Chapter Three Hundred and Fortieth Three Elements of a Movie Hits
"It is better to be a living dog than a dead lion."
This line in "Scattered Lulu" is also a true portrayal of Jonathan Demme since his acting career.
As Niceta drove away with Ronald, she told Ronald some rumors in the industry.
Jonathan Demme's debut film "Melvin and Howard" was well shot. The reason why Universal did not release this film on a large scale is probably because the protagonist of the story, the relatives and friends of former Hollywood tycoon Howard Hughes, used
used a lot of force to prevent the issuance.
This movie is adapted from the true events after the death of Howard Hughes. There was really a poor man named Melvin who made a will after Hughes's death, claiming that he could get part of Hughes' inheritance.
He lost the lawsuit in the end and did not get a penny. Hughes' relatives and friends were afraid that after the movie was released, more people would doubt whether the will was true, so they canceled the movie's release.
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After understanding what happened to his senior brother Jonathan, Ronald had to admit that the box office of a movie is not necessarily directly proportional to the director's technique, or even to the beauty of the movie.
From a purely technical perspective, the films he directed are actually far behind Jonathan. Many details, especially the turning points of the plot, are not as good as his counterpart.
For example, in the plot of "Scattered Lulu", Lulu met her husband who escaped from prison at the class reunion. In fact, the types of movies before and after are different. The first one is more of an erotic film about an affair, while the second one is a very authentic suspense film.
Film. Jonathan Demme, shot the film very much like Hitchcock's "Psycho".
In order to hint at this change in the audience, Demi changed the lighting at the class dance, turning the original warm and colorful colors into cooler and gloomier colors.
This technique of using color to hint to the audience that a major change is about to occur is very effective and very technical. Ronald's film does not have this particularly sophisticated design.
However, from a box office perspective, Ronald's film far exceeded it.
There are many unknown factors that will determine the box office of a movie. Not to mention others, if the distribution company does not allow the copy to go to theaters, no matter how good the movie is, there will be no chance of achieving high box office.
Jonathan Demme's bad luck didn't stop there. His second movie was completely overturned by female star Goldie Hawn on the set, and he finally found a new screenwriter to rewrite the script. The original movie reflected the American women's
At the end of World War II, the story of sisters working in factories on a large scale for the first time turned into a romance film with the heroine.
Jonathan was forced to reshoot all the scenes. He was so discouraged that after the failure of two consecutive films, he went to shoot a concert documentary.
If it hadn't been for this loose film, Orion Pictures, adhering to United Artists' tradition of not interfering with the artist's creation, gave him de facto final editing rights, restoring his confidence, and this director might have had great potential.
Say goodbye to the big screen.
With a movie like "Shotgun Lulu", even if the box office is still not good, but with this kind of technique and level, no one will ask him to direct it in the future.
In a director's career, the success or failure of the first few films is still very important. If you use stars in your first few films, and then are interfered with and cause box office failure...
…
Early the next morning, Weintraub called Ronald. He learned from Susan that Ronald had signed Cher.
"I heard that Cher won't be scheduled until the New Year? That's okay. I expect MGM/United Artists to be back in operation in October, and you can start preparing for filming by then.
You need to prevent Cher from being a big deal on the set? Go ahead and do it, Ronald, I don't think anyone can challenge you on the set."
With the promise of the future small boss and president of MGM, Ronald felt a little relieved. At least Cher would not be able to challenge his authority like Goldie Hawn challenged Jonathan Demme.
The various struggles within the crew are complicated, but in the final analysis, the key to deciding who will win lies in who the studio's executives support in the end.
"There is also good news. The theme song of the second part of The Dragon King, 'Glory of Love' sung by Peter Setra, has topped the charts."
"This is really good news." Ronald was overjoyed. The fact that the episode topped the list is very helpful for the movie's box office performance. The theme song of "Top Gun" topped the charts just two months ago.
This time, "Glory of Love" hit the top spot just in the second week of the movie's release. Due to the timing, it will have a greater impact on the box office of "Top Gun" than "Take My Breath Away".
"No, this is extremely good news. Based on my experience, this song will sit at the top position for two or three weeks, and it will stay in the top ten for a long time."
Ronald is very excited. Both movies are doing very well. It seems that the days of having two movies in the top five will continue.
Because he was going to attend the New York premiere of "Monsters in Chinatown", Ronald stayed at home in New York and began to break down the script of "Moonlight".
Combining several scenes in the dream, Ronald was still looking for any familiar actors. At the same time, he called Coppola and expressed that he wanted his nephew Cage to play the leading role.
"Peggy Sue Getting Married" will not be released for a few months. During the filming, Cage and the leading actress Kathleen Turner had many conflicts. Coppola was of course very happy that Cage was wanted to star in such a big production.
, he will notify Cage and ask him to prepare the schedule to cooperate.
"There is good news about Evil Husband in the House. Cinema score gives Evil Husband in the House a--", the publicity department manager of Touchstone Pictures, a subsidiary of Disney, reported the latest results to Ronald.
"I remember that the average audience rating at the premiere was B to B. Why is the latest rating higher?" Ronald was happy but also puzzled.
"Maybe the towns where the cinema score was sampled were in the Midwest, and maybe audiences in small towns there liked the movie more and rated it higher than audiences in big cities."
"Oh", Ronald remembered the movie "Footloose" a few years ago, which was somewhat similar to the situation in "The Evil Husband".
They are all classic stories of bad guys and good guys, and the plots are relatively simple, so small-town teenagers who have not seen much entertainment can have no problem understanding the movie.
The producers of "Top Gun", Don Simpson and Bruckheimer, often say "Oklahoma parents need to understand, too", which is also aimed at a larger audience group, those hidden in
Movie theater audiences in small towns across the Midwest and Deep South.
It seems that maybe they still like watching "a bad husband in the family".
Audiences in small towns may not necessarily understand those densely spoken words. But this kind of slow-paced comedy that relies on plot to make things funny might just fit in with their aesthetics?
Thinking of Helen Slater's slightly dull and simple acting skills in the movie, maybe those small town youths prefer this kind of beauty with simple acting skills.
Speaking of which, the "full of energy" director was the director of "The Secret of Success" where Helen failed in her audition, Herbert Ross.
The movies he directed are actually quite old in terms of pace and technique. The "full of energy" story is also very unsuitable for the aesthetics of young people in big cities, but they still earned US$80 million at the domestic box office.
The more Ronald thought about it, the more he was right. This might be a rule for box office success.
He took out a piece of paper and wrote down what he thought was the secret to box office success.
First, the story itself must be smooth and beautiful, and there must not be any parts that are particularly distracting or distracting. Advanced directing techniques and outstanding performances by actors are not necessary to be successful. Many audiences cannot actually tell.
As long as the audience finds it enjoyable during those one and a half to two hours and can recommend it to their relatives and friends later on, it will meet the requirements.
Second, the bigger the audience, the better. If it is for teenagers and other groups who often go to the cinema to watch movies, you need to shoot some content that they like. If it is for the disappearing audience like The Sound of Music, you need to shoot some content that they like.
Give them a reason to go back to the cinema.
third……
Ronald thought about it and realized that there seemed to be no third place. Movies that could achieve these two points would generally not have any big problems at the box office.
By the way, it would be even better if the movie insert could also become a popular song. This is the third element.
Ronald took stock of the movies he had made, and it seemed that there was a song in each of them that became the top song on the charts when it was released.
Nowadays, the cost of publicity and distribution to invite movie audiences back to the cinema is too high. Pop music is a good carrier, which can make people who listen to the songs want to go to the cinema to see how the movie is being shot.
In this era where television occupies the vast majority of adults' entertainment time, if a movie wants to be a hit, letting the audience know what makes the movie good is as important as whether the movie itself is good, if not more important.
Important words.
"Ring ring ring ring..."
The phone rang, and Ronald was still thinking about his summary, as if he hadn't heard the ringing. After four rings, the phone was automatically transferred to the answering machine.
"Hello, this is Ronald's home. I'm not at home right now. If you have anything to contact me, please leave a message after the beep, or call my agent's phone number."
"Ronald, it's me, Eddie. Answer the phone. The producer of 'Dirty Dancing' wants to talk to you about production issues."