Chapter 39 Premiere of the urchin outside the world
The de facto premiere of "The Kid" took place in a small town high school in California, directed by Coppola and starring Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph
The two of them went to the middle school and had a party with the student who had written the letter begging Coppola to come out.
At the cinema here in Los Angeles, several other leading actors came, including Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruz, and Diane Lane.
Ronald met his agent Richard at the entrance of the theater, and Paula Wagner accompanied Tom Cruise.
There were very few photojournalists, which was a bit disappointing for the several teenage stars who were carefully dressed up to look like the characters in the play. It seems that Warner Bros. is not optimistic about the film and did not invest too much marketing resources.
"Over there are the reporters Niceta introduced to you." Richard pointed to Ronald and pointed to the two reporters standing opposite. Ronald showed up just to make news.
"Hi, hello..." Ronald stepped forward to say hello, "I'm Ronald."
"Hello, I'm Downey." A reporter also responded in a friendly manner.
"I'm Charlie, which family are you from?" another reporter asked Ronald.
"I work for The Atlantic now." Ronald looked at the two young reporters as if they had just graduated from college.
"The Atlantic Monthly in Massachusetts? Oh, I didn't expect that there would be serious media covering this movie?" Reporter Charlie expressed surprise.
"This is an adaptation of Se. Hinton's novel. The Atlantic Monthly has always been concerned about literary criticism and is also very concerned about the cause of equal rights for ethnic minorities." Reporter Downey explained, "Right, Ronald."
Ronald smiled, knowing that they had misunderstood that he was also a reporter, so he was not in a hurry to explain. He asked them, "Why are so few reporters coming to interview this movie? I thought there would be a lot of people at the premiere."
"I heard that this movie was rejected by Warner Bros. You see, our newspaper just filmed us two newcomers and wrote about it casually."
"Disgusted?"
"Yes, the Italian directors who became famous in the 1970s are all outdated now, and Marty Scorsese's new film 'The King of Comedy' also failed at the box office. I heard gossip that Scorsese's previous films
, all thanks to his editor Martha Lucas, who was George Lucas’s wife. After Martha got married, the quality of his films declined rapidly.”
"That's right, I heard that Coppola was in debt and his Peep Show company was about to go bankrupt. Warner Bros. basically gave up on the movie."
"No, don't you think 'naughty boy' is bad?" Ronald said.
"I heard that Roger Ebert was critical of Coppola, even though he gave him three stars. But he felt that Coppola should have used these innovative styles, lighting, and sets as exercises rather than making movies.
To experiment, he should make a real movie like 'Apocalypse Now.'"
"Yes, I heard that critics' reviews after the special screening were not very high. Generally speaking, they thought that the ninety-minute story was not compact enough. The characters were well acted but the story was not."
"But I heard that that's because Warner has compressed the duration. If the director's original two-hour arrangement was followed, it would be a good movie." Ronald defended Coppola.
"Hey, who would go to see such a long movie these days? Did you hear that? There are many small studios that have begun not to release movies and are directly recording and selling them on video tapes."
"Yes, and today there is a movie with the same teenage gangster theme, 'Bad Boys,' released. That movie at least tells the story of Los Angeles in the 1980s. This kind of story of Oklahoma in the 1950s is only for us newbies.
Send them here."
"Ronald, Ronald." Niceta came over, "It seems you have found two reporters, I don't have to worry. How was your chat."
"Ah? You're not a reporter?" The two reporters looked embarrassed.
"I'm Ronald Lee, here for the premiere."
Niceta handed the draft to the two reporters and took Ronald to the front to take a photo with the actors.
"Hi, Tom", Ronald and Tom Cruise hugged each other warmly. He has finally made it through now, with various film appointments being arranged by Paula Wagner.
"You know, Paula has given me another movie. The heroine is a newcomer you recommended. She thinks very highly of you. I already want to make a movie with you."
"Ah, really? Who is it?"
"Leigh Thompson, we're going to Pittsburgh to film 'all the right moves' soon. Do you have any suggestions?"
"Yes, it's best to bring anti-allergy medicine when you go to Pittsburgh to shoot a movie. The air pollution there is very bad. There is dust in your nostrils at night, which is very uncomfortable."
"Ah, is that so? I'll go get ready right away." Paula Wagner, who was next to her, quickly wrote down what Ronald said.
"What is the story of this movie and what genre is it?" Ronald asked Cruise.
"The story of youthful excitement, a high school student getting a football scholarship, and then walking out of a small town. Leigh Thompson plays my girlfriend."
"Football scholarship?"
"I know, I know, I just played a tackle, and I was pretty convincing on the high school team. The movie also said that he wanted to go to college, majoring in mechanics, and it was impossible to develop into a career in the future." Tom K.
Russ was aware of his height problem, so the film modified certain details for him.
"Hey, what can I say, I wish you all the best! Leigh Thompson is indeed a very talented actor."
"Ronald", Niceta dragged him aside again, "my assistant just sent you a postcard from Helen from the office. She said she was very grateful for the reminder."
"Huh?" Ronald took it happily and saw Helen writing a paragraph on a postcard.
She really listened to Ronald's words and did not shoot the dangerous shot of taking off from the water. Instead, she asked a stand-in to take her place. The stand-in was entangled in the wire during practice and suffered minor injuries.
In the end, the crew decided to take a photo of Helen, enlarge it to life size, and then glue it to the wooden model, and then use a camera to film the puppet being quickly pulled out of the water to fool it.
Sent together with the postcard was a photo of Helen that they planned to paste on the puppet. She raised one hand upward, her blond hair was flowing, her red cloak spread out behind her, tights, short skirt, and leather boots.
Very tempting.
Ronald kissed the photo, put it away together with the postcard, and put it in the pocket on his chest. "Thank you, you brought it to me specially." He shook hands with his assistant and gave him a banknote as a thank you.
"Humph! I'll never pay attention to him again." Diane, who originally saw Ronald coming over, saw Ronald kissing Helen's photo halfway through. She stamped her feet bitterly, turned around and ran to talk to him.
Emilio Estevez, who plays "Bitch", chatted.
"Together with my father, I bought another novel by Ms. Hinton, 'That Was Then...This Is Now,' and I will personally adapt it into a screenplay, starring Tom Cruise and me.
, you are the heroine."
Emilio Estevez was very happy that Diane came to chat with him and started to brag. On the set of "The Kid", Diane was the girlfriend that all the actors wanted to have, but no one could get it.
.
"Your father?" Diane pretended not to know and asked about Emilio Estevez. In fact, Emilio had said it eight hundred times on the set.
"Yes, my father, Martin Sheen. He played the title role of Captain Willard in Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now.' I actually had a small role in that movie, but in the end it was just cut.
There is only one figure left."
"Really, that's such a pity." Diane's performance was very real, "otherwise you would have become famous years in advance."
"It doesn't matter. I will adapt the novel I bought myself. You will come when the time comes, right?" Emilio Estevez was a bit hunched, and now his happy neck protruded further forward, thinking
Go hug Diane.
"Diane, you are here." Ronald finally found Diane, "I didn't see you just now. Your scenes in the final film were not edited out."
"I haven't seen it yet, I heard it's okay." Diane was very cold and answered Ronald's question, but she deliberately held Emilio Estevez's arm.
"Ronald, long time no see. When can we have another round? This time we can play tennis." Emilio heard what the scene was cut out of and thought Ronald was deliberately provoking, and Diane took his arm again.
, I suddenly felt like challenging myself.
"Then I'm not good at it." Ronald thought of the days when he practiced tennis hard for his dream. He could only hit hard, and he would be fooled by others.
"Really, I thought you were omnipotent?" Emilio Estevez sarcastically said.
Ronald was about to fight back when suddenly a woman came from behind and pulled Emilio Estevez, "Emilio."
"Kelly, why are you here?" Emilio Estevez was startled and pulled the woman named Kelly to the side to talk.
This Kelly is quite pretty, but her personality seems to be that of a Latin American housewife, who was dismissed by Emilio in a few words, just like the father in a Catholic family who waved his mother to do the laundry and cook.
.
"Who is she?" Diane crossed her hands on her chest, three feet away from Emilio.
"She is...well, a friend who works as a graphic model in Wilhelmina Models agency. She came to me for something,...something, yes, she wanted to act in my adaptation of Hinton's play.
A character."
"Yeah, of course", of course Diane would not believe such nonsense, left Emilio and Ronald behind, and went to find his father Bert.
"I haven't heard of any romantic relationship between Diane and Emilio Estevez?" Ronald, who was confused about the situation, decided to ignore this matter. Anyway, Diane became an adult at the beginning of this year, even her father Bert
I can't control her either.
Soon, fans of Coppola and Hinton's novels began to flock in, and the movies began to be screened.
Sure enough, the movie was cut to pieces under Warner's request of 90 minutes. Many important plots in the novel were cut out. Not only the fans of the novel sighed and were dissatisfied, but also those who came from Mukopola's fame.
Ordinary viewers can't quite understand the foreshadowing of some plots.
After all, this movie is not a simple plot like high concept, but a drama that Coppola is good at depicting character relationships and advancing the story. Cut like this, well... No wonder even Roger Ebert loves Coppola so much
Film critics also criticized it a lot.
It seems that the movie's box office is in trouble.