Made in Hollywood

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The North American box office of $130.02 million for a film of this era can be said to be a very good result, but this huge sum of money will not fall into the pockets of any one person or company, from theater to distribution, and then from From production to investment, many aspects will share this cake.

In the last days of June, the accounting firm representing Duke and Mrs. Leah began close business dealings with Twentieth Century Fox and Lucasfilm, reconciling the numerous accounts and splits.

This kind of thing does not need Duke to come forward. His appearance will have no effect except to cause trouble. Although the professional accountants of PricewaterhouseCoopers are expensive, they are trustworthy in terms of business ability and reputation.

Besides, the lawyers representing Duke and the others will also supervise the whole process.

20th Century Fox signed the most conventional split account with the theater chain. After the theater chain has deducted fixed expenses, it will share with the distributor according to different proportions in different periods of release, and deduct taxes and other payments. 20th Century Fox Got a share of just over $62 million.

This part of the money Lucasfilm has not yet moved the power. As the distributor, 20th Century Fox can get a 15% distribution fee of the North American box office - 19.5 million US dollars!

Taking away the distribution fee, Fox has to deduct the advance public relations and other expenses from it. Speed ​​of Life has printed more than 5,100 copies, and the unit price is about 600 US dollars. The cost of large-scale printing will be reduced, and the total cost is 3 million US dollars. In addition, Fox invested a total of 8.5 million U.S. dollars in the film's test screening public relations, warehousing and transportation, capital recovery costs, hiring investigation companies, secretly checking the box office of theaters, various publicity expenses, etc.

In other words, 20th Century Fox has another $11.5 million to take away, and they can take half of the $62 million in total.

Excluding the $11.5 million in expenses, the remaining $19.5 million is almost all gross profit on Fox's side.

Distribution companies have broad publicity channels and strong distribution capabilities. It is not without reason that they can stand at the top of the industry. Hollywood does not mean that if you buy a company with distribution rights, you can achieve six major or even second-tier distribution in publicity and distribution. business level.

If this is the case, Lucasfilm will not be so dependent on the distribution channels of 20th Century Fox and Paramount for projects such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Does George Lucas have no money? Not well-connected enough? Too bad?

If the distribution problem is really easy to solve, the later Pixar Studios and DreamWorks Animation Studios will not go everywhere to find distributors. The former is so embarrassed by Disney, the latter even wants to sell themselves to distributors.

After 20th Century Fox took the money that belonged to them, more than $1 million of the remaining $31 million was used to pay the remaining one-third of the cast and crew, as well as various actors, including the Screen Actors Guild. Industry association expenses, and then the money goes to the account of Lucasfilm. According to the agreement signed with investors such as Leah, Lucasfilm will definitely not choose a guarantee of $2 million, but will give priority to North America. With 10 percent of the box office, they took $13 million of that.

For the remaining $17 million, it was the turn of investors, including Duke, to share. Mrs. Leah's $10 million accounted for two-thirds of the production cost. She could get more than $10 million. You have to make money, but don’t forget, you have to pay taxes, and after paying taxes, the money will definitely be a loss.

If you look at this situation, investors who pour money into Hollywood should cry.

However, this is only the North American box office that accounts for a portion of the film's revenue, and Speed ​​of Life can also make a lot of money in other areas.

The first is the North American TV rights and videotape rights, because 20th Century Fox has the power to take a 50% cut. They dominated the negotiating team composed of Lucasfilm, Duke's agent and other parties. Fox Just last year, they sold the peripheral rights of The Ultimate 2 at a high price with Carlock Pictures - 7 years for North American video tapes of $10 million, and TV rights for $7 million - they have a lot of experience in this area.

Duke also did not participate in the negotiation. He would not have a say in the negotiation completely dominated by 20th Century Fox, and it would be useless to go. As the biggest profiter, 20th Century Fox would definitely want to sell at a high price.

After several rounds of tug-of-war negotiations, the North American video rights to Speed ​​of Life were sold for $7 million, the TV rights were sold for $5 million, and Twentieth Century Fox first took $6 million from it.

Although there is so much jealousy, Duke knows that this is the rule of Hollywood, and it is impossible for newcomers to break the rules, otherwise all Hollywood will be your enemy.

Hollywood is not a place to make good enough movies to run wild.

Of course, as a director who has taken the first step towards success, Duke will not let it go when it is time to fight for it.

In the conference room on the top floor of the Fox Building, Duke was sitting in a chair. The morning was about to pass. He basically didn't open his mouth. He just watched Nancy Josephson's lips fly up and down as he negotiated with Fox's negotiators. Confrontation between words.

This is the negotiation on the overseas copyright of Speed ​​of Life and Death. It started after the film was released in North America. Now it is the fifth round, but the two parties have been unable to reach a consensus.

Since there was no chance for Lucasfilm, George Lucas, in addition to sending a CEO to sit in the office to show his support, handed over the leadership of the negotiation to Leah, the largest investor, And Mrs. Leah directly threw it to Duke, who of course chose his new agent as a plenipotentiary representative.

The movie we're negotiating is not a bad movie like Alien 3!

Rising from her chair, Nancy paced back and forth in the conference room, walking behind the Fox negotiators, almost roaring, This is 'Life and Death,' Duke Rosenberg's 'Life and Death' Speed! A super-smashing movie that won more than $130 million at the North American box office! You paid $65 million for the overseas copyright of Terminator 2, what is its North American box office?

Nancy's speech was extremely fast, and she didn't give the other party a chance to interject, It's just a little over $200 million! Speed ​​of Life and Death sold all the overseas copyrights and the filming rights of the sequels to you in a package, and the price was only $50 million. Is this price high?

After playing Lion's Roar, Nancy sat back in her chair and put on a factual tone, With the upheaval in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, our films have a wider market, and now most mainstream Hollywood commercial films Profits earned overseas can exceed those in North America…”

Just like a professional in a data analysis company, Nancy gave several examples of Hollywood movies making overseas profits, Don't say that Life and Death will be an exception! This movie will definitely enter the top ten of the annual North American box office list, If such films are not profitable overseas, Fox should not attack overseas markets.”

She is a typical and capable agent! This is Duke's assessment of Nancy's work.

This shrewd woman will never give anyone a good color when it is time to be proud; when it is time to pull her face down, her face is thick enough to block the Mississippi River; when it is time to speak loudly, her voice is comparable to The male lion in Disney's Animal World; and when it's time to whisper, she'll be gentler than **.

Such a highly professional agent is also the agent Duke needs.

As long as she doesn't tear her face, Nancy can compete with Fox, and with her presence, Duke can avoid direct contact with Fox on sensitive issues, and there is a buffer between the two sides.

Although $50 million is the package price for all rights, Duke is not James Cameron, Keanu Reeves is not Arnold Schwarzenegger after all, and this price is not realistic.

Of course, the $25 million offered by Twentieth Century Fox is also unrealistic, they are clearly robbery!

It was another long day of negotiations, and both sides made certain concessions. By the afternoon, they were arguing about the base price of $10,000. Finally, an agreement was reached. Twentieth Century Fox bought the package at a price of $37 million. Download the overseas copyright and sequel copyright of Speed ​​of Life and Death.

The price was so low, partly because of Duke. He explained that Nancy had to ask Twentieth Century Fox to pay off the sum within a month, and the one-year mortgage that Mrs. Leah had bought was about to expire. At that time, if there is no money to repay the debt, not only will the liquidity of the Santa Fea company be used, but even the house will be confiscated by the bank. At that time, the Rosenberg family will be the joke of the whole high society in Los Angeles.

As for the way to share the overseas distribution with Fox, Duke basically did not consider it, not to mention his mother's accounting issues, when Lucasfilm clearly would not participate, and he lacked sufficient preparation, he could monitor Fox. There are very few measures to be taken, and publishers make false announcements, tax credits and other means, but they can’t think of it, and they can’t do it without them. Especially the video tapes and TV copyrights of long-term revenue can be manipulated in more places.

Yes, the United States has various laws and regulations, but even in North America with strict regulations, Hollywood giants dare to cheat Wall Street’s funds, let alone in overseas markets all over the world.

Now is not the era of smooth information in the future. It is too difficult to supervise. Rather than pinning their hopes on Fox’s moral standards, it is better to sell directly.

This is also the consensus of all investors in the film.

In this way, the income that investors can share is clear and clear. The remaining $17 million at the North American box office, the remaining $6 million in North American videotape TV rights, and the $37 million just negotiated, totaling $60 million.

Duke enjoys 150% of the share, which is 400,000 US dollars. Although he has to pay a lot of personal income, it is still very cost-effective compared to the director's salary of 100,000 US dollars converted into the investment. .

His mother was able to share $40 million of that, and even with taxes, the return on that investment for a year would be horrific.

(The tax issue of Laomei is not clear even to the citizens of Laomei, and we don’t understand it either. Most of them simply mention the tax. The box office tax of the cinema is very low, it seems to be about 3%. According to my colleagues, no It must be accurate. In short, this is a more idealized cake-sharing model. In fact, investors can often get less money. Hollywood even dares to take the money of Wall Street vampires)