hunt hollywood

Amy sat down opposite Simon, shook her head and said, "Paramount offered a contract with a basic salary of 600 million dollars plus a 10% profit share for the project. I talked to Weiss, and he hopes that the sequel to "Scream" can get Same treatment."

For the first "Scream", Wes Craven received a salary of 500 million US dollars from the top first-line directors, but this accounted for half of the project budget, and the actors in the film were only newcomers.

In the next two sequels, Simon actually plans to double the budget.However, although Amy did not explain the specific details of the 10% profit sharing, Simon immediately expressed his rejection in his heart.

Take the first "Scream" as an example, the North American box office is counted as 1 million U.S. dollars, then, if the overseas market, video tapes, TV broadcasting and other channels are operated, this project can at least bring Daenerys Entertainment no less than $1 million. $10 million net profit.Even if Wes Craven is asking for this part of the net profit share, a 1000% share, it will reach [-] million US dollars.

If Wes Craven is indispensable to "Scream", Simon is willing to pay even if the base salary includes a share of $1600 million.After all, the profits earned by Daenerys Entertainment are still very impressive.

However, Wes Craven is not indispensable for a routine youth horror film.Simon simply wasn't going to pay the hefty $1600 million director's fee equivalent to an extra horror movie budget.

After thinking for a moment, Simon said: "Two sequels, 1500 million US dollars, this is Daenerys Entertainment's offer. You can talk to Weiss again, if he doesn't want to, forget about it."

Two "Scream" sequels, with an average of $750 million each, is equivalent to a 50% salary increase on the basis of the first film, which is already very good for a horror film director.

After all, horror films seem to be able to make a big difference with a small one, but there are actually more failed projects.One or two block-office blockbuster horror films a year in Hollywood is already very good, but there are definitely more than one or two hundred low-cost horror films that are unknown or even go directly to the video tape market.

Amy's thoughts are actually the same as Simon's.

For Scream, Wes Craven is definitely not essential.Just like the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series he created for New Line Films a few years ago, Wes Craven only directed the first part of "Nightmare on Elm Street". S. Craven chose to leave, but the "Elmite Street" series was not affected by this. Instead, the box office of several consecutive sequels was higher than one.

Looking at the conditions given by Paramount, the basic salary of 600 million US dollars plus 10% of the film's profit share, if calculated according to "Scream", this salary is indeed high, but what about "Scream"?

Wes Craven's previous films had the best box office results of the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" with more than 2500 million US dollars. The other films were all within 2000 million US dollars at the box office. This is actually the limitation of horror films. sex.

According to this level of calculation, the additional sharing terms of the contract will not be much at all. If the project budget is too high, for example, if it reaches 2000 million US dollars and the box office is 2000 million US dollars, then basically there will be no profit at all.

In comparison, Simon's $1500 million for the two "Scream" sequels is definitely very sincere.

It's just that, thinking about Wes Craven's choice in the previous "Emma Street" series, I just don't know if he will be smart enough.If Wes Craven chooses to cooperate with Paramount, once the next project is unsatisfactory, his value will immediately drop again, and Daenerys Entertainment will certainly not wait for him to come back and continue to take over "Scream" "sequel.

Chapter 219 Settlement (Revised)

Janet is going to a fundraising reception for the Malibu city building lobby in the evening, and the woman is now a member of the community board.Simon was not interested in this kind of entertainment, so he asked Kevin Costner and others to have dinner together after get off work, and discussed the upcoming filming of "Bodyguard" by the way.

The filming of "Batman" will start in January next year, and Simon will lead the crew to Australia after New Year's Day. This departure will take at least three months, and basically will not return to Los Angeles if there are no important things during the period.

Both "Bodyguard" and "The Sixth Sense of Spirituality" are Daenerys Entertainment's most important projects next year. Both chose to launch in December.

It was past eight o’clock at night when we returned to Malibu, and Janet hadn’t come back yet, so Simon was sitting alone on the sofa in the living room, flipping through the scripts collected by Ella Deutschman, while staring at the TV from time to time. samples played in .

According to the information in memory, Simon has already found the producer of "Sex, Lies and Videotapes", which was not dropped by the butterfly.

Although "Sex, Lies and Videotape" was planned by a lesser-known independent producer Robert Neumeyer, the main investor was MCA/Columbia Home Entertainment, a joint venture between Universal and Columbia. The main business of the company, each of which holds 50% of the shares, is to purchase film and video tape copyrights from all over the world for distribution.

Because of its nature, MCA/Columbia Home Entertainment has acquired the video rights to the film after pouring $120, the largest of its $50 million overall budget, into the "Sex, Lies and Videotape" project.

The post-production of "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" has been completed, and an application has been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. Simon also got the sample through the Sundance channel in a very 'reasonable' way, and has given it to Ella Do Itchman.

Simon didn't see familiar movies from the samples of Ella Deutschman, but he found a very interesting script, "The Intersection of Life".

The multi-line narrative mode has always been a test of a director's ability to direct, and "The Intersection of Life" is definitely a masterpiece of Hollywood's multi-line narrative.In memory, this film adapted from a series of short stories by novelist Raymond Carver and directed by Hollywood ensemble master Robert Altman cleverly interspersed as many as eight groups of family characters together, through a kind of Ukiyo-e-style narrative mode perfectly shows the life of ordinary people in Los Angeles.

After the film was released that year, some film festivals even set up the "Best Ensemble Award" specifically for "Intersection of Life". Paul Thomas Anderson's later "Magnolia" was completely influenced by "Intersection of Life".

Although the influence of "Magnolia" seems to be greater because of Tom Cruise's participation, Simon still prefers "Intersection of Life", a film that is purely story-oriented and does not deliberately add so-called connotations.

The original "Crossing Points" didn't come out until 1993, and Simon wasn't surprised to get the script at this time.

According to Ella Deutschman's remarks, Raymond Carver just passed away this year, and Robert Altman, who liked Carver's novels very much, has always hoped to put his works on the big screen.

The reason why "The Intersection of Life" in the original time and space was delayed five years later is mainly because the current Robert Altman is too bad.In the 70s, this great Hollywood director who made consecutive classic films such as "Army Field Hospital" and "Nashville" and won two Oscar nominations for best director entered the 80s and never had a successful work. , the box office results of most of the films shot in recent years are generally only a few hundred thousand dollars.

Hollywood is very practical. No matter how brilliant your previous resume is, if you can't bring benefits to the film company, you are destined to be abandoned.Moreover, the disadvantage of "Intersection of Life" is also very obvious. Not only does it lack commercial selling points, but it is also expected to last up to three hours, which will discourage investors.

However, after only reading the script for a short time, Simon has decided to give the green light to the project.

"Crossing Points" will definitely become another Robert Altman classic, there is no doubt about it.

Since the quality of the film can be guaranteed, and there are gimmicks such as the peak of multi-line narrative, as long as it is operated properly, it is absolutely easy to achieve profitability.What's more, the film is not without elements that the audience "likes to hear and see". Simon is still very impressed with Julianne Moore's full-body scenes in his memory.

Simon was immersed in the script of "Intersections of Life". There was a noise in the living room. Before he could get up, Janet, wearing a black evening dress, floated in from outside. She was obviously drunk and her face was flushed. , laughing and threw himself into Simon's arms.

Simon hugged the woman dotingly, nodded to Sofia Feisi who came in with a women's windbreaker in his arms, picked Janet up and down, and went to the bedroom to take a bath as the woman wanted.

After a lot of tossing, Janet, who had bathed and changed into pajamas, was placed on the big bed. It was already past ten o'clock.

Simon didn't feel much sleepy, so he planned to finish the script of "Intersection of Life".

When I came to the living room, I found that Sophia was sitting in his original place. The woman had changed into a very homely loose sweater and slacks, curled up lazily on the sofa with bare feet, holding a script in her hand, Another sample was already playing on the TV.

Sophia didn't seem to expect Simon to appear again, and wanted to get up, but Simon waved his hand and said, "Go ahead, I'm just here to get a script."

Hearing what Simon said, Sophia immediately relaxed again, and changed her posture without any trace.

The coffee table where some scripts and video tapes had been spread out had obviously been tidied up. Simon rummaged through the cardboard box for a while before looking up at the woman on the sofa and pointing to the script in her hand: ""Intersection of Life "?"

Sophia Feixi nodded: "Yeah."

Simon stood up and held out his hand to the woman.

Sophia didn't hand over the script, but hugged it in her arms, looked up at Simon, and said, "Boss, don't you like me living in your house?"

Simon looked at the charming and familiar woman on the sofa, stepped forward slightly, raised her chin and caressed it like tasting a piece of fine porcelain, and said, "I'm just afraid that I won't be able to bear it, I think I would easily be an indulgent person."

Sophia obviously didn't expect Simon's actions. If it was any other man, she might have already slapped him. But, looking up at that young and handsome face, with the wealth and power of this young man lingering in her mind, she didn't have the slightest thought. He failed to resist, but his body became a little weak.

After a while, Sophia finally pulled up some strength, felt the fingers still rubbing her face, and said softly: "You, you can't do this."

Sure enough, Simon withdrew his hand, pulled out the script from the woman's arms, and said, "Go to bed early."

Sophia didn't expect Simon to be so straightforward, and she felt a little disappointed. Seeing that the man had turned and walked out, she pursed her lips, and said after the man had reached the door, "I have something to discuss with you."

Simon stopped, turned around and looked over: "Huh?"

Sophia dodged Simon's eyes for a while, and said after a while: "I will help you take care of those properties in Europe. But, besides that, I hope to do some more things."

Simon simply leaned against the door frame and said, "You can actually discuss this with Jenny."

"Jenny doesn't care about this," Sophia looked at Simon and said, "Besides, it's more convenient to discuss with you."

"Okay, so what do you want to do?"

"I have studied the LVMH Group that Bernard Arnott just integrated last year," Sophia said, without seeing the confusion in Simon's eyes, and continued: "I want to start with red wine."

"LVMH," Simon smiled, stood on the spot and looked at the woman on the sofa carefully, and said, "I like ambitious women very much, but you think it is realistic to regard LVMH as a goal?" ?"

Many people know about Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Dior, and Tiffany, but they don’t know that these luxury brands belong to a huge luxury empire, LVMH.The founder of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, has also been among the top Forbes rich list many times with LVMH Group.

LVMH, which was consolidated only last year by Louis Vuitton and a handful of other luxury brands, is far from as strong as it will be in decades, but it's not within the reach of just anyone.

There was no guilty expression in Sophia's eyes, but she raised her face again and said, "Don't let me try it, how do you know?"

Simon said: "What if it fails?"

Sophia's tone seemed a little more confident: "If it fails, I will continue to be your housekeeper."

"Do you think I'm generous with women?"

"You are very generous to your own woman, even conniving," Sophia looked at Simon and said, "I can do this."

"Oh, prove it to me."

Sophia said without thinking: "You support what I want to do, shares, options and even salary. I don't want anything. You can take everything at any time and make me have nothing. Can this prove it?"

"Very good," Simon nodded, and said, "The money on Lyon's credit, after paying all expenses, there should be more than 2000 million US dollars left."

"$2673 million."

"Well, it seems that you have already started to think about it," Simon smiled, and said: "This money will be used as your start-up capital. I will see how you do first, and then I will consider adding more."

After Simon finished speaking, he turned and left the living room without asking too many questions.

The last month of 1988 came in a blink of an eye.

Friday, January 12th.

In the past week, the box office drop of "Steel Magnolia" in the second week of its large-scale opening was the same as the previous weekend's three days, and it was still controlled at about 5%. The seven-day period of the next week was another 1215 million US dollars, ranking firmly in the single-week box office champion throne.

In two weeks, including the previous screenings, the cumulative box office of "Steel Magnolia" has reached 2882 million US dollars.

After "Steel Magnolia", "Scream", which was released in its fifth week, finally saw a big box office drop. Compared with last week, the box office fell by 27%, and it collected another 876 million US dollars, because there were no strong new films this week. Released, the film is still ranked No.2.

Moreover, the cumulative box office of "Scream" has reached 7337 million U.S. dollars in five weeks.

Considering that the box office of the next Christmas film will rebound to a certain extent, in at most four weeks, the North American box office of "Scream" will be enough to exceed 1.2 million, and the film's total local box office is expected to reach between 1.3 million and [-] million US dollars between.

Compared with the box office success of "Scream", the most pleasing thing is that Daenerys Entertainment got the first settlement share of the film this week.

Daenerys Entertainment previously signed contracts with the seven major films such as "When Harry Met Sally", "Instinct" and "Pulp Fiction". Get what you get.

Therefore, Daenerys Entertainment will not be able to settle the final box office revenue until this month when "Pulp Fiction" and "Instinct" are released in November.

But for a self-published film like "Scream", Daenerys Entertainment will naturally not allow the theaters to delay the settlement until the film is released. Instead, it has confirmed the monthly settlement in the original contract. scheme.

The cumulative box office of "Scream" in the first four weeks was 6051 million US dollars.

According to the agreement, the share that Daenerys Entertainment can get from the theaters will be reduced by 10% every two weeks. Zhou can get 90% of the remaining shares, and the third and fourth weeks will be reduced to 80%, and so on, until the lowest 20% share will not drop.

After an audit, Daenerys Entertainment's share from theaters in the previous four weeks was equivalent to 71% of the total box office, which was finally US$4615 million.

Just this 4615 million US dollars in box office share is equivalent to Daenerys Entertainment getting more than 100% of the profit from the "Scream" project.Moreover, the settlement of this money also indicates that Daenerys Entertainment's cash flow has entered a healthy state.

Prior to this, Daenerys Entertainment mainly relied on the $1 million loan last year, the buyout share of "Death Comes" and "When Harry Met Sally", "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and several other projects. Funding sources such as advances from reality shows and cash transfers from the Westeros Corporation to maintain operations.

Although there is no shortage of money, and the company can obtain loans from banks at any time, this kind of operation always gives people the illusion that the capital chain may break at any time.

Now, the settlement of "Scream" can even be said to be a beginning, because this December is completely the harvest season for Daenerys Entertainment.

Next, the settlements of "Instinct" and "Pulp Fiction" will also arrive in the account one after another. With the arrival of the winter break, the new phase of payments for several reality shows such as "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor" It will also pay, and Daenerys Entertainment will also release the "When Harry Met Sally" video during Christmas, which will bring continuous cash to the company.

It can be said that as the capital flow enters a sustainable and healthy state, the operation of Daenerys Entertainment will therefore be completely on the right track.

Chapter 220 "Rain Man" Released (Revised)

The Port of Long Beach south of Los Angeles.

For a whole day, Simon personally supervised the packing and packing of all kinds of props needed for the filming of "Batman". He didn't leave until all six large containers were placed on a freighter of Johnston Holdings' shipping company. Pier back to Santa Monica.

The Johnston family and the Batman crew's Australian-based team will take over.Because many media are staring at the preparation details of "Batman", in order to avoid leaks, the Australian local customs also specially organized a working group to sign a non-disclosure agreement to be responsible for the customs clearance and acceptance of these props.

Entering December, Simon began to spend most of his time on "Batman". Now he will only entertain Daenerys for an hour a day, and then he will rush to Fox Studios' "Batman" crew rented The studio discussed the shooting details with a group of main creators.

It was already off-duty time, and Simon returned to Daenerys Entertainment headquarters in Santa Monica, where Amy and Deutschman were waiting for him.

The three entered Simon's office and sat down, Amy said: "About the heroine of "One Fly More", Simon, CAA still hasn't let go. I think we'd better change people and force Meg Ryan to fulfill the contract. If she had been negative during filming, it would have been very bad."

"Then change," Simon nodded, and said, "As for our option contract with Meg Ryan, let it go on for a year, and then let her lose money."

Hollywood option contracts are very common. However, once a star becomes popular, in order to maintain a good relationship and facilitate possible future cooperation, the film company is usually the one that takes the initiative to make concessions.If you follow Simon's approach, Daenerys Entertainment and Meg Ryan will never want to cooperate again in the future, and the relationship between the company and CAA will also deteriorate.

However, since Simon had already made a decision, Amy didn't persuade him much, and she was also very disgusted with CAA's sky-high asking price.

After Simon finished speaking, he took a sip of the coffee that secretary Susan had just brought in, looked up and noticed that the female secretary was still packing something by the shelf in the corner with her back to him, and asked suspiciously: "Susan, where is there?" What's the problem?"

Susan Landis turned around and shook several folders at Simon. One of them seemed to be unsteady and fell to the ground with a slap. She quickly bent over to pick it up and said, "Mr. Westeros , I think it's a bit messy here, so let's tidy it up."

Simon looked at the female secretary who had been in the company since the establishment of Daenerys Films, rubbed her fingers on the coffee cup, and said lightly: "Clean up and go out."

When the female secretary left, Simon continued to say to Amy: "Also, from now on, all projects in the company will continue to invite artists under CAA, but we will not hire any of them, Ella, the same is true for your side, do you understand?"

Amy and Deutschman glanced at each other, this strategy was simply too bad.

If Daenerys Entertainment can continue to create this year's box office glory, then the stars of CAA will be tantamount to seeing great opportunities slipping away.When this happens too many times, the competence of the CAA agent will be questioned, which may eventually even lead to the exodus of the star from CAA.

However, both Amy and Deutschman also understood why Simon, who had always been gentle, would leave no room for it today.

Today is December 12th, and there are only eight days left before the release of "Rain Man".

These days, the publicity work of "Rain Man" can be described as difficult,

Although it is not expected that several main creators will be able to participate in the promotion of the film, it seems that in order to completely cut off Daenerys' entertainment, Dustin Hoffman left Los Angeles for a vacation in the UK last month. Tom Cruise has also been staying in Mexico to shoot Oliver Stone's new film "Born on the Fourth of July", and director Barry Levinson has not appeared in the media for a long time.

The only one who can run for the film is Valerie Golino, the heroine who does not have many roles in the film.

Moreover, in a recent interview with a British media, Dustin Hoffman also made no secret of publicly stating that the experience of filming "Rain Man" was as bad as "Ista".Last year, "Ista" starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty burned a budget of 5500 million U.S. dollars, but the North American box office was only more than 1000 million U.S. dollars, and the producer Columbia Pictures lost everything.

Dustin Hoffman made such a public statement that "Rain Man" has been embellished by the media into a bad film like "Ista" before it was released.

The budget cost of "Rain Man" has also become one of the hot topics in the media.