Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Sure enough, "Cocktail" attracted a large number of crazy female fans of Tom Cruise, and broke through the 10 million box office in the first weekend.

Although 20th Century Fox was very satisfied with the box office momentum of Die Hard, it increased its resource investment, and the number of cinemas increased rapidly from 1,200 to 1,450, almost the same as Cocktail.

But a good story is not as good as a good star. Tom Cruise threw the cocktail bottle in the air in the movie, and then caught it in a fancy way, which always caused female fans to scream in the cinema.

He is so handsome!

The second box office was Eddie Murphy's American Journey (ERCA). This black movie, which was released on the July 4th statutory holiday weekend, was opened by Paramount in more than 2,000 theaters. Almost all the cinemas in black communities across the country were covered.

In the first week, taking advantage of the Independence Day holiday, it took in 21 million US dollars. However, the stamina of this movie was very poor. The box office dropped to 13 million in the second week, and the box office dropped by nearly 30 in the third week.

Paramount's strategy of opening the film in two thousand theaters is also in line with this pure fantasy film.

The film tells the story of Zamunda, a democratic, independent and prosperous country in Africa. The only son of their monarch has grown up. According to the management, he must marry the daughter of a minister in the country, but the Crown Prince Hakim is unwilling to accept the arranged marriage and proposes to study in America.

When he arrived in New York, Crown Prince Hakim concealed his identity and lived in the slums. He hoped to find a woman in the United States that he could marry and fall in love with. The two were because of love, not because of his status, nor because she was trained to please him.

Hakim fell in love with Lisa, the daughter of a hamburger shop owner, and the two fell in love. Later, the king also came to New York. Because the crown prince concealed his identity, Lisa rejected his proposal. The king was touched and canceled the arranged marriage. In the end, Lisa was secretly invited to Zamunda, and the crown prince was surprised to find that the bride was Lisa at the wedding. Hakim proposed that if his identity was still an obstacle to their marriage, he would be willing to abdicate and leave the throne to his cousin. Lisa smiled and refused, the two were in true love... Wouldn't it be good to be a queen?

The enthusiasm of black audiences to watch movies was very high, contributing more than 30% of the box office, and it was still growing. Because American blacks, unlike white immigrants, are some remnants without ancestral home. Eddie Murphy understood the ideas of blacks very well and gave them an illusory, rich, monarchical country as their imaginary hometown.

A black crown prince came to New York, like a bumpkin, and couldn't even eat a hamburger, and had to ask local blacks to teach him. This is one of the few skills that every black person has! Moreover, local black girls also have the opportunity to marry the crown prince of a country. As long as they repeat the values ​​they learned in elementary school to an African tycoon, they will gain the love of the crown prince.

Black audiences with narrow upward channels are very happy to watch it, and white audiences also like this kind of comedy full of black gags. White actors really can't play this kind of comedy with super fast speech speed.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit", which ranked in the top two for six consecutive weeks, was squeezed to third place by cocktails. Robert Zemeckis's live-action and animation hybrid was previously rumored to be difficult to produce and had a bad reputation in the preview. However, after it was actually released, it had a high box office.

At the beginning, the cartoon character Roger Rabbit came to the human world, and then humans became cartoons and entered the animation world. This shooting technique was not highly evaluated by the preview audience, and the low score made the distributor Disney a little scared.

However, this performance method made the children happy like Christmas. Which child has not imagined that he would enter the animation world and save the world with cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Transformers, and He-Man, the Great Universe?

The low score of the previous preview was largely misled by adult audiences. Now children all want to watch it, and even the whole family goes out, so this kind of movie has a natural advantage in the number of viewers. Spielberg's production ability is amazing, and he can always find the selling point that children like the most.

"Die Hard" unfortunately only ranked fourth, and "Hollywood Report" also mentioned that this summer's movie season is full of good movies, and the box office has increased by more than ten percent compared with the same period last year.

"Cheers..."

Ronald showed no regret that the box office was not among the top three. He and Joel Silver, another producer of the film, held a celebration party. Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and a blond muscled handsome guy who played a German were all there. Many beautiful women who came to the party and wanted to enter Hollywood screamed happily.

"Mr. Goldberg..." Ronald saw the representative of 20th Century Fox coming in the door. He didn't expect that the president came to congratulate him in person.

"Call me, Ronald," said Ronald Goldberg with a smile. The box office of "Die Hard" in the second week was higher than the first week of the same period, with a slight increase of 7.

Twentieth Century Fox especially needed such a big production to boost revenue. After hearing the box office figures, he immediately decided to come and congratulate Ronald in person. This increase instead of a decrease shows that "Die Hard" stayed in the cinema for about one-third longer than expected. For any box office strong film, it is not necessarily to win many top spots. Being a nail house in the cinema is the most important thing.

The studio has two most important indicators for movies after release. One is the opening weekend box office. The other is the decline index. The decline index of "Coming to America" ​​is 30, and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is slightly better, with 25. "Die Hard" is a scary 7. Instead of falling, it rose against the market.

This "reverse decline" phenomenon often occurs in low-cost movies. Ronald's first few movies had this phenomenon. Because of insufficient marketing investment, many times it was purely based on audience word of mouth.

However, this kind of blockbuster that the big studio arranged to be released in the summer season rarely has this situation. This is clearly saying that you have won the prize, the Powerball lottery, and this movie is likely to be a commercial success.

"Can you arrange the filming of the sequel? Find a way to let Alan Rickman appear in the sequel? I see that the critics are full of praise for his performance and gave him the highest score." The main purpose of Goldberg's visit was to persuade Ronald and Silver to start filming the sequel.

"Of course, I'm discussing it with Joel Silver." Ronald did not hide his ambition to seize the opportunity and invited Goldberg to enter a small room to discuss the preparations for the sequel with Silver and the other two.

Ronald and Joel Silver looked at each other. As expected, 20th Century Fox would put the sequel on the agenda. They were just discussing what the plot of the sequel should be.

"Alan is a genius in acting, but he is not suitable to appear in the sequel." Luo An shook his head gently.

At the end of the first part, the villain boss played by Alan Rickman fell off a skyscraper and died. This ending made Ronald and Silver feel very regretful. At that time, they didn't know that this movie would cause such a big response. If they had known, they shouldn't have killed the villain like this. It would be better to catch him in prison and write about escaping from prison later, and then they would get the beginning of the sequel.

But now it's like this. If you want Rickman and Willis to continue to get together in the sequel, there are only two ways:

Either use the cliché plot of twins and let Alan Rickman come back to play the twin brother of the original boss. This idea was quickly rejected by Ronald, not because Ronald didn't like clichés and he had filmed a lot of them himself, but because this movie was very realistic. Although it was unlikely that a NYPD's wife would go from being a housewife to a company executive, the various characters in it did give people a feeling that they were living next to me.

This is also an important reason why Bruce Willis's protagonist John McClane was successful. They have weaknesses. His partner, a black detective, is a small figure who was bullied by his stupid boss. Who of us hasn't complained that "I'm great, it's all because my boss is too stupid"?

So the story of the second part must also be very realistic, at least it gives people a feeling that there are such people around me. This twin writing method is suitable for soap operas and not-so-real action movies, such as the "Die Hard" currently being filmed in Australia, where the dead can be resurrected by removing the human skin mask.

In short, "Die Hard" must not be written like this. The protagonist McClane still has to be a little cowardly, suppressed by his superiors in daily life, and only let him come out to save the world at the critical moment.

Another way is to make a prequel instead of a sequel.

Goldberg wanted to do this. He strongly asked Ronald to start shooting the second part as soon as possible. Whether it was a prequel or a sequel, he wanted Alan Rickman to come back and continue to fight with Bruce Willis. This is the box office code.

But this request is impossible to achieve, because if the two had met before, it would be unreasonable for them not to know each other in the story of the first part.

Besides, Ronald felt that making a prequel was not a good idea at all. The audience wanted to see what happened later, and no one liked to see what happened before.

"We still have to find a suitable adventure adaptation," Ronald said his thoughts. The original author Roderick Thorpe's "Nothing is Forever" also had no sequel, just like Die Hard. He did not continue to create a series with McClane as the protagonist.

So everyone decided to find some works of other adventure writers on the market, graft them onto John McClane, and then make some adaptations. Finally, all three parties agreed to start looking. Anyway, the production rights of the next sequel were in the hands of Ronald and Silver, and 20th Century Fox could not abandon them to shoot.

Ronald asked David Simkins to take over the search. After the results were obtained, he and Silver were evaluating.

"Bruce, why are you leaving?" The three of them came out and saw the protagonist Bruce Willis trying to leave. A group of beautiful girls who wanted to enter Hollywood pulled him and stopped him from leaving.

"Ah, Demi is about to give birth recently. She is very nervous at home. This is her first child. If I don't go, I don't know what will happen again."

"You are a good husband." Ronald understood Demi Moore. As soon as Willis came out of this movie, she became one of the top action stars in Hollywood. She herself missed Ronald's "Working Girl" because of her pregnancy. Seeing the gap between her and Willis getting bigger and bigger, you can imagine how anxious she was.

"Our party will last until the day after tomorrow. Go back and comfort your wife, and then come and have fun with us. Ronald doesn't like parties. He is very boring. It will be too boring for you to leave. Allen is an English gentleman, unlike us who can have fun." Joel Silver had just finished preparing for the sequel, and now he wanted to get drunk in the arms of women and wine.

"It sounds very attractive. It would be better if there were better beer and barbecue." Bruce Willis is essentially a child from a blue-collar family. Recently, Demi has been making trouble at home and has not eaten anything good.

"Then let's have beer and barbecue. It's decided that you will come tomorrow. Hahaha..." Joel Silver was overjoyed. People like Ronald are too literary. How can they understand the joy of drinking too much?

Ronald, on the other hand, also felt that people like Silver had no taste. These beauties, except for their explosive bodies, have not received any good education, and their conversation is boring. He likes women who have temperament, have their own ideas, and can communicate with him.

However, this does not hinder Ronald and Silver's cooperation in business. In Hollywood, this kind of straightforward and rough person is actually a more reliable partner than those stars who never say no.

"Then I'll leave first," Ronald also said goodbye, just in time to send Fox's president Goldberg back. Silver also winked at Ronald. He didn't have too many new films to prepare recently. Ronald has started several projects now, which are the sizzling steaks in the eyes of big companies like Fox.

"Ronald, I wrote a check and waited for your Die Hard Part 2 to be approved." Goldberg sighed in the car. Now the production studios not only have to look at the faces of the stars, but now even the producers with consecutive box office records have to beg and coax.

After I have two more box office hits and accumulated enough qualifications, I will leave this position and start my own production company. These days, independent production is easy and profitable.

However, Goldberg is very cautious. He obviously did not forget that those colleagues lost more money and made less money after leaving the executive positions of large studios. He didn't really plan to work as a producer, but wanted to take a generous hush money, sign a few more film distribution contracts with Fox, and then leave this crater-like position.

He also saw that Tom Cruise's bad movie actually sold more money than his company's masterpiece. He now fully realized that no one in Hollywood knows whether a movie will make money or lose money. It is safer to pursue that unconditional distribution contract and then make money from the distribution contract.

How much money he can get in the golden parachute and how many distribution contracts are tied to the resignation contract depend on Ronald's performance.

"This movie is groundbreaking. I think Joel and I are right. Don't rush to make a sequel. Get the right script and success will come."

"But I want to distribute your movie now. We have a lot of free time next year. We can distribute your new movie without setting any conditions. You can also see that our marketing department is capable and cooperates well with your marketing consultant named Gray."

"But my two current projects have Samsung as the distributor." Ronald knew that the other party was half showing goodwill, and the other half was a little superstitious about his vision. ”

“Don’t you have another romantic film? The director is the screenwriter of your debut film…” Goldberg kept an eye on Ronald’s movements.

“But that’s a small production, are you interested in it?” Ronald didn’t expect that Fox was also interested in “The Love of the Century”. If a small production is distributed by a big studio, the marketing cost is actually similar to that of a medium-sized production, and is more expensive than a big production. Therefore, big studios are rarely willing to be the distribution company of small productions, and most of them are bought to fill the gap.

From what Goldberg said, is this going to launch “The Love of the Century” as a formal schedule movie?

“Small productions can also be changed to big productions…”