Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 198

   "Do I have a chance to be a director?" Ronald returned to the car and told his manager Richard about the meeting in detail.

“I can’t say well, from the historical decisions of Robert Sterwood, you have a certain chance. Several of the films he directed, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, have employed rookie directors, or people with only one director experience. guide."

  Richard checked all the background information of Sterwood in advance, "Maybe we will ask Mr. Nisita, or Mr. Ovitz's opinion, to see if they can get you a chance to direct."

   "I just listened to Mr. Ovitz's advice and didn't ask Mr. Sterwood face to face." Ronald said, "Ask him when you have time."

   "They already have someone they like." Ovitz was a little free, and spent a few minutes making two phone calls to Ronald.

"Sterwood means the Zach brothers, the directors of the new box-office hit 'Airplane!'. They made this low-budget comedy for Paramount at a cost of $3.5 million, and the box office is close to the cost. 20 times and still growing.”

   "Brother Jerry Zucker", Ronald remembered Jerry Zucker and his two companions who wanted to run from the New World to Paramount to film when he was shooting "High School of Rock". If he hadn't wanted to leave, he wouldn't have been able to sign the director of the second group, and then get the director's union qualification to enter the industry.

"How do you know? Paramount's Katzenberg is now very regretful, and only signed a contract with their Zack Brothers director group for only one movie. Now Paramount's priority is 'unprecedented' sequel, so you might still have a chance."

   "No, I've only worked with Jerry Zack on the same crew, and haven't had a lot of dealings." Ronald shook his head and smiled, envy the Zach brothers who became famous in World War I.

   "You might as well go see this movie, it uses a parody technique. In the past, parody was only a technique of low-cost B-level films. I didn't expect it to be a big hit this time. Their comedy talent is very high.

  Romantic scenes are usually paired with comedy elements. Since Sterwood means him, you should have some inspiration? "

  Ovitz almost said you might as well plagiarize.

   Ronald agreed with a smile.

"Tomorrow I've arranged for you to meet Patricia Birch, Grease's choreographer. You have to pay attention, you didn't get the screenwriting job for this movie, and a verbal Hollywood promise is nothing. This meeting is for you to face. A test, she has already got the choreography job of the sequel, it is a kind of interview."

  Thanks to Ovitz for taking the time to inquire for himself, Ronald found Richard Lovett again.

   "Richard, can you get me the script for Grease? I'd like to see it for reference. There's an interview tomorrow."

   "I'm ready." Richard took out a script from the drawer, and on the cover was the name of the hit two years ago: "Grease".

   "I'll take you back to the Marriott." Richard took the keys.

   "I've got to see a movie, Richard. Mr. Ovitz said let me see 'Breakthrough', which was made by the director the producer wanted."

"Let me accompany you. There is a multiplex theater in the shopping center near here. There are many films and many shows. There must be shows after waiting for at most 20 minutes." Richard Lovett saw Ronald's business, mostly Austrian Waits personally connected, or Nisita used his relationship to get it, and he felt a sense of crisis in his heart.

   He didn't want to lose this only customer, but now he didn't get business for him, only to help Ronald with thoughtful service. In the past two days, I have made full preparations, studied Stetwood's background in detail, and prepared the script of Grease in advance. It seems that Ronald is still satisfied with him.

  The two came to the multiplex theater in the shopping center, which gradually began to multiply in America, replacing some of the traditional department stores.

After the Civil Rights Movement, a large number of black and Latino immigrants entered the city center, where the law and order began to deteriorate rapidly, and the white-dominated middle class began to move to the suburbs.

   Driving has become the main means of travel for the middle class. It turned out that the large-scale movie theaters that can be reached by public transportation are far away from the middle-class families who can afford the most movie tickets. It became the norm in the late 1970s and early 1980s to have to drive to see a movie.

   I drove to the movie theater and couldn't see the movie I wanted to watch. This phenomenon is more and more common in hall theaters with hundreds or thousands of them. Cinemas in shopping malls are gradually transitioning to multiplex cinemas. After driving to the shopping center, you can eat and shop. Different movies are shown in multiple small halls, and there is always something suitable to watch.

   "Two 1.40s are flying all over the sky." Ronald took the initiative to buy two. Thinking that the main agent is only a client of his own, he must not live well.

   There is still some time to leave the field, Ronald della Richard goes to eat Pizza Hut pizza. The food quality of this chain brand is worse than Domino's, but the takeaway is not as good as Domino's.

   "Have you seen this movie? What's it like to be a comedy that makes heavy use of parodies?" Ronald asked Richard what it was like to watch "Breakthrough".

"Have you seen the Airport in 1970?" Richard put down his knife and fork and ate a piece of pizza with his hands like Ronald, "This 'Airplane' is for that one. The deconstruction and irony of the movie. The whole movie is full of low-level puns of homophonic words to get the audience laughing.”

   Homophonic stem pun? Ronald was reminded of Brooke Shields' CK jeans ad, which was also based on this concept. "The people have already voted with their feet, and I heard that the box office has exceeded 50 million. The low-level is low-level."

   "Yeah, for our agent, it's a very good sign that the client's participation in the movie's box office is high, which shows that they can charge a high price for the next movie." Richard echoed.

   "I'm also working on other script revisions for you, and now the trend of Hollywood is changing. Warm family films are starting to grab the attention of the big studios.

  The pure musical, with the box office failure of 'Xian Le Du', seems to be losing its charm. That's probably why Mr. Sterwood takes the rom-com component of "Grease Sons" so seriously. "

   "Your opinion is very important, Richard, thank you." Ronald felt that this seemed to be the direction of the screenwriter that Sterwood liked, and the two walked into the screening room.

   "Hahaha..." The audience began to laugh at the beginning of the film.

   Ronald also saw it, the movie begins with a parody of Spielberg's "Jaws". The white clouds in the sky are like the sea, the vertical tail of the plane is like shark fins, and finally the plane whizzes across the screen like a great white shark jumping out of the water.

   The structure of the whole film imitated the "international airport" ten years ago. The plane was in crisis, and then it was saved under the handling of the crew. Even the heroine found a copycat version of Jane Sebo.

   But what about the whole movie? There is no coherent plot direction, but a large multiplayer stand-up comedy (Stand-upcomedy). The passages are very dense, from beginning to end, but there is no connection between the passages.

   One paragraph comes out without a head and no brain, then after ten seconds, it turns to another paragraph, and then another...

   After watching the whole movie, Ronald felt that he laughed many times, but he couldn't remember the plot at all. Only when someone mentioned a certain dialogue, he remembered what the joke was.

   Anyway, this kind of comedy, Ronald himself would never be able to write it.

  Ronald told Brooke Shields a joke that required more than just getting to the bottom of the audience consensus and then making it up. Like Spike's black joke, if the audience is a white girl Brooke Shields, you can't understand the background of the joke and it won't feel funny.

   And there are a lot of time points to grasp, a sentence is said earlier, or later, it is not funny. The grammatical joke Ronald told was probably the time to utter the most ridiculous sentence (PunchLine), and it didn't make her laugh.

   Now that I think about it, when Jerry Zucker was watching the demo at New World Productions, he was aggressive towards himself, maybe he was looking for the right time for PunchLine. Jerry Zucker is a man who lives his life as a talk show, polishing his jokes all the time.

  Ronald doesn't understand why Sterwood appreciates this style of comedy and wants to hire Jerry Zucker to direct "Son of Grease". Although both films are called comedies, the styles are completely incompatible.

  If Sterwood wants to make "Son of Grease" into this style of comedy, Ronald will have to tell him something else.

   Ronald went out of the theater and saw that there was also a "Xanadu" on the schedule. Ronald remembered that Sterwood didn't like the movie, and he might have read the negative textbook to better understand the producers' thinking.

  The two bought tickets again and entered the theater, watching "Xianledu".

  This movie, directed by Gene Kelly, the star of the ancient musical and who once played the classic musical "Singing in the Rain", is another extreme.

   The rhythm of the whole film is relatively slow. Although there are not too many problems with singing and dancing, it looks very boring. Ronald noticed that everyone in the audience was dozing off.

   In fact, there are a lot of choreography scenes in the whole movie, and the songs are also very good. Maybe the problem is that Gene Kelly's aesthetics are outdated.

  He acted as the choreographer and choreographed a large number of rollerblades and group dances, which may have been worth watching for audiences thirty years ago.

   The choreography was just right, and the dancers couldn’t connect for half a second wrong. Many shots were long shots at first glance. Ronald estimated that it would take several weeks of rehearsal to become so proficient.

   But today's young people appreciate the dance of one or two people, and they don't have strict requirements for technique, but the precise expression of the emotion of the characters in the dance. In the movie, the dance between the hero and heroine, and the dance between the heroine and the heroine, are obviously more acceptable to modern audiences than the tap dance where dozens of people show off their skills.

  Perhaps the real meaning of Sterwood is that the "unprecedented flying all over the sky" is faster than "Xianledu"?

  Ronald lay on the Marriott's big bed thinking, tomorrow and choreographer Patricia Birch, should put more emphasis on rhythm.

   (end of this chapter)