Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"I, Bruce Willis, take you, Demi Moore, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death doth We are separated...

I, Demi Moore..."

“Amen, now the groom can kiss the bride.

In a small church in Los Angeles, Bruce Willis, who was still filming "Die Hard", and Demi Moore, who was already two months pregnant, officially became husband and wife.

Ronald's relationship with his biological mother was not good, and his biological father abandoned them when she was just a few months old. Only stepfather Gaines treated little Demi as his own, but unfortunately he has passed away long ago.

As one of the few friends of Demi Moore, Ronald came to attend the wedding, which can be regarded as adding an important figure to Demi's family and friends.

"I have to be honest with you, if it weren't for the filming of the movie, I would fly to Europe with Demi right now for our honeymoon." Bruce Willis came over to say hello to Ronald. Filming on his "Die Hard" continues, with action scenes being shot at a slower pace than other genre films.

"The bride's wedding, the bride's honeymoon, hahaha" Ronald stepped forward and hugged the two newlyweds.

"You have to see the dailies we shot. Let me tell you, this movie is really exciting. Every time I watch the dailies, I get so excited that I can't believe I shot it." Bruce Willis said to himself in Happy with the heroics in the movie, he had a feeling this movie would be different.

"Honey..." Demi Moore, wearing a white wedding dress, came up and hugged her newlywed husband.

"You have to drive..." Ronald laughed and sent the two of them out of the church. There was a convertible car parked outside, with the words "Just Married" written on the rear license plate.

This is an American wedding custom. They believe that honeymoons are very precious. Newlyweds should not waste time on gatherings with relatives and friends, but should start their sweet days immediately.

Although Willis still had unfinished filming, the crew allocated a weekend for him to spend a honeymoon with his wife.

"Well, it was a nice wedding. When my husband and I got married, it wasn't as exciting." Also standing by the bride's guests were Sigourney Weaver and her good friend Jamie Lee Co. Tice, was exchanging wedding experiences with Ronald's personal attorney, Lindsay Dole.

Sigourney Weaver came to Los Angeles specifically to meet with Ronald, who wanted to check on her preparations. Jamie Lee Curtis was vacationing in Los Angeles with her husband Guest, and happened to run into old friend Sigourney Weaver. There happened to be a wedding, and they all came as guests of the bride's party to earn face for Demi Moore.

They are all Hollywood actresses, and they know that the larger the guest card that appears at this kind of wedding, the more important the bride's status is. Although the newlyweds may not care, relatives and friends on both sides like to gossip about it.

"How was filming in Toronto? Is it over?" Ronald asked Jamie Lee Curtis' husband, British actor Christopher Guest. This man is the eldest son of the Baron Guest family with a serious title. He likes acting by nature, so he plays some supporting roles in Hollywood and often writes his own scripts.

"My part has ended. This director is very good. I feel a bit like filming with Bob Reiner." Guest is a good friend of Robert Reiner whom Ronald knew. He and Curtis are Bob Reiner. We were introduced by Na.

Last year, I finished filming the box-office success "The Princess Bride" directed by my friend Renner, but I didn't have much filming this year. Fortunately, Guest was also satisfied with supporting roles, and by chance he was spotted by Kathryn Bigelow, who starred in Helen Slater's "Sticky Fingers."

"We are discussing the wedding, Ronald, where do you want to hold the wedding in the future? Is it also a church?" Weaver, Curtis, and the lawyer lady came over to greet Ronald.

"I haven't thought about it..." Ronald had not planned a place to get married. "I thought maybe it would be in the church that my aunt often goes to, the one on Staten Island." Ronald looked at Lindsay Dole, seeing her smiling, seemed to be getting married to her partner in the law firm.

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"Staten Island? If you get married there, I'm afraid the entertainment reporters will go crazy and run to the country." Several actresses burst into laughter.

"That's right, let them squeeze in the ferry..."

"How is your German?" At the wedding party, everyone was looking for some drinks. Ronald asked about Sigourney Weaver's homework.

"Hast du ih, wer i?", Sigourney Weaver opened her mouth and said, "Did you tell them who I am?"

"Naturlich bist du sigourney weaver (Of course, you are Sigourney Weaver)," Lindsay Dole, who was educated at Harvard, immediately replied to Weaver in German.

"What are you talking about?" Ronald didn't understand any German, so he had to ask Weaver.

"The line, the line in the line. Catherine was going to Europe for skiing, but Tess didn't book a suite for her, so she personally called the hotel in Europe to ask if they knew who she was and why they didn't give her a big room. live alone."

"Hmm..." Ronald recalled Weaver's pronunciation. Although he couldn't understand it, he could tell from her pronunciation that the aristocratic flavor was not so strong. Here, Ronald hoped that the audience could perceive from the pronunciation, stress, and intonation that Catherine, played by Weaver, was a rich lady born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She spoke with a fluent flavor that was unique to the upper class.

"Where did you learn German?" Ronald asked Weaver.

"My father, he is very good at French and German. We also spoke in German at home since we were young."

Ronald nodded. Sigourney Weaver's German could be heard as a child's skill, but "I still have to find you a German coach. I need a smooth, smart, upper-class social language."

"Okay, help me find an accent coach." Sigourney Weaver was actually very happy to see that Ronald was so particular about this small accent. Actors are not afraid of the director's instructions on how to act, but they are afraid that the director will make trouble.

"Do you also pay attention to these small details when making a movie? The audience can't see it, right?" The lawyer lady was very puzzled.

"My dear, this is a special requirement that only great directors have. They pay close attention to every supporting role, every prop, actor's expression, action, and accent. Although not all audiences will notice it, there are always some audiences who understand the background of the story and will be moved by this creative attitude."

"Yes, Lindsay. Filmmaking is like this. Filmmaking is a dream-making machine. You definitely don't want your boyfriend, who is a partner lawyer in a New York law firm, to speak with a Texas accent..." Ronald explained.

This is actually a detail that Ronald has only recently started to pay attention to. In the first few films, he didn't have enough energy and budget to realize these things. From the beginning of shooting a 20 million big production, Ronald can mobilize resources to try to do the best.

This time in "Working Girl", Ronald is determined not to let the most basic scenery and props have any flaws that can be seen at a glance.

He rented a large office in the World Trade Center and prepared for on-site shooting. After the stock market crash, many offices in the World Trade Center were left without tenants, so Ronald was able to rent them for a short period of time at a cheap price to shoot movies.

Sigourney Weaver plays Catherine and lives in a mansion. Art director Polly Pratt found a two-story mansion built of stone before World War I on Morton Street in Manhattan. It was used as Catherine's residence in the movie. The landlord was a low-key rich man who agreed to lend the house to the crew.

In order to bring out the wealthy background of Catherine's family, Polly Pratt also bought a large crystal chandelier and replaced it for the owner. On the stairs from the first floor to the second floor, Ronald also lent the Andy Warhol paintings sold to him by record company owner David Geffen to the crew to hang at the corner of the corridor.

In addition, the protagonist Tess's house was an old wooden house built in the dock area in the north of Staten Island, the kind that creaks when walking.

In short, with a budget of more than 20 million and the supervision of Polly Pratt, the most powerful art director in Hollywood, Ronald enjoyed the treatment of a great director for the first time.

The best team brings peace of mind to the director. Many times, art directors, photography directors, hairstylists, makeup artists, and other professionals are all top candidates in the industry. The suggestions they give are excellent, so Ronald doesn't have to do everything himself like before, with an inexperienced team.

"Thank you, director. I'm going to reshoot the scenes this time, thank you for letting me go." Sigourney Weaver had arranged a German accent coach, called to arrange a practice time, and turned to Ronald to thank him.

Some of the scenes in "Gorillas in the Mist" she shot last year in Kenya had problems and needed to be reshot. It was a movie about Dian Fossey, a gorilla research expert. Director Michael Apted called in person, hoping that Ronald could let Weaver go to Kenya to shoot for another week.

Ronald and Sigourney Weaver and her agent met to discuss. This movie is one that Sigourney Weaver values ​​very much, and she hopes to win awards with this movie. Her agent repeatedly assured that the reshoot time would not be extended and that she would return to New York on time to participate in the filming of Working Girl.

Ronald asked the lawyer and Fox's legal department to sign an agreement with many clauses and buy enough insurance before agreeing to release. He also specially added a clause that Sigourney Weaver could not get too tanned. Otherwise, the skin tone of an expert who camped in the wilds of Kenya to study gorillas and a pampered Wall Street professional woman would not match at all.

…

After the wedding, Ronald went to the Fox Building again. The filming of "Die Hard" is still in progress. The clips without Bruce Willis were filmed in the past two days.

Ronald found producer Joel Silver. He was behind the display screen, watching the director directing Alan Rickman and a group of supporting actors to shoot the kidnapper scenes.

"Are they Germans? Where did you find such a group of "Germanic" looking gangsters?" Ronald did not look at the black and white flickering display screen, but stood directly behind the camera and looked at the actors opposite.

The actors who play the gangsters are all blond, blue-eyed, tall and strong. They look very much like the image of "German bad guys" in the minds of American audiences. This group of people are all muscular men. Among the twelve gangsters, eight or nine are over six feet tall.

"No, in fact, many of them are Europeans. Their face shapes are a little different from ours. The audience can distinguish them, but they can't tell which country they are from. So only three or four are of German descent, and the others are from the Netherlands, Switzerland, and some Nordic actors." Joel Silver explained. It is not easy for Hollywood to find so many Germans at once. There are not many Germans in this industry. But the others are all blond German images, which the audience will recognize.

They stand together, holding walkie-talkies, and talking to the gang leader played by Alan Rickman on the other side. Alan Rickman is not tall, but his acting skills are really good. He still has the feeling of a university professor when he plays with restraint. He plays the image of the gang leader who is a gentleman and a villain very well.

Ronald heard the live recording. Alan Rickman's dialogue skills were very good. The audience could tell that he was a well-educated villain who had gone astray. His tone and intonation were extremely smooth, but not too Shakespearean to distract the audience. This kind of control of scale was undoubtedly the result of years of hard work on the stage.

"Really great, really great, Ronald. The villain you introduced is the biggest surprise." After the director called a halt, Joel Silver began to praise Ronald for Alan Rickman's casting decision.

"This one is passed, let's continue." Director John McTiernan called the next one.

"Ir spielen?" (Where are we going to play later?)" a blond gangster said to the intercom.

"hier gibt es gutes eis (The ice cream provided by the crew is really good)" Hans, played by Alan Rickman, answered in German to the camera.

"This is really good, really good." Ronald felt that the German spoken by Alan Rickman was the style he wanted Sigourney Weaver to speak in "Working Girl". Obviously highly educated, he was eloquent, smooth in tone, and had an aristocratic accent.

The director stopped filming and changed the angle of the next scene to shoot the positive and negative shots. The crew rested for two hours.

Ronald went up to hug Alan Rickman, "Very good, very good, your German is admirable, as if it were the tone of a German aristocrat. If you hadn't been filming, I would have asked you to teach my heroine."

"In fact, I only learned German for one semester in middle school. I just asked the actor who played my younger brother to copy down the lines I was going to say, and I memorized them and said them." Alan Rickman was very happy to talk to Ronald. This movie looks quite interesting, and he might really be able to break into Hollywood.

"Ah? That's even more surprising." Ronald didn't expect Rickman to learn on the spot, and he could speak so well that he, who didn't understand German, could feel the character's personality. His acting skills are really strong.

"What are you talking about? Discussing how to kill John McClane?" Ronald began to guess the meaning of the lines, just like the audience watching the movie on the spot, although they didn't understand, they could guess the general meaning.

"Haha, that guy said that the ice cream provided by the crew tasted good." Alan Rickman laughed.

Director John McTiernan did not rely entirely on the script when filming. According to the situation on the scene, he often improvised the script and asked the actors to perform it after modifying it on the spot. This is also one of the reasons for slowing down the filming. The actors did not familiarize themselves with the lines and plot the night before.

"What?" Ronald frowned, you are all talking nonsense in German?

"Yes, it's all meaningless words. The director said that the audience couldn't understand it anyway, and it was all meaningless lines."

"Joel... Joel..." Ronald felt very bad and waved to the producer Silver to come over.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Joel Silver was chatting with the crew when Ronald called him over. Seeing the expression on his face, Ronald knew that something serious was going on and immediately became serious.

"John McTiernan..." Ronald felt something was wrong and shut up again, "Let's go to the office to talk." On the set, the producer must respect and protect the director's authority. If there are any curses, they must find a place where the crew and actors can't hear them.

"McTiernan, this sob, this bitch, this retard... Why did he let the actors make up German? There are only a few lines of dialogue, can't you find someone who knows German to write it?" Ronald was furious and scolded Joel Silver, focusing his firepower on the director.

"Ronald, are you too sensitive? Only a few percent of American audiences know German. Anyway, they can roughly guess from the actors' expressions that they are discussing how to act. This is a commercial film, so the requirements for details don't need to be so high."

Joel Silver looked at Ronald and wondered if it was the sequelae of his attention to details in pursuit of an Oscar? In fact, commercial films mainly have beautiful stars and hot action, and the rest is just fine.

"You..." Ronald was so angry that he put the mineral water heavily on the table, "Let me ask you, when you watched the sample, did you think the quality of this movie was good? Do we have the hope of making a lot of money?" Ronald asked.

"Of course, although it is unlikely to be nominated for an award, judging from the samples taken now, this is a new type of action movie that is completely different from Stallone's action movies in the past. I like this movie very much..." Joel West Elf looked at Ronald with a confused look on his face, and made an expression that said, "What do you want to say?"

"Then tell me, Joel. Do you want to make big money or make bigger money?" Ronald didn't react when he saw the other party. "Want to make bigger money, right? Of course the audience in the North American market will not be too big." I care, but if we want to make more money, we have to sell the movie to Europe. How can those audiences not hear that the actor is talking about eating ice cream, or nonsense that is not even German?”

"This..." Joel Silver touched his fat chin. This was something he didn't expect.

"It was mentioned in the script before that these gangsters are German. Germans don't speak German? Isn't it just a low-cost exploitation film? It looks very bad... and is it sold to TV stations for broadcast? How do they add subtitles? Also, the income from video tapes of today’s movies is also very high. Those viewers can buy them home and watch them over and over again. Wouldn’t they know that those lines are nonsense?”

"Fuck you, McTiernan, you idiot," Joel Silver also reacted. Both he and the director are too used to making movies for domestic audiences. This kind of small detail may not have been important before, but for this kind of film with the potential to be a blockbuster movie, European audiences must be taken into consideration.

"Ronald, you saved me again. I'm going to ask him to retake it."

"You have to rewrite the dialogue in German and have it translated into German, real German," Joel Silver announced his decision.

"Hey, Ronald, is this necessary? Who cares about the small details of this conversation for a few seconds?" Director John McTiernan was called in and heard Joel Silver's words. Not convinced. Such small details must be the thoughts of Ronald, who is new here today.

"This is the final decision between the two of us. It's actually not a big deal, right?" Ronald looked at him. He knew that the director put all his energy into the action scenes and would not say anything to this kind of film critic. I just let go of the good words.

"Okay, okay... damn..." McTiernan felt like he was wasting his time and walked out cursing.

"You fucking know nothing." Joel Silver cursed behind him and slammed the door. He turned to Ronald "We still have to let him play before we finish filming..."

"Hold on with the samples, don't make such stupid mistakes again." Ronald nodded in agreement, and McTiernan focused his energy on the action scenes, which is also a good thing. To be successful, people in key positions must also benefit greatly from the project. He could tolerate McTiernan in a small place.

However, there is no need to discuss whether this will affect the box office in Germany and Northern Europe, and even future video sales.