Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 831 The plot of the skyscraper

  Jodie Foster is petite and very smart. During her five years at Yale University, her grades were excellent. She is not the beautiful, brainless Hollywood female star who is ignorant of common sense as most people stereotype her.

   This time, I finally got a verbal promise from Ronald, and I immediately proposed to go back to Los Angeles with Ronald's business jet. These big directors are very busy every day, if they don't stay close to them, appear beside them, and remind them, maybe they will be forgotten soon.

  Ronald is not disgusted with this kind of self-motivated actress, it is a good thing to be ambitious. He agreed to Foster's request. Besides, chatting with a smart beauty all the way on the plane is much better than chatting about work with two men, Michelle Cannold.

   "What novel are you reading?"

   "Is this one? 'Nothing lasts forever', a police thriller novel." Ronald's novel was still on the chair. He thought it was wonderfully written, and he planned to read it again on the return trip.

   "Do you want to adapt it into a movie? The current action movies are not the same as they were a few years ago. They are a bit sluggish." Jodie Foster is very smart. From Ronald's schedule, he can see his plan.

   "It's not confirmed yet, I just think the novel is very good."

   "What attracts you?" Judy leaned over, passed Ronald's body, and reached the novel.

   "Tsk..." Ronald sighed. Foster's body is petite, but his figure is not small. Among movie actors, it is very rare that real people are relatively well-proportioned. Of course, such a figure, in the anamorphic wide-screen lens, will appear a little fat.

"I don't understand why you are so optimistic about this novel. Is this a very old detective novel?" After reading for more than an hour, Foster finished the novel and came over when he saw that Ronald was dealing with business. disturb.

   "You've made a lot of movies, so you should see the advantages of adapting it into a script." Ronald asked the stewardess to pour a glass of **** water, and started chatting with Foster to relieve boredom.

   "Hmm... because the structure of the novel is very good? In the end, the male protagonist turned defeat into victory and defeated the villain unexpectedly?"

   "Very good, Judy, very good." Ronald took a sip of the **** water, and a breath rushed straight to the top of his head. His thoughts became much clearer. It seems that chatting with a high-IQ beauty can indeed stimulate rational thinking.

  At the end of the novel, the hero tied the pistol behind his back with tape and killed the kidnapper by surprise. This is indeed a very suitable plot for the movie. "Is there any more?" Ronald smiled to Foster.

"Well, the kidnappers initially claimed that they wanted to liberate the guerrilla leaders in Panama, but they actually aimed at the gold in the building. Purpose."

  Foster has made movies since he was a child, and has learned a lot about various movies.

   "I have to say, you can be a director in the future, Judy." Ronald had already overestimated Jodie Foster's level, but she didn't expect her to surprise him.

   "How good is my answer? Is there an A+?"

"absolute"

   "Haha, I shouldn't have missed anything, right?"

   "If you don't become a producer, there will be no problem." Ronald replied with a smile.

   "Where? Tell me, what did I miss?" Jodie Foster simply got up and sat next to Ronald, holding Ronald's arm, and began to act like a baby.

  A scent came from Judy, and Ronald was shaken by her a few times. I don’t know if it’s because business jets are higher than commercial airliners, with a cruising altitude of over 10,000 feet. Looking at the petite Foster's snow-white skin, Ronald felt a little dizzy...

  “The reason why I am most interested is because almost all the scenes of this novel are in a skyscraper, which saves money to shoot.”

   "Ah..." Jodie Foster didn't expect Ronald to say such a non-artistic reason, and opened his mouth wide.

  …

   "Kelly, this is Judy, Judy, Kelly..."

   Arrived in Los Angeles, Ronald first sent Jodie Foster to Kelly McGillis, and she was anxiously waiting for someone recommended by Ronald.

  After introducing the two beauties, Ronald left and went home.

   "You know I want to play District Attorney Murphy, and you're here to play the victim?"

   "No problem, Ronald has told me, I am willing to accept any challenge."

  The two beauties chatted at the door, and Ronald watched from the back seat of the car as McGillis opened the door and let Foster in. Foster took the initiative to hold McGillis' hand...

  The car turned a corner, and Ronald didn't see what happened next. He had some doubts in his heart, but he quickly let go of all this, he still had a lot of things to do.

   Early the next morning, Ronald came to Joel Silver's office.

   Joel Silver, the producer of "Streets of Rage", showed up in his luxurious office early on a rare occasion, waiting for Ronald.

His taste is very vulgar, and he copied the appearance of Wall Street investment banks. Even the front desk and the secretary tried their best to find a few blondes with good figures, dressed in office girl costumes, but they still held the folder and did not forget to twist their waists Their appearance betrayed their empty brains and their true thoughts of wanting to use this to make movies.

   "How's your screenwriter doing?" Ronald asked when he saw Silver.

   "Why are you interested?"

   "Indeed, I have read the novel several times, and it is very suitable for adaptation into a movie."

   "Okay, okay, okay!" After saying a few good words, Joel Silver grinned happily.

   "So, you agreed to join?"

   "I want to see the adaptation, Joel. Then decide how much to invest."

   "Investment? How much can you pay?" Joel Silver didn't expect that Ronald wanted to invest, not to be a director. But even though Ronald is a successful director and has enough money, can he invest in this kind of production by the seven major studios?

   "I have Dongying Chaebol behind me, as long as the plot satisfies them, as much as they want." Ronald made a condition.

   "You want to change the script?" Joel Silver frowned.

   "I only ask for a high-ranking and positive Dongying character. It is best to lead many American people."

   "That's it?" Joel Silver and Ronald confirmed.

   "That's it, but the quality of the script itself must satisfy me. I will consider whether to direct."

   "No problem, in short, you will be a part of this big cake." Joel Silver was very happy, and he was able to attract a large amount of investment from Dongying, all of whom are talents!

   "Can you put such a character in the script?"

"Of course, I am the screenwriter, by the way, his name is Jeb Stewart. I am very loose with him. Compared with writing an important supporting role, he will agree. Let Dongying people be the chairman and CEO of the company How? The Americans in the building are all his men."

   "I don't think there is any problem with Japan." Ronald thinks this arrangement is good.

"Hahaha, didn't they say they wanted to buy New York and Los Angeles? Since they signed the agreement two years ago, the yen has risen from 250 to 160. There are so many people in Hollywood who want to invest in Dongying people. I didn't expect you and They are also related. Which chaebol is it?"

   "In short, they are the two people who talk about the entertainment industry in Japan, and they control half of the market there."

   "There are two more, very good, very good." Joel Silver hurriedly ordered the female secretary to get good wine to celebrate.

"boom"

   Opened the champagne, Ronald and Silver toasted to celebrate the cooperation agreement.

   "You said your screenwriter worked 16 hours a day, how far is it now?" After drinking champagne, he still cared about the script.

  Compared with those senior executives who have never been engaged in filming in Qidali, Ronald is the producer who really recognizes the value of the script. Unlike people like Shirley Lansing who talk about it, he won't invest if he doesn't approve of the script.

   "I've had my secretary call him over, and Jeb's first draft is done, but he's a fledgling screenwriter, and we've got to get him some script doctor touch-ups."

   "It's a fledgling, hasn't he written a movie script before? How can you rest assured?" Ronald was surprised.

   "He was doing script revision work for Disney and Paramount before, and I gave him this opportunity because there was not enough business.

  Hollywood talent is everywhere, and I don't know if he can do it. But he behaved professionally and passionately in front of me, and he also needed the money to pay off the mortgage. So I'll give him a chance.

  I already understood. As producers, we cannot interfere with the creative details of screenwriters and directors. We need to find those geniuses who are passionate and have flames in their hearts, and then give them full creative freedom.

  I don't interfere with their creative process, I only look at the results, if I am impressed, I will give a green light, if I am not satisfied, I will give a red light, it's that simple. "

  Ronald kept nodding. This kind of producer's concept is very advanced. In fact, you don’t need to worry too much about the process and details of the creation, just let the final product speak for itself. The script is all connected back and forth, and the details are set with deep meaning. If the producer modifies it at will, it will be a bad thing.

  If you are not satisfied with the quality, just don’t shoot, instead of pretending to know how to point fingers.

   "But aren't you afraid that they will go astray?" The only thing Ronald doesn't understand is that sometimes high-creation artists will add too much of their own ideas, and write crookedly an original idea with commercial potential. Although the creator may be very happy, the final result will not be good.

   "I only gave him three constraints. I wanted a Rambo story in the office, I wanted it to be in a skyscraper, and I wanted a Christmas plot. He did everything else himself."

   "We also need to add a Japanese Boss character."

   "We also need to add the role of a Japanese boss", Joel Silver raised his hand and clinked glasses with Ronald again, fully respecting the investors' opinions.

   Ronald basically figured out the framework of this successful producer.

   Unlike "Top Gun" producer Don Simpson, who abused drugs and was too emotional to discuss things coherently. Joel Silver thinks very methodically.

  As a producer, what he needs to grasp are several blockbuster elements in commercial films, at least what he thinks the audience will like.

  These three constraints obviously reduced the production budget a lot, and the story within this framework will also make the audience like it. Who wouldn't want to watch an action-packed action flick where you beat bad guys in a building and get your hormones pumping?

  Speaking of which, there is no such Rambo-style action movie set in an office building in Hollywood.

   Ronald remembered the movie he dreamed about when he went to Cannes. Nice building, why make a dull movie about frustrated men, suicides? How good it is for commercial action movies.

"boom!"

   While the two producers were discussing the project, there was a loud bang from the road outside the window, so loud it sounded like someone had fired a shot or something had hit a rock.

  The two of them walked in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the office, only to see a Dongying Toyota car across the road crashed into a fire hydrant on the side of the road. The front had been crushed and the driver seemed unconscious, no one escaped.

   "Shxt!, that looks like our writer, Jeb Stewart's car."

  Joel Silver suddenly cursed, he recognized the white car here, very much like the screenwriter Jeb he paid for.

   "Call 911, I'll go check it out."

   Ronald thought to himself, working 16 hours a day is really not enough. He ran out of the office quickly, he was trained in first aid before, and hurried to the front of the car.

   The front part of the Toyota Corolla has been smashed in, and the ground is covered with fragments of glass and metal.

   Ronald took a closer look, and saw a man in the driver's seat, his face was covered with blood, and an airbag popped up on the steering wheel, bulging.

   "Jeb? Is that you? Jeb? You hurt there? Does it feel right there?"

   When Ronald saw the screenwriter named Jeb, his eyes were wide open, and there seemed to be no blood stains except for a broken nose.

   But the injured in the car accident can't say anything, they can only call softly.

"I...I'm fine. I was just scared." Jeb Stewart was scared to death. He stretched his legs, and then looked at his abdomen. There were no injuries. He untied his seat belt and got off tremblingly. car.

   "Be careful", Ronald saw that his legs were weak, and he held him up.

   "You are, are you Ronald?"

  Jeb found out that the one who supported him was the idol he admired in the screenwriting circle, the lucky screenwriter who had won $350,000 for his young debut work, his eyes were wide open, and he couldn't believe it.

   "Don't talk, sit over there for a while, Joel called 911, and the ambulance will come right away."

   "It's okay, my script, the script is still in the back seat of the car, I'll bring it to you."

  …

  After noon, Ronald and Joel Silver went to the hospital to see the screenwriter Jeb who had finished the examination here.

  The unlucky guy's car has been destroyed. Fortunately, the Dongying people's car-making philosophy allowed him to escape the damage of the crash.

  Before coming to the hospital, Joel Silver had read the first draft of the script written by Jeb in the past few days, and he was very satisfied with the script. The screenwriters who are inspired by the mortgage, future, and ambition are the most creative as expected.

   "The script is well written, and we will continue this project. Ronald will also join this project. As a producer, we have discussed that you should add a Japanese character to your script."

"That's no problem..." Jeb was lying on the hospital bed. Fortunately, the medical insurance coverage of the screenwriters union had already completed the examination, but his car was destroyed. Fortunately, he was fine. If the project of this movie can be approved, he can buy a new car It is still possible.

   "But..." Jeb recalled the moment before the crash, the image of his wife flashed in his mind

   When he came out this morning, he had a fight with his wife because of house maintenance. Unexpectedly, when something happened, all I could think about was sorry for my wife, and I wanted to ask for her forgiveness. At that time, I was afraid that I would not have a chance.

   "Don't worry, I made an agreement with Joel, I will give you a second-hand Toyota to drive first, and you will buy a new car when you get the official payment for the script and the filming starts."

  Ronald knew that these screenwriters were poor, so he solved his worries in advance.

"No, no, I mean thank you. I didn't think about it just now. When I crashed, I had an idea and wanted to add it to the script. Hiss..." Jeb became excited, pulling his nose that was hit by the airbag injury.

   "Slow down, great writer." Ronald smiled. He has also experienced this kind of moment, thinking about the script day and night, and sometimes an accident, but will be integrated.

"I want to add another plot to the protagonist John Ford. He came to Los Angeles to make the last effort to reconcile with his wife who was discussing divorce. In this way, the audience will like this protagonist even more, and worry about his fate even more. After saving the hostages in a building and killing the kidnappers, will you get along with the wife of the senior vice president who is the CEO of the Dongying people?"

"It's a very good idea, but you'd better rest first." After listening to Ronald, he felt that such a setting would indeed make the beginning more grab the attention of the audience, and also add a soothing emotion to the whole intense and tense plot. secondary line.

   is the name of the protagonist, why is it the same name as the most important western film director in America? Hollywood generally doesn't like to poke fun at a figure with an important place in film history.

   "I have nothing to do, I can rewrite it right away, hiss..."

   Jeb was still frowning, his chest was strangled by the seat belt, and it hurt a little.

   "Jeb..." Outside the ward of the hospital, a woman rushed in, who seemed to be his wife who had quarreled with him in the morning.

   "Ann, why are you here? I'm fine, I just bumped into it."

   "It was Mr. Ronald who called me, as long as you are fine... woo... I was scared to death."

  …

  Ronald and Joel Silver did not continue to disturb Jeb and his wife. They walked out of the Memorial Hospital and agreed to wait for Jeb's revised version to come out before jointly showing it to the two investors and publishers, Dongying and Fox.

  If Ronald can be the director, it is estimated that the green light will be given all the way. Even if he is not the director, Fox and Dongying people will let him be responsible for watching the director to ensure that the production is carried out as expected.

   After a stimulating day, Ronald went back to the apartment and took a hot bath before going to sleep.

  The hot water relieved his spirit a lot, and soon a dark and sweet dreamland hit him.

  …

  A gangster wearing a designer suit and a beard, with a ferocious face, but at the same time speaking politely, with a London accent.

"Hey, isn't this Alan, Alan Rickman, the actor in Broadway's 'Dangerous Liaisons'?" Ronald was surprised to find that the villain in his dream was played by the delightful Allen. of.

   Really deserves to be an actor from Shakespeare Company, playing whoever he looks like.

  The gangster set up a family portrait on the desk in the office.

  His expression changed from surprise to enlightenment, and then became fierce again. He picked up the gun in his hand, pointed at a middle-aged actress in her 30s outside and said, "Nice to meet you, Mrs. McClane."

  Detective Allen raised his pistol and fired a shot at the ceiling. The other hostages screamed in terror.

   "It turns out that the leader of the villain's kidnapper was played by Allen. If you really don't watch it, you can't think of it." Ronald sighed.

  The scene fast-forwarded for a long time, as if on the upper floor of a skyscraper, Alan Rickman held a gun in his hand, aimed at the head of the actress just now, and was talking to a person opposite.

  The camera turned, and the opposite was actually Demi Moore's boyfriend, Bruce Willis.

  He was bare-chested, bloodstained all over his body, a pair of pants were a little torn, he hadn't worn shoes yet, and his feet were bare.

   "Hahaha..." Police Officer McClane pretended to laugh, and stretched his hands behind his back.

   Camera everything, a pistol taped to his back.

   "Holly! Yippee-Ki-Yay, Motherfxcker"

  Bruce Willis yelled, an unintelligible sentence, then pulled off his pistol and fired a shot each at Alan Rickman and his accomplice.

Um? Ronald looked at Bruce Willis, who killed the gangster with bare feet, and remembered the beginning of the dream when he went to Cannes. Could it be that the plot of bare feet relieving the fatigue of the journey was the foreshadowing here?

   Could it be that what I dreamed at the time was not a literary film, but this action blockbuster?

  Then why is there suicide in the end?

   Alan Rickman is not killed immediately, he drags Holly, the wife of protagonist McClane to the edge of the building. It broke the glass and fell out, and finally grabbed the wrist of the heroine Holly.

  He picked up the pistol in his hand with a fierce face, and was about to shoot and drag Holly to death.

  Bruce Willis rushed over and tried unsuccessfully to unlock Alan's hand. At the very moment, he had an idea and unlocked the watch on Holly's wrist.

"what…"

  Alan Rickman fell off the building with the watch, and in slow motion he fell dancing from the top of the building.

"what…"

   Ronald woke up with a yell. It turned out that what he dreamed back then was not jumping off a building, but a reverse plot of the gangster being shot to death in the end.

   No wonder I dreamed of this movie again today. The two protagonists are my acquaintances, and I have a new version of the script in hand.

   This movie seems to be destined for me!

   "Oops", Ronald finally realized that he rolled to the ground again.

   “Fuck, add extra money today to buy a California king size (20% larger than normal king size) queen bed.”

  (end of this chapter)