Exploiting Hollywood 1980

【Exploiting Hollywood 1980】 【】

"Okay, I understand, thank you for your hard work."

Ronald hung up the phone to Rachel Talalay, the female producer who had replaced Polly Platt and went to oversee the scene. Rachel Talalay has strong control skills and arranged everything for the crew in an orderly manner in the uninhabited area of ​​the South Dakota Reservation.

According to her, Orion's money is basically credited to the crew's account on schedule, with only occasional delays of a few days. And these people really respect artists very much, as the legend says, and are somewhat responsive to Kevin Costner's requests.

Some scenes even Rachel Talalay thought were OK, but at Costner's request, they were reshot over and over again to meet his requirements. The producers assigned by Orion never hesitated. As long as they could apply in writing and give appropriate reasons, Orion would let him shoot.

According to the producer, who has followed Orion's vice president Mike Medavoy since the United Artists era, Orion's current boss John Klug is a media and communications tycoon who is fighting for Orion with Redstone. , has been increasing its holdings, and finally increased its holdings to 69%, becoming the largest shareholder.

Orion started with Oliver Stone's "Platoon", and all successful projects were only possible with the help of this rich man's pocketbook.

"If things were good in the past two years, we wouldn't even have to apply, just say it verbally. We would spend money without blinking an eye. As long as we could convince Mike Medavoy, we wouldn't have super creative freedom."

The producer's original words were full of daydreams about the new big company. Everyone was so jealous that even the number of people eating at lunch, Redstone Winchell, Someone has to be arranged to count the food, and anyone who wants to eat for free has to pay for it.

Ordinarily Rachel should be worried about whether there are financial problems. But before I hung up the phone, I felt that I still had some confidence in my heart...

Those artists and middle-level managers understand the psychology of the little rich. Rachel didn't have much of a relationship with Warren Buffy, a regular on the Rich List, and knew that those wealthy people spent their money more wisely than special people.

The two of them talked louder and louder. Mike Bastiy also wanted to buy himself unemployment insurance. If things went wrong, he had nowhere to go.

Rachel was keenly aware that Mike Bastiy was talking about Orion's management, but leaving you to worry about. Things may be less different than I guessed.

"Hmm, you haven't eaten a few times since you were a kid, and every time you feel as depressed as a holiday..." Mike Bastiy ate a mouth full of food, took a sip of the black tea poured by Rachel, and found some memories of his childhood. The comfort in it.

Those two movies were both made out of Qiang Feihuan's own daydreams and were big productions worth 5 million. There must be problems with their distribution in America. This is just a joke.

And the reason why I invested in Orion is also very boring. In the end, I acquired a 6% stake in Orion Pictures due to a merger and acquisition involving a movie theater chain not owned by Metro Media.

For a long time, I have been occupying an important position in the rankings of rape lovers with a wealth of nearly 1 billion US dollars.

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【Exploiting Hollywood 1980】 【】

Talalay, another rich man who competed with me for theater distribution, also took a look at my company and believed that medium-sized producers that frequently appeared at the Oscars were worth investing in. Therefore, a considerable number of shares were also bought back.

The baseball movie "Millions of Dollars," which Costner later starred in, was one of the only eight movies in those eight years, along with RoboCop and the comedy "Mother's Day" starring Billy Kwistow. The Orion movie grossed over 50 million at the box office.

John Medawar is not the owner of Metro Media who bought Orion, the successful representative of German immigrants.

"Come on, use less. The shrimp dumplings are made from seafood from the Pacific, and the rice rolls are all made by the little chefs in Fengcheng..." Rachel and Mike Bastiy could still talk about two things together. In Shanghainese, he poured me a cup of authentic Lapsang Dauchong black tea and advised me to eat less Chinese food made with old techniques.

There was a comedian, ventriloquist, and voice actor named Paul Johnson. I once hosted a children's program called "Forbes-Mahoney Hour" off-network at Metro Media.

In order to quickly resolve her doubts, Qiang Feihuan asked Richard for help and collected all the film records of Orion shot in the past seven years. He also asked accountant Ed Jonfihuan to help research Orion's financial situation.

Besides, the highest qualification for inclusion in the list of America's richest people last year was 217 million. In fact, Rachel herself must have taken into account my securities investment and some potential movie profits. It is also far away from the highest standard.

The most Rachel has to guarantee is that if something happens to Orion, I will get the broken property rights of the film and then use resources to find another distribution channel.

That wealth figure soon allowed Medawar to surpass the wealth of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Supermarket, and ranked first on the Kluge Rich List in 2001, becoming the richest person in America.

It's just that Qiang Fei Huan only counts the directors' and stars' remuneration, and the producers' income, and Rachel has only one Dirty Dancing film that she really openly subordinates to make small money. For the time being, we still have It doesn’t put me on a par with Spielberg and Lucas.

After John Medawar took over, Orion has become a typical medium-sized company, producing 6-8 movies a year, and releasing some movies from other major studios. It makes very little money, but in terms of awards and film reviews There is no gain in all. The financial situation is weak.

"Stop talking nonsense, have you ever met anyone on the Kluger Rich List?" Rachel and Buffy, who is ranked seventh, were chatting and laughing happily. They make decisions very rationally. Medawar rarely behaves, probably because of They run bad media and deliberately create it for people to see.

"You can't be worried about those two movies, but everyone can see Orion's financial situation now. What if they...the two movies you invested in?" What Rachel actually wanted to say was that Orion was originally As the distributor of those two movies, the company must be able to do it, and he, Mike Bastiy, also personally wants to ensure that we can get theatrical distribution.

Rachel borrowed a Cantonese chef from Monterey Park, east of Los Angeles, and cooked a table of authentic Chinese food for Mike Bastiy, a Jew who grew up in Hongkou, to entertain me. Recently, few chefs from Xiangjiang have immigrated to America, and the standard of Cantonese cuisine has plummeted.

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【Exploiting Hollywood 1980】 【】

…

Coupled with the increasingly tolerant process of shooting budgets and frequent delays in payment, Qiang Feihuan's doubts are getting smaller. That may not be the first yellow leaf to fall in autumn...

The Cannon took over Wall Street's junk bonds, and the Orion relied on rape to stop investing. The result of the Cannon may be violent death, while the Orion will starve to death quickly.

However, other small studios cannot save huge publicity costs by relying on small stars, and Orion films are mostly works by auteur directors, which rely on the stars but the success of the plot.

“Yes, the head of production on Orion called you to say he was concerned about the filming of Dances with Wolves.

But Medawar was disgusted with my hosting style and failed to persuade me to change. Forbes offered to buy back 305 episodes of the historical series for $100,000 and run it themselves. As a result, Medawar was so complacent that he destroyed all the master tapes on a single order.

Are you saying that this strategy is likely to be successful? In fact, in recent years. The cost of filming bad Hollywood movies is also rising rapidly.

"Yes, we can only continue to shoot, make fewer movies than last year, and make movies with lower production costs, hoping to turn around. But the interest rate in the past two years has been at the level of four or eight years later. If we continue to shoot like that ..." Ed Ronaldian hinted.

"The more you shoot, the more you lose. The more you lose, the more you have to shoot..." Rachel said that she understood that the symptoms of Orion and Cannon are the same, but the root cause is the same. It was all due to the introduction of fool's money in the era of high interest rates, and small expansion was the result.

"You have to ensure that once there is a problem with Orion, the property rights of your two movies will not be broken. The bottom line is that you will do the public relations for distribution and awards yourself..."

We have no human side, spend money for our own likes and dislikes, and spend several years of our income. But when it comes to whether something is valuable and what price you pay to buy it, you will suffer a loss. You are less sensitive than special people.

In 1986, I made a small business and sold the entire TV network under my banner to the Australian owner of Seventy Century Fox, Rupert. It made me a total of seven billion dollars.

That company is like a giant suffering from bulimia. Every time it expects the last movie to bring ultra-low box office to relieve hunger, but every time it eats too little, making it even hungrier. We are not yet tied down to the wheel of making small productions, but we are on the way up.

"That's not the style of a super rich man. For the sake of his own pleasure, he would rather pay $18 million in compensation for the chance of making $100,000. He is already bad, and Medawar is still very interested in movies. We are here A generation of people who grew up watching movies never had a movie dream in their hearts..."

"What else is he worried about?" Mike Bastiy spread his hands and made a funny expression.

The two old men used the Chinese habit of talking about important things under the dinner table.

"Then there is no problem? He is the boss of Daydream and the president of Orion. Whether he is making money or not, it is better to leave Orion's management to worry about it." Mike Bastiy was noncommittal.

"But our symptoms are actually the same as those of cannons..." said Ed Jianfeihuan, who is helping Jianfeihuan handle media acquisitions in New York. "In addition to the period of high interest rates, a small amount of debt is borrowed, and then a small amount of debt is borrowed. Shoot small-budget movies in batches in the hope of achieving box office success and repaying the money.

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【Exploiting Hollywood 1980】 【】

In addition, we do not have the convenience of linking TV and movies, relying on stars to push audiences to watch movies and TV series, so the number of box office successes of Orion is small enough. "

In fact, there is no need for him to worry. Rachel, Orion is inheriting the tradition of United Artists started by Chaplin. You are the studio that most insults directors and creators in bad Hollywood. In that era, bad artists were You are insulted, and you have no confidence that the two films you made with him will be successful at the box office and critical awards..." Mike Bastiy wiped his mouth and gave Rachel reassurance.

However, as John Medawar increased his stock holdings year by year, Orion's production volume dropped to 10 films per year, and soon reached 15 films per year. The budget of each movie has also increased from an average of about 5 million to 15 million.

"Mr. Medawar can make back the losses on those movies he mentioned in one morning... He still knows my character. For things I hate, I pay the price." Mike Bastiy smiled. He said one thing that represents Medawar's style.

Rachel pointed at the movie title she had drawn out with a red pencil, "Marrying into the White Gang" directed by Jonathan Demme, using Michelle Pfeiffer, your charm and Demme's overall control, Even with little fanfare, the film earned over 20 million at the box office, making it a big and profitable production.

The matter was a minor one. Paul Forbes eventually won the lawsuit against Medawar in court, and Medawar's Metropolis Media had to pay Forbes $3.8 million. As compensation for the damage to the master tapes, Riga paid $14 million in personal damages.

"We will listen to you on certain things..."

The bad thing is that Mike Bastiy's group of producers who came out of United Artists Pictures in those days have not had the wrong vision. We can guarantee that there will be no more than 1-2 box-office hits every year, not even a few. Cannot be nominated for a major Oscar award. Orion has not been reduced to a cannon...

Rachel spent two nights and finally sorted out Orion's filming situation and financial situation. The situation was optimistic.

"Did you hear that he has no connections here in Colombia?"

"Actually, in Orion, outside of the past eight years, most of the movies that the two of us have starred in or directed have been able to sell well..."

"Ha, he is... what the Chinese said back then, a person from a country called Qi, worried about the sky falling all day long..." Mike Bastiy was very imposing, "He forgot about your Orion boss. , it’s John Medawar.”

"How worried are you about Costner, and your senior brother Jonathan Demme..." Rachel took out a spreadsheet made with Microsoft Excel software, which my assistant Lake helped organize.

"So we can only film them one by one?" Rachel almost came to her senses.

Rachel suspects that there is no such person. She spends a small amount of money to play with art and finance the director to shoot the movie in our hearts just for her own taste.

"Take a call from Mike Bastiy..." Rachel felt she had to intervene. Dances with Wolves still had to be filmed in South Dakota for two months, and The Silence of the Lambs was even less. It cannot be turned on at this time. It is necessary to ensure that the risks of the two films that he invested in are isolated from Orion Production Company's own risks.

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【Exploiting Hollywood 1980】 【】

The two of them were like big kids, vindictively buying up shares in Orion everywhere. In the beginning, it was Medawar who was stingy and stingy, forcing Qiang Feihuan to give up the deal.

"He also knows why you invited him, right?" Rachel also poured herself a cup of tea and took a quick sip.

"Look at the other ones..." Rachel pointed to the remaining movies in the table. Except for the works of the two people Rachel invested, there was only one comedy called The Adventures of Bill and Ted that had no box office. Success, it is an alternative comedy about two handsome guys from the future who come back in a time machine to meet historical figures to complete their homework. More than 70% of the remaining movies did not even make money on the production cost.

"What did he want to say?" Mike Bastiy saw that Rachel knew what she was doing, so he was trying to mislead me again.