The young computer expert happened to be a computer science undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles. He enthusiastically pointed out to Ronald the stores where he could buy all the accessories. He also used the privilege of working as an administrator in the computer center to open a computer for Ronald.
An email account.
Ronald also fulfilled his wish and helped him get an autographed photo of Phoebe Cates through his connections.
"Didi, squeak, woo..." After a strange scream, the modem finally connected to the university's bbs.
Ronald logged in using the email account given by his friend, and then opened the newsgroup client software.
The connection speed was very slow and the phone bill was expensive. Ronald had to download the contents of the newsgroup in the middle of the night. After finally downloading all the emails, Ronald began to browse slowly on the computer.
There is not much content in the news group. In the movie section, there are only two posts discussing "Night of the Comet". It was the movie-watching action initiated by the college student. Under one post, seven or eight people responded.
There are more people discussing "War Game" below. After all, it is a movie related to these computer geeks. Some people have pointed out many loopholes in the film, as many as twelve.
Ronald went up and replied, "Movies are an art of telling stories, and some loopholes are for the convenience of the audience's understanding." Then he continued to browse other sections.
Most of the general sections discuss computer, software, and Internet-related content. Ronald could not understand most of them. There was only one topic section, which contained various controversial topics. Such as anti-war, racial discrimination, and the Soviet Union.
, nuclear war, etc.
Ronald looked interesting and made a post called "Does anyone know the history of Japanese Americans in America?" and then turned off the computer.
The next day, several people responded to his post, and many people said they had never heard of the history of Japanese-Americans. Only one person replied that America had driven Japanese-Americans into concentration camps because of World War II. Just like earlier.
It was the same as their Chinese Exclusion Act targeting Chinese Americans.
Next, several people said they had never heard of this incident.
Ronald saw the man and replied angrily, "These white rulers don't want you to remember this history of the persecution of yellow-skinned people. You can look up the history of the 442nd Infantry Regiment."
"
Of course, Ronald had never heard of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. He replied in the client, "I have never heard of this infantry regiment. I don't know what you mean. Where can I see them?"
What about history?”
In the next few days, the box office chart officially entered the most intense period of the year. "Star Wars" continued to surge, earning 42 million U.S. dollars in box office in one week, and the average weekly box office of a single theater was as high as 40,000 U.S. dollars.
"Psycho 2" and "The Man with Two Brains" quickly fell back, giving up the top three spots on the box office list.
On the contrary, "War Games", "Flash Dance", and "Night of the Comet" remained stable and continued to be at the top of the rankings.
Especially for "Lightning Dance" and "Night of the Comet", although the number of theaters has dropped to 1,000 and 500, the box office stamina is very strong and the decline is very slow.
"Flashdance" has been in its eighth week, but the box office dropped only 20% from last week. The second-week declines of "Psycho 2" and "The Man with Two Brains" have both exceeded 10%.
forty.
The most surprising thing was "Night of the Comet", which actually dropped slightly by ten percentage points from last week. Suddenly, the reputation of being a box office hit spread like wildfire.
"You know, Ronald. The first weekend box office depends on the company's distribution capabilities, but starting from the second week, it all depends on the audience's word-of-mouth spread. This is an iron rule. It seems that your movie's reputation is very good, enough to compete with 'Flashdance'
'Comparable."
Atlantic's distribution manager sat in the conference room and explained to Ronald the reason for the unusually strong box office.
"Then will our number of theaters be maintained in the future?"
"It can last about a week. Next week there will be another summer blockbuster 'Superman III' released. The number of theaters for our movies will not decrease too much, but the number of screenings and the time of screening will be affected."
"Okay." Ronald has long accepted the fact that Atlantic's distribution capabilities are not good enough. Fortunately, his movie is on track and if it continues, it will be stable to break the 20 million box office mark.
In addition to the good quality of "Night of the Comet" itself, the special effects are also relatively good, unlike a small production. Ronald feels that the MV and movie trailers that are played in a loop on MTV do not contribute much to the box office.
Small.
He didn't have much evidence to prove this, but "Flashdance" and "Night of the Comet" were the only movies advertised on MTV, and their weekly declines in the box office charts were particularly slow.
All those involved in film distribution must begin to doubt the power of MTV.
"Do you think it's the effect of MTV's advertising?" Ronald asked the other party.
"I think it's half and half. On the one hand, it is true that MTV has concentrated a lot of young viewers, so advertising here can reach the target audience of our "Night of the Comet" to the maximum extent. On the other hand, it is true that the quality of your movie is excellent.
Director Li, I am not flattering you. I have worked as a distributor for United Artists before. The quality of the film has a lot to do with the director's professional ethics. Let me just say that all your budget has been invested in the production.
All the money will be spent on the final screen. Those realistic zombies, the debris after the comet destroyed the world, and the blood-red sky and deserted cities. I am not an expert in shooting movies, but
I think another director might not be able to make the film even if it costs even $5 million."
"You were originally at United Artists?" Ronald asked.
"Yeah, I think you should have heard of Michael Cimino. His 'Heaven's Gate' crew spent three percent of the total budget on drug abuse. And you're here
You can't see how the money was used on the screen at all. I had already taken out a loan to buy a house, and I almost stopped paying because of this movie."
Ronald smiled and was about to answer when Tom Coleman, the president of Atlantic, knocked on the door and came in.
"Hello, Ronald." Tom hugged Ronald tightly.
"Sorry, I was just in a preparatory meeting with several crews. Your and Martha Coolidge's movie made Atlantic famous in the industry. The scripts that could not be sent to us before are now sent to us."
"Coffee?" Tom Coolidge raised his hand to introduce a middle-aged lady who came in with him.
"This is the financial director of our company".
"Hello Mr. Ronald Lee, according to the agreement we signed before, 'Night of the Comet' has reached the break-even point. We will first pay your director's remuneration of one hundred thousand US dollars, and your company's investment of twenty
Thousands of dollars, settled to you in advance.
We need to distribute the rest of the profit sharing to you and other investors after the movie is released and the box office figures are settled with the theaters."
Ronald took two checks totaling three hundred thousand dollars and put them into his pocket.
"Then when will our box office settlement be completed?"
"Don't worry, Ronald." President Tom Coleman took over, "We will enjoy a relatively high share of the current box office. When it switches to long-term screening, your movie will undoubtedly be screened for a long time.
Our production company's share will be reduced accordingly. So basically the main part of the profit that can be attributed to us will start to be settled after the first round of screenings."
"As for the time, it's difficult for me to give you a specific number, but we will do our best."
"Okay, then I will ask my accountant to contact yours." Ronald knows that the accounting period for the box office share will not be too short. Anyway, he has already received his remuneration and the investment costs. In short, we will protect the capital first."
After calling his accountant Lawrence and depositing the check in the bank, Ronald began to think about giving himself some rewards.
Should I buy a sports car that is standard equipment for Hollywood celebrities?
Forget it. I have visited several sports car dealers. Expensive sports cars in Europe are very expensive, and America's own muscle sports cars are not enough to reflect their value in Los Angeles and distinguish themselves from other directors in the entertainment industry.
The DeLorean sports car invested by talk show host Johnny Carson two years ago has doors that open on both sides and a shape like swan wings, which is very recognizable. However, the cockpit of the sports car is very small, Ronald
I couldn't even straighten my legs when I sat down, so I gave up the idea for the time being.
When Ronald returned home, he started to turn on the modem, continued to connect to the user network, and read the news. In the past few days, he was very addicted to this news group. The people in it were all very well-educated. It can be seen from the English text that
Participants are well educated.
"Um?"
A highlighted line appears in the upper right corner of the newsgroup client.
Ronald looked carefully and saw that someone had replied to his message.
After pressing the "n" key several times, Ronald found the person's reply. It turned out to be the question about the 442nd Infantry Regiment that Ronald asked about.
"The 442nd Infantry Regiment was a regiment formed by Japanese-Americans. Its sacrifice rate exceeded 100%. The family members of Japanese-Americans were driven into concentration camps. They had to join the army for their post-war life.
Go to the European battlefield to fight the Germans.
If you need more information, you may wish to contact Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye."
"Daniel Inoue, senior senator from Hawaii." Ronald touched his chin.