Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 354 Chapter 305 Helen is here

   Ronald went back to his apartment and looked at Orson Welles' manuscript. This is not a complete manuscript, it looks like it is part of his draft. Some of the content Ronald can understand, such as Wells also wants to remove the subtitles at the beginning.

   Others can't understand it. Wells said that a close-up shot of a villain used the wrong focal length, which made his face distorted, but isn't this what a villain should look like?

   Ronald put the manuscript in a drawer and had little hope of re-editing "Beautiful Lady". Universal didn't necessarily retain the original negatives of the films of the 1950s.

   He no longer cares about these old gossip, but goes to bed early. Because tomorrow his girlfriend Helen Slater is coming to Los Angeles.

   "Helen!" Ronald shouted at the gate.

   Helen Slater, wearing a white wool cap and regular jeans, just came out of the cabin with a handbag.

   "Ronnie." The two embraced.

   "Your accent has changed, and now you speak like an old Hollywood heroine." Ronald helped Helen with the luggage and walked to the car that Nisita lent him.

   "Really? It seems that my Shakespeare special training is still effective. My line teacher said that my accent is very similar to Katharine Hepburn." Helen was very proud.

   "Uh, I think you are more like another Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn." Ronald remembered the gossip about Katharine Hepburn that Orson Welles said, and he didn't want Helen to be said to be like her.

   "It doesn't look like it now, look...Dangdang..." She suddenly took off her hat, and her long golden hair fell down.

   "You've become a superwoman." Ronald hugged Helen and circled for a while. It was a sudden surprise.

  Helen's eyes are bluish as a whole, and her dark brown hair was not very conspicuous. Now she dyed her hair blond and matched it with blue eyes. At first glance, it made people deeply intoxicated.

  The two hadn't seen each other for a long time, Ronald couldn't wait to drive back to the apartment, closed the door, and started to kiss.

  …

   "I also had a long chat with Christopher Reeve, who played Superman, about his experience playing a comic superhero. He didn't make a cameo in Supergirl. He specifically called the same agent to say sorry, and later asked me to chat in person."

   After a long time, Helen touched Ronald's calf gently with her toes. The two were chatting on the bed.

   "Really, what did he say?" Ronald's hand also slid slowly on Helen's smooth arm.

   "Ahem..." Helen cleared her throat and said in a typical Superman tone, "Superheroes are the dreams of all Americans, so the importance of characters is more than plot..."

   "What was it like to meet Supergirl and Superman?" Ronald asked.

   "Well, it's pretty good. Reeve is a very good person, and he told me a lot of acting tips. But he doesn't seem to be very happy. The script for the third Superman movie has changed a lot, and he doesn't want to act anymore."

   "Is he as handsome as he is on screen?"

   "Almost, you are actually a bit similar in height and appearance to him. Why do you ask that? Are you jealous?"

   "Hahaha..." Ronald kissed Helen's lips.

   After a while, Helen turned over and leaned against Ronald's chest:

   "Ronnie, he said there's something particularly scary about being a superhero, if your movie is successful, it's going to be hard for the audience to accept you as another character. That kind of success is a good thing for the actor, but it's also a huge constraint."

   "Ha, I don't think it's cool to be a Supergirl, the first female superhero in Hollywood history?"

   "You really think so? This time I'm going to sign a three-film contract with Warner Bros..."

   "You're so beautiful, Helen..." Ronald looked at the blonde beauty who was very different from the past, and his spirit was attracted by her blue eyes. He didn't pay attention to what Helen was saying, and hugged her tightly.

"Uh-huh……"

  …

   "I'm feeling hungry." Helen took a shower and came out to Ronald with a towel around her.

"Then let's go out to eat and take a look at the night view of Los Angeles. What do you want to do?" Ronald jumped off the bed and went to take a shower. In the bathroom, Ronald shouted to the outside, "How about we Go to the movies?"

   "Okay, Stallone's new movie 'First Blood', I haven't watched it yet."

  The two ate some Perry's Pizza in Los Angeles, then went to see "First Blood."

   This time, Stallone did not play the inspirational counter-attack hero in "Rocky", but played a down-and-out Vietnam veteran "Rambo".

   He was a member of America's special forces, the Green Berets. After returning to my hometown for many years, I still wear a green M65 trench coat, jeans and sneakers.

   Rambo went to his comrade-in-arms' hometown to find him. Who knew that his comrade-in-arms had died of cancer due to the contamination of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam battlefield. Frustrated, he dined in town, but the sheriff, who saw the Vietnam veteran, thought he was a potential troublemaker and threw him out of town in a police car.

  Lambo felt insulted and went back to the town to protest, but the sheriff hurriedly interrogated the police station for this reason. The police questioned him insultingly. Rambo had a PTSD attack on the Vietnam War battlefield, knocked down the police and grabbed the police’s motorcycle to escape.

   Sheriff mobilized all the police to arrest Rambo and drove him into an abandoned mine to starve Rambo to death. They didn't know that Rambo was an elite special forces soldier in the Vietnam War jungle, and Rambo's old senior colonel also came to persuade Rambo to surrender.

The    mine was blown up, the sheriff thought Rambo was dead, and only the colonel had doubts. Sure enough, Rambo escaped from the mine, took the stolen M60 machine gun, went back to the town single-handedly to take revenge, and severely injured the sheriff.

  The whole film ends in a freeze-frame shot of Rambo surrendering to his old boss, Colonel.

   "What's the matter with you, Ronnie? You have very few words after watching the movie."

  Ronald and Helen ordered a Pepsi and French fries together at the Burger King fast food restaurant, and the two ate in silence. Helen couldn't take it anymore and asked.

   "I just think the ending of the movie is too heavy. Rambo served for the country, returned to the motherland and died, and he was treated wrongly, and he didn't have a good end in the end."

"However, this is the purpose of the film," Helen began to analyze the value orientation of the film to Ronald. "If there is no such original novel and film to expose the unfair treatment of veterans in this country, they will continue to be ignored by society. of."

   "You may be right, but my uncle was killed in the Vietnam War, and I emotionally hope they are all better. That line made me sad and reminded me of Aunt Karen's hard life."

   "Which paragraph?" Helen looked at Ronald with wide eyes and held his hand.

  " "In wars, I can drive attack helicopters, I can drive tanks, I have used weapons that cost millions of dollars, and when I return home, I can't even find a valet parking job. "Ronald felt a little uncomfortable when he remembered the words of Rambo.

   "Oh, poor Ronnie." Helen came over and hugged Ronald tightly, patting him on the head.

  …

   At the same time, in the annex of the Paramount office, two middle-aged people, a man and a woman, were discussing filming.

  The man's name is Daniel Melnick. He was originally an executive of MGM. After the financial scandal broke, he resigned and opened his own production company "IndiePro".

  Melnick handed a script from the table and said to the former studio partner across the table, "This is the script doctor that Paramount hired, and the revised version. What do you think."

   Sitting across from him is a beautiful middle-aged woman, wearing a golden bracelet in her right hand, a white suit and white trousers.

   The shoulder pads of the suit are very high, the shawl is long, and the facial features on the face seem to have been fine-tuned, which is very beautiful. However, his gestures showed the style of a professional manager, and his words were as aggressive as men.

   "Let me see", the middle-aged woman took the script, which said "Footloose".

   When reading the script, the middle-aged woman frowned from time to time. In the end, she read Ronald's revised version at a glance.

"Daniel, I don't think this is the right way to modify. The essence of this film is dramatic conflict, not a high-concept movie. We should find a drama expert to adapt it, and then find a director who is used to making drama movies. shoot."

   "Whatever", Melnick was a little bored.

"The original director, Herbert Ross, fits your requirements. He's always been a Broadway-Hollywood crossover. But now that he's resigned as a director, you'll have to find a new one, Shirley. And, Paramount. How do you think about the invitation to your vice president?"

   Former IndiePro partner and former 20th Century Fox president Shirley Lansing frowned.

   "I'm still thinking about it. After two years at Fox, I think I still like to be involved in the production of movies. Sitting in the office and doing politics with people is not my favorite thing to do."

   "No matter what your final decision is, I will support you, just like when I supported you to become president of Twentieth Century Fox." Melnick said to Lansing.

  Melnick had a lot of complaints about Shirley Lansing in his heart, "Bitch left IndiePro for the presidency of 20th Century Fox, and recently finally tasted the taste of being fired by an oil tycoon.

  Although there is a six-month buffer period, everyone in the industry knows that she is going to die. Who knew that he would be able to get an invitation from Paramount's vice president again. Really lucky. "

   But now, her new film is "full of energy" and she has to rely on her to attract investors and distributors. If she can preside over the production of the film, it will be even better.

  "The three investors of the film, we IndiePro, Paramount, and the screen investment fund (SliverScreenPartners).

Screen investment is willing to fill all the remaining investment shares. They are very convinced of your producer resume and ask you to take charge of the production of this film. If you can serve as the producer of this film, then invest immediately. can be in place. Paramount can also green light there.

   Then you can adapt the script you like, and find a new director and casting process. "

   "Who does Paramount belong to now?" Shirley Lansing asked. She is also interested in supervising a successful movie before joining Paramount, so that when she joins Paramount, she has a successful resume and speaks with more weight.

  Melnick pointed to the cover of the script, "It's Ronald Lee who wrote and revised the script. Director of 'Fast-Paced Richmond High School'."

   "It's him, that's no wonder." Shirley Lansing took a fancy to the discussion of women's freedom and equality in "Full Body". The director who makes exploitative films and leaves actresses **** is unpalatable.

   "If you agree to take over, you can meet him. If you have another candidate, let me know as soon as possible. I have invested a lot of preparatory work for this movie, and I hope it can start shooting as soon as possible."

   (end of this chapter)