I’m in Hollywood

? At the end of May, the filming of The Ghost Story in Manhattan, New York was officially closed, and Eric returned to Los Angeles with the main creator of the crew to start post-production.

At the same time, as North American universities, primary and secondary schools began to take vacations one after another, the summer vacation in 1990 officially arrived.

On May 25, Universal Pictures' Back to the Future 3 and Disney's Firebird released by BWI International were released in more than 2,000 theaters.

The film Back to the Future 3 was made quite hastily. After all, Back to the Future 2 was only released at the end of last year. As for the reason, it is almost the same as last year when Columbia restarted the Ghostbusters series after five years. The acquisition negotiations between Universal's parent company and Japan's Panasonic consortium have entered the final stage. In order to sell at a good price, Universal Pictures needs better performance support.

However, if compared with another movie released in the same period, the results of Back to the Future 3 can only be described as dazzling.

That is Disney's Firebird Strike, which is a story about the pilot of the US Apache helicopter unit. Compared with the controversy caused by the quality of the Back to the Future 3 film, after some hot publicity, After the release of Firebird Strike, it immediately became a dud, and there was not much splash.

The film is so similar to Tom Cruise's $350 million worldwide hit that it was occasionally mentioned by critics in the newspapers. It also only ended up with an evaluation of a parody of Top Gun.

There are also 2,000 open-painting theaters. Firebird made a measly $6 million at the box office. The box-office success has prompted resentment from theater managers who have signed two- to three-week release deals with Disney. In three weeks, the $30 million film will face a downfall, which, including distribution costs, will make Disney brought in losses of at least $30 million.

Disney's first shot of summer turned into a dud, Eric should have been very gloating, but because of the hero of this movie, Eric couldn't be happy.

Because of the leading man in this $3,000 movie. It is Nicholas Cage, the male protagonist of Eric's version of The Ghost Story.

On the morning of May 29th, when Eric and the main creators of Ghost Love just walked out of the Los Angeles airport, they were blocked by a large group of paparazzi, who asked Eric what he thought of Firebird Attack. . Eric got up early in the morning and rushed back to Los Angeles. He didn't know anything about Firebird Strike, how could he have any opinions, and the paparazzi question of containment was full of verbal traps, Eric It is even more impossible to respond rashly, and can only hurriedly leave under the protection of bodyguards in silence.

But his silence is obviously not a good way.

The next day, the tabloids ran the news that 'Williams was asked about 'Firebird' stern face'. The article talks about Nicholas Cage from Eric, and soon turns the target to Ghosts and Ghosts, which is in the later stage.

It just so happened that there was another example of Back to the Future 3 hurriedly producing unsatisfactory box office, and many media began to question the film quality of The Ghostly Love.

When things got up and down, Eric had already left Los Angeles and flew to San Francisco.

After all, this kind of thing can only be left to Firefly and Disney's publicity departments, and Eric just needs to get the agent to make some statements. I believe that Disney has just experienced a box office failure, and will definitely not take it lightly on The Ghost Story.

Although it is not too far from Los Angeles to San Francisco, it only takes more than an hour by plane, but because he has been busy, Eric has not been here for more than a year, and the last time he came here was to acquire Pixar.

For more than a year, Eric's affairs on Pixar's side have been handed over to John Lasseter. The two communicate by phone most of the time. Even if they need to discuss things in person, they are all John Lasseter. Go to Los Angeles.

Thanks to Eric's unhesitating infusion of funds, Pixar is no longer the shabby animation studio that shrank in a small building in Richmond on the San Francisco Bay more than a year ago.

At this time, the headquarters of Pixar has been relocated to a small town called Emeryville near Berkeley, and the number of employees has increased to more than 300, and the team of engineers who provide technical support for 3D animation production is more than 100. Compared with the just acquired At the size of Pixar at the time, the current team is no exaggeration to describe it as extravagant.

John, compared to Steve Jobs, my boss is like an angel, right? Eric said in the first sentence after hugging John Lasseter who was greeted by the Pixar office building.

Of course, Eric, let's go in. John Lasseter knew that Eric was joking with himself, and after shaking hands with Allen and Joanna who were behind Eric, John Lasseter said : Of course, Eric, let's go in.

Eric followed John Lasseter into the office building, pretending to be unhappy and saying, However, I only promised to invest 30 million in Toy Story, but now, the money you spent is close to 30 million. Now, I haven't even seen the shadow of the cartoon.

Even though John Lasseter knew that Eric was not blaming him, he was still a little embarrassed. The first Toy Story in his previous life was completed under extremely difficult circumstances, so the cost was only $30 million, with many details It's all pretty rough.

After receiving sufficient financial support from Eric, John Lasseter's perfectionist tendencies as an artist are at work, and budget overruns are almost a sure thing.

Therefore, the animation is only two-thirds completed, but the cost is close to 30 million US dollars. Fortunately, John Lasseter is not as profligate as Cameron. After all, he is not 100% interested in 3D animation. Confidence, in order to minimize the impact and loss that may be caused by failure in the future, John Lasseter consumes funds very sparingly.

In the previous life, because of the success of the first part of Toy Story, the cost of the second part soared to 100 million US dollars, and the cost of the third part was as high as 200 million US dollars. It can be seen that in the pursuit of perfection, as director John Lasseter is like James Cameron in his bones, he's just not as crazy as Cameron. (To be continued...)