Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1601 Earthlings' Independence Day

The negotiations with 20th Century Fox went smoothly. Fox originally wanted to continue to borrow Ronald's brain and vision to create another "Die Hard"-style success. Ronald wanted a seat on the MPAA board of directors.

Fox CEO Peter Chernin generously stated that the cooperation between Fox and United Artists is a very good phenomenon, which indicates that the two major studios with an orderly inheritance from the golden age of Hollywood are about to be rejuvenated.

As long as they can produce one or two commercial blockbusters that will make Hollywood shine, and then United Artists will regain its seat on the MPAA board of directors, no one can stop it.

The two sides reached a friendly consensus and issued a press release announcing the intention of co-production. Now all that was left was to borrow Ronald's foresight in box office predictions and start the project process immediately if he saw any Fox script.

Accompanying Peter Chernin was Tom Rothman, the first president of Fox Searchlight, a newly established studio under Fox.

This man is about the same age as Ronald and has just been transferred to take charge of this new company. Fox Searchlight is also an attempt made by Fox after being influenced by Touchstone and Miramax under Disney.

The big studios face various limitations. Many medium-sized and innovative films have no chance of being approved under the Fox label. The backlog of good scripts is piled up in the warehouse, but no star is willing to commit to acting, so there is no chance of seeing the light of day.

By setting up a small, independently operated company, they can quickly set up projects to shoot some medium-cost productions with the help of experts like Tom Rothman. If the new innovative type has potential, Fox can copy this type of film immediately.

If the searchlight attempt is unsuccessful, the extent of the loss will be limited. This is also the meaning of the company logo chosen by Fox Searchlight. Originally, next to the golden LOGO of 20th Century Fox, there was a searchlight illuminating the logo.

This is equivalent to defining the mission of Searchlight to illuminate the future path for 20th Century Fox.

Tom Rothman's efforts were very successful. He discovered two British directors, Anthony Minghella, who is now working hard on his new project, and Kenneth Branagh, who has just finished filming two Shakespeare adaptations and gained fame in Hollywood.

It just so happened that Kenneth Branagh’s wife Emma Thompson had previously collaborated with Ang Lee on Jane Austen’s famous work “Sense and Sensibility”, so she had a common connection with Ronald.

The two had a pleasant conversation and shared some common ideas about production. Tom Rothman saw that Ronald was in a good mood and told him that he was chosen by Peter Chernin and would be responsible for the overall production of 20th Century Fox, not just Searchlight. Therefore, in most cases of future cooperation between Fox and United Artists, he would be the one to contact Ronald.

Ronald would save a lot of trouble if he could work with such a young person who shares the same ideas as him (I just don't know whether Tom Rossman really thinks so or deliberately gets close to Ronald to curry favor with him).

"Do you have any new projects in preparation now? Can we at United Artists also participate?" Seeing that Tom Rothman was equivalent to the future chief producer of Fox, Ronald simply asked him if there were any projects suitable for the two parties to cooperate on.

"There is one, but I estimate the production cost to be more than 5000 million, and the director has never been successful in commercial films before, so I'm still undecided. How about we take a look at a smaller production from Searchlight first?" Tom Rothman took a step back and happened to have a big special effects production, so he wanted to see if Ronald liked it. If he thought it was okay, then the two sides would cooperate and solve the budget problem.

"For small productions like Searchlight, you can talk to my script director David Simkins, and I will just take a look at it when the time comes. Only talk to me about big productions..." Ronald smiled and waved his hand. It seemed that the young man Tom Rothman was a little too reserved.

"Ah, okay. It's a story about aliens invading Earth."

Tom Rothman began to sell Ronald on several aspects of the story that would make it attractive.

The main plot of this movie is very simple. Aliens parked large flying saucers over the world's largest cities and then fired lasers to destroy the city centers. Their combat weapons far exceeded those of Earthlings, and the Earth was about to be destroyed.

People from all countries on Earth united, collected all the remaining aircraft, and under the leadership of President America, a former fighter pilot veteran, launched a suicide charge towards the UFO, launched the virus, and finally destroyed the aliens, and peace returned to Earth.

This story is actually a type of Hollywood film that was popular before the 1970s, a disaster film, which expresses people's reactions to various disasters.

As early as the 1950s and 1960s, Roger Corman made many disaster "blockbusters" with special effects for $2.38. In the 1970s, "The Burning Skyscraper" about a fire and "The Fugitive" about a hijacking in the New York subway were both box office successes.

However, by the 1980s, perhaps due to a change in the audience's mentality, such disaster films began to fail at the box office and eventually disappeared.

Now, this movie called "ID" has added some innovative computer special effects scenes on the basis of traditional disaster films. It is estimated that the shooting cost is much higher than that of old disaster films, but it is also a kind of disaster that the audience has not seen, and it can be regarded as a renovation of old-style genre films.

Ronald was indeed very interested, especially after seeing the name of the director from 20th Century Fox with the script.

"Roland Emmerich? I know him. He made a movie for me called Forever Soldier, but it didn't do well at the box office. But it's not his fault. It's just that the audience is tired of this kind of movie about the futurist me..."

The post-apocalyptic sci-fi film that Roland Emmerich, a German, shot for Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme had very good special effects. Although it failed at the box office, Ronald did not blame him.

Unexpectedly, Roland Emmerich has been trying hard to make a commercial special effects movie in recent years. Ronald thought that it might be possible to use the latest computer special effects to renovate traditional disaster movies.

"Are you interested? We can talk to him?" Tom Rossman's sales skills were successful and he couldn't help but smile.

"Okay, but why did you call this movie ID? Does it have anything to do with the plot?"

"This is an abbreviation. The original name of the script is Independence Day. The film copyright is owned by Warner Bros.... I haven't decided whether to use it. Or, we can come up with a new one, such as "The Great Disaster" or something like that. After all, it costs money to buy it."

……

Ronald didn't want to deal with Warner Bros., so he didn't pay much attention to it. The movie called ID was quickly approved, and Roland Emmerich found an opportunity to meet Ronald.

"Mr. Li, this is a little bit of footage I shot to give you a rough idea of ​​the film."

"Let's not talk about that. Why don't you come to me first if you have a project?" Ronald didn't bother to look and asked Emmerich directly.

"I felt really bad that Daydream lost money on the first installment of the film. Then a game company owner named Dean Devlin approached me to make a movie, so I wanted to try making a low-budget movie with him first.

But Dean Devlin was a great salesman, and he found Fox and got the green light..."

Roland Emmerich didn't dare to tell the truth. He came to Ronald's Daydream first after getting the script, but the script didn't pass Daydream's initial review. Of course, it's not a good idea to complain about all this now, after all, he lost money on his first movie.

"Well, it seems I have to take charge of the selection of Daydream scripts." Ronald saw through Emmerich's concealment on the spot. But this is inevitable. As the company grows bigger and more successful, employees will become arrogant, and various bureaucratic procedures will begin to appear.

Fortunately, I found a vice president for United Artists who enjoyed developing unique films, Michael Medavoy, the former vice president of TriStar Pictures.

Medavoy was very touched that Ronald could revive his old company. Since there was no room for advancement at Columbia & Sony anyway, he might as well come and help Ronald. He thought that after Ronald announced his revival, United Artists must have many unique and groundbreaking scripts, so he happily agreed to switch over.

Of course, Ronald also gave him a big salary increase, and gave him the power to restart all script projects. No matter who originally rejected the script project, including Ronald himself, as long as Medavoy felt it had potential, he could start over.

With the help of this industry veteran, Ronald no longer has to read every script sent to New Associates himself.

"Your idea is wrong. In Hollywood, if you lose money on a movie you make for a company, the best thing to do is to keep asking them to make the next one. That way, if the next one makes money, you can repay the favor. If the next one loses money again, then the company that loses money on two big productions will most likely go bankrupt, and they won't be able to continue to say bad things about you in Hollywood, and you can easily find the next victim to make the third movie."

“Hahahaha…” Fortunately, Roland Emmerich is not a typical German. He has been in the American film industry and has a certain resistance to Ronald’s cold humor, so he can still laugh.

"However, you still have to take a look at the clip I shot. I think it's important. If you can spend a few minutes watching it, it may change the box office performance of this movie, and I won't have to go to other studios to promote my next project." Roland Emmerich insisted that Ronald watch the sample film he shot.

"Okay, put it on and let's see." Ronald looked at Diane who was waiting for him at the door of the room. He was going to watch a new children's movie with his son. He turned around and said to Emmerich that you have to hurry.

“Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!”

It turns out that this clip is where the movie ends, where the President gives a speech announcing that the people of Earth will unite to regain independence from alien slavery.

Bill Pullman, who plays the president, is a very stylish actor, and looks like President William. Although his role is more like the president of the Elephant Party, you should know that there are many retired presidents in the Elephant Party, including President George, who did fly fighter jets in the past.

This speech really suits the taste of American audiences. They always think that the founding myth of America is a miracle in the world. Having the opportunity to reproduce this scene in the movie for all the people on earth may really increase the box office results.

That being said, it was important to get the film's title rights back from Warner Bros. If it was called something apocalyptic, the marketing power of this exciting ending would be weakened.

Ronald immediately called Tom Rothman and expressed his willingness to buy the rights to use the film title from Warner Bros. at any price.

The 1983 Warner Bros. film actually tells a completely different story, about a woman in a small town who wants to be a photographer and seeks independence, and finally rises up in resistance and ignites the gas to kill her abusive husband.

The film received a lukewarm response from the market and was withdrawn from theaters after two weeks. Ronald asked Tom Rothman to negotiate with Warner Bros. and avoided appearing himself to avoid causing dissatisfaction and vigilance on the other side.

The fact that Forrest Gump was secretly bought from Warner Bros. has always made the people in charge of Warner Bros. feel extremely sad. If they knew that it was Ronald who insisted on it, without mentioning the grudges, they would have to bleed a lot of money to buy it just for the market prospect.

Hollywood then entered its usual commercial film schedule. Apart from the cheesy movie Dangerous Minds (which of course did well at the box office), in which Michelle Pfeiffer played a retired Marine who returned to a small town to reorganize poor black and Latino men and improve their grades and confidence, there was Keanu Reeves' new film, a story about a retired World War II sergeant who pretends to be the boyfriend of a beautiful lady named Victoria who got pregnant out of wedlock.

Pfeiffer broke the stereotype of the retired soldier, which made many people interested in watching it. Keanu Reeves is particularly suitable for playing the passive male protagonist in this kind of romantic love drama. As long as he doesn't speak, his poor acting skills can't be seen.

But in the end, Ronald's favorite was another children's film he watched with Roger Jr., A Child in King Arthur's Court. Gottlieb, who directed the wooden beauty, told the story of a 14-year-old American boy who travels back in time to the time of King Arthur and helps a princess find true love.

Although the movie didn't do well at the box office, Ronald played it several times at home. The plot was very similar to his own life experience, but it was a pity that Americans didn't like to watch it...

He was thinking about whether to invest in some movies like Michelle Pfeiffer's sexy beauty turning into a strong woman, and Diane came to talk to him, it seemed that Tom Cruise's new film Mission: Impossible had some problems, which affected Diane's new film.