Hollywood Hunter

The packaging model pioneered by C+ was originally designed to promote TV programs in hand.

In the 1970s, the newly established C+ was not only suppressed by the old club WMA, but also had very few artists. In order to find jobs for customers as soon as possible and avoid the disintegration of the newly established small company, C+ President Michael Ovitz and other talents took a different approach, gathered all the suitable artists under the company through excellent scripts, and then sold them to major TV stations as a whole.

This packaging model, which broke the tradition of selecting actors and then customizing scripts for them, was unexpectedly successful, and then gradually developed into film production.

In 1982, C+'s film packaging project "Skinny Man" hit the box office and achieved the second place in the North American box office rankings that year (the first place was "Alien ET"), completely making the packaging mechanism the core of C+ Operating model.

With the development and growth of C+, there are more and more top stars under its umbrella, and this brokerage company has also become more and more powerful in Hollywood. Not only does it demand higher and higher remunerations for its stars, but it also uses commissions from the overall project budget to bypass Hollywood's regulations prohibiting brokerage companies from entering the field of production, further pushing up the production costs of film and television programs.

As a result, Hollywood’s major film and television production companies have also begun to become jealous of the project operation model that continues to carve up their original power and interests.

As a veteran brokerage company that has been established for nearly a century, WMA has realized the threat of the new operating model of C+ in the past few years. However, due to the company's deep-rooted conservative behavior and the lack of coordination and cooperation mechanisms for internal brokers, WMA did not follow up in time.

It was not until the death of the two core executives in the first half of the year, and the company's internal turmoil caused a large number of top stars to leave, that WMA just woke up.

Then, Simon's "Butterfly Effect", driven by Jonathan Friedman, coincidentally became the first packaged project launched by WMA to a Hollywood studio.

Although a large number of top stars have left in recent months, in fact, the overall scale of WMA is still far beyond C+.

As the fastest-growing Hollywood talent agency company in recent years, C+ still only has more than 50 agents under its umbrella, and the number of clients has just reached 600. In comparison, WMA, which has more than 180 agents, has more than 3,000 artists.

The C+ packaging mechanism has already made studios feel threatened. If Hollywood's largest talent agency also turns to this project operation model, it is not difficult to imagine that major film companies will become more and more passive in film and television production in the future. .

Due to this concern, although "Butterfly Effect" has won the optimism of many studio executives, a week has passed. It should have been the time for the film company to respond, but the heads of several major studios did not give a clear answer. Reply.

In a blink of an eye it is already mid-July.

Paramount headquarters in downtown Hollywood, it's Tuesday afternoon.

Due to the great success of the two films "High Aspiration" and "Genius for Absent Class" released this summer, Paramount President Sidney Garnis has also appeared very high-spirited recently, because the company is now completely swept away. Over the past two years, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and other executives have left the haze.

Affected by the frequent departures of the company’s top executives, Paramount’s best film last year, The Witness, had a box office of only $68 million. Many media are mocking the chairman of Paramount’s parent company, Martin Davis, and Barry. The stupid actions of Diller and other high-level leaders also predicted that Paramount would never recover.

Now that Paramount's vitality is resurrected, Martin Davis, who has a bad temper, has stopped staring at the senior management like a mule for a while, and everyone's life will be much better in the future.

Enthusiastically welcomed Jonathan Friedman into the office, Sidney Garnis and other secretaries served coffee to the two of them. After a few greetings, they entered the subject and said: "Joe, to be fair, Paramount is very I want the "Butterfly Effect" script, but it is difficult for us to accept the overall plan proposed by WMA."

This is not the first film company Jonathan Friedman visited today. He had just been to Warner Bros. Studios this morning. Hearing almost similar remarks made by Sidney Garnis and Warner Pictures President Ed Morley, Jonathan Friedman has already determined 100% that the major Hollywood studios have absolutely concatenated the "Butterfly Effect" in advance.

However, on the surface, Jonathan Friedman still said quietly: "West Germany, you should see that this is a very good project, and WMA has also come up with the best creative team we can provide."

"No, I don't think so," Sidney Garnis said, shaking his head. "Like Brian de Palma, he has already screwed up two large productions with an investment of more than 10 million yuan. Paramount is very It’s hard to let him direct this movie with confidence."

Jonathan Friedman retorted: "West Germany, Bryan’s box office for the last two films is indeed not good enough, but it can’t be regarded as a mess. Moreover, the responsibility for the film’s box office loss is not entirely on him. Just like the " "Black Street Lucky Star", MGM not only arranged the movie for the unpopular April schedule, but also only gave more than 300 screens. Even so, this movie still got 8.5 million US dollars at the box office, which is enough to prove the cloth Ryan’s strength. Moreover, "Butterfly Effect" happens to be the type of movie that Brian is best at."

Sidney Garnis took a sip from his coffee cup and shrugged, "Well, even then, the $2 million director's pay from WMA is too high. Paramount can only pay $1 million at most. Also, that screenwriter..."

With that said, Sidney Garnis put down the coffee cup, got up and took a document from the desk, sat back on the sofa in the reception area, and handed the document to Jonathan: "Simon Westero, right? This is obviously a newcomer without any qualifications. Therefore, we also cannot accept a script offer of 200,000 US dollars, which is too high, up to 100,000 US dollars, and two scripts. 80,000 US dollars for "Butterfly Effect", 20,000 US dollars As... well, this, the option deposit for "Death is Coming". Oh, it took a lot of effort to check the script of this screenwriter from the screenwriters union. In fact, there is a script, but the quality is too bad. It can’t be regarded as a story. As for "Reaper is Coming", although there is only an outline, the idea is really good. In addition, these are all one-time buyout prices. Simon Westeros is not a union member, and Paramount does not need to follow The basic agreement of the trade union divided him into video tape and television broadcasting rights."

Jonathan Friedman silently flipped through the documents in his hand, but in his heart he could feel some obvious malice in these conditions of Sidney Garnis.

However, after Sidney Garnis's voice fell, Jonathan Friedman still asked unwillingly: "So, West Germany, what about the actor, what do you think of Matthew?"

With an inexplicable smile on his face, Sidney Garnis almost nodded his head without hesitation, and said: "The box office of "Genius Skip School" is so good, of course we are very willing to continue to cooperate with Matthew. 5 million US dollars Although the pay is a bit high, Matthew is also worth the price."

Listening to what Sidney Garnis said, Jonathan Friedman was finally sure that Paramount was clearly targeting himself, the initiator of WMA’s first packaging project, and even wanted to use such small means. Stir up the whole project.

After all, Brian de Palma and Simon Westero are both entertainers in his hands, and the sum of their compensation is less than half of Matthew Broderick's. Paramount was arrogant about the salary of the two of them, but decisively agreed to Matthew's $5 million offer, which was obviously trying to provoke a discord within WMA.