Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1529: Quickly Determine the Project Direction
The script of "Double Mirror" cannot be said to be good, but it is generally suitable for small-scale screenings, introducing pre-sale funds from Europe, and finally allowing Barbara Streisand, who has the highest salary among the main creative staff, to reduce the fixed salary and increase the share ratio, and other methods to reduce risks.

In this sense, Ovitz did nothing wrong. He was very kind to Barbra Streisand and gave her a high fixed salary. After Ronald took over, he found that Streisand's fame in Europe was not enough to sign a pre-sale contract for many copies.

But Ovitz had been in the position of CAA president for too long, trying to take care of all parties and broker deals. His personal wealth and status in the industry made him unable to tolerate the excessive demands of these stars any longer, so he "offended" Barbra Streisand's age with his words...that is, he told her the truth.

Barbra Streisand always wants to compare herself with Robert Redford, wanting to be on par with this male star of the same generation in terms of treatment and awards. However, the gap between the two is not entirely due to gender differences. Appearance appeal to the audience is also an important factor.

In the end, Barbra Streisand paid a heavy price for her self-esteem. She agreed to reduce her director's salary and convert most of it into a share of the gross profit after box office profits. She was ranked first in the profit sharing list, ensuring that as long as the movie was profitable, she would be the first person to share the profits.

As for the script that Barbra Streisand brought, Ronald also went to check it, and found that it did not match the "fingerprint" of the target's printer. The inspector from Connecticut had also checked all the files of Daydream and found no match. This made Ronald doubt his own guess.

However, one should not be impatient about such things. Ronald suppressed his annoyance and gave the inspector a large bonus, agreeing that if there were any more samples to be tested in the future, they would be sent to the university where he worked...

The script of "Double Mirror" passed the script review of Ronald Daydream Pictures. However, Ronald did not have the idea of ​​developing it on his own. He found TriStar Pictures, which is the most thoughtful company in Hollywood for this kind of niche market movie. Medavoy was not interested in competing for the new president of Sony Columbia, but his favorite production work made him interested.

Unlike Ronald, McDavoy regarded this movie as his career, so he was very concerned about it. He met with Ronald and Barbra Streisand successively to make changes to the script in order to better suit the audience's taste...

Ronald went there twice and lost interest in participating. He simply gave the lead of the film to Medavoy, asking him to slowly persuade Barbara Streisand to modify the conflicts between husband and wife, mother and daughter, and sisters in the film to be more in line with the public taste.

From this incident, we can see that stars like Barbra Streisand are actually just more famous in the circle. She does not have much bargaining chips in the game with the studio executives who actually hold the power to decide the project.

In other words, no matter how good a script she was, the studio executives, who represented the market, would still have to make revisions based on their feedback from the market. Moreover, in the debate between the two sides, she often could not convince the other party because Medavoy had a better grasp of market tastes than she did.

In similar situations, real big stars like Tom Cruise often win in the game with Paramount's top executives, and most of his suggestions on the script and scenes of "Mission: Impossible" are adopted.

Paula Wagner held meetings with Paramount's producers for several months, and finally, at Ronald's suggestion, Brian De Palma was selected as the director, and the famous screenwriter David Coep was hired to revise the script.

David Koep had done a lot of screenwriting work for Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," but Tom Cruise wasn't happy with his ideas.

Cruise wanted to highlight his performance as the most important star, and to make every scene and every action reflect his handsomeness. David Koep still had the traditional screenwriter's thinking, wanting the movie to have a beginning, a middle and an end, with some moments of tension and some moments of relaxation.

At this time, Brian De Palma, the director who supported David Coep, did not have any confidence at all. He got the director position only after Tom Cruise's approval.

The disagreement between the two parties was so great that it even affected Paramount's decision on whether to green-light the film.

Because the two sides have fundamentally different ideas, it is basically a situation of either you or me. However, as David Koep is one of the screenwriters of Jurassic Park, the best-selling movie in history, some people at Paramount still have superstition about him and think that they should listen to him.

At this time, Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing should come out to make the final decision. But Sherry Lansing is a shrewd person after all. She knows that David Koep has Spielberg behind him, and Tom Cruise has Ronald behind him. No matter who she judges to be more reasonable, she will risk offending the two big guys she cannot afford to offend.

So, she, who had good interpersonal relationships and had obtained an important position in Paramount, used a Tai Chi push hand move to throw the difficult problem to Ronald.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with her nominal reason. Shirley Lansing told Ronald that she didn't know who to listen to for the movie adapted from the TV series. Tom Cruise has his reasons. After all, he is the only international superstar who can ignore the Cinema Score and pull up the box office.

And what David Koep said may not be wrong. The Jurassic Park, which he made major changes to after taking over, is now regarded as a "standard script" in the Hollywood industry. For big productions with a budget of over 50 million, everyone wants to move closer to this script structure in order to avoid losing money.

Ronald certainly knew her true thoughts, but he would definitely stand on the side of Tom Cruise. This kind of movie is essentially an old-fashioned Hollywood movie, which is more bizarre and thrilling than real life. It is not a new-style movie like Jurassic Park, where the story and characters are as close to real life as possible except for the big dinosaurs.

Because the old version of the TV series "Mission Impossible" is a fake narrative. Anyway, everyone knows that you are making it up, such as the disguise mask that makes the other party think you are another person, the strong man carrying an adult woman hiding in a suitcase with one hand and walking briskly...

What the audience wants is not a reliable story that makes logical sense, but constant new excitement that makes them forget how unreasonable and ridiculous the previous plot was.

Therefore, under the limitation of this plot mode, the most important thing is not the rationality of the story, but to let Tom Cruise show off in various situations...

Ronald first called Spielberg and informed him of his thoughts and decision. Spielberg actually didn't think much of David Koep's screenwriting ability, and Ronald also called in advance to inform him, which was impeccable in terms of etiquette. He immediately said that this matter should be decided by Ronald alone...

The second contact is Gale Hurd, Cameron's ex-wife. This old friend fell in love with Brian De Palma at first sight a few years ago, and then got married and gave birth to a daughter. Then the same old plot with Cameron was played out. The two became estranged during the period of childbirth, De Palma fell in love with someone else, and the two divorced. Gale Hurd has the title of the ex-wife of a famous Hollywood director and an additional alimony.

However, as a female producer, Gail Hurd is different from the female star ex-wives of directors. After the divorce, she still maintained a certain contact with her two ex-husbands, and sometimes called them to talk about work.

So Ronald also told Gail directly that she might lose a large portion of alimony. After Gail understood the whole story and laughed, she also agreed to pass the message to Brian De Palma.

After the box-office flop of his star-studded directorial effort, The Blaze of the Vanities, De Palma couldn't afford another commercial failure, let alone be fired from his directorial job.

Brian De Palma, after receiving the message, immediately softened his stance and called Ronald, saying that he would definitely stand on the side of the producers and Tom Cruise, and that he understood that the key to the project was the stars, not a screenwriter.

After settling the interests of all parties, Ronald also went to Paramount's office to be the person to announce the decision.

"The project will start shooting in three months. We can't afford such changes. Tom, I am sure that the movie still needs a classic story..."

As soon as he entered the conference room, Ronald heard David Coep still acting like a mentor. He spoke as if he was really the decisive factor in the success of Jurassic Park.

"I don't want to sound rude, but we have to increase the protagonist's role. We have to do some scenes that the audience has not seen. For example, placing more than ten tons of explosives to blow up a huge aquarium, and the protagonist escapes the joint attack of the bad guys and sharks on land..."

Tom Cruise is just emphasizing his own idea. Today, action movies are no longer able to attract audiences with just the scenes of knocking down enemies with one punch in some old TV series. They must be accompanied by various scenes that have never been seen or even imagined.

As for the action scenes, punching, kicking and shooting have already reached a bottleneck. The previous shot of Schwarzenegger firing a Gatling gun has reached the limit of firearms. Now no one can imitate him to lift the machine gun that was originally on the armed helicopter, and it is unlikely that anyone will surpass him in the future and lift a howitzer or something like that.

So, we have to go in new directions. For example, Tom Cruise has some crazy ideas, such as hanging upside down from the ceiling with a rope and stealing the spy list in the heavily guarded CIA headquarters.

As for the various bizarre ways of death that are indispensable in this kind of spy film, Tom Cruise is also prepared to play some big ones, such as being crushed to death in an elevator, being blown up in a car, and being stabbed to death by a passerby on a connecting bridge, and falling into the river without a trace of his body...

David Koep's face turned unhappy when he heard this. Stars are so boring and shameless. The only thing in their minds is how good the scenes they appear in are, and they never think about the entire movie.

"Tom, I've said it many times..." He had to refute some of Tom Cruise's ideas in the meeting, making the staff around him look bitter. Today might be another wasted day.

"David..." Ronald spoke to attract his attention, "You're right. There are less than three months left before filming starts. Tom's schedule is very tight (he has to film Mr. Sweetie with Diane later), and Brian also needs to do the early location scouting. So it's decided..."

Ronald pointed at Brian De Palma, who took out his notebook, opened it, and began to talk about his thoughts on various filming locations. In addition to various thrilling action scenes, this movie also has to have scenery from all over the world to satisfy the audience's eyes. Anyway, the story is very ridiculous. The most powerful spy agency in the world is not the CIA in America, nor the KGB, but the IMF that no one has ever heard of...

"What?" David Coep was left out for a moment and tried to get the topic back on track.

Ronald turned his head and looked at him sharply, causing David Koep to stop talking.

"I think you don't understand the situation now, David. You've been fired. Go find your agent. Paramount will settle your fees. All your creative ideas and changes to the script will be bought out. Whether they are used or not in the future has nothing to do with you."

Ronald also pointed to the door and solved the problem quickly and easily.

After David Coep left in a daze, Ronald blew a whistle, and the assistant who heard the news came in with another man.

"Let me introduce you. This is Robert Towne. He will be taking over David Koep's job."

The screenwriter Ronald found was originally a script writer for Roger Corman, and was very familiar with the scriptwriting model of focusing on stars and modifying the plot at any time. Later, Chinatown, which he wrote, was made into an award-winning film. Later, he also worked with Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, and the two had a good relationship.

Asking him to come in can help him get started quickly and understand what Tom Cruise needs.

Sure enough, Ronald's decision was very effective. Soon, the director, screenwriter and big star had a tacit understanding and had some substantive discussions on which cities to shoot in and which thrilling scenes to arrange.

Of course, there are still some disagreements between them, but compared to David Koep's previous remarks that prevented further discussion, at least everyone is now constructive.

As an arbitrator, Ronald also made a lot of difficult decisions for them. For example, the film was confirmed to be shot in London, and Ronald was in charge of coordinating the filming of Big Ben, Charles Bridge, National Museum and Old Town Square.

For the final shot on the TGV high-speed train, Ronald also managed to communicate with the operator of the TGV.

Ronald agreed with Tom Cruise on these big scenes and big productions. After all, he was the one doing the stunts, not the director, so he should be the one who knows best what effect he wants to achieve.

Of course, Ronald also supported De Palma in one thing: the opening scene would be shot in Prague. De Palma said that Prague does not appear often in Hollywood movies, and the old-fashioned urban architecture in Europe would give the audience an immersive feeling and quickly integrate into the movie.

Tom Cruise still wanted to shoot this scene in New York or Paris, but was persuaded by Ronald. This is the mise-en-scène, not the thrilling action scene, and the director's experience is much more important.

Of course, the real reason is that filming in Prague can save a lot of money and obtain funding from the Czech government.

After two hours, the production meeting chaired by Ronald achieved more results than the past few weeks. After that, De Palma went back to Europe to scout locations, and Tom Cruise had to do specific exercises to gain the action ability for those thrilling scenes. For example, keeping the body balanced with a rope tied around the waist is not as easy as imagined, and requires professional training.

After clarifying the direction of the film project, Ronald wanted to invite everyone to dinner, but Shirley Lansing appeared in the meeting room at the right time, stopped Ronald, and said that she wanted to talk to him specifically.

"Mr. Redstone wants to see you, Ronald." After seeing off the main creators, Shirley Lansing told Ronald the real purpose of her visit.

"It just so happens that I also want to talk to him..." Ronald thought to himself, after Paramount was acquired by Viacom, the stock price has been not good, and I still have a large number of stocks to sell.

Gout is still quite painful, but I thought it was well controlled and would not recur.