Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 161 Disrespectful CAA President Ovitz

   The advertising time of Bo Ji Xiaosi here is undecided, and the launch time of "Endless Love" is also undecided, and many booking plans have been interrupted by the strike. Ronald decided to first go to San Francisco to learn editing from Walter Murkey.

   The itinerary to San Francisco has been decided with Merzy, but before we go, we have to go to CAA headquarters to formally meet with Nisita and other agents, Richard has already told him several times. It happened that this time, while discussing the matter of the revised script, we got things done together.

  Michelle Pfeiffer was busy with acting training classes in Los Angeles. Sometimes she couldn't find anyone on the phone, and she had to convey her thoughts through her agent.

   After saying goodbye to his family, Ronald took a Pan Am flight to Los Angeles. This company, which originally specialized in overseas aviation, merged with the national airline after the deregulation of the aviation control law, and also began to operate domestic routes.

   "Ronald, I'm so glad you're finally here." Richard Lovett, the main agent, came to visit Ronald's hotel at night, and hugged Ronald who opened the door.

   Ronald took two bottles of drinks in the refrigerator, and the two young men started talking in the room.

   "Richard, how about Hollywood, is it affected by the strike?"

   "Hey, everyone is crazy. I just came from the office, and half of the people are working overtime at 8 o'clock in the evening. The shutdown has hit the actors hard. CAA has just made a big push into the film business, and it's all messed up."

   "I've brought my new script." Ronald took a script from his luggage and handed it to Richard.

  The revised draft is a quarter thicker than the first draft, and has a total of 119 pages. Ronald joined a love line, the widow of a Vietnam War veteran, who worked in the Veterans Service Department, and usually took care of a fool's family who died in Vietnam after being drafted into the army.

  Because the fool's body was not found, and no comrades in arms could confirm that he really died during the mission operation, it cannot be counted as a death in action, but can only be classified as missing. In this way, the pension and the treatment of the military's family members are much lower than those of the fallen soldiers.

  The retired platoon leader took the initiative to come over, live in the trailer next to the fool's house, and take care of the fool's family. The neighbors around him did not understand him, and they discriminated against his identity as a Vietnam War veteran. Only the widow of the soldier in the Veterans Service understood the behavior of the platoon leader and defended him to the crowd.

   The platoon leader was bullied, spat on, and threw stones by neighbor children, and he never fought back. But when the widow of a soldier came to visit him at night and was robbed by a stranger, he decisively shot and drove the robber away. It was only after showing the widow that he knew that he was a master fighter, and the two had further communication.

   Learned what the platoon leader had been through, the soldier's widow fell in love with the platoon leader, and the two had dessert on page 73. Finally, the fool's younger brother saw the platoon leader's diary and learned the truth. The family accepted the platoon leader, and the platoon leader also settled in the fool's hometown and lived with the soldier's widow.

  Richard finished reading the script quietly, then closed the cover, without speaking for a long time, suddenly slammed the script on the table, startling Ronald.

   "What? Is there something wrong?"

"No, this script is very good. It happens that Mr. Ovitz and Mr. Meyer are looking for a script related to the Vietnam War for clients. I will go back to the office immediately and let them see if I can recommend it to Sean Connery and West Elvester Stallone."

   Hearing this name, Ronald was also very happy, one was the original 007, and the other was the popular Italian boxing champion. "Is there any hope? But Sean is too old to play the role of platoon leader?"

   "It doesn't matter, the script will be adjusted according to the stars. Let's replace the platoon leader with a senior sergeant major." Richard Lovett was very excited. In the context of the general strike, all shooting plans had to be adjusted. It just happened to be a good opportunity to sell the script to the big studio, and then take the opportunity to plug the star in.

   Maybe it can solve the current crisis of CAA. The strike has caused Sean Connery's film career to suffer another crisis. He has already confided to Ovitz about the idea of ​​​​switching to William Morris. If the first leading male star signed by CAA runs away, it will be very detrimental to the company, and even the newly signed Stallone will be shaken.

   And his client has a script of the Vietnam War that is now hot. Who doesn't want to be nominated for an Oscar like "The Deer Hunter" or even win an award with a good script?

   This is very valuable to Ronald, himself, or the executives of companies such as Ovitz. Ronald, a screenwriter, can respect the opinions of the studio very much, and he is also a fast shooter, which is rare.

   There are thousands of screenwriters who can write characters, and thousands of screenwriters who can write stories, but there are not many screenwriters who can quickly revise their own scripts according to the wishes of all parties, and can come up with satisfactory revisions.

  Many screenwriters feel that their manuscripts are perfect. If they change a sentence or a word, they will feel as uncomfortable as digging their own eyes.

   Let's add emotional scenes, and immediately add a emotional line, and keep the original religion, war, anti-war, etc. plots are not chaotic. It seems that Ronald is the material of a gold screenwriter, able to work with stars and meet the requirements of stars and producers, all kinds of strange ideas.

  Richard Lovett hurried back to CAA's office, leaving Ronald alone in his hotel room.

   Bored Ronald called Michelle Pfeiffer again, but no one answered. Before coming, I contacted her and her agent Limato. Pfeiffer is now busy with acting training classes, and is still trying to win the commercial shooting of Lux soap. He's not the only agent who wants to understand that he's not alone in advertising his face during the strike.

Due to the jet lag, Ronald was already very tired even though it was only after nine o'clock in the evening in Los Angeles, so he didn't go to see Cameron and other old friends, but took a hot bath and went to bed, waiting to see you tomorrow You guys at CAA.

   The next morning, Ronald woke up early, opened the door and saw his agent Richard Lovett, waiting at the door of his room.

"You're here so early?" Ronald looked at his watch. It was only six o'clock. He got up early in New York time because of the three-hour time difference. Richard seemed to have been there for a while. Waiting at the door.

   "I go to the office at seven o'clock every day and leave at eight o'clock in the evening." Richard smiled.

   "It's hard not to succeed if you work as hard as you." Ronald laughed, "Should I be glad I found an agent who worked so hard."

"It's me who should be thankful, Ronald. Mr. Rick Nisita called me in the middle of the night last night and said he liked your script and would recommend it to Mr. Ovitz this morning." Richard laughed Very happy, that's why he came to the hotel so early today.

   Ronald asked him, "Are we going to CAA now?"

   "It doesn't have to be so early, we'll just be at the office at 9." Richard is now centered on Ronald.

   "Then who are you here?"

   "I'm here to accompany you. You just arrived in Los Angeles, and many things need to be handled by someone. I'll drive and I can take you to CAA."

"Let's have breakfast together then." Ronald pulled Richard up, had breakfast at the restaurant of the Holiday Inn, chatted a lot about CAA, and Ronald's thoughts on rewriting the script, and then the two sat down Richard's little broken car went to CAA together.

  Rick Nisita took Paula Wagner and greeted Ronald at the door of the office, "Welcome, Ronald, the youngest gold medal screenwriter in Hollywood."

   Ronald was right this time, using the Hollywood etiquette of hugs and veneers. In the entertainment industry, any way of saying hello that is less than a warm hug will be seen as a big contradiction with the other party.

   "Paula, how is Tom?" Ronald and Paula hugged and said hello.

   "He's fine, we'll schedule an interview with Paul Newman next week, the last time Scorsese had a chat with him, thank you."

  Nisita, as the highest-ranking one of Ronald's three agents, took Ronald around the company and greeted all the agents in the office.

  Ronald noticed that although it wasn't until nine o'clock in the morning, more than 10 brokers were already busy in the office, and some were still interviewing with clients or talking on the phone. It's a really dynamic company, and everyone is working hard.

"Mr. Ovitz is busy, his schedule secretary said he is free at 10:30, then we will have a meeting with him, Mr. Mayer, to discuss your script." Nisita and the others returned to their office, Ask Ronald to sit down. "You can walk around, or let me introduce you to some of our clients."

   "You are busy with your own business first. If possible, I would like to see the scripts from Hollywood in recent years. You should have quite a few here. I plan to collect scripts when I come to Los Angeles this time."

   "Richard!" Nisita snapped his fingers and asked Richard to take him to the next lounge, and then moved him a lot of scripts for his office.

“I read these scripts for a large part of my job,” Richard told Ronald. “I helped Mr. Nisita read the scripts, helped him write summaries and comments, and he helped me graduate from the mailroom and let I became an apprentice broker early."

   Ronald was quietly looking at more than 20 scripts in the box by himself. First turn to page 73 to verify, and sure enough, there are more than 15 of them, and they all saw passion scenes within one or two pages before and after 73.

   Sure enough, in today's Hollywood, there must be some violent and passionate stunts to attract audiences to go out of their homes and watch something different from TV in the cinema. Since the public television station is directly aimed at children under the age of 18, the TV series of the three major public television stations in America are relatively conservative, only equivalent to the G-level in the movie.

   Ronald turned over a lot of scripts, mainly musicals, biopics, and action films. They are all genres that have had big hits in the past two years. Needless to say, the quality of the script is much higher than that of Roger Coleman's New World script.

   However, none of these are about the Vietnam War. It seems that my "My Brother's Guardian" has been appreciated mainly because the honored return and the deer hunter detonated the Vietnam War theme, which is in line with the current hotspot. Perhaps the quality of the Vietnam War script has attracted attention and was not wasted on a low-level agent like Richard.

   "Ronald, let's go to see Mr. Ovitz together." Ronald, who was playing through the script, heard Richard's cry, and quickly stood up and walked to the conference room with him.

In the largest office of CAA, President Michael Ovitz is sitting in it. He is a middle-aged man with gray hair and a pair of round glasses. He is energetic and has heavy nasolabial lines on his face. The chin shows that he is a very assertive person. And the right smile does a good job of diluting the stereotype of his stubborn personality.

   Next to him are two secretaries, both well-dressed young women. One arranges his trip, the other keeps track of the calls he's about to make.

   "Mary, how about my tie and this suit? I'll see a big client later." Ovitz looked at his tie repeatedly in the full-length mirror in the wardrobe, and asked Mary, the travel secretary, how she felt.

  Not long after she was hired as Ovitz's secretary, she was a little scared. After thinking about it for about ten seconds, she bravely said her thoughts, "Ugly, purple tie and light blue shirt are not suitable."

   "Thank God, I finally have a secretary who dares to tell me the truth. I just felt that something was wrong, but they all said it looked good." Ovitz's exaggerated expression made Secretary Mary laugh.

   "Mr. Ovitz, Mr. Nisita and his new client, screenwriter Ronald Lee," the secretary in charge of Ovitz's schedule reminded him.

   "Invite them to the executive meeting room." Ovitz quickly changed into a navy blue tie and told them.

   "Ah, welcome, Mr. Lee." Ovitz sat on the table in the conference room and greeted Ronald, without standing up to welcome him. The two secretaries next to him continued to follow his instructions, taking and sending away documents that needed his signature and other small notes to deal with.

   "Hello, Mr. Ovitz." Ronald sat across the table with Rick Nisita, Paula Wagner, and Richard Lovett.

   "I heard you have a script about the Vietnam War?"

   "Yes, the Vietnam War, brotherhood, anti-war, fools, religion, love between men and women..." Ronald briefly summed up the selling point of his script.

  Richard took out two copies and sent them to the conference table. Opposite Ovitz is another CAA partner, Ron Mayer.

   Next is the general introduction, Ronald recounts some of his experiences starting from the New World, Meyer also introduces the history of CAA, and some of the main stars of the agency.

  Meyer picked up the script and read it, "My brother's guardian, um, this topic is very good."

  Ovitz did not participate in the discussion, but immersed himself in the script.

   "He's very busy, and he schedules his time according to 10 minutes." Richard whispered in Ronald's ear.

  Then meet me for 10 minutes? Ronald thought to himself, ostensibly echoing Mayer's comments about his script.

   Five minutes have passed when Michael Ovitz suddenly stood up from his chair without saying a word, and walked out of the conference room.

   "What a rude person!" Ronald commented secretly as Ovitz walked out of the conference room without saying hello.

   (end of this chapter)