Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"It's better to be a living dog than a dead lion."

This line in "Shotgun Lulu" is also a true portrayal of Jonathan Demme since he started acting.

When driving away with Ronald, Nicita told Ronald some rumors in the industry.

Jonathan Demme's debut film "Melvin and Howard" was well made. The reason why Universal did not release this movie on a large scale is probably that the relatives and friends of the protagonist of the story, former Hollywood tycoon Howard Hughes, used a lot of power to prevent the release.

This movie is adapted from the real events after Howard Hughes' death. There is really a poor man named Melvin who took out a will after Hughes' death and claimed that he could get a part of Hughes' inheritance.

He lost the lawsuit in the end and did not get a penny. Hughes' relatives and friends were afraid that after the release of this movie, more people would doubt whether the will was true, so they stopped the release of the movie.

After learning about his senior Jonathan's experience, Ronald had to admit that the box office of a movie is not necessarily proportional to the director's skills or even the quality of the movie.

From a purely technical perspective, the movies he directed are actually not as good as Jonathan's. Many details, especially the turning points of the plot, are not as good as the other.

For example, in the plot of "Shotgun Lulu", when Lulu met her husband who escaped from prison at a classmate party, the types of movies before and after are actually different. The former is more of an erotic film about a romantic encounter, while the latter is a very authentic suspense film. Jonathan Demme made the movie feel very much like Hitchcock's "Psycho".

In order to hint the audience to this change, Demme changed the lighting at the classmate dance, turning the original warm and colorful colors with warm tones into cold and gloomy tones.

This technique of hinting to the audience in color that a major change will happen next is very effective and very skillful. Ronald's movie does not have such a particularly sophisticated design.

However, from the box office point of view, Ronald's movie is far superior.

Many unknown factors will determine the box office of a movie. Apart from other things, if the distribution company does not allow the copy to be shown in the theater, no matter how good the movie is, it will not have a chance to achieve high box office.

Jonathan Demme's bad luck does not end there. His second movie was completely overturned by the actress Goldie Hawn on the set, and finally a new screenwriter was found to rewrite the script. The original story of sisterhood, which reflected the first large-scale entry of American women into factories to work in the late World War II, became a romantic love movie for the heroine.

Jonathan was forced to reshoot all the shots, and he was discouraged. After two consecutive movies failed, he went to shoot a concert documentary.

If it were not for this Shotgun Lulu, Orion Pictures, adhering to the tradition of United Artists, did not interfere with the creation of artists, and gave him the de facto final editing rights, which restored his confidence. Perhaps this very promising director would have bid farewell to the big screen.

With a movie like "Shotgun Lulu", even if the box office is still not good, but with this kind of technique and level, there is no worry that no one will ask him to direct in the future.

In a director's career, the success or failure of the first few films is still very important. If you use stars in your first few films, and then they are interfered with and fail at the box office...

Early the next morning, Weintraub called Ronald. He learned from Susan that Ronald had signed Cher.

"I heard that Cher will not be available until the New Year? That's okay. I expect MGM/United Artists to resume operations in October, and you can start preparing for filming then.

You need to prevent Cher from being a big shot on the set? Go ahead, Ronald, I don't think anyone can challenge you on the set."

With the promise of the future boss and president of MGM, Ronald felt relieved. At least Cher could not challenge his authority like Goldie Hawn challenged Jonathan Demme.

The various struggles in the crew are complicated, but in the end, the key to who can win lies in who the studio's top executives support in the end.

"There is another good news. The theme song of the second part of The Karate Kid, 'The Glory of Love' sung by Peter Setera, topped the charts."

"This is really very good news." Ronald was overjoyed. The top of the list is very helpful for the box office performance of the movie. The theme song of "Top Gun" topped the charts two months ago.

This time, "The Glory of Love" just topped the second week of the movie's release. The timing is even greater than "Take My Breath Away" in terms of the bonus to the box office of "Top Gun".

"No, this is very good news. In my experience, this song will stay at the top for two or three weeks, and will stay in the top ten for a long time."

Ronald was very excited. The performance of both movies was very good. It seemed that the days of him occupying two of the top five would continue.

Because he was going to attend the New York premiere of "Demons in Chinatown", Ronald stayed at home in New York and began to analyze the script of "Moonlight".

Combining several scenes in the dream, Ronald was still looking for familiar actors. At the same time, he called Coppola and told him that he wanted his nephew Cage to play the leading role.

"Peggy Sue Got Married" was still a few months away from release, and during the filming, Cage and the leading actress Kathleen Turner had many conflicts. Coppola was of course very happy that such a big production wanted Cage to play a role. He would notify Cage and ask him to prepare his schedule to cooperate.

"There is good news for The Evil Husband. Easre gave The Evil Husband a score of A-," the publicity and distribution manager of Touchstone Pictures, a subsidiary of Disney, reported the latest results to Ronald.

"I remember that the average rating of the audience at the premiere was B to B+. Why is the latest rating higher?" Ronald was happy but puzzled.

"It may be that the towns sampled by Easre are in the Midwest. Maybe the audience in the small towns there like this movie more and rate it higher than the audience in the big city."

"Oh," Ronald remembered the movie "Footloose" a few years ago, which is a bit similar to the situation of "The Evil Husband".

They are all classic stories about bad guys and good guys, and the plots are relatively simple, so that those small town teenagers who have not seen much entertainment can understand the movies without any problems.

The producers of "Top Gun", Don Simpson and Bruckheimer, often say "Oklahoma moms and dads should also understand", which is also aimed at a larger audience group, those audiences in movie theaters hidden in small towns in the Midwest and the Deep South.

It seems that they may still like to watch "The Evil Husband".

Those densely spoken jokes may not be understood by the audience in the small town. But this kind of comedy with a slower rhythm and relying on the plot to slowly make people laugh may just fit their aesthetic taste?

Thinking of Helen Slater's simple acting in the movie with a bit of dullness, perhaps those young people in small towns prefer this kind of beauty with simple acting skills.

Speaking of which, the director of "Full of Strength" is the director of "The Secret of Success" where Helen failed in the audition, Herbert Ross.

The rhythm and techniques of the movies he directed are actually relatively old. The story of "Full of Strength" is also not in line with the aesthetic taste of young people in big cities, but it still got 80 million US dollars in domestic box office.

Ronald thought more and more that this is right, maybe this is a law of box office success.

He took out a piece of paper and wrote down what he thought was the secret of box office success.

First, the story itself should be smooth and beautiful, and there should be no part that makes people lose their attention. Advanced directing techniques and outstanding performances of actors are not necessary conditions for box office success. Many viewers can't actually tell.

As long as the audience finds the movie good in the one and a half to two hours and can recommend it to their relatives and friends afterwards, the requirements can be met.

Second, the audience group should be as large as possible. If it is for groups such as teenagers who often go to the cinema to watch movies, you should shoot some content that they like. If it is for audiences like the disappearing audience of The Sound of Music, you should give them a reason to go back to the cinema to watch it.

Third...

Ronald thought about it, and it seems that there is no third. Movies that can achieve these two points generally will not have big problems at the box office.

By the way, if the movie interlude can become a popular song at the same time, it will be even better. This is the third element.

Ronald counted the movies he made, and it seems that there is a song that has become a top song in the charts when it was released.

Now the publicity cost of inviting moviegoers back to the cinema is too high. Pop music is a good carrier that can make people who listen to the songs want to go to the cinema to see how the movie is made.

In this era when television occupies most of the entertainment time of adults, if a movie wants to be a hit, then letting the audience know what the movie is good about is as important as whether the movie itself is good, if not more important.

"Ring, ring, ring..."

The phone rang, but Ronald was still thinking about his summary, as if he didn't hear the ring. After four rings, the call was automatically transferred to the answering machine.

"Hello, this is Ronald's home. I'm not at home now. If you need to contact me, please leave a message after the beep, or call my agent."

"Ronald, it's me, Eddie. Pick up the phone, the producer of 'Dirty Dancing' wants to talk to you about production issues."