Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1575 Ovitz's tank is empty
"According to widespread calls, the Academy will set up an independent investigation committee to investigate the fact that Basketball Dreams was not nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The committee will be composed of some reputable people in the industry and will conduct an investigation independently of the Academy."

After the scandal was exposed, the academy's executive director Bruce Davis and chairman Arthur Hiller held a public press conference and said they would investigate the incident.

"Who will lead this investigation? The executive committee of the academy, or the chairman?" The reporter did not let them off easily and began to question the independence of the investigation.

"We have asked renowned documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple to lead this investigation and we agree that she is the best choice given her experience and reputation."

"Oh……"

The reporters were a little convinced that the Academy was really going to investigate the matter. Barbara Kopple is a two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and her two award-winning films, "Harlan County, America" ​​and "American Dreams," are both about the strike.

In particular, Harlan County spent a huge sum of $20 to shoot a movie about the miners' strike in the Appalachian Mountains in . The industry has great trust in her integrity and character.

This action had a great impact on Hollywood. The Academy had not carried out such a major reform for a long time. In the following week, the first question many Hollywood insiders asked when they met was, "Have you heard about the investigation of the Oscar judges?"

For a while, it even seemed to replace the common American people's catchphrase when they meet, "Do you think Simpson did it?"

The trial of OJ Simpson's case has begun. In order to clear himself of suspicion of racism, Judge Ito of the Los Angeles Superior Court not only agreed to the composition of the jury to be composed of a majority of black people, but also, for the first time, allowed television media to broadcast the trial live for a certain period of time every day.

The Simpson murder case, which was very popular not long ago, has now resumed its status of occupying the main time slots of the news media. The British and French media have also reported and reprinted this case extensively. Now the most famous American in the world may be OJ Simpson.

Even when President William met with Russian leader Boris, the first thing Boris asked him was, "Do you think Simpson did it?"

……

"What do you want from me, Ronald?"

At the same time, Ronald also had his own things to focus on. Harvey Weinstein made a special appointment with him through his agent Richard.

He was very annoyed when the scandal of the jury voting for this documentary was exposed. As the general manager of a medium-sized production company that relies heavily on awards, he was completely unable to compete with the public relations budget face to face.

Therefore, he must take an unconventional approach and do something in a gray area to win the favor of the Oscars, so that the independent art films he favors can make a profit.

Although Ronald did not directly mention his name in this move, some people in the circle have already noticed his methods. If they take precautions in the future, they will not be so effective if they use them again.

"I don't want to do anything to you, Harvey. We are not in competition, are we?" Ronald replied with a smile. Although the budget of the movies that he is investing in now is not very large, they are all popular Hollywood scripts. It is completely different from Harvey who can only pick up some scraps that other studios don't want. The two are not competing on the same level.

"Ah, yes, yes, yes..." Harvey Weinstein nodded quickly, cursing in his heart. What do you mean by not constituting competition? This year, I lost all the nominated films to you.

"What I pursue is an orderly Hollywood. Even though it may not be 100% fair, people can generally pursue their dreams in this market." Ronald knows the Oscars and the Academy well. Since Gregory Peck's reforms decades ago, the problems have become so deep that reforms are necessary.

The average age of the voting judges has risen to over 50 again. A large number of judges have left the front line of production, and their aesthetic standards are still at the level of or years ago. If Harvey Weinstein's public relations specifically targeting these elderly judges are added, then the next Oscars may change from pleasing the audience to pleasing the judges.

The foundation of Hollywood movies is actually a commodity. If the audience does not like to watch and is unwilling to go to the cinema, then these so-called arts are just castles in the air. In the future, they may become an art form like opera, relying on government funding or donations from some wealthy people to survive.

But seeing Weinstein's expression, Ronald knew that he didn't agree with what he said. What absolute fairness, what order, I learned all these tricks to please the elderly judges from you.

"Harvey, you may think I'm hypocritical when I say this, but this industry must be big enough to accommodate the movies you like."

Ronald had nothing to say to him, so he stopped there. His worries were real. The cost of Hollywood productions has increased dramatically. The pay of top male stars has reached over 2000 million US dollars, and the pay of top female stars is also trending towards tens of millions of US dollars.

Low-budget B-grade exploitation films like Roger Ebert's have also lost their market after the demise of drive-in theaters, and directors now rely on exploitation films made exclusively for the videotape market to survive.

But the problem is that the way those videotape movies are shot is quite different from the way big-screen movies are shot. More than a decade ago, when Ronald first started out, young people like him could still shoot big-screen movies in companies like Roger Corman. But now, the difficulty for directors to achieve their debut is undoubtedly doubled.

The current standard for low-budget theatrical films is $200 million, which is more than 10 times higher than years ago. It is very unlikely for a young person who has just graduated from college or has transformed from an amateur to raise this amount of money.

This situation is a problem for the future of Hollywood. Without young directors like Ronald and Cameron entering the industry, and without young people daring to challenge the artistic expression of already famous directors, the entire film industry has become a stagnant pool without a source.

In the history of Hollywood, all new film genres and all new expressions were invented by young people.

Therefore, Ronald is planning to support these talented young directors and create an opportunity for them to direct a big screen movie for the first time.

Any young director who has directed a TV commercial, a documentary, or financed a short film himself, or shot student works in college, can send his work to Daydream and apply for funding from this project.

Ronald also plans to give speeches at several universities to encourage these talented but unsuccessful students to try to make some short films. Whether it is Ang Lee, Cameron, or Ronald himself, the biggest feature is that they like to make movies and can find ways to squeeze into this industry with very limited funds and shoot short films even if they are very short.

"I completely agree that it is very important to ensure the fairness of the Oscars." Harvey Weinstein felt that he was treated unfairly. Why do the films of those big studios get a lot of public relations funds to do awards public relations?
And I myself came up with some ways to achieve great things with little money, and people said that I was destroying the fairness of the industry? It is you who are unfair in this world, not me. Harvey Weinstein made up his mind that he would not mess with people like Ronald who knew some of his tricks very well.

Not only did I not win any awards, I also wasted a lot of money. It depends on the situation in the future. If the movies released during the year-end award season are all produced by stars like Barbra Streisand, who received very formal treatment from big studios when they first entered the industry, my tricks can play the biggest role.

"Thank you for coming to communicate with me..." Ronald could see that Harvey Weinstein was still unconvinced, but he thought that he would be more restrained in front of him in the future.

The academy's executive director, Bruce Davis, launched an investigation and retrieved the original voting ledger from PricewaterhouseCoopers, confirming that there was a situation in which a certain film was voted 10 points and all other films were voted 0 points.

Then, they took measures to disqualify the judges. Although the names of the judges were not made public, this was already a very severe punishment. As an Oscar judge, there are many advantages to be taken every year, and it was only a matter of time before my friend found out that they were cheaters.

The news lasted for a week in some Hollywood media, and then was replaced by a bigger news.

松下电器（Panasonic）将环球影业（Universal Pictures）和环球唱片80%的股权，出售给西格拉姆公司（Seagram）是在1995年4月6日宣布的。这笔交易的总价值约为57亿美元，其中包括现金和承担的债务。

In order to complete the deal and enter the entertainment industry, the Bronfman family's Seagram Company sold all of its 24% stake in DuPont, raising a total of $85 billion to cope with the acquisition.

Thanks to Michael Ovitz's efforts, both parties were very satisfied with the acquisition. Seagram felt that it had saved a lot of money, and although it was not a 80% acquisition, an % stake could guarantee them absolute say in MCA (the parent company of Universal Pictures and Universal Music).

Panasonic was also very happy. They purchased MCA for $60 billion a few years ago. This time they only sold 80% of the shares and retained 20%. Whether "in fact or in theory", they did not suffer any loss in this transaction.

There was nothing wrong with Panasonic's decision to invest in Hollywood. For the company's founder's adopted son-in-law, Chairman Masaharu Matsushita, who made the acquisition decision, this safeguarded his authority in the company.

Whether in Hollywood or Wall Street, it is a very rare thing that such a merger involving more than 50 billion US dollars can make both parties relatively satisfied. Ovitz, who acted as a matchmaker and promoted the deal, suddenly became the darling of both Wall Street and Hollywood.

Everyone is talking about whether Ovitz will leave CAA and become the CEO of MCA after the merger.

"Ronald, Ovitz has taken the bait..."

On the second night after the merger was announced, Ron Meyer of CAA found a very private Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown, and had a secret conversation in the dimly lit box with Ronald, who entered from another entrance.

Ovitz was busy with this M&A at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Dealing with big M&A cases worth 5000 or billion every day, a $ million packaged movie project seemed insignificant.

In order to pull off a "mere $5000 million" film project, Ovitz had to get up at : every day, talk on the phone with Europe, and exercise at the same time.

He also has to make more than 200 calls a day and arrange his lunch, dinner and all his schedules three months in advance.

He flies more than 600 hours every year and arranges more than 30 various activities from early November to the New Year holiday at the end of the year.

He has to answer phone calls until 6pm every day, then have dinner with various clients and partners. After returning home at pm, he has to call clients in Japan until midnight, and then hours later, the cycle begins again.

"Ovitz told me that being a broker is a young person's game. He started running non-stop from the first day he joined Philip Morris and has been running until today. At the age of 48, he no longer has any more gas in the tank to run further."

Ron Meyer repeated to Ronald what Ovitz had said to him one-on-one in the office today, and he thought Ovitz had made up his mind to leave CAA and take over at MCA.

"Are you sure? All these fatigue and exhaustion, I also have them when I am shooting a movie in the post-production stage. But after I take a long vacation and spend more time with my family, I will be full of desire to shoot new movies again."

Ronald frowned. Such sensational words were not very reliable evidence. Besides, Ron Meyer also had the same emotions as Ovitz. For the sake of income, he continued to work at CAA under Ovitz's pressure.

"I was sure that he wanted to join MCA, but he couldn't bear to give up the CAA business, so he invited me to join MCA as vice president and be his agent, and then wait for him to sell his CAA shares in ten months and then join MCA as CEO."

"That's much more certain..." Ronald smiled. This arrangement clearly treated Ron Mayer as a subordinate, rather than a founding partner on equal footing with him. But on the other hand, it was in line with Ronald and Mayer's calculations.