Exploiting Hollywood 1980

That young computer expert happened to be an undergraduate computer science student at the University of California, Los Angeles. He enthusiastically directed Ronald to the stores where he could buy all the accessories. He also used his privileges as an administrator in a computer center to open an email account for Ronald.

Ronald also fulfilled his wish and helped him get an autographed photo of Phoebe Cates through his connections.

"Didi, squeak, woo..." After a strange scream, the modem finally connected to the university's bbs.

Ronald logged in using an email account given by a friend, and then opened the newsgroup client software.

Connections are slow and phone calls are expensive. Ronald could only download content from newsgroups in the middle of the night. After finally downloading all the emails, Ronald began to browse slowly on the computer.

There is not much content in the news group. In the movie section, there are only two posts discussing "Night of the Comet". It was the movie-watching campaign initiated by that college student. Under one post, seven or eight people responded.

There are more people discussing "War Game" below. After all, it is a movie related to these computer geeks. Some people have pointed out many loopholes in the film, as many as twelve.

Ronald went up and replied, "Movies are an art of telling stories, and some loopholes are for the convenience of the audience's understanding." Then he continued to browse other sections.

Most of the sections discuss computers, software, and network-related content. Ronald couldn't understand most of it. There is only one topic section, which contains various controversial topics. Such as anti-war, racial discrimination, Soviet Union, nuclear war, etc.

Ronald looked interesting and made a post called "Does anyone know the history of Japanese Americans in America?" and then turned off the computer.

The next day, several people responded to his post, many of whom said they had never heard of Japanese history. Only one person replied that because of World War II, America once drove all Japanese people into concentration camps. Just like their Chinese Exclusion Act targeting Chinese Americans earlier.

Then several more people said they had never heard of it.

Ronald saw the man and replied angrily, "These white rulers don't want you to remember this history of persecution of yellow-skinned people. You can look up the history of the 442nd Infantry Regiment." "

Of course, Ronald had never heard of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. He replied in the client, "I have never heard of this infantry regiment. I don't know what you mean. Where can I see them?" What about history?”

the following few days,

The box office chart has officially entered the most intense period of the year. "Star Wars" continues its meteoric rise, raking in $42 million at the box office in one week, with a single-theatre weekly average of $40,000.

"Psycho 2" and "The Man with Two Brains" quickly fell back, giving up their top three spots on the box office list.

On the contrary, "War Games", "Flashdance", and "Night of the Comet" remained stable and continued to be at the top of the charts.

Especially for "Lightning Dance" and "Night of the Comet", although the theaters have dropped to 1,000 and 500, their box office stamina is strong and the decline is very slow.

"Flashdance" has been in its eighth week, but the box office dropped only 20% from last week. The second-week declines of "Psycho 2" and "The Man with Two Brains" have both exceeded 40%.

The most surprising thing is "Night of the Comet", which actually only dropped slightly by ten percentage points from last week. Suddenly, his reputation as a box-office hitmaker spread like wildfire.

"You know, Ronald. The first weekend box office depends on the company's distribution capabilities, but starting from the second week, it all depends on the audience's word-of-mouth spread. This is an iron rule. It seems that your movie's reputation is very good, enough to compete with 'Flashdance' 'Comparable."

Atlantic's distribution manager sat in the conference room and explained to Ronald the reason for the unusually strong box office.

"Will our number of theaters be maintained in the future?"

"It can still be maintained for about a week. Next week there will be another summer blockbuster 'Superman III' released. The number of theaters for our movies will not decrease too much, but the number of screenings and the time of screening will be affected."

"Okay." Ronald has long accepted the fact that Atlantic's distribution capabilities are not good enough. Fortunately, his movie is on track. If he continues, it will be stable to break the 20 million box office record.

In addition to the good quality of "Night of the Comet" itself, the special effects are also excellent, unlike a small production that is crude. Ronald feels that the music videos and movie trailers played on a loop in Taiwan have contributed a lot to the box office.

He doesn't have much evidence to prove this, but "Flashdance" and "Night of the Comet" are the only two movies advertised in Taiwan, and their weekly declines in the box office charts are particularly slow. This cannot be said. Don’t let everyone involved in film distribution start to doubt the power of Taiwan.

"Do you think the advertising is effective?" Ronald asked the other party.

"I think it's about half and half. On the one hand, there are indeed a lot of young audiences, so advertising here can reach the target audience of our "Night of the Comet" to the maximum extent. On the other hand, the quality of your movie is indeed excellent.

Director Li, I’m not complimenting you. I used to do distribution at United Artists. The quality of a movie has a lot to do with the director's professional ethics. Let me just say one thing: all your budget is invested in production.

All the money can be seen on the final screen where it was spent. Those realistic zombies, the debris after the comet destroyed the world, the blood-red sky, and the deserted city. I am not an expert in shooting movies, but I feel that a different director might not be able to make it even with five million dollars. "

"You were originally from United Artists?" Ronald asked.

"Yeah, I think you should have heard of Michael Cimino. His 'Heaven's Gate' crew spent three percent of the budget on drug abuse. And you're You can't see how the money was used on the screen. I had already taken out a loan to buy a house, and I almost had to cut off my payment because of this movie."

Ronald smiled and was about to answer when Tom Coleman, the president of Atlantic, knocked on the door and came in.

"Hello, Ronald." Tom hugged Ronald tightly.

"Sorry, I was just in a preparatory meeting with several crews. Your and Martha Coolidge's movie made Atlantic famous in the industry. All the scripts that were not sent to us before are now being sent to us."

"Coffee?" Tom Coolidge raised his hand to introduce a middle-aged lady who came in with him.

"This is our company's financial director."

"Hello Mr. Ronald Lee, according to the agreement we signed before, 'Night of the Comet' has reached the break-even point. We will first pay your director's remuneration of one hundred thousand US dollars, and your company's investment of twenty Ten thousand US dollars, settled to you in advance.

We need to distribute the rest of the profit sharing to you and other investors after the movie is released and the box office figures are settled with the theaters. "

Ronald took two checks totaling three hundred thousand dollars and put them into his pocket.

"So when will our box office be settled?"

"Don't worry, Ronald." President Tom Coleman took over, "We will enjoy a relatively high share of the current box office. When it switches to long-term screening, your movie will undoubtedly be screened for a long time. Our production company's share will be reduced accordingly. So basically the main part of the profit that can be attributed to us will start to be settled after the first round of screenings."

"As for the time, it's difficult for me to give you a specific number, but we will do our best."

"Okay, then I will ask my accountant to contact yours." Ronald knew that the accounting period for the box office share would not be too short. Anyway, he had already received his remuneration and the investment costs. In short, he would save his capital first. "

Called Lawrence, the accountant, and deposited the check in the bank. Ronald began to think about giving himself some rewards.

Should I buy a sports car that is standard equipment for Hollywood celebrities?

never mind. I have seen several sports car dealers and found that expensive sports cars in Europe are very expensive, and America's own muscle sports cars are not enough to reflect their value in Los Angeles and distinguish themselves from other directors in the entertainment industry.

The DeLorean sports car invested by talk show host Johnny Carson two years ago has doors that open on both sides and a shape like swan wings, which is very recognizable. But the cockpit of the sports car was very small, and Ronald couldn't even straighten his legs when he sat in it, so he gave up the idea for the time being.

When Ronald returned home, he started to turn on the modem, continued to connect to the user network, and read the news. He has been very addicted to this news group these days. The people in it are very well-educated. From the English text, it can be seen that the participants are well-educated.

"Um?"

A highlighted line appears in the upper right corner of the newsgroup client.

Ronald looked carefully and saw that someone had replied to his statement.

After pressing the "n" key several times, Ronald found the person's reply. It turned out to be Ronald asking about the 442nd Infantry Regiment.

"The 442nd Infantry Regiment was a regiment formed by Japanese-Americans. Its sacrifice rate exceeded 100%. The family members of Japanese-Americans were driven into concentration camps. They had to join the army for their post-war life. Go to the European battlefield to fight the Germans.

If you need more information, you may wish to contact Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye. "

"Daniel Inoue, senior senator from Hawaii." Ronald touched his chin.

multiple copies

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