Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Sure enough, "Cocktail" attracted a large number of crazy female fans of Tom Cruise, and the box office exceeded 10 million in its first weekend.

Although Twentieth Century Fox was very satisfied with the box office momentum of Die Hard and increased its resource investment. The number of cinemas increased rapidly from 1,200 to 1,450, almost the same as Cocktail.

But a good-looking story is not as good as a good-looking star. In the movie, Tom Cruise throws a cocktail bottle in the air and then catches it in a fancy way, which can cause female fans to scream in the cinema every time.

He is so handsome!

Ranking second at the box office is Eddie Murphy's American Journey (Erica), the number one black movie star. Paramount opened this black movie in more than 2,000 theaters during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Covering almost all movie theaters in black areas across the country.

In the first week, he took advantage of the Independence Day holiday and made $21 million. However, the film's stamina was very poor. In the second week, the box office dropped to 13 million, and in the third week, the box office dropped by nearly 30%.

Paramount's strategy of using 2,000 theaters to open the film is also in line with this pure fantasy film.

The movie tells the story of Zamunda, an African, democratic, independent, prosperous and powerful country. The only son of their monarch has grown up. According to the management, he wanted to marry the daughter of a domestic minister, but the crown prince Hakim was unwilling to accept the arranged marriage and proposed to study in America.

When he arrived in New York, Crown Prince Hakim concealed his identity and lived in a slum. He hopes to find a woman in America that he can marry and fall in love with. The two were connected because of love, not because of his status, nor because she had been trained to please him.

Hakim falls in love with Lisa, the daughter of a burger shop owner, and the two fall in love. Later, the king also came to New York. Because the crown prince concealed his identity, Lisa rejected his proposal. The king was moved and canceled the arranged marriage. Finally, Lisa was secretly invited to Zamunda, and the crown prince was surprised to find that the bride was Lisa at the wedding. Hakim proposed that if his identity was still an obstacle to their marriage, he would be willing to abdicate and leave the throne to his cousin. Lisa smiled and refused. The two were in true love... Wouldn't it be nice to be a queen?

Black audiences are very enthusiastic about watching movies, contributing more than 30% of the box office, and it is still growing. Because the black people in America are different from the white immigrants. They are remnants who have no ancestral home. Eddie Murphy understood the thoughts of black people very well and gave them an illusory, rich and powerful country with a monarchy as their imaginary hometown.

A black crown prince came to New York and acted like a country bumpkin. He couldn't even eat a hamburger and wanted local black people to teach him. This is one of the few skills that every black person knows! Moreover, local black girls also have the opportunity to marry the crown prince of a country, as long as they apply the values ​​they learned in elementary school,

Retell it to an African rich man and you will gain the love of the crown prince.

The black audience with the narrow ascending channel was very happy to watch it. The white audience also liked this kind of comedy full of black gags. White actors really couldn't perform this kind of fast-talking farce.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit," which had been in the top two for six weeks, was pushed to third place by Cocktail. Robert Zemeckis's hybrid work of live-action and animation was previously rumored in the industry to be difficult to produce, and the test screenings were not well-received. But after it was actually released, the box office was very high.

At first, the cartoon character Roger Rabbit came to the human world, and then humans turned into cartoons and entered the animation world. This kind of shooting method was not well received by test audiences, and the low ratings made the distributor Disney a little scared.

But this kind of expression makes the children happy like Christmas. Which child has not imagined entering the animated world and saving the world with Mickey Mouse, Transformers, Unicron He-Man and other cartoon characters?

The low ratings from previous test screenings were largely due to adult audiences being misled. Nowadays, children want to go see it and even bring the whole family. This kind of movie has a natural advantage in the number of moviegoers. Spielberg's production ability is amazing, and he can find the selling point that the childlike heart likes most every time.

"Die Hard" unfortunately only ranked fourth. "Hollywood Report" also mentioned that this year's summer season is full of great movies, and the box office has increased by more than ten percent compared with the same period last year.

"cheers……"

There was no regret on Ronald's face that he was not in the top three at the box office. He and Joel Silver, another producer of the film, held a celebration party together. Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and a kind of blond muscular hunk playing a German guy were all on hand. The beauties who came to the party with a lot of money and wanted to enter Hollywood screamed with joy.

"Mr. Goldberg..." Ronald saw the representative of Twentieth Century Fox coming in from the door, but he didn't expect that it was the president who came to congratulate him personally.

"Call me Leon," Leonard Goldberg beamed. The box office of "Die Hard" in its second week was even higher than the first week of the same period, with a slight increase of 7%.

Twentieth Century Fox especially needed such a big production to boost revenue. After hearing the box office numbers, he immediately decided to come to congratulate Ronald in person. This rise instead of falling indicates that "Die Hard" will stay in theaters for about one-third longer than expected. Any film that is a hit at the box office may not necessarily win many top spots, but being a staple in the cinema is the most important thing.

When studios look at movies after release, there are two most important indicators. One is the opening weekend box office. The other is the decline index. The decline index of "Come to America" ​​is 30%, and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is slightly better, with a decline index of 25%. And "Die Hard" was a scary -7%. Instead of falling, it actually rose against the market.

This kind of "reverse decline" phenomenon often appears in low-budget movies. This phenomenon was present in several of Ronald's earliest films. Because there is insufficient investment in marketing, many times it is purely based on word-of-mouth from the audience.

But this rarely happens when major studios schedule blockbusters to be released in the summer. This is clearly saying that you have won the Powerball lottery and this movie is likely to be a commercial success.

"Is it possible to arrange the filming of a sequel? Find a way to make Alan Rickman appear in the sequel? I think the critics are full of praise for his performance and gave it the highest score." Goldberg The main purpose of coming here is to persuade Ronald and Silver to start filming the sequel.

"Of course, I'm discussing it with Joel (Silver)." Ronald made no secret of his ambition to take advantage of the victory and invited Goldberg into a small room to discuss with the three of Silver. Preparations for the sequel.

Ronald and Joel Silver looked at each other, and as they expected, 20th Century Fox would put a sequel on the agenda. They were just discussing what plot should be filmed in the sequel.

"Aaron is a genius in acting, but he is not suitable to appear in the sequel." He shook his head slightly.

At the end of the first film, the villain boss played by Alan Rickman fell to his death from a skyscraper. This ending made both Ronald and Silver regret it. They didn't know at the time that this movie would cause such a big response. If they had known it, they shouldn't have killed the villain like this. They might as well have put him in jail, and they could have written After the prison break, it was logical to get the beginning of the sequel.

But now that this is the case, there are only two ways to keep Rickman and Willis together in the sequel:

Or use the vulgar plot of twins and let Alan Rickman come back to play the twin brother of the original boss. This idea was quickly rejected by Ronald, not because Ronald didn't like vulgar scenes (he also filmed a lot of them), but because of a cup, this movie is very realistic, although a nypd wife never It is impossible for a housewife to become a company executive, but the various characters in it really give people the feeling that they are living next to me.

This is also an important reason for the success of Bruce Willis' protagonist John McClane. They have weaknesses, his partner, a black police detective, is a nobody and gets bad things done by his stupid boss. None of us have ever complained like "I'm great, but it's all because my boss is stupid".

Therefore, the story of the second part must also be very realistic, at least give people the feeling that there is such a person around me. This kind of twin writing method is suitable for those soap operas and not-so-realistic action movies, such as "Die Hard" currently filmed in Australia, where the dead can be resurrected by removing the human skin mask.

In short, "Die Hard" must not be written like this. The protagonist McLean still has to be a bit useless, suppressed by his superiors in daily life, and only when the crisis comes, he is allowed to come out to save the world.

Another way is to make a prequel instead of a sequel.

Goldberg really wanted to do this. He strongly asked Ronald to start filming the second part as soon as possible, whether it is a prequel or a sequel, so that Alan Rickman can come back and continue fighting with Bruce Willis. This is Box office password.

But this requirement is impossible to realize, because if the two people have met before, in the story in the first part, it would be unreasonable for the two people to not know each other when they met for the first time.

Besides, Ronald felt that making a prequel was never a good idea. The audience wants to see what happens next, no one likes to see what happened before.

"We have to continue to find a suitable adventure adaptation," Ronald expressed his thoughts. The original author Roderick Thorpe's "Nothing Lasts Forever" also, like Die Hard, has no sequel. He also did not continue the series with McClane as the protagonist.

So everyone decided to find some works by other adventure writers on the market, graft them on John McLean, and then make some adaptations. In the end, all three parties agreed to start the search. Anyway, the production rights for the next sequel are in the hands of Ronald and Silver, and it is impossible for 20th Century Fox to leave them alone.

Ronald asked David Simkins to take over the search, and with the results in hand, he and Silver were expert at evaluating them.

"Bruce, why are you leaving?" The three people came out and saw the protagonist Bruce Willis trying to leave. A group of beautiful girls who wanted to enter Hollywood pulled him and refused to let him leave.

"Ah, Demi is about to give birth recently. She is very nervous at home. This is her first child. If I don't go, I don't know what trouble will happen again."

"You are a good husband," Ronald understood Demi Moore. As soon as the movie came out, Willis became one of the top action stars in Hollywood. She herself missed out on Ronald's "working girl" because of her pregnancy. Seeing that the gap between her and Willis was widening, you can imagine her anxiety.

"Our party will last until the day after tomorrow. You go back and comfort your sweet wife, and then come over to have fun with us. Ronald doesn't like parties. He is very boring. It will be too boring for you to leave. Allen is an Englishman." Gentlemen, it's not like we can let go and have fun." Joel Silver had just finished the preparations for the sequel, and now he just wanted to get drunk in the arms of women and wine.

"It sounds very attractive. It would be better if there were better beer and barbecue." Bruce Willis is essentially a child from a blue-collar family. Recently, Demi has been making trouble at home and has not had anything to eat. OK

"Then let's serve beer and barbecue. I promise you'll come tomorrow. Hahaha..." Joel Silver was overjoyed. People like Ronald are too literary and artistic. How can they understand the joy of binge drinking?

Ronald, in turn, felt that people like Silver had no taste. Apart from their explosive figures, none of these beauties had received a good education, and their conversation was boring. He likes women who have temperament, have their own ideas, and can communicate with him.

However, this does not prevent Ronald and Silver from cooperating in business. In Hollywood, such straightforward and rough people are more reliable collaborators than stars who never say no.

"Then I'll leave first." Ronald also said goodbye, just in time to send Goldberg, the president of Fox, back. Silver also winked at Ronald. He hasn't had many new film preparations recently. Ronald has now opened several projects, which are just the sizzling steaks in the eyes of major studios like Fox.

"Ronald, I just wrote a check here, waiting for your Die Hard Part 2 project to be approved." Goldberg sighed in the car. Nowadays, studios not only look at the faces of stars, but now even producers with continuous hits have to beg and coax.

After I have made two more blockbuster movies and accumulated enough qualifications, I will leave this position and start my own production company. These days independent production is easy and profitable.

But Goldberg is cautious. He has obviously not forgotten those colleagues who lost more money and made less money after leaving their positions as senior executives of major studios. He doesn't really plan to work as a producer, but he wants to sign a few more film distribution contracts with Fox with a generous hush money, and then leave this crater-like position.

He also saw that Tom Cruise's bad movie actually sold more money than his company's masterpiece. He now fully realizes that no one in Hollywood knows whether a movie will make a profit or lose money. It is safer to pursue that unconditional distribution contract and then rely on the distribution contract to make money.

How much golden parachute he can get, and how many publishing contracts are tied to his separation contract, all depend on Ronald's performance.

"This movie is groundbreaking, and I think Joel and I have the right idea, don't rush to make a sequel, get the right script, and success will come."

"But I want to distribute your movie now. We still have a lot of time next year. We can distribute your new movie without setting any conditions. As you can see, our marketing department is very capable. , and it’s great to work with your marketing consultant named Gray.”

"But my current two projects have Samsung as the publisher." Ronald knew that the other party was half-hearted, and the other half was a little superstitious about his own vision. "

"Don't you have another romantic film? The director is the screenwriter of your debut film..." Goldberg is always paying attention to Ronald's movements.

"But it's a small production, are you also interested?" Ronald didn't expect that Fox was also interested in "Love Deeply". If a small production is released by a large studio, the marketing cost is actually similar to that of a medium production, but more expensive than a large production. Therefore, big studios are rarely willing to serve as distribution companies for small productions, and most of them are bought to fill gaps.

From what Goldberg is saying, does this mean that "Love to the Heart" is being released as an official scheduled movie?

"Small productions can also be transformed into large productions..."