Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1481 Another helicopter accident

"The day after I won the Oscar, Billy Wilder called me. When I asked him who it was, he said it was God calling..."

The winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Award, Spanish director Fernando Chuba, has become a media darling. Unlike many European directors who look down on Hollywood, this director, like Truffaut, the director of the French New Wave, likes classic Hollywood and particularly admires Billy Wilder.

In his acceptance speech, he compared Billy Wilder to God, so when Wilder called him the next day, he made a joke and called himself God.

Because Chuba always mentions Hollywood, he has also been taken seriously by Hollywood. Unlike some directors who want to win the Best Foreign Language Film Award but look down on Hollywood in their words, Chuba's behavior makes people feel his sincerity in making a big splash in Hollywood.

So soon, his Hollywood agent had connected him with several independent production companies, and several projects were under negotiation.

Of course, the so-called independent production companies nowadays are completely different from the model of Roger Corman selling trailers and Ronald's self-invested model of Dirty Dancing. The so-called independent productions have also been acquired by the big studios and become a secondary brand.

For example, Touchstone Pictures of Disney, Miramax, which Disney also acquired last year, and Searchlight Pictures of Fox, which was recently established as an attempt to imitate Touchstone. In addition, Columbia's TriStar Pictures and MGM itself are both "independent" production companies that specialize in medium-sized investment film shooting.

All of these companies have provided scripts to Chuba, but Touchstone Pictures is the most promising. They have reportedly locked in Antonio Banderas, the handsome Latino who plays Tom Hanks' partner in "Philadelphia," for their romantic comedy, "Two Is Too Many."

With this handsome Latin guy as the lead actor, the Spanish director Chuba has a lot more room to play, at least there won't be too many problems with the language.

The continued exposure of Chuba is also good for Ronald. Billy Wilder has been put on the front stage again from the memory of movie fans. When he was interviewed, he also specifically mentioned that he would star in Cameron Crowe's new movie.

If it weren't for this back-and-forth, sympathetic conversation between Chuba and him, many fans who had seen Wilder's works would have thought he had passed away.

After this release, I suddenly discovered that such a director who reached the peak of his directing career in the 1940s and 1950s could actually star in a feature film. This is very beneficial for the project's warm-up, and the distributor will also get more attention.

After Tom Cruise finishes filming the movie version of "Mission: Impossible", they can announce that he will star in a new movie. Then they can get some information like Billy Wilder and his successors who grew up watching his movies, such as Tom Cruise, Cameron Crowe, and Diane Lane, to join in the Hollywood legacy, and it will be another piece of news that can be hyped.

"Richard..." After Ronald signed some of his opinions on the project feasibility report of "Mr. Sweetheart", he saw Richard coming in. He pointed to the coffee pot on the table and asked him to help himself, then put the report in a file basket and waited for the assistant to take it away.

After finishing the morning's business instructions, Ronald also poured a cup of coffee and took out a donut to eat:

"Have you heard about any new projects between Spielberg and David Geffen? And I saw him talking with Katzenberg of Disney before. Does Stephen want to work with another distributor besides Universal and Warner Bros?"

Ronald was quite concerned about what he had observed at the party after the awards ceremony. Spielberg's two films last year reached both commercial and artistic peaks. This year, his own Forrest Gump will be released. I wonder if Spielberg will make three films in two years like those old-school directors who have reached the peak of their creativity. In this way, his own film may have some competition.

"I haven't heard any rumors... Maybe you are too..." Richard hesitated...

"Maybe. I feel like they are deliberately avoiding me to discuss confidential matters." Ronald didn't care. If it wasn't about making a movie, were the three of them going to form a company together?

"That's unlikely. David Geffen is a record seller. He only made a cameo appearance in the movie. Interview with the Vampire cost 60 million dollars, and according to rumors spread by some people who have seen the sample film, it will lose a lot of money. As for Katzenberg, he is in the limelight at Disney. Many people believe that Disney can achieve today's performance because of his role even greater than Chairman Eisner..."

"Interesting..." Ronald also thought it made sense. Katzenberg not only managed many live-action films for Disney, but also made many decisions on animated films. In recent years, Disney's animated films have also regained their momentum in the golden age.

You have to know that the protagonists of animated films do not receive any copyright dividends. Not counting the box office results, all the profits from the peripheral toys belong to Disney.

However, according to Ronald's understanding of Disney Chairman Eisner, this man is not a manager known for treating his subordinates well. Although Katzenberg and Eisner had the experience of jumping from Paramount to Disney together, such a younger brother who had shared hardships together might not be able to enjoy the joy of success with the boss.

After all, Eisner himself started out as a worker, and by taking advantage of Disney's internal conflicts, he successfully found a management position. His shares in Disney have also grown significantly over the years...

Such people are not entrepreneurial bosses like Walt Disney, who can be very generous and tolerate talented people to succeed in the company. No matter what, they can never seize power and occupy a major shareholding position in Disney.

After so many years of internal fighting and the dilution of ownership after the stock listing, Disney is now close to a company without a master controller. Eisner was able to control such a large listed company by forming alliances and balancing the many internal factions.

Eisner might not be willing to see another powerful person like himself appear in the company, so that those factions would have another choice besides him...

However, this may not be imminent. Katzenberg was originally at a much lower level than Eisner, so he probably had time to wait until Eisner's shares in Disney were more concentrated before he could get involved in CEO or president positions.

……

"We have the devastating news that Frank Wells, President of The Walt Disney Company, has been killed in a helicopter crash while on a heli-skiing trip at Mount Ruby in Nevada on Easter Sunday.

Pilot Dave Walton and rock climber Beverly Johnson also died in the crash.

Frank Wells is a good friend of Clint Eastwood. It is reported that Eastwood went skiing with Wells that weekend. But Eastwood left in his own helicopter an hour before Wells left.

During this hour, heavy snow fell in the Ruby Mountains, and the Bell 206 helicopter chartered by Wells landed in a remote location about two and a half hours before the crash. Heavy snow accumulated on the helicopter while waiting for the weather to improve.

During the subsequent takeoff and climb, the engine lost power and the aircraft crashed while attempting an emergency landing and then rolled, killing four of the five people on board, including Wells.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause of the accident was "foreign material (snow) ingestion by the engine, resulting in flameout (loss of engine power)."

A few days later, Ronald, who was eating boiled eggs for Easter at home, suddenly heard breaking news on TV.

"What? Cough cough cough..."

Ronald quickly drank some water to relieve the choking on the egg caused by the shock.

Ronald and Diane were not very religious people, and they did not have any special activities for Easter, a holiday with a strong religious connotation. However, there was a Latino servant in the house who was very good at creating an Easter atmosphere, so Ronald also saw many colorfully decorated eggs and many rabbit-like toys in the house.

Who would have known that on this holiday, which was said to be the anniversary of Jesus' resurrection, it was reported that Disney's second-in-command, President Frank Wells, who was Eisner's biggest ally in the company, had fallen to his death.

The Latin maid made a cross on her chest and said, "May God bless him to heaven. This respectable and kind man made many animated films for us. I watched them when I was a child..."

"It's a helicopter again..." Ronald felt that the accident rate of this thing was really high. He had heard of many celebrities dying in helicopter accidents in bad weather.

After reading the detailed report, Ronald realized that Frank Wells was no ordinary person. He was a mountaineer who had climbed six of the seven highest peaks in the world. However, when he climbed Mount Everest, he had to retreat not far from the top of the mountain due to weather conditions.

His climbing partner, Dick Bass, a businessman who owned a ski resort business, later climbed Everest again, becoming the first person to climb all seven summits.

Frank Wells was later busy with his work in Hollywood. When Disney was in turmoil in 1982, he was an important candidate invited to balance Eisner.

In the entire Disney Group, he is the only one who reports directly to the board of directors instead of to Eisner.

His sudden death may cause new instability within Disney.

After thinking about this, Ronald felt that something was wrong. An old Hollywood veteran had unfortunately passed away, but he was thinking about these business matters instead of expressing grief for the death of an artist.

Well, although Frank Wells was not an artist, he entered the Hollywood industry because he was a lawyer in the film and television industry, not through being a producer or director.

The work of those artists who felt sorry for their companions was also handed over to Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood left an hour early and escaped without taking Frank Wells' helicopter.

He also plans to sing a Beatles song "Hey, Judy" for his old friend who skied with him at the funeral held at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills a week later. It is said that this is the song that Frank Wells must sing when skiing...

“This is really crazy…”

Ronald didn't know which was crazier, Frank Wells's insistence on taking a helicopter ride in the mountains in the snow or Eastwood's announcement that he would sing at his old friend's funeral.

But Hollywood is a place where everything becomes a show in the end.

Not only that, in order to commemorate Frank Wells's contribution to Disney over the past decade, the copy of "The Lion King" released this summer has been re-edited to add a tribute to Frank Wells before the Disney castle logo.

It can be said that in Hollywood, a person's life, aging, illness and death are inseparable from the spirit of showmanship. Just like the saying popular in the early theater world, no matter what happens, the show must go on.

"But can Eastwood really sing? Shouldn't we invite a real artist?" Ronald didn't like Eastwood very much, so he made a joke about him.

"You don't know this. Clint actually made his debut in a musical..." Richard, who came to Ronald's house as usual, was very familiar with the resumes of these stars.

Who can do what, who has conflicts with whom, who likes to work with whom, who has had a relationship with whom, these are all important considerations for whether a star will participate in a film and television project. As a senior agent, you must be very familiar with these things.

When Eastwood was young, he was positioned by the big studios as a musical actor. He played in the movie Long March to Wanbao Mountain, in which he co-starred with Lee Marvin and Jean Seberg in a love triangle during the gold rush era. The whole movie was full of singing and dancing, and the box office was pretty good. Who would have thought that he would play the role of a taciturn western cowboy in the future?

"God bless..." Ronald also couldn't imagine Eastwood singing his lines.

"Breaking news, Nirvana appears to be disbanding, lead singer Kurt Cobain's whereabouts are unknown, and other band members have announced their withdrawal from the Lollapalooza Music Festival."

Ronald glanced over, and the news got more television time than the news of Frank Wells' death.

After all, the public doesn’t know much about him, even though he is the president of Disney. Nirvana is the most famous musician of the so-called Generation X (a group of babies born after the baby boom, who are also the main audience of movies now).

His albums sold 30 million copies in China, which is on the same order of magnitude as Michael Jackson's record sales before the scandal.

"So, will Katzenberg take over?" Ronald's mind unconsciously thought of Disney's power structure after Frank Wells' death. Will Eisner let Katzenberg, his loyal younger brother, take over Wells' position?
It may be difficult to say the conclusion. Eisner does not have many Disney shares. If Katzenberg takes over as president and changes the reporting line to report directly to the board of directors, then it is obvious that Eisner will have a direct competitor, unless... he lets Katzenberg report to himself after taking over as president.

Whatever ideas he and Spielberg have, they probably haven’t had the time to deal with them lately.

"Update our station with the latest news. An electrician found Kurt Cobain dead at his home on Lake Washington Avenue in Seattle..."

(End of this chapter)