Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"The next person is Rosalind Sumners." Ronald was resting at home and watching TV. He had been separated from the normal life in America for too long. He wanted to watch TV and catch up with everyone.

ABC is broadcasting the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, and women's figure skating is the most-watched program. The previous American athletes all performed mediocrely, but Rosalyn Sumners was said to be very good. She did a triple hook jump, which was very difficult.

The TV program suddenly went black, and then cut to the ABC studio.

Breaking news.

A host was talking about the news that had just arrived, “Moscow TV stations started playing a repeat of the Leningrad Ballet’s version of ‘Swan Lake’ a few hours ago, which usually implies that something big has happened to the Alliance.

Just thirty-five minutes ago, the Chinese Embassy announced that General Secretary Yuri passed away yesterday.

Soon after, TASS authorized the release that Comrade Yuri, who had just been the General Secretary for fifteen months, passed away. His health had been in poor health for a long time, and his kidney problems were no secret.

There will be four days of mourning across the league, followed by a state funeral in Red Square. It was the league's second state funeral in two years. It is believed that the coalition government intends to invite heads of Western countries to attend the funeral...

"Another general secretary-general got away?" Ronald still remembered the funeral of the former secretary-general in 1982, where many people held medals. The current commander-in-chief was really lucky.

"Beep..." The phone rang, "Hello, this is Weintraub, pick up the phone Ronald."

Ronald picked up the phone and the other person immediately said, "Have you heard?"

"Ah..., are you watching TV too? I don't know who will take over as the top leader of the alliance this time."

"What nonsense? I'm talking about the news from Colombia. They gave a revised opinion and wanted to delete the duration. Didn't your agent tell you the news?"

"No?" Ronald was confused for a while, "Where are you? I'll go there now."

When Ronald heard that something was wrong with "Longwei Boy", he immediately grabbed his clothes and ran out.

“The feedback is that Columbia feels that current movies are not suitable for feature films that are close to two hours, and they hope you can cut it to 90 to 100 minutes.

"Weintraub saw Ronald walking into his mansion and relayed his opinion straightforwardly.

"What's the reason?" Ronald was a little anxious, so he stopped beating around the bush.

"After the Supreme Court's decision, theaters prefer short-length movies. They are afraid that video tapes will steal the box office after a few weeks, so they hope to schedule one more movie every day."

"Haha", Ronald curled his lips and smiled. If he hadn't been the co-producer of "Flashdance", he would have been deceived by them.

"What, you don't believe it?" Weintraub saw the subtext behind Ronald's expression, "What do you think?"

"I was a co-producer on the set of 'Flashdance' and I know their background. Their release coincided with the Supreme Court decision, so I had a lot of concerns. But the box office has been a hit, and producer Don Simpson also The release of the video tape was deliberately advanced.

In other words, the video was already on sale while ‘Flashdance’ was still in theaters. Guess what impact it has on the box office? "

"Falled by half?" Weintraub guessed.

"Guess again," Ronald shook his head.

"Thirty percent drop?"

"It's still less?" Weintraub was surprised, "Is it only down by 10%?"

"No, the box office has increased without any change in theaters, and has returned to the number of the first week of release." Ronald said the counterintuitive conclusion.

"Don Simpson had a guess. Audiences who watched the video wanted to watch it again on the big screen, so it actually drove box office growth. Of course, this trend requires a good movie, or a phenomenal movie. That’s right. You’ll lose money if you don’t go to the cinema to see it.”

"Hmm," Weintraub said thoughtfully. Obviously the impact of the video tape on the box office was not that great, and there was no need for him to delay the release of the video tape for a long time.

However, what Columbia said is not unreasonable. The ninety-minute duration can indeed allow cinemas to queue for one more show, which will greatly promote the box office on the first weekend.

"Columbia contacted me through a vice president. He said that if you find it inconvenient, you can delete the scene where Master Miyagi was drunk and recalled his 442nd Infantry Regiment. In this way, you can find a few scenes. The time requirement can be met.”

"This is not appropriate," Ronald firmly objected to this opinion, which would undermine the integrity of his film's story.

"This drunken scene can be said to be the moment when Miyagi and Daniel truly get close to each other. It is a 'moment of truth and cannot be deleted.'"

"Moment of truth?"

"Let me put it this way," Ronald changed his perspective. "The superficial theme of the entire movie is the process of a child defeating himself. But the actual theme is a child from a single-parent family reconciling with himself.

As a person grows up, he will face difficulties. Children who have a father can gain courage from their father. But Daniel lacked fatherly love, so he was deficient in how to muster courage. When he was beaten at first, he could only escape. After being trained by Miyagi, he learned to be persistent, brave, and to win even when his leg was injured. "

"Go on," Weintraub nodded in agreement.

Valley Tapir

"But Master Miyagi happens to be missing a son, and his Goju-ryu Ryukyu Karate is a unique skill passed down from father to son.

If this part is missing, there is no way to explain why the two are so compatible. Miyagi would break the rules and teach Daniel his unique skills.

If this were to happen, the entire film's story line and the audience's emotional line would be shattered. I think it would at least make the entire film lose more than 20% of its color. "

"You're right. I'm going to find someone to ask if Mr. Vice President has any other reasons?" Weintraub put aside his worries and regained confidence in the movie.

The next day, Weintraub told Ronald the results of his inquiry.

It turns out that there are some people in the upper echelons of Colombia who hate Japanese people, and they don’t want this kind of plot to smear America to appear in the movie.

Therefore, I hope to delete the plot that drove the Japanese into concentration camps during World War II and sent young people to fight in Europe. In particular, the movie also severely criticized the hypocrisy of the American government. The family members of the soldiers could not find a doctor due to dystocia, and both the mother and son died unfortunately.

But this is not an outspoken reason. So these white executives began to use the length of time as a reason to pressure Ronald and Weintraub to submit and delete that episode.

"Why do they do this?" Ronald felt innocent.

"In fact, in addition to racial discrimination, this is also a reality." Weintraub has been doing business with Japanese people for many years and knows this very well.

"Now Japanese manufacturing has seized the consumer goods market in America, from televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, to the new products they invented, video recorders. Recently, their cars have become more affordable and high-quality than our brands.

Do you know the Chen Guoren case? "

Ronald nodded, he also donated a lot of money.

"That was a Chinese young man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by white people in the street just because he was thought to be Japanese. There were no legal consequences. In our country, hatred towards Japanese people has always existed, and there are a lot of central people. The blue-collar people in the area are not comfortable with them.”

"What about us?" Ronald was worried that Weintraub would be worried about Japan's hatred and was unwilling to exaggerate too much.

"Us? We are still the same!" Weintraub said disdainfully, "I have rarely been treated with conspiracy like this. Maybe my 'friends' in Hollywood are not familiar with me yet. Today I have to let them know what I am like. people."

Ronald felt relieved. With him being so tough, his movie could be guaranteed not to be poisoned.

"But you also have to mobilize your resources. This time we must fight back forcefully. Every available resource must be used."

"I can try." Ronald thought of the only Japanese-American senator he had ever contacted in America, Senior Senator Daniel Inoue of Hawaii.

Ronald picked up the phone and dialed the office of Hawaii's senior senator.

"Mr. Inoue's office? I am Ronald Lee. I am a film director. I once asked Mr. Senator about the 442nd Infantry Regiment..." Ronald told the senator about his request. Assistant in the Congressman's Office.

"Is there any letter I want to read?" Daniel Inoue came to the office in the morning the next day to check the letters sent to him every day that his assistant thought were worth replying to.

"Here is a letter from film director Ronald Lee. His film about the veterans of the 442nd Infantry Regiment was finished, but he encountered resistance from the film company's top management, who asked him to delete the 442nd Infantry Regiment. plot, so he came to ask for your help."

"The 442nd Infantry Regiment." Senator Inoue used his remaining hand to open the bottom drawer and touched the box containing his medal.

He did not dare to say good things for the Japanese rashly. To put it nicely, he knew he was just a Senate mascot.

In America, anti-Japanese sentiment is now high, and the commander-in-chief has launched rounds of automobile wars against Japan, trying to kill Japanese automobile companies. Car manufacturers of the same ethnic group want to sell cars in America, but they don't want American cars to be sold in Japan.

Especially in the industrial base centered on Detroit, the automobile industry city in the central region, the hatred towards Japanese is blatant. If you blatantly support the expansion of Japanese culture, you will be making yourself uncomfortable.

Rather than speaking up for Japanese Americans, maintaining the presence of a mascot in the Senate would be more conducive to the lives of Japanese Americans in Hawaii.

However, Inoue was unwilling to give up such a good opportunity to let the public in America understand this period of Japanese history.

He picked up the phone and dialed the office of Deputy Commander George, "I'm Senator Inoue, yes, I want to talk to George."

A few days later, Vice-Commander George, before going to Moscow to attend Yuri's state funeral, gave a speech at a Japanese cultural event in Los Angeles. In his speech, he stated that Japanese Americans were also members of America and they fought bravely for their country in World War II. , which is different from those communist elements in Japanese countries.

At the same time, a signed letter reply was also sent to Ronald.

In this letter, Inoue stated that the 442nd Infantry Regiment was a testament to the patriotism of Japanese Americans. Telling this period of history not only did not darken America, but also served as a symbol of racial unity. This shows that America is a chosen place where all races can be free.

Ronald smiled and handed the letter to Weintraub. With the senator's endorsement and the deputy commander's speech, Colombia's top brass must have no excuses.

"Your strategy is working." Weintraub called Ronald back a day later.

Columbia finally agreed to a total of 126 minutes of "The Dragon King" and sent it as the final copy for MPAA rating.

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