"The next person is Rosalind Sumners." Ronald was resting at home and watching TV. He had been separated from the normal life in America for too long. He wanted to watch TV and catch up with everyone.
ABC is broadcasting the Winter Olympics held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Women's figure skating is the program with the highest ratings. The previous American athletes all performed mediocrely. Rosalind Sumners is said to be very powerful. She went up and did a hook triple
Weekly jumps are very difficult.
The TV program suddenly went black and then cut to the ABC studio.
Breaking news.
A host was talking about the news that had just been received, "Moscow TV stations started playing repeats of the Leningrad Ballet's version of 'Swan Lake' a few hours ago, which usually implies that something big has happened to the Alliance.
Just thirty-five minutes ago, the Chinese Embassy announced that General Secretary-General Yuri passed away yesterday.
Soon after, TASS authorized the announcement that Comrade Yuri, who had been General Secretary-General for fifteen months, unfortunately passed away. His health had been in poor condition for a long time, and his kidney problems were no secret.
The entire alliance will hold four days of mourning and then hold a state funeral in Red Square. This is the second state funeral for the alliance in two years. It is believed that the alliance government intends to invite the heads of Western countries to attend the funeral...
"Another general secretary-general has gone away?" Ronald still remembered the funeral of the former secretary-general in 1982 when many people held the medal. The current commander-in-chief was really lucky.
"Beep..." the phone rang, "Hello, this is Weintraub, pick up the phone Ronald."
Ronald picked up the phone and the other person immediately said, "Have you heard?"
"Ah..., are you watching TV too? I don't know who will take over as the top leader of the alliance this time."
"What nonsense? I'm talking about the news from Colombia. They made changes and wanted to delete the duration. Didn't your agent tell you the news?"
"No?" Ronald was confused for a while, "Where are you? I'll go there now."
When Ronald heard that something was wrong with "Longwei Boy", he immediately grabbed his clothes and ran out.
"The feedback is this. Columbia believes that current movies are not suitable for feature films close to two hours. I hope you can cut it to ninety to one hundred minutes." Weintraub saw Ronald walking into his mansion and said,
Expressed the opinion straightforwardly.
"What's the reason?" Ronald was a little anxious, so he stopped beating around the bush.
"It is said that after the Supreme Court's decision, theaters prefer short-length movies. They are afraid that video tapes will steal the box office after a few weeks, so they hope to schedule one more movie every day."
"Haha", Ronald curled his lips and smiled. If he hadn't been the co-producer of "Flashdance", he would have been deceived by them.
"What, you don't believe it?" Weintraub saw the subtext behind Ronald's expression, "What do you think?"
"I worked as a co-producer on the 'Flashdance' crew and knew their background. Their release coincided with the Supreme Court decision, so I had great concerns. However, the box office has been a hit, and producer Don Simpson also
The release of the video tape was deliberately advanced.
In other words, the video was already on sale while 'Flashdance' was still in theaters. Guess what impact it had on the box office?"
"Down by half?" Weintraub guessed.
"Guess again," Ronald shook his head.
“Thirty percent drop?”
"It's still less?" Weintraub was surprised, "Is it only down ten percent?"
"No, the box office has increased without any change in theaters, returning to the first-week numbers." Ronald said the counterintuitive conclusion.
"Don Simpson had a guess. Audiences who watched the video wanted to watch it again on the big screen, so it actually drove box office growth. Of course, this trend requires a good movie, or a phenomenal movie.
That’s fine. You’ll lose money if you don’t go to the cinema to see it.”
"Hmm," Weintraub said thoughtfully. Obviously the impact of the video tape on the box office was not that great, and there was no need for him to delay the release of the video tape for a long time.
However, what Columbia said is not unreasonable. The ninety-minute duration can indeed allow cinemas to queue for one more show, which will greatly promote the box office on the first weekend.
"Columbia contacted me through a vice president. He said that if you find it inconvenient, you can delete the scene where Master Miyagi was drunk and recalled his 442nd Infantry Regiment. In this way, you can find a few scenes.
The time requirement can be met.”
"This is inappropriate," Ronald firmly opposed this opinion, which would destroy the integrity of his film's story.
"This drunken scene can be said to be the moment when Miyagi and Daniel truly get close to each other. It is a 'moment of truth and cannot be deleted.'"
"Moment of truth?"
"Let me put it this way," Ronald changed his perspective, "the superficial theme of the entire movie is the process of a child defeating himself. But the actual theme is a child from a single-parent family reconciling with himself.
As a person grows up, he will face difficulties. Children with a father can gain courage from their father. But Daniel lacks father's love, so he is deficient in how to muster courage. When he was beaten at the beginning
I can only escape. After being trained by Miyagi, I learned to be persistent, brave, and to win even when my leg is injured."
"Go on," Weintraub nodded in agreement.
Valley Tapir
"Master Miyagi happened to be missing a son, and his Goju-ryu Ryukyu karate was a unique skill passed down from father to son.
If this part is missing, there is no way to explain why the two of them are so compatible. Miyagi would break the rules and teach Daniel his unique skills.
If it really happens like this, the story line of the entire film and the emotional line of the audience will be shattered, and I think it will at least make the entire film lose more than 20% of its color."
"You're right. I'm going to find someone to ask if Mr. Vice President has any other reasons?" Weintraub put aside his worries and regained confidence in the movie.
The next day, Weintraub told Ronald the results of his inquiry.
It turns out that there are some people in the upper echelons of Colombia who hate Japanese people, and they don’t want this kind of plot to smear America to appear in the movie.
Therefore, I hope that the plot of driving the Japanese into concentration camps during World War II and sending young people to fight in Europe will be deleted. Especially in the movie, the hypocrisy of the American government was severely criticized.
Without a doctor, both mother and son passed away.
But this was not an outspoken reason. So these white executives began to use the length of time as a reason to pressure Ronald and Weintraub to submit and delete that episode.
"Why did they do this?" Ronald felt very innocent.
"In fact, in addition to racial discrimination, this is also a reality." Weintraub has been doing business with Japanese people for many years and knows this very well.
"Now Japanese manufacturing has seized America's consumer goods market, from televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, to the new products they invented, video recorders. Recently, their cars have also become more affordable and high-quality than our brands.
Do you know about the Chen Guoren case?"
Ronald nodded, he also donated a lot of money.
"That was a Chinese young man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by white people in the street just because he was thought to be Japanese. There were no legal consequences. In our country, hatred towards Japanese people has always existed, and there are a lot of central people.
The blue-collar people in the area are not comfortable with them."
"What about us?" Ronald was worried that Weintraub would be worried about Japan's hatred and was unwilling to exaggerate too much.
"We? We are still the same!" Weintraub said disdainfully, "I have rarely been treated with conspiracy like this. Maybe my 'friends' in Hollywood are not familiar with me yet, so today I will let them know what I am like.
people."
Ronald felt relieved. With him being so tough, his movie could be guaranteed not to be poisoned.
"But you also have to mobilize your resources. This time we must fight back forcefully. Every available resource must be used."
"I can try." Ronald thought of the person he had contacted, the only Japanese-American senator in America, Senior Senator Daniel Inoue of Hawaii.
Ronald picked up the phone and dialed the office of Hawaii's senior senator.
"Mr. Inoue's office? I am Ronald Lee. I am a film director. I once consulted Mr. Senator about the 442nd Infantry Regiment..." Ronald told the senator about his request.
Assistant in the Congressman's Office.
"Is there any letter I want to read?" Daniel Inoue came to the office in the morning the next day to check the letters sent to him every day that his assistant thought were worth replying to.
"Here is a letter from film director Ronald Lee. His film about the veterans of the 442nd Infantry Regiment was finished, but he encountered resistance from the film company's top management and asked him to delete the 442nd Infantry Regiment.
plot, so he came to ask for your help."
"The 442nd Infantry Regiment." Senator Inoue used his remaining hand to open the bottom drawer and touched the box containing his medal.
He didn't dare to act rashly and say good things for the Japanese. To put it nicely, he knew that he was just a mascot in the Senate.
In America, anti-Japanese sentiment is now high, and the commander-in-chief has launched rounds of car wars against Japan, trying to kill Japanese car companies. Those car manufacturers of the same ethnic group want to sell cars in America, but they don’t want to sell cars in America.
I am willing to buy American cars from Japan.
Especially in the industrial base centered on Detroit, the automobile industry city in the central region, the hatred towards Japanese is blatant. If you blatantly support the expansion of Japanese culture, you will be making yourself uncomfortable.
Rather than speaking up for Japanese Americans, maintaining the presence of a mascot in the Senate would be more beneficial to the lives of Japanese Americans in Hawaii.
However, Inoue was unwilling to give up such a good opportunity to let the public in America understand this period of Japanese history.
He picked up the phone and dialed the office of Deputy Commander George, "I'm Senator Inoue, yes, I want to talk to George."
A few days later, before going to Moscow to attend Yuri's state funeral, Deputy Commander George gave a speech at a Japanese cultural event in Los Angeles. In his speech, he stated that Japanese Americans were also members of America and that they fought bravely for their country in World War II.
, which is different from those **** elements in Japanese countries.
At the same time, a signed letter reply was also sent to Ronald.
In this letter, Inoue stated that the 442nd Infantry Regiment is a clear proof of the patriotism of Japanese Americans. Telling this period of history not only does not tarnish America, but is also a symbol of racial unity. This shows that America is a city of all races.
The chosen place to be free.
Ronald smiled and handed the letter to Weintraub. With the endorsement of the senator and the speech of the deputy general, Colombia's top officials must have no excuses.
"Your strategy is very effective." Weintraub called Ronald back a day later.
Columbia finally agreed to a total of 126 minutes of "The Dragon King" and sent it as the final copy for MPAA rating.