Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Without waiting for the official results the next day, that night, Weintraub pressed the neck of the manager of easre and asked him to give him an answer overnight.

Rating sheets one after another were faxed back from theaters in various states across the country. They were then summarized and filled in a form, and a staff member pressed a calculator to calculate the average score.

After rechecking twice, the average scores were added up and then converted into a rating system from A+ to F. Finally, the staff filled in the large space at the bottom of the form.

This final score summary was faxed from the headquarters in Las Vegas to Weintraub's hotel in New York.

"a+, a+, uh, uh..."

Weintraub took the fax and kissed it passionately, regardless of the unique smell of the fax machine still remaining on it.

"Ronald, it's an A+. It's the first movie in four years to get an A+ rating from Easre! We are about to succeed, hahaha..."

Ronald, who was forced to stay by Weintraub, was actually not very happy. He wanted to go home with Aunt Karen to bake cookies and talk about family life and Donna's IT studies. .

However, Weintraub was very good at making women happy. He told Ronald's aunt that the next score was related to whether Ronald could make another breakthrough. Her aunt heard that it was related to Ronald's career future and persuaded him to stay.

The easre company's ratings are based on a completely random selection of cities in several states, and then staff travel to do the sampling. Therefore, the ratings can completely represent the audience's perception of the movie.

"Is this rating important?" Ronald was actually not very clear about the company's rating system. He only remembered that "ET Alien" also received an A+ rating back then. This time, the second part of The Dragon King was able to get good reviews from the audience. It seems that I have done a good job.

"You are not a company executive, Ronald. Easy is now highly valued in Hollywood. Because their ratings can be seen as predictions of box office to a large extent. Anyone who gets an A or above has achieved big success at the box office. success.

So now Easre's ratings have been bought out by the seven major Hollywood studios, and they cannot immediately release the ratings publicly in the media. The real score numbers can only be released to the studio first and then given to the news media after approval. Some key data will not be released. "

"Well, is your evaluation accurate?" Ronald asked the easre staff.

The staff explained it. It looks like he does this job a lot.

easre will conduct surveys in five randomly selected cities for each movie. For opening day audiences only. The survey cards asked about age, gender, their rating of the movie ("a", "b", "c", "d" or "f"), whether they would rent or buy a video, and more.

There were also questions directed at the announcement, such as why they chose the film and whether they thought the film lived up to its marketing.

"For a movie we get an A rating, the first weekend multiplier of the total box office is more than 5 times. If we get an A+, it may exceed 8, or even 10.

The total revenue of a film with a C rating is about three times its opening weekend.

So generally speaking, a is good, b is average, and c is terrible. D and F ratings indicate that they should not have made the movie, or that they advertised it to the wrong crowd and found the wrong group of people to watch the movie. "

"I remember getting an A+ from et."

"In fact, when ET was released in 1982, there were two other movies, 'Gandhi' and 'Rocky 3' that got A+. But because ET was so successful, the total box office was more than 30 times that of the first weekend, so we revised grading criteria.

More than three years later, no movie has met the new A+ rating standard. Your "The Mighty Kid Part 2" was the first movie in four years to get an A+ rating, and even your "Top Gun" only got an A.

So, congratulations, Director Ronald, Mr. Weintraub, based on our experience, your movie will definitely do well at the box office. "

"Thank you, so we can use a+ for publicity, right?"

Weintraub asked the easre staff.

"Of course we have no objection to that."

Although easre's ratings are generally not announced to the public, some movies will receive an A-level rating and be included in their own publicity packages.

Some posters, newspaper ads, and TV ads will be marked with an easy score of A.

"Dragon Boy Part 2" received an A+ that had not been seen for a long time. Of course Weintraub would not let it go. He hurriedly called Columbia's publicity department and urged them to immediately revise the publicity materials and propose Additional budget.

Although Weintraub has joined MGM/United Arts, Columbia will not be troubled by money.

In addition to this "The Dragon King Part 2", which will bring them huge returns, Columbia also has the distribution rights for the sequels in the series of movies.

In addition, two consecutive films have embedded product advertisements for Coca-Cola, the parent company of Colombia. For such commercial films, the director is very cooperative in including advertisements, instead of refusing commercial implants for the sake of art like some directors.

Columbia's distribution arm moved quickly. By the evening of that day, new scoring publicity materials had been distributed in New York City.

The patch-style advertisement of Easre's A+ rating was pasted on the posters of The Karate Kid in major cinemas.

A big A+ with the word Easre in the background. There was also a person next to it giving a thumbs-up to indicate that it was very good.

"This seems to be the gesture of the two film critics in Chicago." Ronald, wearing sunglasses, came to a movie theater in Manhattan to see the new poster.

"Anyway, they haven't applied for a patent." Weintraub didn't wear sunglasses. In the world of movies, audiences rarely care about the appearance of producers. Although he is a big boss, he still enjoys the fun of being on the front line and pointing out the mistakes of the staff to correct them.

"That's right," Ronald saw the crowd queuing up to buy tickets at the box office.

In addition to Ronald's "Top Gun" and "The Karate Kid Part II", some people were buying "Spring is Not a Day for Reading", and the rest were buying tickets for another new movie.

"Legaleagles?" Ronald looked at the celebrity faces on the poster, one man and two women, three pleasing big stars.

The position of stars on movie posters is also a symbol of their status in the industry.

In the middle is Robert Redford, who is lying on the ground, occupying the largest space. As an actor, he is the golden boy of Hollywood. As a director, he won the Oscar for Best Director for his debut film "Ordinary People" in 1980. In that movie, there is also Timothy Hutton, an actor whom Ronald hates.

So he has the biggest card and is naturally lying in the best middle position.

On the left is Debra Winger. She starred in "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Endearment", and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. She lost the latter to Shirley MacLaine, who played her mother in the same movie.

She is a black-haired beauty wearing a white sweater, revealing one right hand.

Her card is the second biggest, so half of her body is leaning out of Redford's side. Redford's body is also slightly tilted towards her, and the audience's sight will be guided by Redford, and she will be seen second.

On the right is Daryl Hannah, who starred in the hit movie "Mermaids" with Tom Hanks. However, she did not produce any hit films after that, and she did not receive any awards.

So she only showed her face and blonde hair on the poster, and her body was blocked by Redford.

"I want to see it, do you want to join us?" Ronald wanted to see the movie of this main competitor, and he asked Weintraub if she wanted to see it.

"I'm not interested, we have an A+ rating, we will definitely win."

"Well, I'll see it myself."

Ronald's eyes stayed on Deborah Winger's face. Although she was a black-haired beauty who was traditionally believed in America to have a bigger brain than a bigger body, Ronald preferred this kind of temperament and intellectual beauty. She attracted his attention more than Daryl Hannah, who only had blonde hair and a tall figure.

"You like her? But you're too late. Deborah is already having a shotgun wedding." Weintraub made a round gesture on her belly with her hand.

"What?" Ronald did not understand at once.

"She's pregnant with Timothy Hutton's child. Hutton is a famous playboy in Hollywood. If he agreed to get married, he must have a child.

It's rumored in the Hollywood circle that her agent is cursing. All Hutton's movies after "Ordinary People" have been box office failures. No one wants to give him scripts anymore. Being with Winger is also a deliberate attempt to take advantage of her popularity.

Now Debra Winger will take at least a year off. For an actress who is on the rise, getting pregnant and having a child is very bad for her career."

"Alas, it's really hard for female stars."

Ronald shrugged, bought a ticket, and also bought a large can of popcorn and Coca-Cola set, and carried it into the screening room.

"French Open Condor" is unexpectedly good. Redford plays a prosecutor, and Debra Winger plays his opponent lawyer. The two defend Daryl Hannah, and accidentally involve a deliberate arson case that happened more than 20 years ago.

The movie has romance, unexpected explosions, and conspiracy revelations. In the end, Redford's character did not choose Daryl Hannah, who inherited his father's huge fortune of world-famous paintings, but chose Debra Winger, who opened a law firm with the same ideals.

The whole movie is quite standard, and the script can be seen to be written in a very commercial and blockbuster format.

Ronald noticed that the screenwriters on the subtitles were Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. This pair of screenwriters also listed as the screenwriters of "Top Gun". Of course, the script of that movie is very thin, and it mainly depends on the director's performance.

In addition, they also wrote the script of "The Secret of Success".

But the plot of the movie is too standard, and the stars also perform in a standard way. As a Hollywood person, Ronald expected all the twists and turns, and the actors did not give unexpected performances in any shots.

After watching the whole movie, Ronald couldn't even recall which shot was impressive.

"It's really exciting! Debra Winger is so beautiful."

"Daryl Hannah is not bad either, she has a great figure."

Ronald came to the bathroom and found that the audience did not talk about the plot, but talked about the performance of the beautiful actress.

"It seems that she is also a strong opponent, and should not be underestimated."

Although the plot was not discussed, Ronald believed that the reputation would not be bad if the appearance and temperament of the heroine were discussed in this way.

Maybe the ladies' room is also discussing Robert Redford.

"The audience loves the stars, and the producers rely on the stars." Ronald deeply understood this sentence.

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