Hollywood Road

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The military uniforms and weapons during World War II, Hitler's style, Kodak's 35mm film, and corresponding photographic equipment... All these preparations were completed one by one, and Helena Espora also rushed to Paris early to arrange the In the studio, Murphy also flew to Paris three times with Philip Raschel and Gal Gadot to inspect the shooting site.

In the past few years, the ability of the entire team has been honed, tacit cooperation, skilled skills, and the entire preparation work is proceeding in an orderly manner.

But some accidents still affected the normal operation of the crew.

This month, Hollywood's screenwriter strike broke out completely, and many crews had to stop. However, Murphy's script has been finalized, and the preparation of the crew of "Inglourious Basterds" is still going on.

Of course, it is impossible to say that the screenwriters' strike has no impact at all, and the crew is somewhat unstable.

Fortunately, the key members of all departments are old people who have followed Murphy for many years, so they have not been too affected by the situation in Hollywood for the time being.

However, several screenwriters hired by Stanton Studios also naturally joined the ranks of the strike. The union provided them with protection, and in turn they had to fight for the corresponding power for the union.

There is more than one union with the intention to strike, but the Directors Union and the two major actor unions quickly reached an agreement with the Producers Union, but the requirements of the Screenwriters Union could not be met.

In fact, this also confirms one thing from the side. The status of screenwriters in the film industry is really not high. The conditions proposed by the Screenwriters Union are far lower than those of the Directors Union and the Actors Union, and they were still rejected by the Producers Union without hesitation. , it's like the screenwriters are not worth that price at all...

Under Hollywood's industrialized assembly line system, the importance of screenwriters has been reduced to an extremely low level. Looking at the several strikes in Hollywood in the past two decades, the screenwriter strikes in 1988 and this year are the most powerful.

If this kind of matter wants to be resolved, the two parties can only sit at the negotiating table, but the differences between them are really big.

The strike quickly spread to the entire Hollywood, with 12,000 screenwriters participating in it, and many people took to Hollywood Boulevard to protest.

The last collective strike of the Writers Guild was in 1988, which lasted 22 weeks and caused more than $500 million in losses to the entire industry. Behemoth, even if the surrounding industries are not included, can create an output value of tens of billions of dollars every year.

If the surrounding industries are counted, they can account for about 8% of the total economic output of the United States. According to the latest statistics obtained by Murphy, the total salary of practitioners in the Hollywood film and television industry exceeded 100 billion U.S. dollars last year!

This shows the hugeness of this industry and the huge value it can generate.

Although the screenwriters union is making a big noise, from the perspective of the overall future strategy, the Hollywood manufacturers with the six major companies as the main body will not easily compromise at all, and they appear to be united enough in this respect.

Not to mention the six major companies, even a third-tier production company like Stanton Studios, even if the screenwriters involved in the "Inglourious Basterds" project went on strike, Murphy would not easily make concessions in terms of interests.

It's okay to give some sweetness, but you can't open the head of making huge concessions. Once you open it, you can't hold it back.

Capital has always been born for the pursuit of profit, even for a tiny capitalist like Murphy.

As a result, a batch of film and television dramas inevitably became temporary victims.

From the day the strike started, all talk shows were suspended immediately, and then "24 Hours" announced the cancellation of this season, becoming the first unlucky TV series. The sequel "Angels and Demons" of "The Da Vinci Code" was postponed, becoming The first unlucky movie, "007: Quantum of Solace" has also been temporarily suspended. Joining this ranks, DreamWorks' highlight "The Adventures of Tintin" has also been temporarily put on hold...

Negotiation is a must,

As the boss of Stanton Studios, Murphy temporarily put down the preparations at hand and handed over the crew to Kara Firth. Together with representatives of other production companies, he formed a negotiating team to negotiate with the screenwriters union.

In this regard, the interests of all Hollywood production houses are aligned.

Although the screenwriters' strike is in full swing, the negotiating team still showed a tough attitude. Even if they sit back at the negotiating table, they will not easily make concessions, and the strike continues.

Murphy was watching most of the time. With the weight of Stanton's studio, he didn't have much right to speak, and he didn't need to be a leader. It was enough to follow the trend of this kind of thing.

Entering 2008, Hollywood does not have the slightest joyful New Year atmosphere, and the shadow of strikes hangs over the entire North American head.

The Golden Globe Awards ceremony was canceled and replaced with a press conference.

Everyone is starting to worry about the Oscars ceremony next month. If the Oscars are also cancelled, it will not only be a loss of money, but also the face of Hollywood...

Even Wall Street issued a warning that if the strike lasts for five months, the economic loss will be as high as 30 billion U.S. dollars.

It is the consensus of all that the strike cannot continue. Although the figure of 30 billion US dollars is pure Wall Street nonsense, if the strike lasts too long, it will definitely affect the interests of all Hollywood companies and practitioners.

Negotiations between the two sides are still going on. While preparing for "Inglourious Basterds", Murphy also participated in the most important negotiation between the Producers Union and the Screenwriters Union in late January.

Of course, Murphy, like many bosses of small Hollywood companies, spent most of his time watching the negotiations.

The Producers Union is dominated by News Corporation President Peter Sherney, Disney CEO Robert Iger and Producers Union Chairman Nick Conte. John Bowman, head of the association's coordinating committee, went head-to-head.

The strike showed signs of ending.

Different from the unhurried negotiations of major Hollywood production companies, where every inch of space is at stake, the film industry is most worried about the suspension of the Oscars, which is the biggest decoration in Hollywood, and no one wants to see a suspension happen.

For this reason, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences canceled the nominees luncheon and directly changed the situation to a press conference to announce the list of nominees.

Before, there were many media campaigns for "Man of Steel", advocating that this superhero movie should be nominated for an Oscar for best picture or best director, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has always been stubborn. Discrimination in science fiction films has not only been formed in recent years.

In the newly announced nominations for the 80th Oscars, "Man of Steel" won five nominations including Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Effects and Best Sound Editing.

There are a lot of nominations, but all the nominations come from technical awards, and none of the heavyweight awards are shortlisted.

After the nomination list was announced, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was very worried that the Oscars would be suspended due to the screenwriter strike. They made two-handed preparations for this. If the strike continues by then, the Academy will launch an emergency party.

In addition, the college also dispatched special personnel to intervene in the negotiations, urging the two parties to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

The Washington authorities also made efforts. The fragile economic situation in the United States absolutely cannot withstand the torture of a long strike. Hollywood has been tied to Wall Street since a few years ago. The accident in Hollywood is not only the entertainment industry. There will be problems, and even worse turmoil on Wall Street.

Except for the first two times, no one from the Screenwriters Union came to Murphy again. Everyone knew that he was the boss of Stanton Studios. It was actually very easy to judge which side his butt would sit on in this kind of incident.

As the strike dragged on longer and longer, the impact on Hollywood and its surrounding industries became greater and greater. Even the crew of "Inglourious Basterds", which had been relatively stable before, was panicked. The crew in the movie took a week off and waited for the strike to end before returning to work.

To end this strike, both sides can only make a certain degree of concessions, and there is no other way to go.

Murphy knows this, and so does the Writers Guild and the Producers Union.

For any industry to operate normally, both labor and capital must abide by the "rules of the game" that are mutually recognized and fair. It seems a matter of course that the entire entertainment industry's annual profits of tens of billions of dollars should be shared with screenwriters.

But capital is inherently profit-seeking, and moving the cake of commercial groups is undoubtedly poaching meat from capitalists.

The main point of disagreement between the two parties is that the producer wants to pay part of the remuneration after recovering the cost of movies and TV programs; while the screenwriter wants to improve the treatment of screenwriters in projects such as movies, TV dramas, and reality shows, and requires the producer to pay screenwriters. In addition, the revenue share for online on-demand and downloaded programs will also increase from zero to 4.5%.

The conditions of this matter were absolutely unacceptable to the production company and the producer alliance, and it was tantamount to grabbing the interests of investors like Murphy.

In mid-February, the See-saw negotiations between the Producers Union and the Screenwriters Guild finally reached a preliminary agreement. The major Hollywood production companies made certain concessions. The Screenwriters Guild signed a three-year provisional contract with the Producers Union .

The contract not only increases the screenwriter's basic salary, but also wins for the screenwriter 1.5% of the DVD and 3% of the revenue share of the Internet on demand. This includes not only the works from now on, but also the previous works. a certain ratio.

The screenwriters' strike is temporarily over, and the screenwriters union sent an email to each member, calling for everyone to return to work immediately.

"The strike is over. Tomorrow, the screenwriters will return to their positions and everything will return to normal."

Murphy's crew also returned to normal. After auditioning and confirming actors such as Michael Fassbender, Christoph Waltz and Margot Robbie, he flew to Paris with the entire crew and settled in a suburban building. On set, ready to start filming. (To be continued.)