Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"He has been out of touch with the normal life of Americans for too long. He watches TV and keeps in sync with everyone.

ABC is broadcasting the Winter Olympics held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Women's figure skating is the most watched program. The first few American players performed mediocrely. Rosalyn Sumners is said to be very good. She jumped up with a triple lutz, which is very difficult.

The TV program suddenly went black and then cut to the ABC studio.

Breaking news.

A host was talking about the news he had just received, "Moscow TV started broadcasting the repeated Leningrad Ballet version of "Swan Lake" a few hours ago, which usually implies that something big has happened in the Union.

Just thirty-five minutes ago, the Embassy of the United States issued a message that General Secretary Yuri died yesterday.

Soon after, TASS authorized the release that Comrade Yuri, who had just served as General Secretary for fifteen months, had unfortunately passed away. His health had been poor for a long time, and his kidney problems were no secret.

The entire Union will hold a four-day mourning, followed by a state funeral on Red Square. This is the second state funeral of the Union in two years. It is believed that the Union government intends to invite the leaders of Western countries to attend the funeral...

"Another Secretary-General has passed away?" Ronald still remembers the funeral of the former Secretary-General in 1982, who had many people holding the medal. The current President is really lucky.

"Beep..." The phone rang, "Hello, this is Weintraub, answer the phone Ronald."

Ronald answered the phone, and the other party asked, "Have you heard?"

"Ah..., are you watching TV too? I don't know who will take over as the top leader of the Union this time."

"What a mess, I'm talking about the news from Columbia. They gave a revision suggestion and want to cut the length. Didn't your agent tell you the news?"

"No?" Ronald was confused for a while, "Where are you, I'll go there now."

Ronald heard that there was a problem with "The Karate Kid" and immediately grabbed his clothes and ran out.

"The feedback is this, Columbia believes that the current movie is not suitable for a feature film of nearly two hours, and hopes you can cut it to ninety to one hundred minutes." Weintraub saw Ronald walking into his mansion and directly relayed the opinion.

"What's the reason?" Ronald was a little anxious, so he didn't beat around the bush.

"It's said that after the Supreme Court's ruling, theaters prefer short movies. They are afraid that videotapes will take away the box office in a few weeks, so they hope to schedule one more show every day."

"Haha," Ronald curled his lips and smiled. If he hadn't been a co-producer of "Flashdance," he would have been fooled by them.

"Why, you don't believe it?" Weintraub saw the subtext under Ronald's expression, "What do you think?"

"I was a co-producer in the crew of "Flashdance" and know their details. They released the film just in time for the Supreme Court's ruling, so they had great concerns. But the box office has been booming, and producer Don Simpson even deliberately released the videotape in advance.

In other words, the videotape was already on sale while "Flashdance" was still in theaters. Guess how much impact it has on the box office?"

"Dropped by half?" Weintraub made a guess.

"Guess again," Ronald shook his head.

"A 30% drop?"

"Less?" Weintraub was surprised. "Did it only drop 10%?"

"No, the box office went up without any change in the theaters, and returned to the numbers of the first week of release." Ronald said the counterintuitive conclusion.

"Don Simpson has a guess that the audience who watched the videotape want to watch it again on the big screen, so it actually drives the box office growth. Of course, this trend requires a good movie, or a phenomenal movie. The kind that you will lose if you don't go to the theater to watch it."

"Well," Weintraub fell into deep thought. Obviously, the impact of the videotape on the box office was not so great, and there was no need for him to postpone the release of the videotape for a long time.

But what Columbia said was not unreasonable. The 90-minute length can indeed allow theaters to schedule more shows, which will greatly promote the box office on the first weekend.

"The person who contacted me at Columbia was a vice president. He said that if you find it inconvenient, you can delete the scene where Master Miyagi is drunk and recalls his 442nd Infantry Regiment. In this way, you can find a few more scenes to meet the length requirement."

"That's not right," Ronald firmly opposed this opinion. This would destroy the integrity of his film's story.

"This drunk scene can be said to be the moment when Miyagi and Daniel really get close to each other. It is the 'moment of truth' and cannot be deleted."

"Moment of truth?"

"Let me put it this way," Ronald changed his angle, "The superficial theme of the whole movie is the process of a child defeating himself. But the actual theme is that a child from a single-parent family reconciles with himself.

A person will face difficulties in the process of growing up. Children with fathers can get courage from their fathers. But Daniel lacks fatherly love, so he lacks courage. At the beginning, he could only escape when he was beaten. After being trained by Miyagi, he knew to persist and be brave. He had to fight for victory even when his leg was injured."

"Go on," Weintraub nodded in agreement.

Gu Bao

"Master Miyagi just happened to lack a son, and his Goju-ryu Ryukyu Karate was a unique skill passed down from father to son.

If this part is missing, there is no way to explain why the two are so compatible. Miyagi would break the rules and teach Daniel his unique skills.

If this were to happen, the entire film's story line and the audience's emotional line would be shattered. I think it would at least make the entire film lose more than 20% of its color. "

"You're right. I'm going to find someone to ask if Mr. Vice President has any other reasons?" Weintraub put aside his worries and regained confidence in the movie.

The next day, Weintraub told Ronald the results of his inquiry.

It turns out that there are some people in the upper echelons of Colombia who hate Japanese people, and they don’t want this kind of plot to smear America to appear in the movie.

Therefore, I hope to delete the plot that drove the Japanese into concentration camps during World War II and sent young people to fight in Europe. In particular, the movie also severely criticized the hypocrisy of the American government. The family members of the soldiers could not find a doctor due to dystocia, and both the mother and son died unfortunately.

But this is not an outspoken reason. So these white executives began to use the length of time as a reason to pressure Ronald and Weintraub to submit and delete that episode.

"Why do they do this?" Ronald felt innocent.

"In fact, in addition to racial discrimination, this is also a reality." Weintraub has been doing business with Japanese people for many years and knows this very well.

"Now Japanese manufacturing has seized the consumer goods market in America, from televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, to the new products they invented, video recorders. Recently, their cars have become more affordable and high-quality than our brands.

Do you know the Chen Guoren case? "

Ronald nodded, he also donated a lot of money.

"That was a Chinese young man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by white people in the street just because he was thought to be Japanese. There were no legal consequences. In our country, hatred towards Japanese people has always existed, and there are a lot of central people. The blue-collar people in the area are not comfortable with them.”

"What about us?" Ronald was worried that Weintraub would be worried about Japan's hatred and was unwilling to exaggerate too much.

"Us? We are still the same!" Weintraub said disdainfully, "I have rarely been treated with conspiracy like this. Maybe my 'friends' in Hollywood are not familiar with me yet. Today I have to let them know what I am like. people."

Ronald felt relaxed. With him being so tough, his movie could be guaranteed not to be poisoned.

"But you also have to mobilize your resources. This time we must fight back forcefully, and we must use every available resource."

"I can try." Ronald thought of the only Japanese-American senator he had ever contacted in America, Senior Senator Daniel Inoue of Hawaii.

Ronald picked up the phone and dialed the office of Hawaii's senior senator.

"Mr. Inoue's office? I am Ronald Lee. I am a film director. I once asked Mr. Senator about the 442nd Infantry Regiment..." Ronald told the senator about his request. Assistant in the Congressman's Office.

"Is there any letter I want to read?" Daniel Inoue came to the office in the morning the next day to check the letters sent to him every day that his assistant thought were worth replying to.

"Here is a letter from film director Ronald Lee. His film about the veterans of the 442nd Infantry Regiment was finished, but he encountered resistance from the film company's top management, who asked him to delete the 442nd Infantry Regiment. plot, so he comes to ask for your help."

"The 442nd Infantry Regiment." Senator Inoue used his remaining hand to open the bottom drawer and touched the box containing his medal.

He did not dare to act rashly and say good things for the Japanese. To put it nicely, he knew he was just a Senate mascot.

In America, anti-Japanese sentiment is now high, and the commander-in-chief has launched rounds of automobile wars against Japan, trying to kill Japanese automobile companies. Car manufacturers of the same ethnic group want to sell cars in America, but they don't want American cars to be sold in Japan.

Especially in the industrial base centered on Detroit, the automobile industry city in the central region, the hatred towards Japanese is blatant. If you blatantly support the expansion of Japanese culture, you will be making yourself uncomfortable.

Rather than speaking up for Japanese Americans, maintaining the presence of a mascot in the Senate would be more beneficial to the lives of Japanese Americans in Hawaii.

However, Inoue was unwilling to give up such a good opportunity to let the public in America understand this period of Japanese history.

He picked up the phone and dialed the office of Deputy Commander George, "I'm Senator Inoue, yes, I want to talk to George."

A few days later, Vice-Commander George, before going to Moscow to attend Yuri's state funeral, gave a speech at a Japanese cultural event in Los Angeles. In his speech, he stated that Japanese Americans were also members of America, and they fought bravely for their country in World War II. , which is different from those **** elements in Japanese countries.

At the same time, a signed letter reply was also sent to Ronald.

In this letter, Inoue stated that the 442nd Infantry Regiment was a clear testament to Japanese patriotism. Telling this period of history not only did not blackmail America, but also served as a symbol of racial unity. This shows that America is a chosen place where all races can be free.

Ronald smiled and handed the letter to Weintraub. With the senator's endorsement and the deputy commander's speech, Colombia's top brass must have no excuses.

"Your strategy is working." Weintraub called Ronald back a day later.

Columbia finally agreed to a total of 126 minutes of "The Karate Kid" as the final copy to be sent to PAA for rating.

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