Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 827 Purchase of Videotape Copyright

"Please help me get in touch with these guys. I want to negotiate with them separately about the purchase of the videotape copyrights for these films." Ronald called the secretary, Miss Chen, and asked her to give each to "Rage Street"." Night of the Comet", calling the producers of the three "Breakdance" films.

"Okay, leave it to me. Ronald, you still have the videotape copyrights of a few movies. Do you want to contact them?" Miss Chen is of Chinese descent. After graduating from college, she officially joined Daydream and gave the company Do some secretarial work.

"Several other films, the Longwei Kid series, Top Gun, including my first directorial film, the fast-paced Richmond High School, were all produced by the seven major film companies, and the box office was very high. It was very difficult to negotiate. I I'll let the agent talk first. You just have to call these three filmmakers from small productions..."

"boom!"

   Before Ronald could finish speaking, the door to the office was opened, and a middle-aged man in a suit with a leather briefcase in his hand rushed in.

   "No. 1, Ronald, still No. 1. The sales of the original soundtrack of Spicy Dance is still No. 1 on the charts in the new week."

Jimmy Reiner, the manager in charge of Ronald's record business, had just returned from New York on Monday when he rushed to Daydream Pictures, Ronald's office, took his hand out of his briefcase and took it out. A copy was left on Ronald's desk.

   "Our single won Michael Jackson? Impossible, right?" Ronald was so surprised, he stood up from behind his desk with a rub, picked up the stationery and looked at it.

Two original singles from "Dancing Hot", one featuring the theme song "The Time of My Life," featuring Bill Medley, frontman of the Justice Brothers, and singer Jennifer Warnes, just On the list, he was pressed and beaten by MJ's new song.

   This kind of song, which was topped by the first hit song of MJ's new album, and stuck in the second position, is unlikely to become the first hit.

   Could it be Patrick Schwytz who composed and sang his own song, "He's Like the Wind"? But with Schwytz's ordinary voice, it's impossible to beat MJ.

Ronald searched for a long time on the paper with a puzzled face. The singles chart, the pop chart, and even the dance music chart, he could not find the song titles of the two songs of "Spicy Dance". appeared at the top of the list.

   "It's not the singles chart, it's the album sales chart." Jimmy Reiner looked at Ronald's puzzled eyes, knowing that the other party had misunderstood, and immediately pointed to a list in the middle and back to show Ronald.

   "Oh, it was my fault." Ronald looked at the chart Jimmy Reiner was referring to, which was America's weekly record sales chart. "Dancing Hot" topped MJ's new album "Bad" at No. 1 in sales.

"The statistics of this list are not necessarily accurate. They are based on reports from major record companies and sampling statistics from the retail market." Jimmy Reiner seemed to feel that he was too excited, and told Ronald about the list. origin.

   "It's not important, our sales will soon break through the double platinum line, 2 million?" Ronald shook the piece of paper, and there were sales statistics at the bottom.

"I'm only first or second. In short, this sales figure has exceeded my best expectations many times." Ronald patted Jimmy Reiner and asked Miss Chen to make him the best cup of coffee. .

   "Originally I was going to open champagne, but I still have the jet lag and not completely reversed, so let's celebrate with this cup of top Indonesian coffee that my manager sent me."

   "Cheers", Jimmy Reiner laughed too. Touched a coffee mug with Ronald. He transitioned from a song rights broker to Ronald's head of record business, and the success of his first album is a good sign.

"If the sales are great and I stay at the top of the year, can I go to the Grammys?" Ronald took a sip of coffee and looked at the copy again, wondering if there was any The chance to win a Grammy and put it at home alongside the Oscars is such a joy.

   "I have to be honest with you, Ronald. The sales are sales, and the awards are mainly based on the commercial and artistic achievements of the single."

   "I remember the Grammys had Album of the Year awards?" Ronald touched his nose.

   "There are only two original songs on our soundtrack album, the rest are old songs remastered..."

   "Okay, okay", Ronald raised his hands, indicating that he had started unrealistic fantasies again.

   "I just need the sales to bring us enough cash flow so I can start investing in next year's movies."

   "That's not a big problem. RCA, like us, is picking money from the album, and they also don't have to pay the artist any more."

   Ronald nodded happily. The movie box office and videotape sales and remittances were relatively slow, but the record income, which was not very optimistic, became the biggest cash income of Daydream in 1987.

  …

   "Mr. Coleman..."

   Ronald was the first to negotiate the rights of the videotape with Tom Coleman, the president of Atlantic Productions, the producer of his sci-fi film "Night of the Comet".

   "To be honest, I don't recommend that you redistribute the videotape of this movie." Tom Coleman knew Ronald's intentions, but it was a more sincere suggestion.

  Atlantic Productions, which has been circling small-budget productions since its big-money release of Ronald's "Night of the Comet". Of the films produced and released each year, there's probably only one that can make money like a lottery win, and the rest are struggling to break even.

   In 1985, they released Michael J. Fox's "Eighteen-Year-Old Wolf", a story about a boy basketball team member who suddenly found himself transformed into a werewolf and killed the Quartet.

Although under the light of "Back to the Future", this film did not make the top five that year, but the production cost of more than one million won the commercial success of 80 million at the box office, and also allowed Atlantic Company to survive to this day, and it can still be shot every year. ten movies.

   They also have a sequel to Eighteen Years Old Wolf to release this year, and Ronald has also heard that their distribution department is preparing to release "The Wife," which won the Best Actress award at the Tokyo Film Festival, in America.

  Atlantic is a relatively healthy one among small Hollywood companies, and shareholders have made a fortune through dividends.

   "Why do you say that?" Ronald was a little strange, wondering if the other party was unwilling to sell the copyright of the videotape to him.

"That's it, Ronald. We released a videotape of the movie in 1985, the year after Night of the Comet. It came out in three versions, VHS, Betamax, and analog CD CED, and just barely broke the bank. It's only been two years since you're about to republish the tapes...

  I know that you are now a successful commercial film director, and it is very understandable that you want to take back the videotape rights of your past work. But the film doesn't seem very suitable for a videotape release, and our selling price won't come down.

  Business is business. And finally Tom Coleman added a favorite quote of the American businessman.

   "You're right, business is business, but I still really want to take all the films I've directed under my own name. These films are like my children..."

   "Well, since you insist, I will let our distribution manager, talk to your people, and try to give you a favorable price."

  Tom Coleman despises a nouveau riche director like Ronald. These people always think about business from the perspective of an artist. A few good movies have been made, and when you have some money, you start spending money.

Forget it, I’ve seen a lot of directors who go up and down in this industry. A year or two ago, they were filming big productions for the seven major studios. After a year or two, there are many directors who have been reduced to no movies. , Some of them are so embarrassed that they can go back and make low-cost exploitative films to start over.

   "I'll remember your care for me." Ronald got up and shook hands with Tom Coleman.

   He also despises in his heart such a fool who guards the gold mountain and doesn't know how to mine it.

   In the video tape market, only the VHS format is suitable for movies. Both the Betamax and the analog CD CED can only be recorded for an hour. In this era when movies are generally 90 minutes to two hours, it is really unnerving to get up to change the video tape halfway through the operation.

The funniest thing is that Sony's Beta format is not incapable of recording more than 2 hours in the market, but their engineers want to protect the clarity of the videotape and are reluctant to record movies at a lower definition, so it's like this. , buy movie video tapes, but also two video tapes.

   On the other hand, the most popular professional sports in America, the NFL League, has an average game time of about 4 hours. The Beta format videotape, there is a videotape that can use lower quality video, but the total length is only 3 hours.

   And VHS tapes, which also use low-quality video, can record up to 9 hours of TV programs.

  I really don’t know what these Sony engineers think. When watching movies at home, most American TVs are no larger than 21 inches, and the quality cannot be seen no matter how high they are? And many people record the game because there is something that happens that day and they are automatically recorded and waiting to watch tomorrow.

   In this way, when the most crucial part of the fourth quarter is recorded, it is necessary to change a videotape for the dementia operation. I don’t know who came up with it.

   is also from the VHS camp of Dongying, and has a much deeper understanding of the American market. More and more movies are now using VHS as the main distribution method. The larger the quantity, the lower the unit price can be.

   Coupled with the difference in the number of boxes, the cost of VHS video tapes for movies is now almost half of that of Sony's Beta system. This paved the way for a videotape price cut from $90 to $40.

   As long as Ronald gave up the expensive and low-selling Beta video tapes, and the CED disc format, and only released VHS video tapes, he could make a suitable profit through the explosion of sales brought about by low prices.

  However, I still have something to earn.

   said to each other that the other side was an idiot, and initially signed the cooperation agreement, and Ronald bought back the copyright of the videotape. In the next ten years, you can release videotapes of your own films.

  Atlantic Tom Coleman got a transfer fee, and the share of the videotape for the next ten years has nothing to do with him. No matter whether Ronald earns or accompanies him, he can get a stable copyright transfer fee.

  …

   "Break Dance is our Cannonball's most profitable movie to date. We can't sell the video tape rights to Ronald at such a cheap price."

   The one who is currently in charge of Cannon is Minahan's younger brother, Yoram Gobros. He looked at Ronald's proposal brought by Meinahan, frowning and rejecting Ronald's image.

"How can you do this? Back then, the two of us were wandering on the streets of New York, and we were running out of money to go back to Israel. If Ronald hadn't filmed this 'breakdance' for us to bring us back to life, then we raised funds and acquired Hairu Guohe. The British theatrical chain, everything that made a big splash at Cannes, was impossible."

  Minahan's neck was suffocated even thicker, he pinched his neck and slapped the table at his cousin. The writing desk made of cheap plywood was slammed by him as if it was about to fall apart.

"Meinahan, our current cash flow is very problematic. You agree that there are too many projects to be green-lighted. We made more than 40 movies last year, and even the 'Superman 4', which needs the most investment, is also not due to these redundant projects. Got enough late-stage funding and failed. Now what we need is more money, less boutique projects”

  Yoram helped his glasses. The last big production Minahan was in charge of, Superman 4, also failed shamefully because he didn't have enough money to invest in post-production special effects. The flying footage of Superman is not as good as that of the first Superman movie ten years ago. There is a lack of funds. Superman and the villain Atomic man fly like people made of paper, and they are fake at first glance.

  Because of this public failure, Minahan was cancelled by EMI, the joint venture partner of Hair Country, the production rights of the project. The one who always followed Meinahan's sidekick was now appreciated by EMI because of his excellent negotiating skills, and he has taken over all the decision-making power of Cannon's management.

"Boutique, boutique, before the box office comes out, no one knows if it's a boutique." Minahan didn't give in. "Think about it, Yoram, what we need now is to cooperate with senior talents like Ronald. We will invest in whatever he wants to shoot. As long as he is willing to direct or is optimistic about a certain project, we will use our overseas distribution capabilities to work with him. This is the correct strategy to bring the cannon out of the quagmire. "

  Meinahan had nothing to do for a while, so he watched all the movies he made after the Cannon was acquired by him, over and over again. He finally understood that in Hollywood, if you want to make money, you have to find competent people to work with. My vision has long been outdated. Taking advantage of the current cannonball relative to the Hollywood Seven, the distribution capabilities in Europe and Britain, a lot of cooperation is the correct way.

   "Now I'm the one who made the decision, Minahan", Yoram pushed his glasses, this cousin is really lacking in business ability, and he doesn't understand many things. Video tapes will become Hollywood's next big revenue generator, and it's better to have such a cash cow in your hands.

   "If you do this, you will break my trust in front of Ronald." Minahan was furious, hammered on the table, and left angrily.

   "Crack..." He exerted too much force, a crack appeared in the plywood, and the flat table top seemed to be split in two.

   "Rosa, set me a new desk", Yoram felt the crack, called the secretary, and simply changed the desk.

"Ronald, I'm sorry for you, I didn't do what I promised you. This guy Yoram, now supported by the Chinese people, is not listening to me in the company. I really don't know, how did he It turned out that we were able to take off back then, all because of your little production 'Break Dance' that was less than $1 million." Minahan did not fulfill Ronald's entrustment, so he had to come back to Ronald to apologize.

   "It's okay, Minahan. I understand his decision, business is business. Not this time, I'll just ask him next time."

   Ronald comforted Minahan in turn. This tough guy from Israel is now gradually losing control over the company he founded. It is indeed the greatest sadness for a movie lover who has such an artist temperament, more than a businessman temperament, to no longer have the right to make movies.

   And Yoram is now in a high position, he doesn't have the mentality and time to reflect on the gains and losses in the past few years like Minajian, maybe in his eyes, breakdancing is still his credit.

   "I'm sorry for you, Ronald. But I won't let it go. Sooner or later, I will return the copyright of the breakdance video to you in its entirety."

"Hey, we two brothers don't need to say this. Let me tell you a funny thing, in China, now they are all breakdancers. You know their original intention of introducing this movie is that the movie reflects the American race. Discrimination and class disparity?"

   "Hahaha, do they really think so?" Minahan talked about the movie, and quickly forgot his unhappiness with his cousin.

"No, let me tell you, the Chinese people are very meticulous in their work. They also found suitable people to dub each character. Lucinda Dickie's mouth shape can be matched with Chinese. Look at their version, as if Lucinda speaks Chinese.”

"That's really interesting. I've never seen other countries that have such fine-tuned manipulation of dubbing. The idiots of the Souvelle Union, let one person read the narration next to him, the Russian narration and the English original voice, I have a headache looking at it."

   "Lucinda has been making movies for Cannon, right?" Ronald also began to recall the past. At that time, Minahan seemed to have promised Lucinda Dickey to be the leading heroine of Cannon.

"Hey, she found a businessman boyfriend and got married. That's how actresses are. The prime time is very short. When you have love, you need to get married, and then have children. "

"Tsk..." Ronald recalled that on the beach in Los Angeles at that time, he and Rodriguez, a handicapped man nicknamed "Handman", scrambled for the scene of hip-hop, and then was received by the chief commander and his wife together. The past of awarding the award was People are wrong. Seeing that next year, the two terms of the commander-in-chief are approaching.

  …

   And finally, Diane Lane's "Streets of Rage," which has been a hit in East Asia. Dongying people have always liked it, and the theme song has always been on demand on the radio.

   Ronald finally found the film's producer, Joel Silver, through his agent.

   "Aha, Ronald, long time no see. I didn't expect you to come to me, my heart skipped a beat when your manager Nisita called me."

   Among the producers of the three films, the one who got the best was this guy with a big head and a thick neck.

   In his mansion in Beverly Hills, he was holding a blond beauty, picking up a bottle of Bordeaux red wine and drinking directly.

"I'm here to buy you the video rights for Streets of Rage. I love Diane's appearance in that movie, and I want to buy it as a gift for her." Ronald knew that these producers were human beings, That's straight to the point.

   "That's a little problem, a little problem, and I'll sell it to you no problem." Joel Silver was complacent. He declined for several years after filming "Street of Rage".

   It wasn't until last year that Mel Gibson was hired to play a retired Vietnam War veteran, a neurotic agent. Solve a tough case with partner, a black detective.

  The hot action stars, coupled with the number of comedy partners, have been tried and tested this year. His "lethal weapon" also allowed him to step back into the ranks of Hollywood's top producers.

   He just finished filming "Lethal Weapon," a police detective story about a Vietnam veteran's neurotic detective and his partner, a black man with a talent for comedy.

  This police and bandit film produced by Silver’s own company has a good box office after its release. It grossed more than 60 million US dollars in America and sold a total of more than 100 million box office in the world.

Joel Silver, the owner of the company, washed away the bad luck that "Rage Streets" brought him, and now he is shaking again, living the typical life of a successful producer, with drunken parties one night after another. Night.

   "Thank you, you are the most refreshing of the producers I have contacted." Ronald stepped forward and hugged Joel Silver.

   "I said, Ronald. I'm working on another cop movie, are you interested in directing it?"

   "A police and gangster film? I think that the old-fashioned way of heroes defeating gangsters is almost out of date. Besides, I have never made a police and gangster film." Ronald recalled the "Last Crazy" he watched in China. The tastes of audiences around the world seem to be shifting.

   "Oh, the heroes see the same thing. I also think that some comedy elements should be added. As for whether you have made a police and bandit film, it is not a problem for you. You have not made an aerial combat film before, nor a musical film."

   "Hahaha..." The two laughed.

   The other party's train of thought is still based on action and comedy, Ronald thought that was not the case.

   (end of this chapter)