Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Popular recommendation:

Minahan and Yoram contacted their colleagues in Los Angeles overnight and found a script about breakdance in the constantly circulating script library of various Hollywood studios.

This is a follow-up work after the "Lightning Dance" sold out. It mainly describes a female dancer who wants to enter Broadway to perform musicals, but has not been successful. She met a group of black and Latino break dancers on the streets of New York, and absorbed various elements of the new dance and put it into her own dance.

At the next audition for a Broadway classic, she won the lead actress by conquering staid directors and producers with this trendy and eye-pleasing dance.

The two quickly contacted Ronald, but everyone, including Ronald's agent, didn't know where he went.

Ronald has returned home to Staten Island. He went to pay a visit to Douglas Hansen Jr., Jr.

"You want to remodel your aunt's old house?" Little Douglas happened to have an excuse to come out of the big party at home and take Ronald to the Hair Country Restaurant on the south side of the island for dinner.

"Yes, this is my mother's hometown after all. I want to build a house here, so that my aunt can also have a place to live in the future, she didn't say it, but I can see that she still likes the neighbors and community here. "

"Well, the problem is no. I can help you with that. But the earliest low-rent housing was built for laborers, and the neighbors of the shotgun house are very close. If your aunt bought someone else's house and remodeled it, she might There are ugly rumors.

Besides, she is now a little rich and can move to a better neighborhood. My family has a piece of land not far from your old house, and I can assign it to you if you need it. "

"Then it's settled." Hansen is the largest landlord at the southern end of the island, and he nodded his new home plan.

"In fact, our Staten Island has always been a base for the film industry, but after the late 1970s, it gradually declined." Little Douglas began to sigh after talking about his business. If Staten Island also has a regular cast, he can also socialize with those actresses as a producer.

"I don't know that."

"Hey, you didn't go to school here. I went to see 'The Godfather' filming when I was a kid."

"Did the godfather film here?" Ronald said it was the first time he heard it.

"Yes, the house where the godfather started his daughter's wedding is in the middle of Staten Island. And the north side of the island facing the Statue of Liberty, where several big stars used to live."

"Paul Newman?" Ronald heard his aunt say.

"Well, and Martin Sheen also bought a house there."

Unexpectedly, Emilio Estevez, and his younger brother Charlie Sheen, were also born on Staten Island.

"But after they became famous, they all moved away."

After the two finished their meal, they simply took the train and went to the northern end of the island to find Paul Newman's former residence near the pier.

"Ugh..." With a whistle, the yellow ferry that the office workers on Staten Island commute to every day began to dock again.

The two stopped and looked at the ferry, which they used to come here to see the scenery when they were in high school, waiting for the ferry to take them to Manhattan Island to compete in wrestling matches with other high schools.

"Hey, is that Ronald?"

Yoram on the boat suddenly patted Minahan on the shoulder, "Ronald! Ronald!" The two fat men started waving their hands and calling Ronald's name loudly.

They finally found the phone number of Ronald's apartment through a relationship, asked Aunt Karen to ask if they were going back to Staten Island to visit friends, and immediately took the only transportation that directly connects to Manhattan on Staten Island.

"Why are you here?" Ronald looked in surprise at the two Israeli brothers who had trotted off the boat in winter, sweating from exhaustion.

"We're coming to you, please come and make a movie."

"It's good to make a movie, I can invest," Douglas Jr. interjected.

...

"What do you think? This theme is also your favorite. Can this script sell well?" Minahan stared at Ronald.

Ronald was in Douglas Jr.'s mansion, flipping through the script without saying a word. He was thinking in his mind that several fragments of his dream were inconsistent with this script in many ways. Apart from the fact that the main character is a female jazz dancer working with two master breakdancers, the story has little resemblance.

It took a long time to wait until Ronald finished flipping the script and closed the cover. Minahan and Yoram became nervous, waiting for Ronald's sentencing.

"Well, can I ask you a question first? Why didn't you have any interest in the breakdance theme I recommended to you before, but this time you took the initiative to come to me?" This is what Ronald was most puzzled about.

"Ah, it's my daughter," Minahan began to make up nonsense. "My daughter called me and she said that the streets of Los Angeles are full of people who dance this way, so I thought of you."

"Oh? Is there any other reason?" Ronald didn't believe this bullshit, he didn't want to shoot this breakdance for Meinahan.

Little Douglas is by his side, as well as the agent Eddie in New York, and CAA is paying more and more attention to him. As long as he waits for the release of "Longwei Kid" and then revises the script, he will soon be able to attract investors and distributors. , own a large proportion of the investment, not happy?

"Alas, there's another reason for that."

Mina was rarely able to hide from Ronald, who is experienced in the industry, so he had to tell the truth, "Orion Pictures also invested in a movie with a similar theme. I asked you to finish it before them and release it before them."

"Orion is also filming?" Ronald was taken aback. "You got the synopsis of the story?"

Could it be that the movie I dreamed of was invested by Orion?

But it's not quite right. Orion wants to be famous for investing in art films. How can he make the low-budget Roger Coleman-style low-cost exploitation film in his dreams?

"Hey...I asked about it through a friend." Minahan told Ronald the outline of the story of "Hot Street Boy".

"That's right, what ethnicity, liberation, blacks and Latinos trapped in the streets, acceptance of them by the white mainstream society, this is what Orion likes."

"I actually have some ideas for a breakdance movie. I can rewrite your script. How do you want to collaborate?"

Ronald felt that if he wanted to make this film himself, and then take the opportunity to follow the trail across the Pacific Ocean, he had to cooperate with Minahan. Now that the project has been established, it is bound to fail to catch up with the distribution channel from scratch. It is better to cooperate with Minahan's Cannon. They have a good European distribution capability. Let's see if MGM is willing to release in North America.

"We want to fight fast and find skilled hands in the market. That's why we came to you in the first place. We only consider others if you don't want to."

Ronald waved, he didn't like this kind of botched tout.

"Hey, that's what we thought. I'll give you a director's salary of $200,000. Then I'll give you 5% of the profit." Minahan offered conditions.

"Of course, if your friend Mr. Hansen is interested, we can also open some investment quotas for you." Yoram looked at Doug next to him and quickly added.

"I can shoot, but I want 20% of the share, and then my friend will take 20% of the investment share."

"Seven percent, we can't give any more. The budget is about a million dollars. If you are willing to convert the director's salary, we can give this amount at most." The two brothers Rio Ram are better business negotiator.

"Why did you give my directorial work, um..." Ronald began to calculate their estimated total North American box office.

"Twenty million dollars? My friend Ronald doesn't have a lower box office score. That's another subject he's good at. He should get 15 percent." Douglas Jr., who came from a business family, took over negotiation.

"Eight percent"

"Twelve percent at least"

"Ten percent?"

"Can?"

The two negotiated the share ratio and looked at Ronald.

"I don't need the director's pay, but I want you to share a share of the copies sold overseas." Ronald proposed a new condition.

"One percent?" Minahan agreed bitterly.

"Deal!" Ronald is very happy. Overseas distribution has always been a ban for studios, and his intention to split is also to understand this piece of fat.

"When I'm free, I'll go to the European and British film markets with you."

"That's fine, I wanted you to go see works from other countries and help me pick." Minahan was very painful to let outsiders get involved in overseas distribution, but he didn't care about getting Ronald to agree. Anyway, he is a director, and artists are unwilling to control this kind of commercial behavior.

"Then we can sign the contract after the lawyer comes to review the contract."

"Call now," Minahan said to Ronald.

"Today is New Year's Day, don't you have to be in such a hurry?" Ronald didn't want Miss Dole to express dissatisfaction with himself.

'We only have three weeks'

"What?" Ronald was taken aback. "How long did you say?"

"Three weeks, two weeks of shooting, plus one week of editing, we will get the first cut version to sell to the North American theaters."

"No, there's only two weeks to shoot, and the script hasn't been finished yet? Then you'd better hire another wise man?" Ronald thought, what a joke.

"Don't do this, Ronald. I can give you another two hundred thousand director's salary, other conditions remain the same. It is not impossible for you, I know your filming efficiency, if it is within Israel Gave Desert, I made up my mind at that time, ask you to take charge of the guide tube, and MGM refused to release my 'Sahara' now."

In a hurry, Minahan said his biggest difficulties.

"Is that so?" Ronald thought for a while, the scales began to move to the other side again, and his aunt's new house still needed money to buy land for construction, and besides, he also looked like he was filming breakdance and went to China to see it.

"Then I'll make a few calls to see if I can find suitable personnel and places. Let's see?"