Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Bert, I'm Ronald. I was at Jane Fonda's house in Los Angeles, and I met Diane." Ronald called Burt, "She's with me now, don't worry... Well, but Diane said that she has declared her independence in the newspaper, and she doesn't want you to arrange her acting life in the future."

Burt breathed a long sigh of relief over the phone, and was very worried when he saw the letter left by his daughter, knowing that she had gone to Los Angeles with the bad boy Atkins.

In addition to being relieved, Bert felt very sad. He has always treated Di An like a friend, and discussed everything with his daughter. In addition to a few principles, Di An also has a great decision-making power.

However, her daughter's acting career suffered a little setback. After being provoked by a bad boy, she ran away from home.

"She left me a letter saying that she was going to Hollywood to make her own way, and that my film selection principles were outdated and that I had to decide my own future... Don't I ask her for advice every time I take a film? Or? I forced her to play the role?"

Ronald wanted to laugh a little while listening to his old father Burt's complaints. The way the father and daughter get along is fun, and he turns on the speakerphone to let Diane hear what Bert has to say.

Jane Fonda, who brought Ronald and Diane in on the phone, also heard what Bert said, and couldn't help but secretly sighed. His relationship with his father Henry Fonda, like this father and daughter, has been swinging between love and hate.

Henry Fonda taught Jane from a young age that to be liked by men, she must be a perfect girl. When Jane was very young, her mother committed suicide because her father, Henry, divorced her and married another woman. Brother Peter Fonda also took up the pistol to get revenge, and accidentally injured his thigh.

This added to Jane Fonda's obsession. She believes that women must please men and become the perfect women in the eyes of men in order to keep their marriages. For the sake of her first husband Roger Vadim, Jane Fonda dyed her hair blond and worked hard to be a sexy woman. She also starred in Vadim's "Space Heroine Barbara", an erotic exploitation. piece.

But this did not tie her husband's heart. His ex-husband Vadim still cheated frequently. After Jane Fonda divorced, she met her current husband, Tom Hayden. To please her husband, a left-wing activist, she traveled to Vietnam to take pictures with North Vietnamese soldiers and call for peace.

When the photo was sent back to China, she almost ruined her acting career. She was targeted by some politicians to drive her out of the entertainment industry. Fortunately, public opinion has changed, and everyone's call for peace on Jane Fonda is only mixed.

But because of this turmoil, father Henry Fonda was very saddened by Jane's unpatriotic behavior and refused to communicate with her for several years.

think of this,

Jane Fonda picked up the receiver and took the initiative to speak to Bert.

"Hi Burt. I'm Jane Fonda. We've never met, but I've heard a lot about you from your partner John Cassavetes... Diane is safe in LA, Lo Nader took good care of him, she could stay at my house in Los Angeles..."

At this time, I heard the news and came to Michael Ovitz to find it here.

Ronald went out of the room with him, found a corner where no one was around, and told Ovitz the whole story, that producer Kinneyman wanted to sign Diane Lane, and he stopped him. through.

"I'm afraid we have to adjust the time and order. I'll contact Disney tomorrow morning. Otherwise, with the relationship between Kinneyman and Disney president Ron Miller, it will be bad if he sees Ron Miller first."

"So exaggerated? I just stopped him from signing Diane without his agent present."

"You don't understand, this is the structure of Hollywood power." Ovitz didn't want to say more, just let Ronald get ready to start an intensive attack with him tomorrow, and meet the executives of major studios.

"Diane, if you want, you can live with me first, see some things in the show business circle, and then decide how your acting career should go." Jane Fonda and Burt finished the phone call and told Diane Lian En said.

"Thank you, Jane. I have money and I can stay in a hotel. I'll be back in New York after a week in Hollywood." Diane declined Jane Fonda's kindness, but her idea of ​​going to Hollywood alone was extinguished after this time. Atkins is not a reliable person, and Hollywood has a lot of pitfalls. She plans to play in Los Angeles for a while and then go back to New York.

But after returning to New York, Diane Lane didn't want to live with her father. Anyway, because she has made two movies, she has a lot of savings, and her money is in her own account, so she can move out and pay the rent by herself.

Jane Fonda liked Diane's independent personality very much. She remembered that she and her father, Henry Fonda, had not spoken for many years, and now she had to buy a script to invite the old man to make a film, in order to reconcile with her father.

"That's fine, I'll go to the Golden Pond studio soon and resume filming. You'll be fine. But you must let Bert know your whereabouts. Girls should be independent, but don't fail to communicate with their parents, whoever they are. They all love you, and you love them too."

Diane nodded, still having a question in her heart, "I have another question, may I ask Mr. Tim Kinneman to sign with her just now, but Ronald stopped him and said he would wait for my agent to arrive, which is Good or bad?"

Jane Fonda didn't want to hurt other people's affairs, so she thought about it and answered from a different angle, "To sign with Kinneyman, you need a good agent and a good lawyer."

"Thank you, Jane. I'll go to Ronald."

"We're going to Disney tomorrow, then Orion, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia, and Universal. Roughly that order. Small studios first, then mid-sized studios, and finally is the biggest."

Michael Ovitz and Ronald were leaning against a small table in the outer hallway discussing the order before going to the studio to sell "My Brother's Protector" a package deal.

Ronald nodded. During the first negotiation, the screenwriter must be present. Ovitz's strategy is to sell the script first, then announce that Jane Fonda is willing to play, and finally bring in the director who is interested, and the rest of the positions can be filled with one CAA client.

"The smallest package is the trio of screenwriter + starring + director. We will not consider those below the bottom line." Ovitz explained his thoughts to Ronald in a low voice, hoping that he would look at himself and act.

"Why did you exclude United Arts and MGM?" Ronald took out the small notebook he carried with him, and wrote down the names of the seven studios they were going to sell with shorthand notation. He found that two of them were missing, and one was more. Orion.

"MGM is going through turmoil. Ever since Kirk Kerkorian bought MGM, turning it from the biggest studio in Hollywood, it's actually become a casino business and entertainment-focused business. Company. You know what? They even sold Dorothy's ruby ​​slippers from The Wizard of Oz."

Ovitz, who was also a movie fan before he joined the entertainment industry, is still distressed by the fall of MGM.

"You are well-known as a screenwriter, and it may become the last theatrical movie made by this former boss."

"What? MGM is going to close down?" Ronald thought to himself, no wonder MGM didn't even lock the theater schedule in advance, and the release scale was small, if it weren't for the small theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The large-scale release has achieved good results, and it may be directly released.

"Kerkorian will divest MGM's production business and sell it. And the MGM brand will stay on the roof of his MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas forever."

"It's a good decision in business, but MGM just..."

"And then there's Lianmei, who got ripped off by Michael Cimino from 'Heaven's Gate'."

"Really? What's going on?" Ronald loved to hear this gossip.

"Last month they did an internal screening. They heard that the whole film was more than 5 hours long, replacing the two senior executives who were fired. The newly appointed executives were crazy. They forced Cimino to cut the whole film to three. Less than an hour, scheduled for release in November."

"So they don't have the money to invest in new projects right now, and all the executives are waiting for the final gamble to see if there's going to be a 'Apocalypse Now'-style miracle or a 'Cleopatra'-style farce."

Ronald understood Ovitz's analogy. Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" was also protracted and ended up tripling its budget. But the quality of the film was very good. After its release, it won the Palme d'Or in Cannes, and the box office in North America was also very good. Coppola recovered from the brink of bankruptcy and became the number one director in Hollywood again.

And "Cleopatra" spent the last coin of Fox that year, and the entire studio stopped paying employees for four months, if it weren't for the two off-screen stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor The scandal caused the audience to be curious and buy tickets to watch the movie where the two fell in love. Fox has already declared bankruptcy because of this movie.

"The worst of course is the 'Queen Kelly' type tragedy." Ovitz felt that Ronald didn't know the old story from 1932 and explained:

"Director Eric von Stroheim's 9-hour blockbuster was finally hidden from the studio. Queen of silent films, starring Gloria Swanson, was silent until Billy Wilder asked her to star in the sound film "Sunset Boulevard" before being recognized by the audience again."

"Eric von Stroheim, the butler on Sunset Boulevard, right? I've seen it. I didn't expect him to be the director." Ronald nodded, thinking that it would be best for United Arts to let the fat boy do it. Go this route. Cimino's film seems dull, but if you ask him to cut a part to shorten the time, you really can't get down the scissors. Whichever part is cut will cause the plot to be incomplete.

"Then why do we want to see Orion, and how is this company?" Ronald clicked, and found that Ovitz also called Orion's name outside the eight major studios.

"Actually, Orion Pictures was established by the executives of United Arts who were fired in 1977. They are also a company that respects artists very much and basically does not interfere with the creation of directors and actors. They only check when the film is finalized."

"I know Orion, and the Sunset Bridge I made was Orion's first movie." Diane Lane just jumped out of the room and saw Ovitz and Ronald talking about the name of the company they knew , so interjected.

"Diane, are you finished talking with Jane? You live with her? Did you tell Bert?" Ronald asked several questions in a row.

Diane Lane suddenly became very good-looking, "I will find a hotel by myself, go back to New York after a week in Los Angeles, prepare to take the equivalency test, and go to high school next year."

"This is good."

"I heard you say you're going to see the studio, Ronald, do you have a new script to talk about?"

Ronald stood up to introduce Ovitz and Diane Lane, "This is Mr. Ovitz, he is the president of CAA, the most actionable agency in Hollywood. This is Diane..."

"Of course I know Miss Diane Lane." Ovitz stood up happily and hugged Diane, "Miss Lane, do you have an agent now?"