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Chapter 20 Negotiations

Jerry Zucker excitedly waved his hands and shouted loudly. The waving hand suddenly swept Gail's nose. Her nose became sore in pain and she began to shed tears. She squatted on the ground and covered her face with her hands.

Jim didn't see clearly what happened and thought Jerry had hit Gale. He rushed out from behind, pushed Jerry away, and then went to help Gale.

The one who looked like Jerry's brother in the trio saw his brother being pushed down and rushed up to beat Jim...

Ronald stepped forward, grabbed the shoulders of the man who wanted to hit Jim, inserted one foot between his legs, hooked one ankle, and gently moved back, turning his upper body accordingly.

The man fell to the ground in response.

Then Ronald glanced out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned his head and squatted down to avoid Jerry Zucker's fist from behind. He turned around and reached out to grab his shoulders, touching Jerry's waist with his crotch and his hands.

Gently...Jerry was put there too.

Ronald stepped forward and pulled Jim up, then shouted:

"Everyone, stop! It's all a misunderstanding!"

At this time, Roger Coleman also left the office, and other employees who were working overtime in the office also gathered in a large circle outside the boss's administrative office to watch the fun.

Ronald explained to everyone: "This is a misunderstanding, everyone calm down, no one was hurt."

The third person in the trio helped Brother Zach up from the ground, patted the dust on their bodies, and said, "We are not here to fight, we just want to talk to Mr. Coleman."

He saw that Ronald had put water on his hands, and the two of them just fell to the ground without any pain from the fall.

As he said that, he stretched out his hand: "Hello, we don't mean any harm."

Ronald shook his hand: "I'm Ronald Lee. You guys talk to Mr. Coleman first. I'll go see Gale."

Gail recovered, and Jim helped her go to the bathroom to deal with it.

Roger Coleman waved to everyone, "Let's all go back to work, it's okay." Then he thought about it, picked up the phone and called the front desk:

"I'm Roger. Are Julie and Joe Dante still in the conference room? OK, please come up to my office."

Then Roger raised his hand and invited the three people to come into the office to talk. The three people walked in and chose three seats near the window of the conference table and sat down side by side.

After a while, the proprietress Julie Coleman and the co-director Joe Dante also came, and they were equal in number and sat across from each other.

Ronald saw that Gail hadn't come back yet, so he went to make 6 cups of coffee, sent it in, and was about to leave with the door closed.

"You can stay and listen for a while, you can learn something."

Roger Coleman looked at the number of people here and saw that there was no advantage, and there was a woman. He still called out to Ronald who was showing off his power just now.

Ronald closed the door, pulled out the chair closest to the door, sat down and listened.

It turns out that Jerry Zucker, his brother, and his good friends from high school are a trio who have been working together for a long time. They wrote a comedy movie about airplanes and wanted Roger to film it.

But Roger felt that the script was not good. It was all jokes and had no storyline at all. It was also interspersed with various fake advertisements to satirize. No one paid for the fake advertisements. Although the story of the low-cost movie is not important, it has no story at all.

The story is also unheard of.

In addition, Roger Corman has rarely made comedy movies in recent years, so he is unwilling to invest money.

Although Jerry Zucker is the youngest of the three, he is the most talented and is the leader of the trio. He joined "Rock High School" as the second unit director, hoping to use his talent to impress Roger Corman again.

Consider investing.

What the trio didn't expect was that a woman they had approached for investment had lunch with Paramount's chief operating officer (COO) Michael Eisner last week and recommended the trio to Eisner.

Na.

After hearing this, Eisner expressed his interest in this subject and ordered his general Katzenberg to take care of the matter.

Katzenberg had read the script, and his view was the same as Roger Corman's. The script was unformed, just a collection of jokes. The trio was asked to spend two weeks, together with Paramount's screenwriting doctor, to restart the process and start anew.

Write a draft of the script. Once he is satisfied, he will give the green light and release the project. The estimated total investment is US$3.5 million.

The trio was so happy that they didn't expect Jerry to have a problem when negotiating with Roger Corman. Here at "Rock and Roll High School", Jerry still had 5 days to complete the filming. So Jerry pestered Roger Corman today.

Jay wanted Roger to give up the last 5 days of his contract.

The two sides were deadlocked on this point.

Jerry Zucker offered to refund the upfront salary, and Roger would find someone to complete the remaining five days, allowing them to go to Paramount to write the script wholeheartedly.

Roger Corman felt that he could not find a suitable replacement in a short period of time, so he asked them to stay and finish filming.

The two sides exchanged words for more than ten minutes. Ronald listened carefully and heard two meanings.

The Jerry trio must go to Paramount. If Roger doesn't agree, the worst they can do is not come to work. There will be legal disputes in the future, and there will be ways to remedy the situation. Paramount's $3.5 million cake will be smashed on the head.

If you lose this opportunity, you don’t know when the next one will be lost.

Roger Corman's attitude is also very clear, you can't leave the crew and run away.

The second group of directors generally refers to the second group of photographers who act separately from the crew. They are also equipped with directors and photographers. The second group mainly shoots outdoor scenes without the protagonist, empty shots to explain the environment, scenes between supporting actors, etc.

The purpose of setting up a second group is to shorten the shooting cycle. The shooting stage costs a lot of money. If you can save a few days, it will be a lot of money.

But Roger is an iron rooster, and he must be exploited until there is no more money or water.

This resulted in the second group of directors of New World Production not only having the above tasks, but also filming a lot of plot content in parallel with the crew. If the crew did not complete the filming on any day, Roger Corman would take the remaining

The scenes were torn from the script, and those that could be re-shot were given to the second team to shoot, while those that could not be re-shot were thrown into the trash can.

This kind of shooting method means that the second team becomes half the crew, and the workload is not small.

Therefore, the director of the second unit of "Rock and Roll High School" must be familiar with the filming conditions of the crew. If you change someone rashly, it may be better to wait for Allen to finish shooting the main unit and then come back to shoot the second unit.



"This is unacceptable!" Jerry Zach was a little angry. Roger disagreed today, which was something he didn't expect at all.

"Why not let Joe Dante do the filming? He is familiar with the crew and can also take on the role of director. Moreover, it only takes a few days and will not delay his other work. He was also on the crew with Allen to help direct."

"Alan needs Joe. If Joe is not here, it will be a big setback and unfair to him. Because when we were filming 'Piranha' last year, Allen was also helping on the crew and helped Joe complete the first movie.

He's reciprocating the director's job," Roger Corman replied.

This is of course part of the reason. But Ronald feels that the real key is that Joe Dante has escaped from the sea of ​​misery with last year's "Piranha" and obtained the highest membership of the Directors Guild. He came to help Alan Eyre

Kush was returning a favor, but had no obligation to help Roger Coleman solve his troubles.

Of course Jerry Zucker knew this, and he immediately argued: "This is complete nonsense. Allen's level is not bad, why does Joe have to be a co-director on the crew? This is not the American federal government, there is a

The commander-in-chief also needs a deputy commander-in-chief to back him up."

The two sides were about to quarrel again. At this time, the third person in the trio who was shaking hands with Ronald suddenly interrupted:

"I heard from Jerry that your sample film yesterday was shot by a crew assistant. Why didn't you ask him to shoot instead of Jerry?"

Jerry Zucker, Joe Dante, and Roger's wife Julie all looked at Ronald.


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