Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Excuse me, are you from the Gun Flight Academy? I saw the word Gun on your badge."

Pete Pettigrew, the naval consultant of the "Top Gun" crew, was stopped by a group of teenagers at the airport. After getting a positive answer, he was surrounded and asked to talk about whether the air combat shots in the movie were real.

"It was really very real. It was like that when we were dogfighting. It's rare to have such a movie that accurately shows the fighting skills taught in our flight school. I tell you, almost all the shots were shot in the cockpit of the F-14A Tomcat fighter."

Next to Pettigrew was a pilot from Miramar Air Force Base who took the lead in answering the question. When "Top Gun" was just released, he complained that Ronald's air combat shots had too many rolls and were not realistic enough. But after a few weeks, he has now stood on Ronald's side and will go up to praise fans when he sees them.

The movie "Top Gun" has brought too many benefits to fighter pilots.

In the past, everyone only knew that there was a group of people who served in the Navy, Air Force, and National Guard, and they flew fighter jets.

But after this movie came out, fighter pilots are now seen as a group of people with high IQ and courage. They are engaged in the most dangerous job in the world, protecting the safety of the people on the front line of the confrontation with the Suweir Alliance.

Most importantly, they have a good figure and are very popular with beautiful women. As long as they wear uniforms, the chance of being approached in the bar increases tenfold.

Now there are hundreds of beautiful women in the bar of Miramar Naval Base every night, driving there by themselves, trying to find the Lone Ranger in the real world. Even officers from other branches and arms go to the costume store for the masquerade to rent a naval officer's uniform and come to the base to try their luck.

"Oh... it's really cool. Is everything you said true? You are a pilot, right? We were very excited after watching the movie. We all want to sign up for the Air Force and want to be like you."

The young audience saw this man wearing Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses and speaking very professionally, and they all came up to express their admiration.

"No, Top Gun is the Navy. They take off and land on aircraft carriers."

"No way? Don't lie to me, they are obviously flying fighters, not the Air Force? The Navy is flying ships."

Seeing the Navy pilot's long face, Ronald, who met Pettigrew at the airport, went up to help him out.

"When you go to the recruitment office, you must ask clearly whether you can fly the F-14A Tomcat fighter with variable wings, which is the one driven by the Mavericks. That's the plane that the Warriors fly." Ronald said to them.

"Yeah, brother, you're right. When we go to the recruitment office, we must ask clearly. Those who can't fly Tomcats don't go, and leave those MiGs to those idiots in the public school across the street."

The teenagers left with a laugh. Pettigrew patted his pilot colleague on the shoulder, "Don't be angry, those little guys are so stupid, if they go to the recruitment office, they can only be ground staff and deal with engine oil every day."

"Hahaha", the three laughed.

"Top Gun" has a growing influence in America. Pettigrew, in uniform, is often recognized and praised by strangers on the street.

He is now recalled by the Navy and has started to set up an office of various branches of the Pentagon with Matthew, a representative of the Navy Department. It is specially designed to provide convenience for Hollywood and major TV stations. If they want to shoot military-related movies and the image of the soldiers in them is positive, they will provide various kinds of support.

This time, he happened to go to the Pentagon with Matthew and the gun pilots of Miramar Base to report to the bigwigs.

This time, I happened to meet Ronald at the airport. Several people chatted for a while and wished each other to make more money in their future careers.

Ronald was pulled away by Niceta and went directly to the VIP lounge.

Tom Cruise, one of the protagonists of "Top Gun", is already famous all over the world, and McGillis is now at the level where he will be watched wherever he appears.

Only Ronald, wearing sunglasses, has a certain degree of freedom of movement. After all, he is a director. Most of the fans who know what he looks like only know his face, and are not familiar with his body shape. A pair of big sunglasses can get by.

"Hello, hello... I'm looking for Snow White... Right, me? I'm Howard the Duck."

In the VIP lounge, Tom Cruise is calling his girlfriend Cher. Both of them are stars, and they have to use code names when calling the hotel they are staying in. Otherwise, if the low-level staff of the hotel hear it, it will cause leaks and fans to besiege.

As the male lead in "Top Gun", Cruise's contract includes many clauses for cooperating with publicity. Whether it is a fan meeting in China or a premiere around the world, Tom Cruise is an indispensable member.

McGillis is also the same. Her life has been difficult recently. The sudden fame, coupled with her unpreparedness, now she has a much greater disgust than joy for these jobs that are exposed to the public.

"Honey, are you okay?" Ronald stepped forward and looked at McGillis, who was wearing a pair of sunglasses that covered two-thirds of her face, and asked.

"Ah... I don't want to sign." McGillis reflexively stretched out her hands to resist. Just now, when she was watching the big screen of the flight outside, she accidentally took off her sunglasses and was immediately chased by fans who recognized her for her autograph.

"Sorry, Ronald. I have talked to my agent. This time I will go to Tokyo after the premiere and leave. I will never participate in marketing activities again. I would rather lose money."

Kelly McGillis went from a confident actress to an idol on the posters of thousands of young men in their dressing boxes. She didn't adapt well to this change. In addition to the crazy fans that puzzled her, she also became much more irritable without realizing it.

"Hi, Ronald. This promotion schedule is really hard for me. Cher and I haven't seen each other for two weeks. It's either me attending a fan meeting or her singing career. It's really terrible."

After Tom Cruise finished the call, Cher only said a few sweet words to him, and it was time to board the plane.

"Maybe it will be better after this busy period."

Ronald had to comfort her a little, and the group boarded the plane. After more than ten hours of flight, we landed at Tokyo Narita International Airport.

"What a clean place!" Ronald praised the environment. The person who came to pick up the plane was Paramount's staff in Asia, a Japanese. He held up a "Top Gun" sign and picked up the crew.

The next day, the scale of the premiere in Tokyo was much smaller than that in London. Although Japan was a defeated country in World War II and was stationed by the United States. But their culture is relatively closed.

Compared with Britain, which has no language barriers, there are fewer people who can really appreciate American movies. There are not many people who have developed the habit of watching Hollywood movies over the years.

So Paramount chose a theater near western Tokyo for the premiere.

It is adjacent to the Yokota Air Force Base of the American Air Force and the Yokosuka Naval Base of the Navy, and is not far from the industrial area of ​​Yokohama. It is considered a small island in the Tokyo area that is deeply influenced by American culture.

In addition to having branches in English-speaking countries such as Canada, India, and Britain that are directly responsible for distribution business, Paramount mainly adopts two methods for overseas distribution.

One is to sell the whole to the international distributor formed by Paramount and Universal, United International Pictures (UIP). The business of the two companies' films in European countries is mainly handled by this joint venture.

The other model is to jointly distribute with local distributors in Asia, either by selling out or splitting the profits. The culture here is different, and many marketing needs to be led by local talents. In addition, the market is relatively closed, and Hollywood forces cannot come in directly.

The regional distributor this time is Toho Pictures. Just like the last time he came to Japan, Ronald was also treated by Toho's senior management after the premiere and had the best Japanese meals.

Like other business fields attacked by the Great Leader, the film and television entertainment industry in Japan is also a relatively closed environment. In general, the products of Japanese companies are unimpeded in America, while American products are subject to many obstacles in Japan.

Moreover, the Japanese are very scheming. They open the market on the surface, but they never arrange any good sales channels. When the American companies asked about it, they would shirk the responsibility because of cultural incompatibility and other reasons.

After being fooled several times, the Americans finally came to their senses. In addition to forcing the yen to appreciate, they also forced the Japanese prime minister to open the market.

As a defeated country whose territory was occupied and garrisoned, Japan could not use force. On the surface, it opened the Japanese market, which had many obstacles, but in fact, it still used various reasons to hinder the entry of goods from America in the business circle. For example, it tilted domestic manufacturers in loans and discriminated against wholesalers of foreign goods.

When Ronald was in New York, he read a lot of in-depth reports analyzing the friction between Japan and the United States, and understood these things much more clearly than when he first came.

But he was not a businessman after all, and he only had a general understanding. After having enough wine and food, Toho began to talk about deepening cooperation.

There are always two sides to things. With the continuous pressure from America, the companies on the Japanese side have also been quite divided.

Some companies have gradually begun to embrace the American market and use American culture to transform themselves.

Unlike Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and other large companies that were chaebols before the war, Sony and other companies that achieved great development after the war, their markets are more dependent on America and Europe, so their vision is more international. There is no burden to be a Japanese traitor.

In the film industry, among the three traditional producers, Toho, Shochiku, and Toei, Toho was the first to open a branch in Los Angeles. It was also the first to introduce Kurosawa's film "Seven Samurai" to North American audiences.

And their company has the most talents who can speak English fluently.

Soon, the sake was almost finished, and the manager who came to the airport to pick him up quietly sat next to Ronald.

"Ronald, there are many presidents and CEOs in the industry in Tokyo who want to invite you to talk about cooperation. I wonder if you can come tomorrow."