Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1499: One in a Million Ability to Carry Goods

Anthony Zollazzi was an Italian man who also came prepared. He brought a booklet to show Ronald that was filled with photos of various shrimp foods that he had tried to make.

“Here are the recipes I prepared for Babu Gump’s Shrimp Restaurant. It’s fried shrimp, it’s lime pickled shrimp, it’s beer steamed shrimp, it’s shrimp mac and cheese…”

Zollerchi named a dozen dishes made with shrimp in one breath, which was similar to the one he named when he and Forrest Gump were scrubbing the floor in the movie.

Of course, Bob in the movie only reported various ways to cook shrimps, but Anthony Zollerzi's recipe is a proven one. The photos in the booklet are very well taken, with a white background and deliberate lighting, which makes people hungry at first sight.

"It looks good, but I wonder how it tastes..." Ronald quite likes this Italian seafood dish. The shrimp is served with green spinach and thistles, red peppers and tomatoes, and some white cheese and salad dressing. It makes people want to try it on the spot.

"I can make one for you on the spot. My ingredients are in the cart outside, including frozen shrimps..." As soon as Anthony Zollerchi saw that there was a chance, he immediately rubbed his hands and started to prepare.

"You can use what's in my kitchen. I have all the ingredients..." Ronald would not eat the ingredients of unknown origin that he brought. He just winked at his bodyguard and asked him to take the gentleman to the kitchen to select the right ingredients and try to make a dish for everyone to try.

“Are these all shrimp?”

Diane looked at the set of dishes that were served not long after. From salad to main course, every dish contained prawns, which really carried out Bob's idea in the movie to the end.

"Hello, ma'am. That's not the case. I just wanted to show my creativity. If you don't like shrimp appetizers, I have fried squid here. You can dip it in this shrimp sauce."

"Hey, isn't this still about shrimp?" Ronald shook his head, then nodded. Such gimmicks are still very important in the early stages of a restaurant's opening.

After trying these dishes, I found that the ingredients were rich and complementary. The cooking method made the taste rich. In addition, the bright colors whetted people's appetites. The main people who attended the party ate a lot.

When Anthony Zoller saw that Ronald and Diane liked it, he immediately went back to the kitchen and made several more servings.

The guests at the scene also enjoyed the food. Sinise, who played Lieutenant Dan, ate a plate of fried shrimp and shouted to Tom Hanks and Michael Williamson, who played Bub, "Forrest Gump, Bub's dream has come true, Forrest Gump!"

This attracted the attention of the crowd, and they all reached their hands into the plates to eat the food that was said to have been invented based on the movie Forrest Gump.

Anthony Zollerzi's new food for Bob and Forrest Gump Shrimp was consumed much faster, so he had to work in the kitchen for more than an hour before all the cast and crew of Forrest Gump could eat his shrimp-filled dish.

Anthony Zollerzi finally finished cooking all the shrimps for Ronald's family. The staff behind the scenes had big appetites to begin with, and these new dishes were not easy to eat, so he was so busy that he was almost exhausted.

But the reward for the hard work was huge. Ronald personally promised him that he would rent the license to him. As long as Paramount's Sherry Lansing liked it, Anthony Zollerzi could open his first Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant near Hollywood in Los Angeles.

……

A few days later, Ronald visited Shirley Lansing at Paramount Studios with Anthony Zollerzi. The prepared ingredients were placed on a dining car outside the door for location shooting. Inside was the first team of chefs hired by Anthony Zollerzi, who no longer had to cook by himself.

In order to satisfy Shirley Lansing this time, he also specially developed a set of women's meals. The vegetables in it were changed to broccoli, kale, and avocado, the macaroni was changed to brown rice and quinoa, and the fried squid was changed to salmon, chicken breast, and shrimp as snacks.

"How do you feel?" Ronald looked at Shirley Lansing and her team, who had this ladies' special meal as lunch, paired with Greek yogurt which was said to be good for ladies, and they all ate a lot.

Because there are no fried foods or unhealthy starchy foods in it, these ladies eat as much as they want and enjoy the delicious food. After all, those diet foods such as kale and avocado taste much better when paired with low-calorie shrimp and healthy shrimp paste.

"Let me tell you, this is the best working lunch I've had since I started working in Hollywood, and it's very healthy..." Shirley Lansing definitely knew what was good. She understood Ronald's intention to make the inclusion of shrimp in every dish a major selling point of this restaurant chain.

If Paramount Pictures can earn more licensing fees from this movie, it will open up a new source of income, which will be a good performance for Shirley Lansing and her new boss Redstone.

"Is that right, Andrea?" Shirley Lansing looked across at another lady who was eating voraciously.

This is Andrea Hine, president of Viacom Consumer Products. After acquiring Paramount, Redstone made many internal structural adjustments.

It turns out that this company, which was once part of Paramount Pictures, is now independent and directly under the leadership of Viacom.

This is a very profitable company because Paramount also owns the derivative property rights of the movie and TV series Star Trek. Andrea Hein is in charge of the sales of derivative products of all Paramount's copyrighted movies and TV series, including this cash cow, as well as joint products with other brands.

Because the copyright of the derivative products of Forrest Gump is nominally jointly owned by the distribution company Paramount and the production company Daydream. The two companies share the profits according to the investment ratio in this project.

Therefore, if Viacom Consumer Products wants to produce and sell these derivative products, it must pay the copyright owner.

Of course, since Paramount also belongs to the Viacom Group, the licensing fee for this copyright will be relatively low.

Of course, they won't go too far, because Ronald and Paramount Pictures still have a lot of important collaborations to do, so at least the licensing fee paid to Daydream will be a price that both parties feel comfortable with.

In addition, Ronald did not care about anything else but collecting the licensing fee. All the trial production costs, production costs, and the risk of the derivative products not selling well belonged to Viacom. So Ronald was quite satisfied with this agreement, which seemed to be a disadvantage.

Not to mention anything else, the risk of unsalable products is actually very high.

For example, last year Paramount released the movie "Last Action Hero", starring Schwarzenegger and with cameo appearances by many action stars. His derivative business lost a lot of money.

This is because the release cycle of a movie is very short. Except for the top five box office hits of the year, which can be released for 20 or even 30 weeks, ordinary movies will be taken off the shelves within ten weeks.

After this release period, the audience will no longer pay too much attention to the characters in this movie.

When the movie is off the shelves and the video tapes are put on sale, most of them are sold to video tape rental stores. The real die-hard fans who buy a copy for collection do not actually account for a large part of the total video tape sales.

Audiences will buy derivative products of a movie only after they have watched the movie. Therefore, the peak sales cycle of a movie that is capable of selling derivative products is about eight weeks.

In order to achieve this high sales volume during the eight-week sales period, the film company needs to produce and prepare the products a long time in advance. Also, the sales volume of film derivatives will drop to almost half after the film is released, so the total output will not be very high.

Then the cost of a single product is unlikely to be reduced. Therefore, we cannot take the path of large-scale manufacturing and small profits but quick turnover. We must also make each derivative product very exquisite so that the audience is willing to spend as much money as possible to buy one home for collection.

This brings a very high risk. If these high-cost derivative products are stocked in large quantities and fail to sell after the movie is released, all these things will be lost in the hands of the distribution company.

For example, "The Last Action Hero" and another Paramount comic book adaptation "Dick Tracy" are highly anticipated, because one is a collection of all action heroes from the 1980s, and the other is meant for comic book fans, who in experience tend to sell derivative products (mainly dolls) the best.

Who knew that two consecutive movies would not perform well at the box office, and no one would buy the derivative products. They could not be sold at a reduced price like ordinary goods, because if they did, the fans who had bought these products at the original price not long ago would be very dissatisfied.

Andrea Hein's former boss, the former president of the company formerly known as "Paramount Consumer Products," was ruthlessly fired by the old man Redstone because of the loss of money on the merchandise of these two films.

After Andrea Hine took office, she revised her predecessor's policy. Her idea was that the sales of movie derivative products were more difficult to predict than the box office of the movie.

In this case, she took the unpredictable route, first seeing the box office performance of the first weekend and how much the audience liked the film, and then using a relatively high production cost in exchange for a lower risk.

Although the cost of rushing to produce these Forrest Gump and Jenny dolls is much higher than stocking them in advance, the fans of Forrest Gump are middle-aged people with strong purchasing power, so these very high prices did not scare them at all.

Andrea Hine, because the dolls were so popular that they were sold out in some places, stopped production of Star Tours and put more resources into making Forrest Gump dolls.

Sales also show that the Forrest Gump doll is the best-selling doll in this movie. Andrea Hine continued to launch different versions of Forrest Gump, such as the football player Forrest Gump, the table tennis player Forrest Gump, the running Forrest Gump, the Forrest Gump in military uniform, and the most classic Forrest Gump sitting on a bench and telling stories to others.

The most expensive set of dolls, but the one that sold out the most, was the family doll of Forrest Gump, his mother, Jenny, and their little son, Little Forrest Gump.

The sales of these dolls would have made Andrea Hine's name remembered by Redstone.

But the delicious Bob Gump Shrimp Set Meal that Ronald brought today gave Andrea Hine new inspiration.

"I say, sir..." She didn't know Anthony Zollerzi, but she was satisfied with his food. "Actually, there are a lot of people who want to taste the shrimp-related food that Babu told Forrest Gump about. And they don't all have the opportunity to come to Los Angeles to visit your restaurant and try it for themselves. Don't shake your head, your restaurant will definitely be full of guests. The last time the restaurant of Dances with Wolves was opened by Ronald, business was very good..."

Andrea Hein put down the plate and wiped her mouth with satisfaction. Then she continued, "Why don't you make these pre-made semi-finished products and sell them in supermarkets? Just like after I tasted the taste of this Ms. Babu Agan's lunch today, I really want to buy ten packs and fill my refrigerator..."

"What do you think?" Ronald asked Anthony Zollerzi.

"Of course it's great. I'm just a little worried. The restaurant hasn't opened yet. Will anyone like these semi-finished products?" Anthony Zoleqi scratched his head. He didn't expect that the business would expand all of a sudden.

"I'm telling you, I'm just giving you a priority, whether you do it or not. I heard that you're already an experienced seafood restaurant operator, so I'm giving you this opportunity. Whether you do it or not, I'm going to launch this Babu Gump Shrimp Set Meal, ladies' lunch, men's lunch, family dinner, etc. I'll have to add a few to the supermarket freezer..."

"I'll do it, I'll do it..." Anthony Zollerchi immediately stated that he would definitely contact his suppliers, use the best shrimps and the best factories, and start production at full capacity..."

"Very good, don't forget to prepare a Christmas set of Babu Gump Shrimp, which is our main product. You are very good at developing new dishes, and I hope you can come up with a Christmas shrimp that will satisfy us even more."

"Isn't this too risky?" Ronald was stunned. If we prepare Christmas merchandise now, will moviegoers still buy it then?

"Of course, this is our survey report, 63% of housewives think that trying shrimp is a very good new idea for Christmas dinner." Andrea Hein took out the data.

The distribution of movie derivative products is similar to that of movie box office revenue, with the top few successful ones taking up more than 80% of the market.

Forrest Gump's box office topped the charts again in its third week, which is a very strong signal. Hollywood hasn't seen such a long-term box office winner in many years. Everyone inside Paramount is ready to make as much money as possible from this movie.

"Look, this is the new derivative product we have prepared, and we are going to launch it next week, in addition to the cinema, at all other Paramount and partner commercial outlets.

Ronald took a look and saw that a small cart pushed in by her colleague was filled with numerous Forrest Gump derivative products.

In addition to the common T-shirts, jackets and baseball caps, and the co-branded running shoes with Forrest Gump, there are many unusual items that are not usually seen in movie stores.

There are products like "Forrest Gump Quotes," a bestselling book of quotes said by the character, and a table tennis set inspired by his table tennis games, complete with a Tom Hanks-faced paddle, just like in the movie.

There are also some completely crazy products, such as the "Forrest Gump Chocolate" that is about to be launched in stores, with the famous motto on the packaging, you never know what the next chocolate will taste like. The chocolate also has special Valentine's Day and Christmas packaging for fans to choose at different times.

"By the way, do you think we should publish another cookbook?" Andrea Hein suddenly had an idea. "Mr. Anthony Zollerzi, do you want to publish a book, Bubba Gump Shrimp Cookbook? A Taste of Alabama?"

Seeing Andrea Hein's crazy look, Ronald also swallowed his saliva, "Is this possible?"

"Why not? Forrest Gump is a great movie that can bring sales to derivative products. The last movie with such great sales ability was Star Wars..."

(End of this chapter)