Hollywood Hunter

"John Hughes and I made several phone calls regarding "Uncle Buck" and he expressed his interest in working with us. However, Hughes's salary contract was a base salary of $6 million plus a 10% North American box office share."

Conference room.

Simon noticed the smile on Amy's face when he introduced the proposal, and said: "If he is willing to accept the $1 base salary plus the box office and video tape sharing model, maybe I will immediately agree."

John Hughes is the screenwriter and producer of "Home Alone" in Original Time and Space.

Since "Spring Is Not Reading Day" two years ago, Simon has been paying attention to each other's movements.

The Hollywood filmmaker who created a standard set of "Hughes Mode" is basically a rebellious protagonist with the attributes of a bear. In Home Alone, Kevin used the form of playing video to deter the two. The stupid thief’s approach is exactly the same as the details of the male protagonist Phyllis in "Spring Is Not Reading Day" using electronic onomatopoeia to pretend to be sick.

After "Spring Is Not Reading Day", John Hughes's several movies in the last two years have been very general at the box office. If it weren't for "Uncle Buck", Simon would not have much interest in working with him. However, Simon happened to remember that John Hughes was the inspiration for "Home Alone" during the filming of "Uncle Buck".

Amy listened to Simon’s ridicule and explained: “Hughes’s previous movies required a 10% omni-channel profit share based on the basic salary. However, he should not have confidence in our distribution capabilities, so he imitated. The model you cooperated with Fox and Orion called out the box office share price. In fact, he can get similar remuneration in the two methods, but the direct box office rake is a few years earlier than the profit share model."

Although the film model is single, John Hughes's films basically rarely lose money. In addition, the filmmaker personally writes and acts as a producer for every project, and sometimes directs himself, requiring 10% The omni-channel profit sharing model is not excessive.

Simon flipped through the data of John Hughes' previous works.

After "Spring Is Not Reading Day", in the last two years, John Hughes has created four scripts in total. Two of them have a box office of more than 40 million U.S. dollars, and the two have only more than 10 million U.S. dollars. It is already a very good result.

As for "Uncle Buck", the initial budget cost is $15 million. John Hughes is personally responsible for the three positions of screenwriter, director and producer.

Simon doesn’t know the box office performance of this movie. He is more optimistic. If the production cost is 15 million US dollars based on the North American box office of 40 million US dollars, Hughes will also take 10 million US dollars, including the announcement cost, Daenerys Entertainment will definitely lose millions of dollars at the box office, and can only recoup its costs by relying on later sales of video tapes and TV broadcasting rights.

Since the fundamental purpose is "Home Alone", Simon quickly made a decision, saying: "The base salary of 6 million US dollars is too high, up to 5 million US dollars, the budget cost of 15 million US dollars must be stuck, if it exceeds, then it must be It is deducted from Hughes’ share. In addition, Daenerys Entertainment needs the priority of Hughes’s future screenplay under an equivalent contract. Amy, you can talk to Hughes according to this framework."

Speaking of it, Simon actually expects the script of "Home Alone" to be dropped by a butterfly.

This possibility is actually very large. Unlike some screenwriters who tend to have an idea in their minds for many years, John Hughes is a typical modelized mass-produced screenwriter. The filmmaker creates two screenplays every year, and then Produce and distribute. At the general frequency of the assembly line, perhaps just a difference in thought, the original wonderful script is gone.

If the script of "Home Alone" is fanned out, the next thing is much easier.

There are countless Hollywood filmmakers who imitated the Hughes model, and even the Weinstein brothers have done so. Simon will not be too obtrusive to toss a Hughes model script in the future. He can even be said to be from "Uncle Buck" Inspiration gained in.

"In this case, I will take the time to fly to Chicago and meet Hughes in the next few days. It is not a big problem to win this project." Amy wrote the matter on the memo, looked at the watch, and unknowingly it was almost six o'clock. It was past get off work hours, so I closed the memo and asked about noon: "How did you talk to Semel?"

Simon briefly summarized the terms of cooperation agreed with Semel at noon, and exhorted: "During my trip to Australia, you will work out a specific contract with Warner as soon as possible."

Amy reopened the memo to write down these things, and then asked, "So, which project do you plan to choose for cooperation with Warner?"

"Amy Hecklin's "Flying Over the Innocence"."

Amy's writing hand paused, and said, "Simon, I think it's better to "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural". This is your personal signature script. The creativity is also very good. It should be no problem for the box office to exceed 100 million. As for "Flying" "Innocence", this story is indeed very interesting, but if the box office fails to exceed 100 million, we will pay Warner another movie."

The North American box office of the original "Sixth Sense of Supernatural" exceeded US$290 million, and it was close to US$700 million worldwide. Taking out this project to cooperate with Warner, even if the box office of the new version of the film has shrunk to only 500 million in the world, Simon will not bear it.

Between "Bodyguard" and "Flying Innocence", Simon chose the latter mainly because "Flying Innocence", a comedy with a strong local style, and "Bodyguard" should have little overseas box office potential.

Simon did not explain too much to Amy, and decided: "I don't want to give my script to others, it's "Flying the Innocence". Since we are cooperating with Warner, we can increase the budget and invite a few more famous people. The protagonist, I am still very confident in this project."

Amy nodded, continued to write, and asked: "Simon, when I discussed the script of "Bodyguard" with Costner last Friday, he asked about "Dancing with Wolves." During the beginning of the year, we I bought a lot of copyrights, when do you plan to do it?"

"Those are all projects that I'm very optimistic about. When the company's strength is consolidated for another year or two, I don't want to screw up any of them," Simon said, closing the documents in front of him, and said: "Also, you just Speaking of flying to Chicago?"

Amy explained: "John Hughes has always lived in Chicago, and most of his movies are shot in Chicago. He doesn't like Los Angeles."

"In this case," Simon tapped his finger on the desktop and said, "The company will add another business jet. Iger will travel between the east and west coasts every week for the TV business. You and Rem also need to travel frequently, and the company For the other executives and James’ side, one is definitely not enough."

Amy looked up: "Rent or buy?"

Simon smiled and said: "Rent, I don't want to add so many small planes, but I don't want that Gulfstream anymore."