Exploiting Hollywood 1980

“How popular is the Top Gun video?”

Ronald heard about Tanin's plan. After returning, he contacted the two producers of "Top Gun" and asked about the sales of the video tape.

"Let me tell you this, the share you get from the sales of the video tape may be more than your director's salary and bonus."

Jerry Bruckheimer on the phone seemed to have had too much to drink. He laughed loudly at Ronald and then asked him to come to their Y conference.

"How much did you drink?" Ronald felt it was not simple.

Bruckheimer is, relatively speaking, the calmer of the two producers. He even talked about the Y conference without hesitation on the phone. It seemed that he really sold a lot of video tapes.

"Come on, Ronald, there are a lot of chicks here, ah, hahaha" Don Simpson grabbed the microphone, "Come on, the chicks here want to see you. You also make them happy, and then we can talk about the money, ah ,Hahaha"

"Pa", a crisp slap, followed by the teasing voices of several young girls.

"I have something to do tonight, so I'll see you tomorrow." Ronald felt that the other end of the phone had become a place of wine and meat, and he had reservations about this indulgent lifestyle. A young body can bring endless pleasure, but Ronald likes to enjoy it in private places.

"Then if you don't come tomorrow night in the afternoon, we will have to have fun until very late."

The phone seemed to have fallen on the ground, and no one picked it up. The sounds of men and women laughing continued to come through the phone.

Ronald hung up the phone and called his agent Niceta.

"How many video tapes have been sold? I watched the producers of Top Gun and they were so happy that they felt like they had made millions."

"It's not on sale yet, right? I heard that Paramount will start rolling it out across the country in mid-March. Many people are focused on their new pricing strategy, so it's impossible to get it on sale first."

Niceta hung up the phone in confusion, and then made inquiries with friends in the industry. Half an hour later, she called Ronald again.

"Right now, we've just gone through the pre-sale ordering process at some video rental stores. Maybe Simpson and Bruckheimer know that the pre-order numbers are good, so they're celebrating. I asked a senior executive at Paramount, and he said it will go on sale in March. There is no advance plan. Let me know if you have any new information tomorrow."

"No way?" Ronald felt that just the pre-sale numbers were pretty good, but it didn't seem to be enough for two people to succeed like this.

"Hahahaha Ronald, come on, have a drink too, there are some big bottles of champagne here."

Don Simpson was in a mansion in Beverly Hills. On the evening of the next day, Ronald, with the help of the housekeeper, walked into the house and saw two producers.

Their faces still bore the traces of yesterday's all-night party. It seemed that the two of them had not yet woken up from the mixed effects of alcohol and drugs. Their bodies, which had not been bathed, emitted waves of stench mixed with tobacco, alcohol, and sensuality.

There were some women's underwear scattered on the ground, colorful, setting off the remnants of the champagne.

"How many have been sold? I heard that it won't go on sale until March?"

Ronald asked Bruckheimer, the more stable of the two. It turns out that the number the two gave themselves was that they could sell eight times more, totaling 400,000 copies. Now it seems far more than that.

"You have to learn to have fun, Ronald. Isn't it just for this moment that we in this industry bear so much pressure?"

Don Simpson came up and hugged Ronald, "Every one of those girls yesterday wanted to sleep with you, hahaha."

"The pre-sale situation is very good. There are still three weeks before the official release. The pre-order volume of Top Gun is already close to the sales record of movie video tapes in Hollywood history."

Bruckheimer finally had some sense and answered Ronald's question.

"Breaked the record?" Ronald was shocked. "What was the original record? I remember it was Flashdance produced by you two, right?"

"Yes, yes, hahaha, you are our lucky star. Damn it, when Eisner and Katzenberg from Paramount were there, we didn't get much share of the video revenue from Flashdance. Now they're gone , our pricing power will be much higher, hahaha."

"Ouch", Simpson stumbled and fell to the ground, then hugged the bottle on the ground and snored there.

"Butler," Ronald waved, asking the butler to bring his master a blanket so that Simpson wouldn't sleep too cold.

"Jerry, tell me, this pre-sale broke the sales record. What happened?" Ronald pulled Bruckheimer over and pulled him to the sofa despite the unpleasant body odor. Details asked.

It turns out that the sales record for video tapes in the American market was Jane Fonda's Aerobics. The original Aerobics video tape in 1982, priced at 59.95, sold nearly one million copies that year, including other cheap LD disc formats.

From then on, she released a new aerobics video every year and was able to earn hundreds of thousands in video sales.

As for movie videotapes, because they are expensive, generally priced at US$80,100, the sales volume is far lower. The record for the highest sales is still held by "Flashdance" produced by Bruckheimer and Simpson.

That's also because Paramount started selling videotapes before the movie was released in order to experiment with the impact of videotapes on the movie's box office.

In short, the sales record of "Flashdance" with 800,000 tapes sold has not been broken by any movie in the past few years.

The seven major studios, looking at the sales data of hundreds of thousands of tapes for each movie, actually didn't pay much attention. Until recently, when they found that companies such as Weston, which did OEM, made a lot of money and entered the theater movie, they realized the profit.

So, starting with "Top Gun", Paramount first lowered the price, and with the advertising subsidy from Pepsi, the price of 26.95 this time was a new attempt.

Who knew that this attempt

was so successful!

Starting last week, anyone watching TV will be repeatedly bombarded by the Pepsi Diet Coke advertisement shot by Ronald. At the end of the advertisement, there will be another line of words reminding them that the "Top Gun" videotapes will be sold in both VHS and Beta formats.

In just less than a week, viewers in major video rental stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, etc. found that they could pre-order the "Top Gun" videotapes that will be released next month.

By the weekend, the pre-sale figures collected from all over the country had broken the highest sales record of movie videotapes. "Top Gun" surpassed "Flashdance" and became the No. 1 videotape sales throne in history.

No wonder the two producers were so happy after seeing the sales figures.

Ronald looked at the two producers who were staggering and had not yet sobered up from the hangover of the carnival, and walked out of the mansion silently.

"How much did they get!

Ah!"

Bruckheimer told Ronald that based on the current pre-sale figures, as a director, Ronald could already get more than 200,000 in share. It is estimated that this number can be doubled when it is officially released.

And the total sales, Paramount's marketing experts predict, can exceed 2 million discs. In this way, Ronald can get more than 600,000 in share with 1 share.

What if the two producers can get ten times their own share, 10 of the sales? That would be more than 6 million.

No, it must be more than that.

After Eisner left Disney, the two producers had become the few remaining producer duos at Paramount that could operate blockbuster movies.

With their shrewdness, they would definitely ask for a high share of the movie box office.

And they would definitely get a larger share of the videotape revenue that was not valued before.

Or, even worse, Simpson and Bruckheimer might even get the same control over the videotape revenue as George Lucas had over the derivative revenue of "Star Wars".

At that time, the ownership of the derivative toys of "Star Wars" belonged to Lucas. Because no one believed that anyone would buy derivative toys of such movies.

At that time, derivative toys were usually made of characters from TV series or comics. Because those works were released for a long time, they could lock in a large group of fans to pay for them. However, movies had no chance to form a stable group of fans. By the time the toys were made, the audience had almost forgotten the movies.

So Lucas got the ownership of the derivative toys at a very cheap price. 20th Century Fox had to take the share of the toys from Lucas.

Everyone knows the story that follows. Lucas became the richest director in Hollywood with the characters of Star Wars.

And the videotapes in 1987 were just like the movie-derived toys in 1977, and were not taken seriously.

Ronald was extremely jealous.

Who could have thought of this?

If he had asked for an extra 1% share at that time, they would have agreed, right?

A surging feeling kept churning in his chest.

So much money!

After working hard for so long, with the help of dreams, the money he made directly from Hollywood was only two or three million. Or he was lucky enough to make a fortune in stocks, but even so, it would be more than 10 million.

And these two producers, who knew nothing, relied on the performances of Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis and others, their own director, and the help of the navy, and they could actually make ten times more money from the videotapes than they had worked hard for several years.

"It's estimated to be about 30 or 40 million." Ronald stopped the urge to hit someone and parked the Ferrari on the side of the road.

A Blockbuster video rental store was right on the roadside. Ronald wanted to see with his own eyes who was buying the videotapes and how so many were sold at once.

A bust of Tom Cruise wearing an oxygen mask stood at the entrance of the store. Next to it was a poster that read, "Take Top Gun home for only $26.95!"

"Give me one." Ronald asked the clerk for a box and counted out two $20 bills to him.

"Please leave your address and name," the clerk took out a reservation form and started filling it out.

"Bud, West Hollywood," Ronald registered under the name of Little Bud.

While waiting for the clerk to write the reservation form and give the change, Ronald asked him, "This seems to be a great seller?"

"Yes, there are a lot of people who have made reservations. We at Blockbuster have a priority agreement with the distributor, and we can get the goods earlier than you can at supermarkets and 7-11 convenience stores.

Now our manager is still adding orders, so you have to pay in full to get the videotapes as soon as possible."

"It's so expensive, and it's selling so well?"

US$27 is still a lot of money for an ordinary middle-class family. After all, renting a video from Blockbuster for three nights only costs $3.

"It's actually not expensive, sir." The clerk, a young man who looked like a high school student working here, said to Ronald.

"At Blockbuster, the rental fee for the first three days is $3, but starting from the fourth day, an additional $3 is added every day. Many people are busy with work and forget to check it out after renting. By the time they return, it may already be the weekend. Yes, the fine sometimes exceeds $12.

And this movie is very exciting. I went to the cinema to watch it several times. Some students also went to join the navy. Each movie ticket costs four or five dollars, and you can buy it and watch it every day.

Also, if your friends come to your house for a party, you have to show them some good movies, right? What could be more exciting than Top Gun?

There are fighter jets dueling, falling in love with a beautiful teacher, and the interludes are also very good. Just buying the Berlin band's single is quite expensive.

Moreover, if you buy this videotape and play it hundreds of times, there will be no problem. After all, is it very cheap? "

"When you tell me, it's really cheap." Ronald heard the clerk say this and immediately felt that the price was not expensive.

"Haha, let me put it this way." The clerk was very happy, "Is your video recorder VHS or Beta? VHS? Okay, I will write it down for you. Here is your change, and the reservation receipt. When the time comes, show this receipt Come and receive the goods.”

"Thank you," Ronald put the receipt into his wallet.

"In fact, you can also watch more. If you have a video recorder at home, and relatives and friends come to your home as guests, you have to have some good movies to entertain, right. In fact, you can prepare three or five video tapes, so that if your children come to your home as guests, you will Their best yet.”

"You're right, but other video tapes are too expensive. The cheapest one costs seventy or eighty dollars." Ronald looked around and looked at the plus label.

"So the director of Top Gun is a good person, and he sells such a good-looking movie at such a cheap price. Look over there, those old movies made by Stallone ten years ago cost 70 yuan. I think it will be difficult to sell their movies in the future. , if there is a 26, who would buy a 70, you are right.”

Unlike the chatty movies, "good guy" Ronald seems to have found endless motivation to move forward.

The first thing Ronald did when he jumped in the car and drove home was to call Mi, who was the manager responsible for the distribution of video tapes at Weston Pictures and is now the manager of Daydream Pictures and is responsible for the distribution business of "Dirty Dancing". Sherkanold called.

"Michelle, who did you find to make the video tape when you were in Weston? How much did it cost? Are the sales channels still there?"

"What I'm looking for is the video tape factory in New Jersey. I still have the contacts of video tape rental vendors across the country. What, do you want to make video tapes?"

"Yes, Top Gun broke the sales record for video tapes in a week. After the price was reduced to 30 dollars, the market was much larger than before. We also want to make a video tape for Dirty Dancing, which costs 30 yuan like them. price to sell.”

"It turns out that when I was in Weston, the sales of a movie were generally between 100,000 and 200,000. Occasionally, if it exceeded 400,000, it would be considered a big hit. At the price of 30, unless the sales can exceed one million, it will not make money. "

"It must have exceeded one million. Pre-sale for one week is already close. I think a total of two million boxes can be sold."

"Boss, of course I hope you can make a video business. I have a lot of resources here. But I have to remind you that Top Gun was the box office champion last year. This is the key to their success.

If Dirty Dancing wasn't in the top ten at the box office for the year, our marketing expenses would make the $30 price point unprofitable. "

"Hi, I know." Ronald calmed down a little. "You need to contact the factory first to see how low the cost can be. Also, in addition to traditional channels, this time the video tapes are also available in department stores, supermarkets, and convenience stores. For sale, you can also help me test it out and make a plan.

If our video could sell half, no, one-third of the sales of Top Gun, we would make a fortune. You take the lead. "

"Haha, I'm going to make a plan right now." Michelle Cannold also felt the smell of money, a lot of money.

"In short, we still need to succeed at the box office first, and let the market decide what happens next."

Ronald called his agent Niceta again and said, "Rick, damn it, they're probably going to sell two million boxes, and the two sons of bitches, the producers, are going to make a fortune."

"How much?" Niceta jumped up from the bed in a hurry, "So many?"

"I think this result will shock the industry. I see that the studios of your old films will remake them on video tapes and sell them. I will look at the contract you signed with them at the time to see how much of the video revenue you can share.

I remember that the last time the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild went on strike, the rights to divide the video tapes were written into the union agreement.

Doing this is equivalent to creating another huge source of wealth for directors and stars. "

"Okay, hurry up."

Ronald immediately felt great. If there was a union agreement, at least the basic residual dividend would not be less. By the way, in the movie contract you directed before, how did you sign the dividends from the video tape?

"What's wrong? Are you going out so late?" Paula Wagner woke up in bed and asked her husband.

"Yes, Ronald's movie Top Gun, the video tapes are selling like hot cakes, I have to go to the office to check all his director agreements."

"Sold like hot cakes? How many?" Paula also became excited.

"Maybe more than two million copies."

"How much? Two million?" Paula also got up.

"Be careful, don't be so excited when you are pregnant." Nicita felt like finding clothes for his wife to put on.

"I'll go to the office with you to find the contract, Tom has to get one too."