Exploiting Hollywood 1980

After receiving Ronald's invitation, Corey Yuen flew from Hong Kong to Los Angeles as quickly as possible. After he got off the plane, he was taken to Ronald's office in Daydream.

"I'm sorry for not letting you rest first. I have a lot of things to do here, so I have to trouble you to come over and talk about "Boxing King" first." Ronald apologized to Corey Yuen first.

"It's okay, I slept well on the plane. We are from the martial arts industry and are not afraid of this little hardship." Corey Yuen took out a folder from his luggage and handed it to Ronald.

"This is Qiao Hong. He used to spar with Bruce Lee. Now that he is older, his figure is still very good. He looks very stylish in Tang suits and Japanese ronin kimonos."

The folder contains audition photos of several actors named by Ronald. The actor named Qiao Hong was born in 1927. He has a beard, but his face has a sense of elegance of a high-level intellectual. There are also audition photos of him wearing Japanese clothes. He is very suitable to play the role of the protagonist's teacher.

After Bruce Lee's death, Qiao Hong returned to Hong Kong to act in TV dramas and movies. His roles were not action actors, but more roles with connotation. He was also very good at English, and played the role of a tycoon in Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Such a candidate also saved the trouble of dubbing in the later stage, and Ronald was very satisfied with Corey Yuen's preparation.

"This is Jet Li, a domestic martial arts champion. His Shaolin Temple is well-known to everyone and he is a big star." Corey Yuen took out another photo, "He recently switched to directing. If you want to hire him, the salary will be higher, but he has great box office appeal in China and Southeast Asia."

"Does he know English?" Ronald was not interested in the so-called domestic box office appeal. After being fooled last time, he already knew that the box office in China and Southeast Asia was mainly bought out. A small Hollywood company should not dream of a box office share that even the seven major companies could not do.

"Not really. I heard he's learning it and is planning to immigrate with his wife and kids."

"This pass," Ronald was not very interested in actors who needed post-dubbing, "Are there any other martial arts champions in the country? It would be best if they have better English."

"Their English is not very good. Except for Jet Li who has already arrived in Hong Kong, the others are all in the martial arts team. The filming requires the approval of the leader, and the remuneration also has to be paid to the martial arts team."

"Is that so..." Ronald was even less interested in inviting people from the martial arts team to film. Many people who practice martial arts in China are not good at studying, so you can imagine their English level. Moreover, if this movie is to be released in America, it must be registered with major unions. This remuneration arrangement is probably in conflict with the union's regulations. Ronald is not sure if it will cause trouble.

"If you must record live, then you can consider this. He has also participated in domestic martial arts competitions and won the routine championship. He was born in America and English is not a problem."

"Oh, this guy looks okay. He can play the son of the protagonist's master. The martial artist who participated in the martial arts competition and was beaten to death by the villain can just lead to the reason why the protagonist participated in the martial arts competition to avenge his brother."

Ronald looked at the martial arts champion with long hair in the photo. He was quite photogenic. He turned the photo over to look at his resume. The name and date of birth were written on it: Qiu Yunbo-1960.

…

Set Corey Yuen in the hotel and let him adjust to the jet lag first. Ronald began to fill in the ballots for the film awards of the major unions in 1987.

The awards of the two major screenwriters' unions in the East and the West are jointly awarded. They are divided into two categories: movies and TV series. There are three awards in the film category, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Documentary Screenplay. The Western Screenwriters Guild is mainly a film screenwriter. Ronald joined the union as a film screenwriter, so he has the right to vote for film awards.

Ronald filled in John Patrick Shanley of "Moonlight" and Bertolucci of "The Last Emperor", and the other nominations are temporarily vacant. After the ballots are sent out, the nominations will be announced in early January next year.

The Directors Guild awards include Best Cinema Film, Best Short Film, Best Directorial Debut, Best Documentary, Best TV Director and other categories. Ronald has five voting spots in each category. In mid-January next year, the nomination list will be announced.

Of course, his "Moonlight" will definitely get one vote. Then there is Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor", Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun", and then his old friend Adrian Lane's "Fatal Attraction". Ronald thought for a while and voted for the last vote for the newly met Bob Reiner's "The Princess Bride".

Ronald went to see this movie afterwards, and the structure was unexpected. The movie begins with a grandfather telling a story from a storybook to his sick grandson. It's a very clichéd beginning of a princess falling in love with a handsome young man who herds horses.

But unlike the classic story of the princess and the knight, at every turning point, it flashes back to the scene where the grandfather and grandson are telling stories. The grandson doesn't want to listen to the same old story, and at this time he always asks his grandfather to lead the story in an unexpected direction.

Then the camera flashes back to the story itself, just like a child, using his imagination to make up and modify many stories and string them together.

This storytelling technique is very difficult to handle, and the actors, Robin Wright as the princess, Cary Elwes as the horse herder, and Billy Crystal as the pirate, are all well cast and perform superbly.

From a purely technical point of view, Ronald deserves his vote.

After filling out the nominations for various awards, Richard also came to Ronald's office to collect the ballots.

"Aha, your Directors Guild Award ballot is full."

"Haha, yes, this is my profession, so I took the initiative to write all five places." Ronald laughed.

"It doesn't matter, for the list of guild awards, we generally respect the choices of our customers." Richard picked up the Writers Guild ballot again, "I'll use the last three to exchange resources."

"Please, I haven't written a script for a long time. I'm almost not a professional screenwriter." Ronald was a little embarrassed. Although he paid his membership fee every year, he really hadn't participated in activities organized by the Western Writers Guild for a long time.

"At the Screen Actors Guild, Niceta and I will use some resources to exchange for votes from Olympia Dukakis and Cher..." Richard and his team got Ovitz's promise. This year, for the nomination of the Oscar for Best Director, the two of them plus Paula will mobilize all the resources they can to give Ronald more hope.

The nominations for the Oscars and each special award can only be voted by people in this special award. The members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Technology are all senior industry insiders, and their membership indicates their expertise.

For example, Ronald, although he is a member of two unions, when he joins the Academy and votes for the Oscar nominations, he can only select five films as a director. He has no vote for the nomination of Best Screenwriter.

This is why the nominations for the Oscars overlap to a large extent with the awards of each union every year. These two groups of voters are basically the same group.

Of course, there is a special case for the Oscars, that is the Best Picture Award. This is theoretically an award that the producer receives, but his nomination is not voted by the people of the Producers Guild.

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Technology and Arts, whether they are producers, directors, screenwriters, or actors, have the right to nominate for Best Picture.

And for the Best Picture nomination, a member can choose ten films, instead of five for other awards.

"Which films do you vote for Best Picture?" Richard took out a large notebook and started to write. For the Best Director nomination, Ronald would definitely choose the five films from the Directors Guild.

"I want to add another "Wall Street" and remove the "Princess Bride". You can decide on the others."

From the perspective of the film as a whole, Ronald thought that "Princess Bride" was not so outstanding, while "Wall Street" starring Michael Douglas, although the acting and directing level were not high, the overall presentation was more powerful than other films.

"Wall Street" was also a film that was released in December. After Ronald watched it, he felt that the audience's reaction was definitely unusual.

This film was originally about Oliver Stone exposing the ugly side of Wall Street tycoons. Michael Douglas played Gekko in the film and did everything he could to exploit loopholes in the rules. Instead, Bud, played by Charlie Sheen, who has a conscience, was taken away by the police as a scapegoat for manipulating insider trading.

But when the audience heard Gekko's famous line "Greed is Good", they clearly stood on Gekko's side, and some young audiences even applauded and cheered.

This reaction, which went against the director's original intention, made Ronald very touched.

The American people are not very disgusted with the tycoons who make huge amounts of money legally but unreasonably. The Puritan moral code of the baby boomers has now been replaced by the materialism that as long as you make money legally, it is good, and has become a general consensus among young people.

Since everyone has a positive attitude towards making money legally by taking advantage of loopholes, Ronald also discussed with Kevin Wade, the screenwriter of "Working Girls", and added some plots to Tess's project, so that the legal loopholes she accidentally discovered could bring the clients of the listed company boss a magic weapon to resist Japanese capital mergers and acquisitions.

After all, Ronald is not a Broadway-born screenwriter or director who uses drama theory to plan the direction of characters and plots.

What he really cares about is what the audience likes to watch. If what the audience likes to watch conflicts with the so-called Puritan moral code, or the likes and dislikes of drama theorists and film critics, Ronald always stands on the side of the current audience's taste without hesitation.

In the end, Oliver Stone arranged a reversal at the end, letting Bud cooperate with the police, wearing a recording device in the park, and luring Gekko to tell about his crime. In the end, Gekko was prosecuted and Bud was given a light sentence.

But the direction and ending of the whole story are not in sync, as if the director deliberately did it. The story itself is actually complete when Bud is arrested and sentenced, and Gekko is at large. Oliver Stone deliberately added a Billy Wilder-style "ending after the ending" because of his attitude towards financial tycoons.

Billy Wilder's false ending is a reversal in the aftermath of the story, which is completely unexpected by the audience. However, this kind of reversal needs to be laid in the first and second acts in advance. The audience will feel sorry for the false ending, and the final reversal will make people satisfied.

The movie "Wall Street" was unexpected in this regard. The director thought that the audience would be dissatisfied with the false ending, but in fact, they agreed with the philosophy of the "bad guy" Gekko in their hearts, which made this reversal look very awkward.

However, this is also what Ronald likes about this movie. After editing the movie, the director actually only completed 90% of the creation of the movie. In the end, there is about 10% that needs to be completed by the audience. This kind of audience's disapproval of the director's original intention and understanding of the plot according to their own ideas is often an indispensable part of high-grossing classic works.

"Okay, let's vote accordingly. I'm leaving first." Richard took the voting slips from the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, and then took Ronald's Oscar nomination ballot, and rushed to CAA to discuss with Niceta how to form alliances and who to trade with in order to get the most supporters of Ronald.

After Richard left, Kevin Wade, the screenwriter of "Working Girl", came to discuss with Ronald about the direction of revising the script.

"In the final ending, the male protagonist Jack Traynor did not stand on Tess's side, but supported Tess's boss, ex-girlfriend Catherine. In the end, Tess was recognized by the client, proud of her work, but frustrated emotionally. Will such an ending make the audience dissatisfied?"

Kevin Wade asked. He and Ronald have been talking about the improvement of the script. On the one hand, Ronald asked Bannon to check it and added a lot of professional content about Wall Street mergers and acquisitions, so that the script, at least in the eyes of professionals, has no major flaws.

On the other hand, Ronald and Kevin Wade had a lot of discussions about the emotional line of the protagonist Tess.

"The marriage and childbearing age of working women in America is being postponed year by year. I am not sure that today's female audiences still expect the heroine to live happily with the hero when watching movies.

Look at the popular "Princess Bride", it is not performed according to the old routine of fairy tales at all, but the box office is good. I am a little skeptical that today's urban female audiences will think that Tess deserves a better man after seeing that she can go from a secretary to a manager?"

Through Donna's introduction, Ronald also met many elite women on Wall Street, communicated with them on the phone a lot, and also agreed to let Demi Moore and Joan Cusack follow them for two weeks of internship.

When talking about this love scene, these elite women working on Wall Street all looked down on the role of Jack Traynor. In the end, he did not trust Tess to come up with the legal loophole to fight back against the merger and acquisition of Japanese capital, and on Wall Street, loyalty is the most valuable quality.

"Okay, I'll listen to you and write another ending where Jack Traynor is fired because he doesn't trust Tess. In the end, he and Tess meet at the ferry terminal in downtown Manhattan, giving them an open ending."

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Ronald nodded in agreement. Elite women don't like Jack Traynor's disloyalty, but in the final analysis, they want romance in the workplace. Such an open ending may satisfy both urban working women and small town housewives. Both types of female audiences can interpret it according to their preferences.

Ronald's daily schedule is full, and various things fill up his time slot.

After Corey Yuen adjusted to the time difference, the two actors recommended by Chao Li also came from San Francisco and other places to accept the joint audition of Corey Yuen and Ronald.

"Oh, your muscles are really similar to Schwarzenegger."

In the audition room, Yang Si took off his shirt and posed in a bodybuilding pose for the two to see. His muscle lines are very good, and the definition of his upper body muscles is also very high. In addition to the difference in race, the biggest weakness between him and Schwarzenegger is that he doesn't look like a good guy.

Yang Si has a face full of flesh and a little bald eyebrows. When he smiles, he looks ferocious. He is a natural villain actor.

"How is it?" Ronald asked Corey Yuen.

"I didn't expect you to invite him. He also filmed a few movies in Hong Kong. The villains there don't get high pay. He returned to America to open a bodybuilding organization. I thought he retired from the film industry. Yang Si is the best candidate for the villain in this movie."

Then, the eldest son of Bruce Lee came to audition.

"Hi, hello, my name is Brandon Lee."

Brandon is very tall, which is inherited from his white mother. The big parted hairstyle and a distinctive American accent made Ronald have a good impression of the son of the legendary Kung Fu star.

"Your uncles in Hong Kong missed you very much after you went to film last time. If there is a chance this time, they can see you again." Corey Yuen said the last sentence to Brandon in Cantonese.

Corey Yuen was also quite satisfied with Brandon's audition. His face was not very photogenic, but kung fu movies are mainly about the action scenes, and the appearance of the male lead is not as important as other types of movies.

Ronald looked over, and Corey Yuen explained to him. Brandon Lee had always wanted to enter the film industry, but he had no chance in Hollywood. Last year, he returned to Hong Kong to shoot a Cantonese action movie, but it did not cause any box office response.

However, many martial arts in Hong Kong were brought up by his father Bruce, and when the eldest son returned, they all came to help. Martial arts such as Yang Si, who were brought into the film industry by Bruce, took the initiative to play supporting roles for Brandon and made him the male lead.

"I think, in this way, the two highlights of the ring eight to four and the semi-finals, Brandon can be given more shots." Ronald and Corey Yuen decided to give Brandon Lee an important supporting role. He will represent his father's Jeet Kune Do martial arts to participate in the martial arts conference.

...

"What? Don't want to participate? Why?" Unexpectedly, the next day Brandon Lee's agent called and rejected the invitation for a second audition. Ronald was a little surprised when he received a call from Corey Yuen, "He complains about not having enough screen time?"

"They said on the phone that they don't want to go back to Hong Kong to film. The last time they went to film a movie, they left a bad impression on Brandon. The working hours were very long and the food was not accustomed to him. But it may still be the reason you mentioned, that there are not enough scenes."

"Okay," Ronald thought to himself, it seems that someone else has given him a chance, "then you can do whatever you want."