Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Chapter 1023: On the verge of bankruptcy without making a movie

All of Jean-Claude Van Damme's editing theories were learned from Walter Murch, and his ability to do things on his own was learned from two Chinese directors Corey and Tsui while filming "Fighting" in Hong Kong.

Whether "Cyborg" can be brought back to life, and whether he and Lundgren's stardom can be smooth again, all depends on the results of this editing.

With Ronald giving him free use of the editing room, he also wanted to add some insurance, so he contacted Corey Yeun and Tsui Hark and asked them to come to Hollywood to guide his editing work and reshoot action scenes when needed. At the time, two Xiangjiang directors helped out.

In the office, after learning that Jean-Claude Van Damme was working so hard, Ronald thought he could help such a hard-working actor. He also called the Xiangjiang two and invited them to come over. Daydream would be responsible for all the food and accommodation in Los Angeles.

The two quickly put aside the matter in Xiangjiang and rushed to Los Angeles as soon as possible. When Ronald saw them coming in with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the office, he asked his assistant to make tea for them.

"Jean Claude and I have known each other for a long time. He is not only a good action actor, but also very enterprising and wants to be a director. There are some problems with this movie, and I hope you can help him."

"Yes, Ronald. It is the saddest thing for an actor to see a movie that he worked so hard to make cannot be released because the producer withdrew his funding." Jean-Claude Van Damme is good at karate and gets along with Corey Yeun He's pretty good. It's not a problem to come and help him a little bit.

After talking about the "cyborg" issue, Ronald asked his assistant to make another pot of black tea, "Jean Claude, please allow me and the two Hong Kong directors some private space."

Ronald saw the assistant close the door before taking out two checks from the drawer. Director Corey's "Dragon and Phoenix" and Tsui Hark's "The Greatest Heroes" both made small gains in the video tape market. Ronald generously gave both of them some winnings.

Especially in "Dragon and Phoenix Swords", Luofu Luo, a white woman, coupled with the fierce action design of Xiangjiang martial arts instructor, made many low-level viewers very happy to watch. The popularity of "Peerless Two Heroes" is even worse.

Many viewers don’t understand why Qiu Yunbo and Rovero are flying around in the sky. Is it a fantasy literature similar to The Lord of the Rings? And what is the identity of that man who wears a lot of powder and is gorgeously dressed (he is the eunuch of Dongchang in the plot)? Why was there a Drag Queen in ancient China?

However, this ancient fantasy time travel "Peerless Heroes" is more popular than "Dragon and Phoenix" in one place, and that is the areas where major Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans live. It seems that East Asians have their own national legends and stories, and are better able to understand this style of action movies.

Both directors were very happy. Corey Yeun likes modern action movies, so he decided to help Jean-Claude Van Damme do some post-shooting work. The two of them went to see the unedited film first.

Tsui Hark’s bonus is much less than Corey’s.

He stayed to ask Ronald, "Rason, why are my movies not popular in America? Is it because my movies are worse than Corey's?"

"From a personal appreciation point of view, I actually like your movie better." When Ronald saw the flying scenes of "The Two Heroes", he felt very familiar, but it was another more realistic action movie. In the movie "Dragon and Phoenix", he felt it was much worse than Jackie Chan's fighting scenes.

"This is actually a question of movie-watching habits. The sales of video tapes in Chinatown are still better than yours. I hope you will make more movies like this, so that audiences in America can gradually like movies with Chinese cultural backgrounds. Just like the Japanese movies decades ago, they were broadcast late at night on many TV stations and cultivated a group of Kurosawa Akira fans."

Ronald has long-term plans. Various films in Hong Kong and Mainland China that have completely different methodologies from Hollywood have their own special cultural backgrounds. In fact, the viewing experience is different from Hollywood commercial films. In America, there are a large number of Asians, and as long as they insist on releasing Chinese-language films and videos, their movie-watching needs can be met.

And this trend of watching Chinese action movies and flying martial arts movies will slowly penetrate into the mainstream people. Anyway, in this type of film, the language barrier is not big, and the exciting action scenes are not available in Hollywood.

As long as there is a certain audience base, we can continue to produce low-cost exploitation films and distribute old Hong Kong films. As long as these low-cost films can make a profit, they can expand the number of moviegoers.

The expansion of the movie-going crowd can in turn support higher production budgets, thus entering a virtuous cycle.

Of course, this kind of production upgrade requires a masterpiece that can break out of the circle and enter the mainstream movie-watching crowd. Just like Akira Kurosawa's role in Japanese movies, after him, America has a place in Japanese movies.

"That may require a Hong Kong movie that suits the taste of American audiences..." Tsui Hark had the same idea as Ronald. He immediately began to think about making another Hong Kong-style English movie in Hollywood.

"Hmm..." Ronald didn't say anything right away. This was to be considered as a Hollywood commercial project. He had never dreamed of any Chinese-English movies, so the risk was still quite high. At this stage, Ronald wants to use low cost to operate at a low level and cultivate the market.

"This is very risky, unless it is a sequel to some movie, which allows you to try it... Hey, wait a minute..."

Ronald thought of the story he had thought of for the third part of "The Dragon King". Anyway, I don’t want to take pictures anymore, but Tsui Hark’s style suits my idea very well:

Daniel and Master Miyagi dreamed of returning to Master Miyagi's ancestor, the founder of martial arts in his family. He drifted to the South China Sea due to a shipwreck, learned Tang Shou from a Chinese master, and came back to establish Ryukyu Karate.

Isn’t this style very suitable for your plan?

"You stay here for a few more days, and I'll talk to Weintraub. If he's interested, you can come with us then." Ronald told Tsui Hark his thoughts and asked him to start thinking. Some plot and action.

…

"Jerry, why are you so hard to find? Can't I even call you?"

A few days later, Ronald's call to Weintraub was finally answered. This man didn't know what he was busy with. Ronald made several calls in person, but only his secretary answered. He couldn't ask Richard to send a message. Finally, he found the phone number of his wife, Jane Morgan, and called him. Go to the home where you always stay.

"It's me, Susan, Jerry..." The person who answered the phone was Weintraub's lover, Susan Akins. Her relationship with Mrs. Weintraub is very strange. Weintraub and Susan usually live outside and go back to Jane Morgan's place on weekends and holidays. The two women do not shy away from getting along with each other in the same house. Occasionally, they get along well. .

"What's wrong with him?" Ronald thought something was wrong with Weintraub.

"He shuts himself up at home every day. No matter how hard Jane and I try to persuade him, it's no use. Can you come? Now only you, the person who helped him achieve great success, can cheer him up."

"What's wrong with Jerry? Is he depressed?" Ronald found it funny. How could such a tycoon who made his fortune by fooling Elvis Presley into holding concerts hide at home and not come out to see people because of depression? Isn't it to avoid debt? Thinking of this, Ronald was a little discouraged.

"No, he just...can you come here? Please..."

"Give me the phone..." Jane Morgan was on the other end of the phone, taking the phone from Susan who was talking nonsense.

"Ronald, come here. Jerry, this fragile man, can't get strong because of a few bad projects. This eggless Jew, come and tell him what the real America is." Spirit."

Jane Morgan's voice was loud and her words were hard to hear. It was as if she was pointing at her husband's nose and scolding her.

"I'm not depressed, you woman, don't slander me to others..." Weintraub hid in the bedroom upstairs, opened the door a crack, and roared at his wife.

"You Luther, I knew you were not good. Apart from secretly sleeping with your best friend's daughter, you have never done anything worthwhile. Ronald, he needs a Winner to teach him that men are the most important thing. What kind of quality is it? It must have eggs!"

"I have fucking balls..." Weintraub couldn't stand Morgan's ridicule and rushed out in his pajamas. "Are you talking to Ronald on the phone? Come on, ask him to come over. He's here and says Maybe I’ll be saved.”

…

Ronald came to Weintraub's house again the next morning and dug an artificial river for swimming to the mansion in front of the living room.

Before entering the door, I saw several people in suits and ties sitting in the living room, drinking coffee. When Ronald got closer, he was surprised to recognize that the tall man behind him was his frequently hired lawyer, Mickey Cantor, nicknamed gray-eyed Mickey Mouse.

"Mitch, why are you here?"

"Can't tell you, attorney-client confidentiality agreement..." Mickey Kanter patted his briefcase and winked at Ronald.

"Oh, then, good morning..." Ronald didn't understand what was wrong with him and why he came to block the door so early in the morning.

"Let me introduce to you, this is William, the best bankruptcy lawyer in our law firm..." Mickey Kanter's soft introduction of the word bankruptcy made Ronald raise his eyebrows.

"I'll go talk to him first..." Ronald said goodbye to lawyer Kanter first and went upstairs to see Weintraub.

"Jerry, what the hell are you doing? What the hell happened?" Ronald asked rudely when he saw him. Only Susan was in the room, and his real wife, Jane Morgan, was nowhere to be seen.

"Damn it, I was f**king careless." Weintraub regained some of his former confidence when he saw Ronald.

He told Ronald the reason why he fell into this big pit.

It turned out that Weintraub founded Weintraub Pictures after being exploited by MGM's Kerkorian and kicked out without mercy.

He was very angry that he did not become the CEO of MGM. Since his success in the recording industry, few people look down on him so much anymore.

In order to express his anger to Kerkorian, Weintraub did several big things.

First, he lobbied major studios and tried his best to secure financing based on his reputation of two films with over 100 million box office. In the end, Columbia Pictures and a Canadian theater group jointly provided him with guarantees and capital injections, and he eventually raised more than $460 million in loans from Wall Street.

Second, he also signed a twenty-year distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures. As long as the quality is acceptable, Columbia will distribute his movies. Therefore, he contacted many Hollywood producers and negotiated projects everywhere. Weintraub fully absorbed the successful experience of Ronald and watched the news from around the world that Susan compiled for him every day.

What about UFO abductions of men who studied for twenty years and stayed young forever after they came back? The CIA gave up the American prisoners of war in Vietnam and left them to fend for themselves. Then find a screenwriter to write a script.

He believed that these scripts would be a big hit, so he invested in six new directors in a row, all of which were large-scale productions worth more than 10 million US dollars.

Third, he also took over Marvel and Mattel Toys, which were spit out after Cannon Pictures' financial difficulties. Weintraub Pictures not only wants to auction blockbuster movies, but also develops the entire industry chain.

Toy companies happen to be able to sell all kinds of peripheral products. They have a good eye for it, and the scripts and directors they like will definitely sell well. This way, they can stock up on peripheral toys in advance to avoid running out of production capacity after the release and wasting a great opportunity.

And comics have a huge fan base. As long as the comics are adapted, people will come to support it. He only needs to come up with one or two comic stories every year, and comics are also a huge market opportunity for peripheral toys.

With such a great plan, Weintraub believes that within five years, he can become a production company with the size of the seven major Hollywood studios. When the time comes, we will acquire MGM Pictures, which has been half-dead by Kerkorian... and let him have a taste of being kicked out.

By the way, when the time comes, the MGM name will be taken back so that his hotel can no longer use the MGM trademark, so as not to taint such a good film company.

However, the stalls were spread too large, and after the stock market crash, they became big holes. Six film projects have suffered investor withdrawals. Weintraub had to make up the investment himself.

Those scripts were revised again and again in order to become a hit. As a result, there was another writer's strike, and all the previous investment was stagnant. Up to now, there is still no final draft, let alone attracting stars to join and confirming the schedule.

Just when Weintraub took advantage of the writers' strike to end, he finally finished the scripts for two movies and started preparing to start work...

Bang...another unexpected tragedy happened.

Because Wall Street suffered a contraction, it began to make plans for the 460 million loan. The lawyers on Wall Street were very skilled. They found loopholes in some of Weintraub's financial operations, caught him without a movie project for more than a year, and announced a cessation of loans.

When the economy was bad, the most terrible thing, loan withdrawal, happened to Weintraub.

Therefore, Weintraub, who couldn't figure out why he was unlucky for a while, felt depressed due to the huge contrast. He didn't want to see anyone, especially his friends from when he was successful, and hid at home to get unlucky.

"Oh, God, are you really going to file for bankruptcy?" Ronald didn't expect such a thing.

Since Weintraub Films was founded, it hasn't produced a single movie yet. Why is it going bankrupt?

It would not be hard to understand if the movie he made failed at the box office and went bankrupt. The film industry has always been a high-risk industry, and there are many such things.

But Weintraub failed without making a movie. Ronald didn't know if this was the first of its kind in Hollywood.

Perhaps it was the two films Ronald made for him, both of which earned more than 100 million at the box office. Weintraub had the illusion that he had a keen eye, and movies were a high-return investment strategy for him. But it is overlooked that high returns always come with high risks.

Or maybe Weintraub never thought that the risk could happen to him.

"Okay, do you want to film the third part of The Dragon King?" Ronald asked.

Anyway, with the reputation of the first two films of Dragon King, it will not be difficult to raise funds. However, I have to make some financial and legal preparations to avoid letting Weintraub Films become the producer, so as not to be a drag. With this movie sequel alone, Ronald is still guaranteed to make money.