Chapter 163: On the verge of bankruptcy without making a movie
All of Jean-Claude Van Damme's editing theories were learned from Walter Murch, and his ability to do things on his own was learned from two Chinese directors Corey and Tsui when he was filming "Fist" in Hong Kong.
Whether "Cyborg" can be brought back to life, and whether he and Lundgren's stardom can be smooth again, all depends on the results of this editing.
With Ronald giving him free use of the editing room, he also wanted to add some insurance, so he contacted Corey Yeun and Tsui Hark and asked them to come to Hollywood to guide his editing work and reshoot action scenes when needed.
At the time, two Xiangjiang directors helped out.
In the office, after learning that Jean-Claude Van Damme was working so hard, Ronald thought he could help such a hard-working actor. He also called the two from Xiangjiang and invited them to come over. Daydream would take care of all the food and accommodation in Los Angeles.
The two quickly abandoned the matter in Hong Kong and rushed to Los Angeles as soon as possible. When Ronald saw them coming in with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the office, he asked his assistant to make tea for them.
"Jean Claude and I have known each other for a long time. He is not only a good action actor, but also very enterprising and wants to be a director. There are some problems with this movie, and I hope you can help him."
"Yes, Ronald. It is the saddest thing for an actor to see a movie that he worked hard to make, but in the end cannot be released because the producer withdraws funding." Jean-Claude Van Damme is good at karate and gets along with Corey Yeun
He's pretty good. It's not a problem to come and help him a little bit.
After talking about the "cyborg" issue, Ronald asked his assistant to make another pot of black tea, "Jean Claude, please allow me and the two Hong Kong directors some private space."
When Ronald saw his assistant close the door, he took out two checks from the drawer. Corey's "Dragon and Phoenix" and Tsui Hark's "The Legend" both made small gains in the video tape market. Ronald was generous.
The land gave them both some bonuses.
Especially in "Dragon and Phoenix Swords", Luo Fuluo is a white woman, coupled with the fierce action design of Xiangjiang martial arts instructor, which makes many low-level viewers enjoy watching it. The popularity of "Peerless Two Heroes" is even worse
Some.
Many viewers don’t understand why Qiu Yunbo and Luo Fuluo are flying around in the sky. Is it a fantasy literature similar to The Lord of the Rings? And what about the man who wears a lot of powder and is gorgeously dressed (the eunuch of the East Factory in the plot)?
What is her identity? How come there was a Drag Queen in ancient China?
However, this ancient fantasy time travel "Peerless Heroes" is more popular than "Dragon and Phoenix" in one place, and that is the areas where major Chinese, Japanese and Koreans live. It seems that East Asians have their own
National legend stories, it is easier to understand this style of action movies.
Both directors were very happy. Corey Yeun likes modern action movies, so he decided to help Jean-Claude Van Damme do some post-shooting work. The two of them went to see the unedited film first.
Tsui Hark's bonus was much smaller than Corey's, so he stayed to ask Ronald, "Rason, why are my movies not popular in America? Is it because my movies are worse than Corey's?"
"From a personal appreciation point of view, I actually like your movie better." When Ronald saw the flying scenes of "The Two Heroes", he felt very familiar, but it was another more realistic action movie.
In the movie "Dragon and Phoenix", he felt that it was much worse than Jackie Chan's fighting scenes.
"This is actually a question of movie-watching habits. The sales volume of video tapes in Chinatown is still better than yours. I hope you will make more of this kind of movies, so that audiences in America will gradually like movies with Chinese cultural backgrounds.
Just like Japanese movies decades ago, they were broadcast late at night on many TV stations and cultivated a group of Kurosawa Akira fans."
Ronald has a long-term plan. Various films in Hong Kong and Mainland China that are completely different from Hollywood methodologies have their own special cultural background blessings. In fact, the viewing experience is different from Hollywood commercial films. In America, the number of Asian people
Quite a few, as long as they insist on releasing Chinese-language films and videotapes, their movie-watching needs can be met.
And this trend of watching Chinese-language action movies and flying martial arts movies will slowly penetrate into the mainstream people. Anyway, there is not much language barrier for this type of movies, and the exciting action scenes are not available in Hollywood.
As long as there is a certain audience base, we can continue to produce low-cost exploitation films and distribute old Hong Kong films. As long as these low-cost films can make a profit, they can expand the number of moviegoers.
The expansion of the movie-going crowd can in turn support higher production budgets, thus entering a virtuous cycle.
Of course, this kind of production upgrade requires a masterpiece that can break out of the circle and enter the mainstream movie-watching crowd. Just like Kurosawa's role in Japanese movies, after him, America has a place in Japanese movies.
"That may require a Hong Kong movie that suits the taste of American audiences..." Tsui Hark had the same idea as Ronald. He immediately began to think about making another Hong Kong-style English movie in Hollywood.
"Well..." Ronald didn't say anything right away. This was to be considered as a Hollywood commercial project. He had never dreamed of any Chinese English-language movies, so the risk was still quite high. At this stage, Ronald would rather use
Low cost to operate at a low level and cultivate the market.
"This is very risky, unless it is a sequel to some movie, which allows you to try it... Hey, wait a minute..."
Ronald thought of the story he had in mind for the third part of "The Dragon King". He didn't want to do it anyway, but Tsui Hark's style suited his idea very well:
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Daniel and Master Miyagi dreamed back to the ancestor of Master Miyagi, the ancestor of family martial arts. Because of a shipwreck, he drifted to the South China Sea and learned from a Chinese master.
Tang Shou, the one who came back and founded Ryukyu Karate.
Isn’t this style very suitable for your plan?
"You stay here for a few more days, and I'll talk to Weintraub. If he's interested, you can come with us then." Ronald told Tsui Hark his thoughts and asked him to start thinking.
some plot and action.
…
"Jerry, why are you so hard to find? Can't I even call you?"
A few days later, someone finally answered Ronald's call to Weintraub. The man didn't know what he was doing. Ronald made several calls in person, but only his secretary answered. Ask Richard
Sending a message didn't work, so I finally found the phone number of his wife, Jane Morgan, and called him at a home he didn't often visit.
"It's me, Susan, Jerry..." The person who answered the phone was actually Weintraub's lover, Susan Akins. Her relationship with Mrs. Weintraub was very strange. Usually Weintraub and Mrs.
Susan lived outside and went back to Jane Morgan's place on weekends and holidays. The two women did not shy away from getting along with each other, and occasionally they got along well in the same house.
"What's wrong with him?" Ronald thought something was wrong with Weintraub's health.
"He shuts himself up at home every day. No matter how hard Jane and I try to persuade him, it's no use. Can you come? Now only you, the person who helped him achieve great success, can cheer him up."
"What's wrong with Jerry? Is he depressed?" Ronald thought it was funny. How could such a tycoon who made his fortune by fooling Elvis Presley into giving concerts hide at home and not come out to see people because of depression? He couldn't be hiding from debts, right?
?Thinking of this, Ronald was a little discouraged.
"No, he just...can you come here? Please..."
"Give me the phone..." Jane Morgan was on the other end of the phone, taking the phone from Susan who was talking nonsense.
"Ronald, come here. Jerry, this fragile man, can't get up because of a few bad projects. This eggless Jew, come and tell him what a real America is."
Spirit."
Jane Morgan's voice was loud and her words were hard to hear. It was as if she was pointing at her husband's nose and scolding her.
"I'm not depressed, you woman, don't slander me to others..." Weintraub hid in the bedroom upstairs, opened the door a crack, and roared at his wife.
"You Luther, I knew you were not good. Apart from secretly sleeping with your best friend's daughter, you have never done anything worthwhile. Ronald, he needs a Winner to teach him that men are the most important thing."
What kind of quality is it? It must have eggs!"
"I have fucking balls..." Weintraub couldn't stand Morgan's ridicule and rushed out in his pajamas. "Are you talking to Ronald on the phone? Come on, ask him to come over. He's here and he's saying
Maybe I’ll be saved.”
…
Ronald came to Weintraub's house again the next morning and dug an artificial river for swimming to the mansion in front of the living room.
Before he entered the door, he saw several people in suits and ties sitting in the living room, drinking coffee. When he got closer, Ronald was surprised to recognize that the tall man behind him was his regular employee.
"I can't tell you, the attorney-client confidentiality agreement..." Mickey Kanter patted his briefcase and winked at Ronald.
"Oh, then, good morning..." Ronald didn't understand what was wrong with him and why he came to block the door so early in the morning.
"Let me introduce to you, this is William, the best bankruptcy lawyer in our law firm..." Mickey Kanter's soft introduction of the word bankruptcy made Ronald raise his eyebrows.
"I'll go talk to him first..." Ronald said goodbye to lawyer Kanter first and went upstairs to see Weintraub.
"Jerry, what the hell are you doing? What the hell happened?" Ronald asked in a face-to-face manner when he saw him. Only Susan was in the room, and his real wife Jane Morgan was nowhere to be seen.
.
"Damn it, I was so careless." Weintraub regained some of his former confidence when he saw Ronald.
He told Ronald the reason why he fell into this big pit.
It turned out that Weintraub founded Weintraub Pictures after being exploited by MGM's Kerkorian and kicked out without mercy.
He was very angry that he did not become the CEO of MGM. Since his success in the record industry, few people look down upon him in this way.
In order to express his anger to Kerkorian, Weintraub did several big things.
First, he lobbied major studios and tried his best to secure financing based on his reputation of two films with over 100 million box office. Finally, Columbia Pictures and a Canadian theater group jointly provided him with guarantees and capital injections, and finally
He raised more than $460 million in Wall Street loans.
Second, he also signed a 20-year distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures. As long as the quality of the film is acceptable, Columbia will distribute his film. Therefore, he contacted many Hollywood producers and negotiated projects everywhere. Winter
Laub fully absorbed the experience of success with Ronald, and he read the news from around the world that Susan compiled for him every day.
What about UFO abductions of men who have been researching for 20 years and will stay young forever after they come back? The CIA gave up the American prisoners of war in Vietnam and left them to fend for themselves. Then they found a screenwriter to write a script.
He believed that these scripts would be a big hit, so he invested in six new directors in a row, all of which were large-scale productions worth more than 10 million US dollars.
Thirdly, he also took over Marvel and Mattel Toy Company, which were left behind after Cannon Pictures suffered financial difficulties. Weintraub Pictures not only wanted to auction blockbuster movies, but also wanted to develop the entire industry chain.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Toy companies happen to be able to sell a variety of peripheral products. They have outstanding vision, and the scripts and directors they like will definitely sell well. This way, stock up on peripheral toys in advance to avoid insufficient production capacity after the release.
What a waste of a great opportunity.
And comics have a huge fan base. As long as the comics are adapted, people will come to support it. He only needs to come up with one or two comic stories every year, and comics are also a huge market opportunity for peripheral toys.
With such a great plan, Weintraub believes that within five years, he can become a production company as large as the seven major Hollywood studios. At that time, he will acquire MGM Pictures, which has been half-dead by Kerkorian.
...let him have a taste of being kicked out.
By the way, when the time comes, the MGM name will be taken back so that its hotels can no longer use the MGM trademark, so as not to taint such a good film company.
However, the stall was too big, and after the stock market crash, it became a big hole. All six film projects suffered the withdrawal of investors. Weintraub had to make up the investment himself.
Those scripts were repeatedly revised by people in order to become a hit. As a result, there was a writers' strike again, and the previous investment was all stagnant. Up to now, none of the scripts have been finalized, let alone a star to join them and a schedule has been confirmed.
Just when Weintraub took advantage of the writers' strike to end, he finally finished the scripts for two movies and started preparing to start work...
Bang...another unexpected tragedy happened.
Because of the contraction, Wall Street began to make plans for the 460 million loan. Wall Street's lawyers were very high-level, and they discovered loopholes in some of Weintraub's financial operations and captured him for another year.
Not a single film project has been approved in recent times, and loans have been suspended.
When the economy was bad, the most terrible thing, loan withdrawal, happened to Weintraub.
Therefore, Weintraub, who couldn't figure out why he was unlucky for a while, felt depressed due to the huge contrast. He didn't want to see anyone, especially his friends from when he was successful, and hid at home to get unlucky.
"Oh, God, are you really going to file for bankruptcy?" Ronald didn't expect such a thing.
Since Weintraub Films was founded, it hasn't produced a single movie yet. Why is it going bankrupt?
It is not difficult to understand if a movie you make fails at the box office and goes bankrupt. The film industry has always been a high-risk industry, and there are many such things.
But Weintraub failed without making a movie. Ronald didn't know if this was the first of its kind in Hollywood.
Perhaps it was because the two films Ronald made for him both earned more than 100 million at the box office. Weintraub had the illusion that he had a discerning eye and that movies were a high-return investment for him.
strategy. But it ignores that high returns are always accompanied by high risks.
Or, Weintraub never thought that the risk could happen to him.
"Okay, do you want to film the third part of The Dragon King?" Ronald proposed.
Anyway, with the reputation of the first two films of Dragon King, it is not difficult to raise funds. However, I have to make some financial and legal preparations, and I cannot let Weintraub Pictures become the producer, so as not to be a drag. Just rely on the sequel of this movie.