Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Lightning Dance" earned $4 million at the box office in its first weekend, surpassing "Gandhi Biography" and "My Fair Lady", which had a big hit at the box office after winning the Oscar, and rushed to the top of the box office charts.

More than 1,100 theaters were released simultaneously, and the average weekend box office reached 3,500 US dollars. In this weak April, it gave Paramount a huge surprise.

At the bottom of the list is Coppola's "Old Man," which had just over $2 million left in its third weekend of release, down 30 percent from last week. Audiences for readers of the original novel are shrinking rapidly, and Warner Bros. is already scaling back screenings.

Ronald's eyes continued to move down, and the eighth place was the new film "Valley Girl" released by Atlantic, with a total box office of 1.8 million over the weekend, just in the middle of this year's re-release of "ET Alien". above.

Ronald is very happy, this achievement is especially rare for "Valley Girl" as a small production. The film, which cost only $700,000 to make, couldn't even make a premiere. . Basically, the first week of box office, you can get back the cost of production.

Drive to the Atlantic, the whole office is busy. In the big office, the people in the distribution department were busy making calls one by one, trying to get the movie theater to line up more shows for "Valley Girl".

President Tom Coleman is in talks with "Valley Girls" director Martha Coolidge. Ronald sat outside in the lounge drinking tea.

"Hi, Martha." The door to the office opened, and Martha Coolidge came out with a serious face, nodded to Ronald, and walked out without speaking.

"Ronald, please come in." Tom Coleman invited Ronald in. Small companies treat big-selling or possibly big-selling film directors with more respect.

Probably because of the look on Ronald's face, President Tom Coleman took the initiative to explain, "We won nearly 500 theaters for the Valley Girls, but Martha thinks there should be more."

"Oh?"

"You know, the weekend box office for a single venue is $4,200." Mr. President took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a slow puff.

"Higher than Lightning Dance?" Ronald's first reaction was not to believe it. He had also seen "Valley Girl". It can only be said that it is a slightly funny and warm romantic comedy. The standard is above the pass line. But not too much.

"We're only showing in the big cities in California and the East Coast, so it makes sense that the average box office is a little bit higher."

"Oh", Ronald also wanted to understand, the audience of this movie is the urban youth audience, and it is those areas where the values ​​of the east and west coasts are open, there are some funny content in the plot, the audience in the inland area may not understand,

The Atlantic Ocean has not been developed.

However, with such a high single-house box office, it seems that Atlantic's distribution strategy is too conservative, which is probably the reason for director Coolidge's dissatisfaction.

"Can't we add some more release theaters?"

"It's hard. We are a small distribution company. Generally, theater chains have signed distribution agreements with big companies, unless our movie box office far exceeds other competitors. But now on the charts, it's not a big seller, it's the Oscars, The theater chain is not easy to adjust, you see, we only ranked eighth in the total box office."

Ronald nodded, he was here to discuss the release arrangement of "Night of the Comet" with the other party, hoping that they had made money from "Valley Girl" this time, and when it was his turn, they could sign more theaters.

"Actually, we are not a conservative company", Mr. President took a breath, he was afraid that Ronald would not be satisfied, "The main reason for not spreading it on a large scale is because Martha Coolidge was sued, she The sticky title is 'Valley Girl', exactly the same as last year's top three hits.

The song's creator sued us, and the court ruled last month that we didn't break the rules because we didn't use that song as an interlude, and the court didn't think the audience would confuse the name of the song with the movie.

But this lawsuit dragged on for a long time, and many theaters were not very optimistic about us before, for fear that the judgment would be unfavorable to us. "

"Tom, what about my night of the comet? When are we going to show it, and how many theaters will we open?" Ronald asked.

Tom Coleman pointed to Ronald, "I'm going to discuss this plan with you today", and he took out a release schedule and explained it to Ronald.

"Our expected revenue will be good. It is expected that many cinemas will have additional screenings for this single-venue revenue, so we estimate that the box office revenue will exceed 10 million. With this revenue, we can apply for a preferential loan from the bank, so booking By the opening time, we can find at least a thousand theaters."

"That's great," Ronald beamed, a number that was much better than he had imagined.

"We give the girls in the valley a month, and then the third weekend of May will be your 'Night of the Comet', and by the end of May, the summer Star Wars Episode VI, and 007 in mid-June will all start to preempt At the box office, we just found a space to insert it."

"In four weeks, the Valley Girl's trend seems to be able to occupy a place in the box office chart." Ronald thought, it is impossible to remove them all at once.

"It's hard to make a breakthrough. The market in big cities is limited, and the box office of teen comedy in a single hall generally declines very quickly. Of course, we will adjust according to the situation. Seven hundred houses will be used to show your movie."

Ronald was very happy that Atlantic had the money to expand the show and make copies right away. After working hard for a long time, it is time to finally meet the audience and decide the outcome of the flop.

After the work here, Ronald went to see Cameron again.

Gale is not a housewife type of woman, and the house is a bit of a mess. Cameron sat alone at the desk, typing constantly. The Commod computer Ronald gave him was displaying lines of text.

On the other side of the table, there is a typewriter with a stack of typed papers on it.

"What's this?" Ronald saw Cameron stop and asked him curiously, picking up the paper.

"It's a job Gal got me, you know, 'The Terminator' was delayed, and I was broke, so I had to write the script for the studio."

"Hehe, me too." Ronald saw the caption "Aliens". "Is this a sequel to Aliens? Directed by Ridley Scott?"

"Yeah, they think it's time to start the sequel," Cameron saw Ronald take it seriously. "What do you think? I typed it in two places on purpose to keep the two projects separate."

"I don't know, but the alien shots are disgusting and terrifying, and it's not easy for you to surpass them."

"It's exactly the same as what I thought, so I titled the sequel Alien, so that the battle scene can be the main focus, just like a hero constantly killing multiple aliens and saving humans."

"Fighting and horror?" Ronald thought to himself, "It's really hard to write a sequel, and you have to take care of the characters in the original, and you have to write something new."

"What? You also wrote a sequel?"

"Yes, a sequel to First Blood. I'm going to let Rambo's prison term expire, and then go to Vietnam to rescue the prisoners of war abandoned by America. But Rambo has PTSD in the original, and he has a very negative view of the government and the motherland, why? I'm still trying to figure out how to get him to make this change."

"Use love. Love heals wounds."

"That's right, I'm trying to find him a Vietnamese girlfriend. Let's exchange it after writing."

"OK", Cameron is going to write again after taking a break.

"By the way, how did you find your heroine?"

"Deborah Wenger has intentions and is talking."

"Oh, she's not bad, she's a good actress who is soft and steely."

After saying goodbye to Cameron and returning home, Ronald finished writing the script outline of "First Blood 2" and submitted it to Stallone for approval through Nisita. If agreed, Ronald could get the first payment, and then continue.

The next day, Nisita told him that the script outline had been rejected.

"Why? What's not good?" Ronald expanded on the story given by Stallone.

"Sly said you spent too much time on Rambo's transformation, leaving him not enough fighting time in Vietnam."

"Bullshit, at the beginning, Rambo was released from prison, and then went to Vietnam to kill the Quartet? Then why not change the name and film it, so how can the audience who watched the first movie turn around?"

Nisita glanced at Ronald, got up and closed the door, "I don't know, is that the reason for that?"

"Shxt! Wouldn't it?" Ronald was shocked, just because his younger brother tried to force Cynthia Rhodes, he took his anger on himself?

"I protested to Mr. Ovitz, but he was tough too."

"Then forget it." If Stallone was dissatisfied with himself, then it would be in vain to revise. "The big deal is that I can sell some stocks, but it's not that I can't live."

"Don't say that, I got you a new screenwriting job." Nisita breathed a sigh of relief. When he went to Ovitz's office to protest in the morning, Ovitz scolded him and told him to go back and think about Stallone And Ronald, who can bring more profits to CAA. If Ronald insisted, it would be difficult.

"I didn't offend anyone this time, did I?" Ronald joked.

"Of course not," Nisita laughed. "On the contrary, it's your benefactor."

"It's Frank Price, the president of Columbia, who paid 350,000 to buy your script debut 'My Brother's Protector'. Recently, he took advantage of Universal for letting 'ET Alien' go. He was ousted by the people of the new owner Coca-Cola.

However, he can stay in Colombia for six months before officially leaving. No, another record company owner wanted to enter the film industry and asked him to recommend candidates. Frank Price thinks of you considering the musical script you wrote for Stallone and RSO Records.

'My Brother's Protector' didn't end up being filmed, and he wanted to get those things sorted out before he left. "

"What's the price?"

"200,000 dollars, adapting a news story, will you do it?"

"Why don't you do it? Frank Price is still very reliable in his payment." Ronald rubbed his hands excitedly.