Exploiting Hollywood 1980

The de facto premiere of "Children" took place in a small-town California high school, with Coppola directing and starring Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph The two of them went to the middle school and had a party with the students who had written the letter begging Coppola to come out.

At the cinema here in Los Angeles, several other leading actors came, including Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruz, and Diane Lane.

Ronald met his agent Richard at the theater door, and Paula Wagner accompanied Tom Cruise.

There were very few photojournalists, which was a bit of a letdown for the few leading teenage stars who were carefully dressed to look like their characters. It seems that Warner Bros. is not optimistic about the film and has not invested many marketing resources.

"The reporters that Niceta introduced to you are over there." Richard pointed to Ronald and pointed to the two reporters standing opposite. Ronald came here to make news.

"Hi, hello..." Ronald stepped forward to say hello, "I'm Ronald."

"Hello, I'm Downey," a reporter responded in a friendly manner.

"I'm Charlie, which family are you from?" another reporter asked Ronald.

"I work for The Atlantic now." Ronald looked at the two young reporters as if they had just graduated from college.

"The Atlantic Monthly in Massachusetts? Oh, I didn't expect that there would be serious media covering this movie?" Reporter Charlie expressed surprise.

"This is an adaptation of SE Hinton's work. The Atlantic Monthly has always been concerned about literary criticism and is also very concerned about the cause of equal rights for minorities." Reporter Downey explained, "Right, Ronald."

Ronald smiled, knowing that they had misunderstood that he was also a reporter, and he was not in a hurry to explain. He asked them, "Why are so few reporters coming to interview this movie? I thought there would be a lot of people at the premiere."

"I heard that this movie was rejected by Warner Bros. You see, our newspaper just filmed us two newcomers and wrote about it casually."

"Dislike it?"

"Yes, the Italian directors who became famous in the 1970s are all outdated now, and Marty Scorsese's new film 'The King of Comedy' also failed at the box office. I heard gossip that Scorsese's previous films , all thanks to his editor Martha Lucas, who was George Lucas’s wife. After Martha got married, the quality of his films declined rapidly.”

"That's right, I heard that Coppola was in debt and his Peep Show company was about to go bankrupt. Warner Bros. basically gave up on the movie."

"No, don't you think 'naughty boy' is bad?" Ronald said.

"I heard that Roger Ebert was critical of Coppola, even though he gave him three stars. But he felt that Coppola should have used these innovative styles, lighting, and staging as exercises rather than making movies. To experiment, he should make a real movie like Apocalypse Now."

"Yes, I heard that critics' reviews after the special screening were not very high. Generally speaking, they thought that the ninety-minute story was not compact enough, and the characters were well acted but the story was not."

"But I heard that it was because Warner compressed the length. If the director's original two-hour arrangement was followed, it would be a good movie." Ronald defended Coppola.

"Hey, who would go to see such a long movie these days? Did you hear that? There are many small studios that have begun not to release movies and are directly recording and selling them on video tapes."

"Yes, and today there is a movie with the same teenage gangster theme, 'Bad Boys,' released. That movie at least tells the story of Los Angeles in the 1980s. This kind of story of Oklahoma in the 1950s is only for us newbies. Send it over."

"Ronald, Ronald." Niceta came over, "It seems you have found two reporters, I don't have to worry. How was your chat."

"Huh? You're not a reporter?" The two reporters looked embarrassed.

"I'm Ronald Lee, here for the premiere."

Niceta handed the draft to the two reporters and took Ronald to the front to take photos with the actors.

"Hi, Tom", Ronald and Tom Cruise hugged each other warmly. He has finally made it through, with various film appointments being arranged by Paula Wagner.

"You know, Paula has given me another movie. The heroine is a newcomer you recommended. She thinks very highly of you. I already want to make a movie with you."

"Ah, really? Who is it?"

"Lee Thompson, we're going to Pittsburgh to film 'All The Right Moves' soon. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Yes. It's best to bring anti-allergy medicine when you go to Pittsburgh to shoot a movie. The air pollution there is very bad. There is dust in your nostrils at night, which is very uncomfortable."

"Ah, is that so? I'll get ready right away." Paula Wagner, who was next to her, quickly wrote down what Ronald said.

"What's the story of this movie, what genre is it?" Ronald asked Cruise.

"Youthful, high school student who gets a football scholarship and comes out of a small town. Leigh Thompson plays my girlfriend."

"Football scholarship?"

"I know, I know, I just played a tackle, and I was pretty convincing on the high school team. The movie also said that he wanted to go to college, majoring in mechanics, and it was impossible to develop into a career in the future." Tom K. Russ was aware of his height issues, so certain details were altered in the film to accommodate him.

"Well, what can I say? I wish you all the best! Lea Thompson is indeed a very talented actress."

"Ronald," Niceta dragged him aside again, "My assistant just sent you a postcard from Helen from the office. She said she was very grateful for your reminder."

"Huh?" Ronald took it happily, and saw Helen wrote a paragraph on a postcard.

She really listened to Ronald's words and did not shoot the dangerous shot of taking off from the water, but let a double do it instead. The double was entangled in the wire during practice and suffered minor injuries.

In the end, the crew decided to take a photo of Helen, enlarge it to life size, and then stick it on the wooden model, and then use a camera to shoot the puppet being quickly pulled out of the water to fool it.

The photo of Helen that they were going to stick on the puppet was sent along with the postcard. She raised one hand upwards, her blonde hair fluttered, and the red cape behind her opened. The combination of tights, short skirt, and leather boots looked particularly attractive.

Ronald kissed the photo, put it away with the postcard, and put it in the pocket on his chest. "Thank you for sending it to me." He shook hands with the assistant and handed over a banknote as a thank you.

"Humph! I will never talk to him again." Diane, who saw Ronald coming over, saw Ronald kissing Helen's photo halfway through. She stamped her feet in hatred and turned to chat with Emilio Estevez, who played "Bitch Mouth".

"My father and I bought another book by Ms. Hinton, 'That was before... This is now'. I will personally adapt it into a movie script. When the time comes, I will star with Tom Cruise and you will be the heroine."

Emilio Estevez was very happy that Diane came to chat with him and started to brag. In the crew of "The Little Brats", Diane was the girlfriend that all the male actors wanted to pick up, but no one succeeded.

"Your father?" Diane pretended not to know and asked Emilio Estevez. In fact, Emilio had said it eight hundred times on the set.

"Yes, my father Martin Sheen. He played the protagonist Captain Willard in Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now'. I actually played a small role in that movie, but in the end, only my back was left."

"Really? That's a pity." Diane acted very realistically, "Otherwise you could have become famous several years earlier."

"It doesn't matter. I will personally adapt the one I bought. Will you come then?" Emilio Estevez has a hunchback, and now his neck is more protruding forward with joy, and he wants to hug Diane.

"Diane, you are here." Ronald finally found Diane, "I didn't see you just now. Your scenes in the final film were not cut out, right?"

"I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it's okay." Diane was very cold, but she still answered Ronald's question, but she deliberately took Emilio Estevez's arm.

"Ronald, long time no see. When can we play another game? We can play tennis this time." Emilio heard something that was cut off and thought Ronald was deliberately provoking him. Diane held his arm again, and he immediately wanted to challenge him.

"I'm not good at that," Ronald thought of the days when he practiced tennis hard for his dream. He could only hit hard, and he would be fooled by others.

"Really? I thought you were omnipotent?" Emilio Estevez said sarcastically.

Ronald was about to fight back when a woman suddenly came from behind and pulled Emilio Estevez, "Emilio."

"Kelly, why are you here?" Emilio Estevez was startled and pulled the woman named Kelly to the side to talk.

Kelly was pretty, but her personality seemed to be that of a Latin American housewife. Emilio dismissed her with a few words, just like the fathers in Catholic families who waved their hands to let their mothers do the laundry and cook.

"Who is she?" Diane crossed her arms over her chest, standing three feet away from Emilio.

"She is... um, a friend, a print model at Wilhelmina Models. She has something to ask me... something, yes, she wants to play a role in the script I adapted from Hinton."

"Yeah, of course", Diane certainly didn't believe this nonsense, leaving Emilio and Ronald behind, and went to find her father Bert.

"I haven't heard that Diane and Emilio Estevez have any romantic relationship?" Ronald, who didn't understand the situation, decided not to care about this matter. Anyway, Diane had become an adult at the beginning of this year, and even her father Bert couldn't control her.

Soon, fans of Coppola and Hinton began to pour in, and the movie began to be shown.

Sure enough, the movie was cut into pieces under Warner's requirement of 90 minutes. Many important plots in the movie were cut out, not only the fans sighed and were dissatisfied, but even the ordinary audiences who came for Coppola's fame didn't quite understand the foreshadowing of some plots.

After all, this movie is not a simple high-concept movie, but a drama that depicts character relationships and story progression, which is what Coppola is good at. With this editing, um... no wonder even Roger Ebert, a film critic who loves Coppola, has many complaints.

It seems that the box office of this movie is worrying.