Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"What's his reason?" Ronald came to Jonathan Demme's office again. After Sean Connery read the script, he declined the invitation, stating that he would not play Dr. Lecter.

"He said he didn't want to play a serial killer..." Jonathan Demme didn't look good. He didn't even want to audition and interview, so he immediately refused. Such a direct refusal is not polite to a director like him.

"Let me ask his agent..." Ronald said and called Niceta. Sean Connery has a transcendent status within CAA because he was the first star signed by Ovitz. Now in CAA's new building, Connery also has a very large office. Many stars who are more famous than him only have a small office to use because of their lack of qualifications.

After a while, Niceta's call came back, "Ovitz called me himself. He said that Connery's star image needs to be protected and he cannot play such a particularly bad villain. This is his personal decision." .”

"OK, I understand. Thank you." Ronald turned to Demi and relayed the reason.

Everyone understands that this reason makes sense. It is best for a positive male star with a good image not to try a villain role. Even if you play a villain, it's best to be one who has a compelling reason and has various lovable qualities. A serial killer like Dr. Lecter should never be touched.

However, this reason is not valid when applied to Sean Connery. After Connery became 007, there was no new image that was positive and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. CAA strongly praised him for winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1987. The Supporting Actor Award was a serious statement that Connery had degenerated into a character actor and could only play supporting roles in Hollywood.

I still want to play a leading role, either in the B-movie "Highlander" or in Britain to make my own European movie "The Name of the Rose".

After all this, and still pretending to be a star but not acting, Ronald undoubtedly wondered whether the real reason was Ovitz's hostility towards him.

"Maybe Mr. Connery wants to go back and play Bond..." Ronald smiled helplessly at Demi and laughed at himself.

"It's not impossible, the current Bond is really bad." Jonathan Demme has experienced many failures, but his fighting spirit and sense of humor are still there.

"What do you think of the leading actor? Set some criteria and we'll look for him." Ronald didn't actually know the actor in the dream, but he just thought he looked familiar.

"I still have the same idea. I want someone who plays a good guy and has an inherent image in the audience's mind to play the villain."

"So who do you think is the best good guy in the movies you've ever seen?"

"Well..." Demi rubbed his chin and thought for a long time, "Do you remember David Lynch's The Elephant Man?"

"The man with the deformed face?" Ronald had a vague impression.

"Yes, the British actor who played Dr. Treves in it was so kind to such a deformed child. The audience was very moved at the time."

"what is his name?"

…

The actors in each movie are registered with the MPAA, but the fastest way is to call the casting director. Ronald called Julia Taylor.

"Oh, him, he is a stage actor who specializes in Shakespeare plays. In the version of The Lion in Winter played by Katharine Hepburn, who won the Best Actress Award, he played her son Richard the Lionheart. His name is Anthony Hopkins Si, I'll send you his audition photos.

But I don’t have his phone number. His last Hollywood movie, 84 Charing Cross, cost a lot of money. After that he acted in stage plays and films in Britain. You have to find his agent. "

Anthony Hopkins' American agent has basically given up on his future. Ronald did not come to him through CAA anymore. He did not want Ovitz to get the news and interfere again.

So Ronald called Die Hard's villain, Alan Rickman, directly.

"Hopkins? I know him quite well. Do you want to find him? I'll give him a call." Rickman hopes to get more opportunities in Hollywood because of the success of Die Hard. But everyone still follows the template of that villain when looking for him.

"Of course, that's why I came to you. Also, what do you think of his ability to play a villain? He's the kind of villain with a lot of inner drama."

"Hey, didn't you know? He played King Lear and Antony in Cleopatra at the Old Vic."

"Hopkins plays King Lear and Antony. There's nothing wrong with him playing this." As he and Demi were relaying the actor's qualifications, Ronald received the audition photos of Anthony Hopkins.

"Ha, I think he is Dr. Lecter." Ronald looked at the pair of cunning eyes in the photo and handed it to Demi.

"There's nothing wrong with the appearance. I have to talk to him."

"I sent him an invitation to audition and he came right over from Britain."

With the Silence of the Lambs casting taken care of, there's another problem with Minahan Grann. He made an appointment with Ronald and brought the team from the musical "Lombada" to see Ronald.

"Hi, Miranda, long time no see." Ronald was surprised to see the choreographer of Dirty Dancing and Miranda Garrison, who played an important supporting role, in the team.

"Ronald, it's so nice to see you..." Miranda Garrison jumped up and hugged Ronald, and also led him to dance a few steps of Dirty Dancing.

"Gaga ga ga, my idea is to copy the choreography team of Dirty Dancing... How about it, it's not bad, right?" Minahan Gran said to Ronald with a smile.

The sales of Dirty Dancing's video tapes have been stable, and there are a lot of residual dividends distributed to those who participated in the event.

This remaining dividend is not a dividend signed by each actor individually, but a dividend that is uniformly allocated to the Actors Guild and then distributed to participating actors every quarter.

In a typical movie, a participating actor can earn dozens of dollars in dividends each time. Hot-selling movies may sell hundreds of movies per month. But a movie like "Dirty Dancing" with a long-running video sales boom brings a lot of surplus.

In particular, these special actors who perform highly dangerous actions such as dancing have been included in the remaining dividend list. Their income is thousands of dollars every quarter, and it is extremely stable. Since the video tape started selling, the check every time has been stable in four figures.

Ronald also saw several pairs of dancers participating in the choreography and performance of this Lombada when filming Dirty Dancing, and he really admired Minahan's intelligence. This kind of dance with special provocative movements between men and women is indeed the most suitable to find a Dirty Dancing team.

Minahan has a good eye for filmmaking, and has good control over small productions. He can guarantee that he will not lose money every time, and he can make quite a lot of money with one film every year. Just don't let him get dizzy and go make some big productions. That's really not his area of ​​expertise.

"This is the heroine, Miss Laura Harling. She was Miss America in 1985, and then traveled around the world to promote the concepts of world peace and environmental protection. But she studied drama at the London Academy of Performing Arts and also received Latin dance (including Argentine tango)." Minahan introduced Ronald to the heroine.

In this kind of dance movie, the most important thing is that the heroine is beautiful. Ronald was satisfied that Laura Haring was actually born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico. A typical Latina beauty, she later settled in Texas. She worked her way up from local beauty pageants, won Miss Texas, and then participated in the Miss America pageant.

"Nice to meet you...Minahan is good at choosing actresses." Ronald shook hands with her politely.

The play was low-cost and Ronald was confident of making a profit. Minahan should make more B-movies like this from now on. To be honest, Ronald doesn't mind if Minahan remakes the plot of his Dirty Dancing. As long as the audience likes to watch it, and he cooperates with him to film samba, rumba, and tango, that's fine.

"So what happened?" Expressing satisfaction with the team and casting, Ronald pulled Minahan into the conference room. Isn't this going smoothly? What happened again?

"Hey, I...someone stole my...my...I lost the name of the movie."

"What the hell, how did you lose the title of the movie?" Ronald was confused.

"That's right, Ronald, don't be angry. My cousin Yoram", Minahan said his cousin's name, and spat on the ground to express his disdain, "He was on my twenty-first Century Pictures planted spies and learned that I was going to make Lombarda. They bought the rights to adapt the name Lombarda in advance and they also wanted to make the movie."

"Ah? Why didn't you negotiate to buy it in advance?"

"On the one hand, the spy is a manager who can see my project documents. On the other hand, I want to save some money." Minahan smiled awkwardly and told the truth.

"Hey..." Ronald was helpless. Why do the two cousins ​​seem to be enemies now? Yoram is still eyeing Minahan's project, just to destroy his movie and prevent him from making a comeback to take revenge on him.

"Did you buy the right to use that song?" Ronald thought for a while and asked.

"Of course, I bought the right to use the interlude of Kaoma's song, but the title of the song was taken away by that bastard Yoram... drink, bah..."

"Don't spit in my conference room, you disgusting ghost." Ronald was so angry that he took a few napkins and threw them on the floor. This guy……

"Let me ask my lawyer..."

Ronald called Lindsay Doerr and told him all about the movie.

"Humph..." Lindsay looked up some case information there and came back to Ronald and said, "I remember that Lombada is the name of a dance, like tango, right?"

"Hey, yes, it's a proprietary dance name. It wasn't invented by Caoma, who sang this song. In fact, she also sang a Spanish song in Portuguese."

"That's easy. The name of this dance is legally a proprietary name and cannot apply for patent protection. The adaptation rights they bought can only control it. You can't just use the word Lombada as the name of the movie.

However, you can make a movie called Lombada - Magical Dance, Lombada - Sexy Dance or something like that. There is no basis for copyright law to award the name of this dance to them. Even if they sue, we have a high chance of winning, and the biggest possibility is that the case will be dismissed by the judge at the pre-trial stage. "

"Lombard, the forbidden dance..." Minahan heard the two names recited by Ronald from the side, and he immediately called out another name that was more exciting.

For teenage audiences, the more taboo something is, the more they want to watch it. This is also one of the main reasons why the average box office of movies rated PG13 is higher than that of movies rated PG.

"Okay, let's call it the Forbidden Dance." Ronald also approved the name.

"But, you can do this." Ronald picked up the pen and paper and started drawing on the white paper.

"Lombarda...the forbidden dance." Ronald wrote the three words "Lombarda" in a large size, while "Forbidden Dance" was several sizes smaller, squatting in the second line aggrievedly as a subtitle.

"Gah ga ga, Ronald, you are really an evil genius, but I like it. When the time comes, I will have a ring with Yoram's Lombada to see if I don't beat his **** out! Drink... bah …”

"Fuck you, get out of here..." Seeing that Minahan was about to spit again, Ronald was so angry that he pushed him out of the conference room.

…

"Hahaha, that's it. This unlucky guy forgot to buy the right to adapt the song's name, and the result is now like this, two production companies making one movie."

Back at the hotel, Ronald told Diane Minahan's jokes and the visiting Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. They were all actors in big Hollywood productions, and they all laughed out loud when they heard about this low-budget B-movie mess.

Kidman, an Australian girl, is very tall. In order to match Cruise's height, she wears flat shoes. She originally wanted to hook up with Ronald, but unexpectedly fell in love with Tom Cruise at first sight.

Cruise invited her to serve as the heroine in the first movie "Thunder" that she served as screenwriter. Kidman is content with her charm and good luck in Hollywood. It wasn't until Cruise brought her to Ronald's place to formally introduce his new girlfriend to him that he felt lost again.

Ronald also showed Tom some photos of his luxury vacation home on the beach in Brisbane, Australia, and invited them to go on vacation together when they have time. There are two villas connected together, which is completely comfortable.

Kidman, who grew up in Australia, knows that it is the most luxurious holiday beach house that Australians desire most. It originally belonged to the wealthy local man Cass, who was able to send a private plane to pick up clothes for his wife.

That Diane is not as beautiful as herself...

"Ronald, Nicole has just come to Hollywood. Do you have any advice for her?" Tom Cruise was still very interested in this new girlfriend and asked Ronald directly, who was very experienced in training actresses. , I want to give Kidman some pointers.

Ronald looked at Paula Wagner who was coming with him. She and Niceta also came to the party.

Wagner made an "I think Tom's in it too" look. Tom Cruise's previous girlfriends were all more mature and older than him, with less aggressive faces. From Rebecca De Mornay, to Cher, to Mimi Rogers who has not yet finalized her divorce, they are not the most beautiful types in Hollywood.

But this Nicole Kidman is the glamorous type. In particular, he has a very small oval face with rich layers, which is very popular with photography directors.

Ronald understood that this time Tom Cruise broke away from his usual aesthetics. He must have fallen in love in a very serious way, and the divorce would definitely cost him a fortune.

"It's hard to say anything about an actress's acting career. I can't give you any advice, and it might limit your performance." Ronald felt that in this case it's better not to be too specific, otherwise he might be blamed in the future.

"The only thing is, your hair is very distinctive, whether it is hair color or curly hair, it is actually very beneficial to maintain it like this. Hollywood lacks such a distinctive type that is easy to be remembered by the audience."

"Thank you..." Nicole Kidman disagreed. Everyone in Hollywood knows that blonde girls are the audience's favorite.

"Pfft", Diane next to him almost laughed out loud. Brother Ronnie liked his original hair color and hairstyle. Is this just to remind him?