judgment. Please go out first, I want to talk to Don and others about the distribution contract." Eisner pressed the secretary intercom, "Please let Don and Jerry in."

Ronald walked out the door. When he was about to reach the door, he turned around and suddenly asked, "Mr. Eisner, what about 'Footloose'?"

Eisner looked up suddenly, "Oh, that movie has been handed over to a new vice president who is about to take office. She will contact you."

Ronald waited at the door, and sure enough, not long after, Don Simpson whistled and walked out of Eisner's office with Jerry Bruckheimer.

"He agreed to sell only 25% of the distribution rights to Gubel of PolyGram. It was less than the original 50%, which means that Eisner is more optimistic about the box office prospects of this movie than before.

"Hey, you called me here just to endorse you in front of Eisner? You bastard." Ronald laughed and scolded Don Simpson.

"Isn't this a good deal? You can earn some trust in front of Eisner. Although he is quite cruel, he is good to directors with artistic creativity. Maybe he will invest in your new script." Don Simpson hugged Ronald and whispered in his ear.

"You owe me one, Don." Ronald would not let him run away with just one word.

“Of course, of course… I know you are financing your film, but you see, this is the first film of Jerry and I. If it is released successfully next year, we will have the opportunity to help you produce it.”

“That’s more like it.”

“Ronald, Don had no choice. We don’t have any strong resources. This film is actually the pet project of a female vice president of Paramount. She recently resigned, so we got the production rights.”

After Jerry Bruckheimer and the other three walked out of the earshot of the president’s secretary, they explained to Ronald again.

The so-called “pet project” refers to a project that a senior executive of a large studio is particularly optimistic about, and it must be filmed regardless of the opposition of others, and a lot of resources are poured into it.

Just like Universal’s Sheinberg treated Spielberg’s project, this female vice president who had resigned from Paramount also liked the script of “Flashdance” very much, and did a lot of things to promote the project in the early stage.

“Why?” Ronald was a little confused. Sheinberg had confidence in his old partner Spielberg, and the director of this “Flashdance” had changed several times, so it was hard to say why the vice president liked it so much.

"Because it represents the liberation of women." Don Simpson put away his nonchalant smile and said to Ronald seriously, "She is a fool. She thinks this movie represents women. This is obviously a movie made for male audiences."

It turned out that the female vice president who had already resigned had taken a fancy to some details in the script.

Alex did not rely entirely on men, but had her own efforts and dignity. After she found that Nick and his ex-wife got into a car together, she picked up a stone and smashed the glass in Nick's house.

It was not until Nick apologized to her that she turned her anger into joy and reconciled with Nick. In this extremely unequal relationship between a welder and a company boss, she still adhered to the one-to-one equality between men and women, and never thought that she was just one of Nick's many lovers.

And the boss Nick first met Alex because Alex's direct superior wanted to get more social security benefits for workers from Nick, so he introduced her to Nick as a plaything.

"These women are emotional animals. They don't know what the audience likes to watch. When they see a feminist plot, they can't wait to jump in. But it's good this way, otherwise we won't get the production rights of this movie."

"You can't be so arbitrary. Isn't the president of 20th Century Fox a woman? I remember her name is Sherry Lansing." Ronald looked at Don's disdain for female studio executives and deliberately raised a counterexample.

"Are you talking about Jerry Lansing? Hahahaha..." Don Simpson laughed wildly, attracting the attention of everyone waiting for Eisner's summons outside.

"Shirley, not Jerry." Ronald didn't understand.

"Hahaha, you don't know the story here." Jerry Bruckheimer pulled Ronald aside and told him a joke from the industry.

After retiring from her acting career, Sherry Lansing started to work with others for a few years and served as the producer of two blockbuster movies, "China Syndrome" and "Kramer vs. Kramer". These two movies not only sold well at the box office, but also received good reviews.

At that time, 20th Century Fox, which was in financial trouble, believed that Lansing had the vision to watch movies and the ability to ensure the success of filming. Two consecutive Oscar-level successful movies made the boss at that time believe that Lansing had a strange magic.

She was appointed as the company's president in charge of production. This was the first time in the history of the seven major studios that a female president was appointed.

But the good times did not last long. After Lansing became the president, she never reproduced her magic again. She lost a lot of movies. Only "Lights Out" shot with former best supporting actor Timothy Hutton was a small box office success.

At the beginning of this year, the financial situation of 20th Century Fox was very bleak, so the oil tycoon Marvin Davis took the opportunity to acquire a lot of shares, entered 20th Century Fox, and became the new owner of 20th Century Fox.

When he summoned President Shirley Lansing on the first day, he saw Lansing walk into the office and the first sentence he said to her was "I don't want coffee, thank you."

Lansing explained to Marvin Davis that she was the Shirley Lansing she was looking for, not his secretary.

Marvin blurted out the famous answer, "I think there is some misunderstanding here. I am looking for the president of the company, Jerry Lassing." He refused to believe that the president of the seven major studios was a woman. Or maybe he just pretended not to believe it to give Shirley Lansing a warning. Anyway, the news spread quickly, and the film industry said that Shirley Lansing would resign in anger, but she has not made any move so far. "Hahaha..." Ronald couldn't help laughing after hearing this, and he immediately stopped laughing. It was not very appropriate to tell a joke about the president of 20th Century Fox in Paramount's office. "See you later, Ronald. You don't like Hollywood-style parties. Next time, please go to a more formal cocktail party." Don Simpson winked at him, and the two were eager to prepare a contract to sell part of the distribution rights. "See you later," Ronald also waved to them. "Ronald, I heard them all call you Ronald. I am..." A tall and thin man came over. He wore a pair of huge black-framed glasses and introduced himself to Ronald.

"No, Mr. Bogdanovich. You don't need an introduction in the film industry." Ronald recognized the man, the boyfriend of the previously murdered supermodel Dorothy Stratten, the famous director Peter Bogdanovich.

"I really like your 'Paper Moon', it's a fascinating movie."

"Hahaha", Peter Bogdanovich also laughed, being admired by his juniors who sold crazy box office with their debut works made him happy, "My new work 'They All Laughed' is also released, I think it's better than 'Paper Moon', have you seen it?"

"I haven't seen it yet, maybe I was busy with other crews for a while and didn't see your new work."

"It doesn't matter, this is the problem of the distributor, this movie is only released in a few places. I came here today just to re-release this movie. I'm very happy to see you today, why don't we find a restaurant to have lunch and chat by the way?"

Peter Bogdanovich was very enthusiastic and directly invited Ronald to have dinner together.

Ronald had no interest in making friends with this director, he also played a not very glorious role in the Stratten murder case. Knowing that Stratten had a husband, he openly lived with her and did not help Stratten to get a divorce from her husband. In the end, she was killed by her husband.

"It's not just me. There is another guest. He is also a young genius like you. He debuted at the age of 24 and filmed a blockbuster that shocked Hollywood." Bogdanovich saw that Ronald was trying to shirk his responsibility, so he quickly added the stakes and mentioned the other invited guests, urging Ronald to meet them together.

"Oh, who is it?"

"Orson Welles." Bogdanovich pushed his glasses. Ronald was young, but he could go in and out of Eisner's office at will. The hope of re-issuing the movie "They All Laughed" might be on him.