Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Yoram knew a little French, and after watching news from several TV stations, he translated for Meinahan and Ronald. The two countries held negotiations today to discuss the issue of opening up the market for the cultural industries of the two countries.

"The representative of the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, and the President of the American Film Institute, Jack Valenti, had a pleasant meeting at the hotel and issued a joint communiqué.

The summit between the two Jacks seems to be developing into an annual event. As last year, the two met at the Eden restaurant at the Ducap Hotel not far from here.

In the joint communiqué, Mr. Lang promised to launch a special operation against piracy, mainly video tapes, in Hairlandxi, and to carry out international cooperation on this rampant illegal phenomenon. Mr. Valenti said he would do everything possible to help French films enter the United States.

The French "Liberation" called this communique the "Eden Eagle Armistice". The armistice analogy is not too much.

Because just a few years ago, Mr. Long and Mr. Valenti had a heated argument about Mr. Valenti believes that the country is carrying out trade protectionism against American films, which is inconsistent with the spirit of the cultural industry memorandum between the two countries under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. "

"So, Hair Country's import restrictions on Hollywood movies are about to loosen." Minahan knew this very well, "Quack, our lucky moment has come, Hair Country's market has embraced us, then Belgium, And Italy also take off their pants, plus we are making progress in Britain, Germany, and Greece, and soon we can conquer Europe."

Minahan said that he loosened the belt and made a few obscene movements.

Soon, the three leading actors also came to Cannes urgently to build momentum for the breakdance screening.

They put on their costumes and started their live performances in a makeshift screening tent on the beach in Cannes.

The trio had a good workout in nightclubs on the east coast, and their ability to play on the spot and arouse the enthusiasm of the audience has grown a lot, and the girls with hair in the west are fascinated.

The assistant who accompanied them reported to Minahan on the side.

"The box office in the third weekend was 5.2 million, down 17 percent from last week. The total box office has passed the 23.4 million box office. Next week is Memorial Day weekend, more With a day off, it is estimated that we can maintain the level of this week."

Minahan is very happy that this timely and good news means that after the screening, when negotiating the price and number of copies with various Western European distribution companies, there is a powerful bargaining chip.

He glanced at Ronald and saw that he was chatting with the audience, so he pulled his assistant aside, "After Memorial Day, how are the theater arrangements for our Cannon's own release?"

"MGM expects a month after its release,

We will eliminate 200 theaters. We have already contacted privately for those theaters that have been eliminated. Together with our second-round theater chain, small town theaters, and old-fashioned mill theaters, we can make up a total of 600 theaters. . We can gradually take over the theaters that MGM will give up next. "

"Ow...Ow..."

Temporarily renamed "Break Dance" to "Hot Dance", and urgently changed the title and subtitles at the beginning and end. The audience watched the wonderful dance scene, and finally Michael Jackson appeared. The people from the hair country also began to listen to his records, and when they saw the familiar voice, they detonated the audience again.

The film distributors in the back row were mainly film distributors from Western European countries and East Asia. Seeing the audience's reaction, they didn't understand the power of "Hot Dance". They immediately stepped forward, surrounded Minahan and Yoram, and pulled them to ask to sign.

The Israeli brothers led them all to the back of the tent, where the assistants had already prepared coffee and refreshments, and a small door led to the small tent next door.

Distributors in these big markets will not bid on the spot like film buyers in small countries did in the past two days. They entered the small tent one by one, and negotiated with Yoram on the number of copies needed and the amount of copy gold.

Ronald sat in the back corner, watching one person step forward, and one after another came out with a smile on his face, and watching Minahan, who was smiling happily next to him, came out to call the next one again, Ronald knew that they were going well.

At this moment, a young man wearing a T-shirt and running shoes ran quickly, grabbed Minahan, and said hurriedly in his ear.

Minahan's expression changed, and he quickly asked his assistant to block the door.

But they were still a step too late. Several men in suits walked in, looked around, saw Minahan, and said:

"We are lawyers of Orion Films. Your film imitated the name of Orion's Cannes film 'Hot Street Boy', which is an infringement. We have reached an agreement with the organizing committee that you cannot continue to sell under the name of Beat Dance."

As he spoke, he flashed a notice to Minahan's eyes.

Minahan didn't expect Orion to come out again. He didn't want to argue with them in front of clients, and wanted people to come into the small tent to discuss.

The visitor did not intend to discuss privately at all. He took the notice and said to all the publishers in the tent:

"Orion's film of the same subject is called Beat Street, and this film is called Beat Dance, and we have reason to suspect that they are plagiarism.

We're taking legal action against them in America, folks, if you're here to buy a new dance-themed musical, I suggest you go to Orion, which will premiere in Cannes the day after tomorrow. "

Ronald couldn't help but stand up and watch the drama. It seems that Orion has found out about their movie's name change, trying to scare overseas distributors with this confusing statement.

The breakdancing frenzy has begun, and whoever gets the first release will get most of the pie.

Ronald pulled the young man who had just come in to report, "What's going on here? When did they come?

"It was the Nike distributor who sent us a warning. They also represented Puma's products. I heard that Puma is going to jointly market with Orion in Cannes."

While "Breakdance" was filming, Minahan turned to Nike as a sponsor, and they provided all the shoes in the movie. The camera gave that hook a close-up many times.

While Puma has sponsored "Hot Street Boys", two sneaker makers are also betting on two movies, which will bring good publicity. So Cannon and Nike are in the same trench. Sent Minahan a warning.

"Impossible!" Minahan tore his face with the Orion people in the front, and said to the distributors in various countries, "Our break dance is also released in the United States one month ahead of you, you ask them, they are all experts, How can a movie that was released first plagiarize a movie that was released later?"

The distributors below started chatting. In most of their countries, the film required more than a year of preparation and shooting. In the post-production period, where can I get a Hollywood low-budget exploitative film, Roger Coleman came out for a week. Can you finish a movie? And the director of this film is his direct disciple?

"Then why do your films have the same name as ours?" Orion's lawyer gave a strong proof that on the flyers revised by Minahan, some of the original film titles have not been crossed out, and it clearly reads "Breakin ” the English title of the film.

"Uh...uh..." Minahan's sweat dripped from his forehead. It's solid evidence that they did change the title to make their movie more like Hot Street Kid.

In fact, Orion can't really do anything with the cannon, but now in front of the publishers of this country, such a problem occurs, after all, it is short of breath.

If they have doubts about this and go to the Street Guys in turn, even if they choose "breakdance" because of the quality, the price may not be as good as it is now under the two-phase competition.

What's more, there are also a lot of break dance performances in "Hot Street Boy", which is not necessarily much inferior to the dance in "Break Dance".

"This gentleman," Ronald saw that Minahan couldn't think of a way, stepped forward to replace him, and faced the lawyer of Orion.

"Thank you for the reminder, it was a spelling mistake on our part." Ronald took a pen from Meinahan for signing the contract, circled it on the flyer, and crossed out the Beat at the beginning. , and then replaced it with Break.

So he changed the title to "Break Dance".

"In America, this dance is called Breakin, which is a common name. But in other parts of the world, they don't know the name of the dance, so we added a word dance (Dance) after that to remind Ami For audiences other than Liga, it is the name of a dance".

Ronald offers a plausible explanation.

"That's right, we hired the temporary staff of Hair Country. They are not familiar with English, so they mistakenly wrote Break as Beat." Minahan reacted and immediately explained to the dealers, "Our Cannon movie was the first to be published in the America is the first to release it in Europe and Asia, and we will reserve the right to use legal measures to fight back against your slander.”

"Everyone, breakdance is directed by me. You have all watched it, and you have seen the reaction of the audience. You don't need me to guarantee that you also know the potential of this movie. As for other people's movies of the same theme, I will not comment. You can see it with your own eyes." Ronald, in passing, reviewed the overwhelming response from the audience for the publishers.

"Don't forget we are Oceania, we are Australian! We want to copy too!"

An Australian distributor doesn't care what Orion's entry is. This film is obviously very attractive to young audiences. Let's start first. "

"Very well, I'll give you a discount," Minahan laughed, hugging each other.

Soon, all the publishers began to negotiate with Yoram again in accordance with the order.

Mr. Orion's lawyer, seeing that the goal has not been achieved, put away the notice and left.

"Ronald," Minahan called Ronald aside, "I owe you a big one today. When I go back, I'll share all the box office data with you, so that we won't have a problem with the split.

Next month, our Cannonball will also join the domestic distribution of "Break Dance" and release it in second-tier theaters. Although our theater share is not as high as the first month percentage that MGM negotiated, it is clear that the film will enter a long-term screening, which is also a lot of income.

You ask your lawyer and accountant team to come to Yoram as soon as possible. We are good friends. I don't want to have a conflict with you because of money matters. "

"That's great. I will. Thank you for letting me see the development channels of overseas markets." Ronald felt that his trip to Cannes was worthwhile.

"Did you tell Ronald?" After Yoram heard about Meinahan's arrangement, he was surprised that Meinahan would reveal to Ronald the box office revenue he wanted to hide secretly?

"He helped us a lot today, because he didn't come up with that excuse, we would lose more than half of our overseas distribution revenue. I can see that Ronald is not only a director and artist, but also a business material.

He may be called a big man in the future, and I don't want to offend him because of these small money. Besides, everyone can make a fortune together, and we may be able to reserve room for future cooperation. "

"What you said also makes sense. Anyway, through our own distribution channels, the box office share we get is not very high. Don't lose the big because of the small."

"How many have we signed today?" Minahan asked.

"In addition to Britain and Greece, major countries on the European continent, Italy, Belgium and other major countries have all paid deposits. In addition to Dongying and Korea in Asia, a total of ... a total of nearly 8 million copies of contracts have been credited."

"So much?" Minahan was surprised.

"Yes, the North American box office in the first three weeks made these publishers very excited and took the initiative to add copies."

"This is the first time we've sold so many copies in Europe, right? It would take a major country to have more than two million moviegoers."

"And Dongying and Goryeo, they also have a lot of copies ordered."

"In that case, Ronald earned more for us than we paid him."

"Are there any other countries that haven't ordered?"

"Among the major Western European countries, there are West Germany and Spain. In addition, several northern European countries are not active."

"It doesn't matter, let them go to see Orion's literary and artistic feelings first, and then increase the price for them."