Chapter 102: Hoarding Scripts for the Script Shortage
The joint strike between the two major screenwriters unions has been going on for several weeks. The people who are suffering the most now are not directors like Ronald or small production companies like Daydream. It is the seven major studios.
.
The reason for this is also very simple. The bigger the company is, the more it cares about the schedule of film and television production. If a small company like Daydream is affected by a strike and the script is affected, it is very simple, just postpone the filming. Anyway
When they are released, they are usually released during the off-season at the box office or when blockbusters are not doing well at the box office.
However, major productions from the seven major studios are often scheduled one to one and a half years in advance. The impact of the strike will be greater. And the most uncomfortable thing about this strike is that we still don’t know when it will end.
I don’t know when the new film will be produced.
Perhaps the mid-sized studios in Hollywood are suffering even more than the seven major studios. If the big studios only suffer damage to their shooting schedules and arrangements, then the losses to the mid-sized studios will be very real.
Their projects often need to use various financing methods to prepare filming funds, and if they are delayed, they have to pay expensive interest every day.
Moreover, Wall Street is currently in an interest rate hike cycle, and money is tightening. After the stock market crash, many Wall Street investment banks themselves have also suffered serious losses. They have begun to withdraw a lot of funds for postponed film shootings. The postponement plus loan withdrawals have added up to a lot of money at once.
The wail of the CEO of a medium-sized company is louder than that of the top seven CEOs.
Even worse than the medium-sized studios are the three major wireless TV stations. There is a cycle for movie releases, and now the audience can still see the movies shot last year. The shooting cycle of the TV stations is very short, and one episode is broadcast every weekend.
out is a common pattern.
The audience has been watching the reruns for more than a month and can hardly bear it anymore. The advertising revenue lost every month has been millions of dollars. Moreover, the TV series audience has no new movies to watch and has been lost to the cable TV network.
Dig the foundations of the three major wireless TV stations.
Ten years ago, the three major wireless TV networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, accounted for 92% of the TV audience. Cable TV and independent TV stations only had 8% market share. Today, wireless TV’s audience share has dropped to 70%, and cable TV has a market share of 70%.
and ITV's share has risen to 30%.
If this strike lasts until June when the new season of TV series starts airing, then the number of lost viewers will make the CEOs of all TV stations look very ugly. The viewers who watch the paid cable TV stations are all high-quality viewers, and they are lost, but they are lost.
He may not come back.
Cameron Crowe's script was written and improved during the strike, so he could not be contracted blatantly. Fortunately, the two had a close relationship and made a verbal gentleman's agreement. As soon as the strike ends, Ronald's Day
Meng immediately signed a contract with Crowe and asked him to be the director.
There are still various minor problems in the script of "Love to the Heart", especially at the end, where the climax is slightly insufficient. The audience may not be satisfied after seeing this. This will hinder the reputation of the movie.
Ronald agreed to continue discussing how to improve the script with Crowe. The two tentatively agreed to discuss the script once a week, and Crowe would go back and revise it based on Ronald's opinions until it was polished.
Another script, written by Nora Ephron, a female screenwriter whom she met by chance on the plane, was also sent. As soon as she got off the plane, she called Ronald's agent and handed a copy of the script to Richard in person.
In the hands of virtue.
Nowadays, the Screenwriters Guild arrests private transactions just like catching thieves, so all secret communications must be done like spies. Otherwise, if you send a courier or mail a script, and other screenwriters know about it and report it to the Writers Guild, it will
Union membership may be suspended or even revoked.
A tragedy like this happened to a few TV writers in the past two weeks. They made a private deal with the TV station to write scripts for the station's evening talk show. As a result, they were reported by their peers and the word "scab" was posted on their door.
The screenwriters who thought they could pass by using pseudonyms not only did not get paid, but were also ineligible to receive union benefits. In the end, they had no choice but to go to pawn shops to mortgage their belongings. One of the unlucky screenwriters even appeared on NBC for a TV interview
Even though his face was mosaicd on the show, people familiar with him knew who he was, and it was reported that he would still face disciplinary action from the union.
After reading the entire script, Ronald was very interested in this untitled project, especially if the ending could be changed to the two finally getting married.
In order to further discuss the script, Ronald called Nora Ephron and asked to meet to discuss it in detail.
"My friend Rob is having a party, will you come to it? All friends are attending, so it will be easier for us to talk." Nora Ephron understood what Ronald meant, so she thought of a way to join the party
Go to private chat. This way, even if a colleague sees it, they won’t be able to report two friends who were chatting happily at the party.
"Oh, it's you..." Ronald arrived at the house of Nora Ephron's friend Rob, where the party was held, and found out that this Rob was the same guy he had met several times at the Directors Guild.
Bob Reiner.
After filming "The Princess Bride", Rob Reiner did not direct a new movie. Instead, he participated as an actor in the directorial debut of his friend Danny DeVito, "Throw Momma from the Train".
The leading actor in that movie was Billy Crystal, and the jokes he told at the Oscars were still relatable. Ronald was familiar with both of them, and a group of old friends were drinking light beer at Reiner's house.
While chatting.
"So, you two are Jewish?" Ronald looked at the two of them. They happened to be chatting about the recent "First Intifada" in Palestine.
At the end of last year, a Jewish truck broke into the "Gaberia Refugee Camp" in northern Gaza Province and crushed four Palestinians to death. Afterwards, Fatah, the PLO government-in-exile in Tunisia, did not make a timely statement.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Some more radical organizations that broke away from Fatah quickly organized large-scale protests in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This time their
The strategy was very different. Let many teenagers holding rocks provoke the heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Once the other side couldn't help but fight back, they would be captured by the camera crew waiting nearby and provided to major Western and Eastern media.
This incident did not make much of a splash in the news in America. Ronald only saw on the news that the United Nations passed two resolutions, 607 and 608, condemning Israel's violence.
"I don't believe in Judaism, I'm a fucking atheist." Rob Reiner doesn't like people saying he's Jewish. He doesn't understand how anyone in the 1980s would still believe in a movie that happened thousands of years ago.
All the records in the ancient books are true.
"My dad (Carl Reiner), he said he didn't believe in God after the Holocaust. Where was God at that time? Was he busy playing with zebras and rhinos?"
Rob Reiner does not believe in Judaism, and he also mocked those Jews who insist on tradition, saying that children cannot enjoy opening Santa Claus gifts.
"I did have a Jewish bar mitzvah, but that was to make my relatives on my mother's side happy. I don't believe in any organized religion, I only have some sympathy with the idea of Buddhism."
"Ever since he divorced Penny, he has become cynical." Billy Crystal, his close friend next to him, started joking to calm down Reiner, who was a little out of line.
When Christo saw Ronald looking at him, he also smiled and said, "I don't like the customs of the synagogue either. We are all believers in America. No matter who you are, the most important thing in America is success. Success."
You are right. Even if you go to church every week and confess to the rabbi that you bullied your classmates when you were a child, this is the secret to success."
"You are different from other Jews I have seen in Hollywood." Ronald felt that he had an appetite for these two very secular Jews.
"Ha, of course we Jews from New York are different. I grew up in the Bronx, Billy was a wealthy man on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and his father's record company basically invented jazz. Nora's parents were also in theater
Well, her father named her after the heroine of Ibsen’s Doll’s House. What about you, Ronald?”
It turns out that these are all second-generation children of the New York literary and artistic circles. No wonder they tend to favor left-wing liberal values. The Upper East Side of Manhattan and Long Island in New York are full of such wealthy families.
"You are all rich Jews. I grew up in fucking Staten Island. My parents are pure patriots who fought for Uncle Sam." Ronald laughed.
"I've been to Staten Island. The scenery there is great. Many people have only one lover in their lives, grow old and have a lot of children." Rob Reiner suddenly became sad, "Just like my father and mother.
"
"Why can't we find a lover who will never change his heart for a lifetime?" Over there, Nora Ephron also began to sigh.
"That's why you were able to write a script like this. Many of them are drawn from my life and Penny's life. And you and Bernstein. For example, the joke about me meeting my ex-wife in the store."
No wonder, Ronald understood why this script had such a sad ending. The two protagonists, Harry and Sally, still did not get together.
Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner are both frustrated by divorce. And they are the kind of people who want to live together forever but can't.
Rob Reiner's ex-wife is Penny Marshall, the female director in "Grown Up" who played Diane. Both of them are children of a New York acting family and have basically the same circle of acquaintances, which made the divorce extremely painful.
Nora Ephron's ex-husband is even more famous. The famous reporter Bernstein who exposed the Watergate incident. The movie "All the President's Men" that previously reflected this incident was played by Dustin Hoffman
Bernstein's character.
Nora Ephron's divorce was even more tragic. When she was pregnant for the second time, her husband Bernstein had an affair with the daughter of the former British Prime Minister and the wife of the then British Ambassador, Baroness Margaret Jay. Almost
Cause a political scandal.
Nora Ephron is not someone to be trifled with either. She wrote her husband's scandal into the script "Heartfire", which was finally adapted to the screen by Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Although it was not a box office hit,
Good, but during the marketing, she pulled her ex-husband out and whipped her in the media.
Seeing Nora Ephron sinking into painful memories, Ronald thought for a moment, "I've always had a question, and you might be able to tell me."
"What's the problem?" Now Nora, Rob, and Billy were all interested.
"You said your ex-husband was Bernstein who exposed the Watergate scandal, but do you know who Deep Throat is?"
"Aha... Come on, come on, tell Ronald the urban legend you like to tell people the most." Rob Reiner laughed. Apparently Nora had revealed the secret to her friends more than once.
"Hey, this is my own deduction. I think Deep Throat is the deputy director of the FBI, Mark Felt. I read Bernstein's notebook, which abbreviated Deep Throat to MF. I checked all possible candidates.
However, only the FBI Deputy Director’s initials are MF.”
"Hahaha, I don't believe it. Is the FBI so amateur? It must have used a pseudonym." Ronald didn't believe it.
"Hahaha, I said the same, Nora, you must have read too many Agatha detective novels."
Several New Yorkers hit it off immediately, and they chatted all over the world and talked about everything. But that's just the way New Yorkers are. In this kind of chat where everyone expresses their own opinions and even tit-for-tat, you can immediately feel that the other person is also a New Yorker.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The rest of the things will be much easier to handle. This is how we New Yorkers do things. Those rural people in Los Angeles don't understand.
"To be honest, I haven't made up my mind to make this movie yet." Rob Reiner said of Nora's script.
Reiner opened Castle Rock Productions (Castle Rock Productions) with friends last year, named after the fictional town in Stephen King's novel.
His dream is not to be taught how to make movies by the executives of big studios, but to make movies according to the ideas of creators and artists.
After Reiner's first Castle Rock film, "The Princess Bride," was an unexpected box office success, they wanted to pursue their idea further.
But unfortunately, there was a stock market crash, and Colombia, which it originally invested in, has now suspended all financing projects. With its own funds, the investment risk is relatively high. So Lena is a little hesitant.
"I can actually invest, there is only one condition."
"We can talk about anything." Rob Reiner, one of the founders of Castle Rock, became interested. "We can talk about anything, but we have signed a distribution agreement with Columbia. We will make 15 movies in three years.
The movie is distributed by Columbia, and if your company wants to get involved in the distribution business, it must get Columbia’s nod.”
"Hey, my company can't afford this kind of theatrical movie distribution. We can only distribute small productions like 'Hairspray', or do video distribution." Ronald shook his head, saying that he didn't want to get involved in the distribution business. All three of them
Look at Ronald and wonder what his terms are."
"My conditions are very practical. You may think I'm vulgar, but I want the two protagonists to be together at the end of the movie. Only in this way can the investment be profitable."
"Oh? Do you think so? In fact, we don't accept the traditional ending at all. Nora said that you suggested that we watch 'Sullivan's Travels'. We have actually watched it in college before, and it does make sense."
Rob Reiner was not a layman who only wanted to satisfy artists. He looked at Nora Ephron. In fact, the prototype and many details of this script were based on his and Nora's life. Both of them were divorced.
, if it were written as a happy reunion, would Nora have that meaning?
However, the two of them are too familiar, and they don't feel like a couple.
"Do you think we need to invite celebrities? How much is the approximate investment?" Reiner is still interested, and it is very beneficial to cooperate with Ronald.
"I think ultimately we need a popular young female star to play Sally, and then paired with a convincing Harry, like Billy."
"Ha...ha...that's funny. My salary is not as good as that of stars." Billy Crystal laughed. As a comedy star, he has not had any popular works yet. Compared with those popular male stars, his salary may be higher.
It's less than half of other people's.
"I don't dare to ask Billy to act. If the box office is not good and he fails to become a first-class male star as he hopes, I will feel sorry for him." Rob Reiner pulled Billy Crystal to play the movie "The King".
"My mother was thrown from the train" had neither box office nor awards, and it really deceived my friends.
"If there are stars, I think the price of about 15 million can cover it." Ronald quoted a figure. Now that star salary inflation is serious, the average production cost of medium-sized productions is higher than before.
It has increased in two years.
"You know, I think it's better for our company to sign a strategic cooperation agreement, so that Nora's script is confirmed and we can start evaluating the project. In this way, when the writers' strike is over, both of our companies will have new films that can be quickly put into production.
, just in time to be released before the script shortage ends next year.”
Reiner thought this was feasible, so he asked Ronald to agree on cooperation first.
"Of course, we let the lawyers handle the paperwork."
"It's very interesting that you are directing a film about women. I will go to the studio to have a look." Reiner was very happy and brought a box of biscuits from the supermarket, opened it and invited Ronald to eat.
"Aren't you the director?" Ronald picked up a piece and only took half a bite before putting it down. The taste of the candy corn was much worse than that of his aunt's handiwork.
"Should I do it? I'm actually afraid that directing a work like this will always remind me of the time when I divorced my ex-wife."
"Isn't that very real? Who else knows better than you how it should be acted? If I direct, I will only shoot the ending where the two of them are together." When Ronald heard that he wanted to direct it, he agreed.
, it must have a happy ending.
"It depends on what Nora wants." Reiner respects the screenwriter's autonomy, and this kind of thing still has to be left to the screenwriter to decide.
…
Soon, the lawyers of both parties prepared the cooperation framework. Both parties have priority rights over the other party's movies. Under the same conditions as competitors, the other party will be the first to invest in their own projects.
"That Australian cowboy friend of yours has caused misfortune to Paramount." The lawyer who came to sign the contract was the famous Hollywood lawyer Grey-Eyed Mickey Mickey Kantor.
"Isn't that still your power?" Ronald smiled.
Paul Hogan, the star of "Crocodile Dundee", came forward with Kantor and found a showdown with the domestic distributor Paramount. Paramount Home Entertainment, which had manipulated the sales of video tapes, had to admit under the evidence that it was
Own accounting statistics lag behind sales.
Paul Hogan received a generous commission that should have belonged to him and his wife. By the way, he also checked the accounts of the overseas distribution company 20th Century Fox and dug out some box office accounts that were behind schedule.
In the end, Gray Eyes Kanter also helped Hogan solve a small trap in the "Crocodile Dundee II" distribution contract.
It states that the sequel must still be distributed by Paramount in America. Kanter changed it to give him priority under the same situation. If it is a dead clause, what reason will the other party use to not release it at that time, and the third part may be
Can't take a picture.
Hogan was very happy and called Ronald to thank him. He also said that if Ronald goes to Australia for filming in the future, he can go to him. He has a good life there and has many connections in the music and film circles. As long as Ronald mentions
If you come out, you can guarantee resources and give you the lowest price.
Therefore, in fact, we still rely on Mickey Kanter's professional ability and reputation to achieve good results. Ronald just recommended a suitable candidate.
"By the way, I still have some business and I need your help." After Ronald signed the contract, he pulled Kanter to continue talking about business.
"It's a copyright issue on video tapes. I have some movies and my friends' movies. I want to buy out the copyright on the video tapes and then release a better version of the video tapes. By the way, I can take back the copyright on the video tapes."
"Now the seven major studios have understood the potential of video tapes. It's not cheap if you want to buy them." Kanter said with a smile.
"It doesn't matter, money is not a problem. The original box office of the movie was not very good, but my colleagues analyzed that it might be suitable for video tapes."