Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 411 Valley Girl Released

   "Lightning Dance" received $4 million at the box office in its first weekend, surpassing "Gandhi Biography" and "My Fair Lady", which had been greatly improved at the box office after winning the Oscar, and rushed to the top of the box office chart.

  More than 1100 theaters were released simultaneously, and the average weekend box office reached 3,500 US dollars. In this weak April, Paramount was a huge surprise.

   Ranked below is Coppola's "Old Man," which, in its third weekend of release, had just over $2 million left at the box office, a 30 percent drop from last week. Audiences for readers of the original novel are shrinking rapidly, and Warner Bros. is already scaling back screenings.

Ronald's eyes continued to move down, and the eighth place was the new film "Valley Girl" released by Atlantic, with a total box office of 1.8 million over the weekend, just in the middle of this year's re-release of "ET Alien". above.

  Ronald is very happy, this achievement is especially rare for "Valley Girl" as a small production. The film, which cost only $700,000 to make, couldn't even make a premiere. Basically, the first week of box office, you can get back the cost of production.

   drove to the Atlantic Ocean, and the whole office was busy. In the big office, the people in the distribution department were busy making calls one by one, trying to get the movie theater to line up more shows for "Valley Girl".

   President Tom Coleman in talks with "Girls in the Valley" director Martha Coolidge. Ronald sat outside in the lounge drinking tea.

   "Hi, Martha." The door to the office opened, and Martha Coolidge walked out with a serious face, nodded to Ronald, and walked out without speaking.

   "Ronald, please come in." Tom Coleman invites Ronald, a small company treats big-selling or possibly big-selling film directors with more respect.

  It was probably the look on Ronald's face. President Tom Coleman took the initiative to explain, "We won nearly 500 theaters for the Valley Girls, but Martha thinks there should be more."

"Oh?"

   "You know, the box office for a single venue on weekends is $4,200." Mr. President took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a slow puff.

"Higher than Lightning Dance?" Ronald's first reaction was not to believe it. He had also seen "Valley Girl". It can only be said that it is a slightly funny and warm romantic comedy. The standard is above the pass line. But not too much.

   "We're only showing in California and the big cities on the east coast, so it makes sense that the average box office would be higher."

"Oh", Ronald also wants to understand, the audience of this movie is the urban youth audience, and it is those areas where the values ​​of the east and west coasts are open, there are some funny content in the plot, the audience in the inland may not understand, the Atlantic Ocean It didn't even develop.

   However, with such a high single-house box office, it seems that Atlantic's distribution strategy is too conservative, which is probably the reason for director Coolidge's dissatisfaction.

   "Can't we add some more release theaters?"

"It's very difficult, we are small distribution companies. Generally speaking, theater chains have signed distribution agreements with big companies, unless our movie box office far exceeds other competitors. But now it's either a big seller or an Oscar. , the theater chain is not easy to adjust, you can see that our total box office only ranks eighth."

   Ronald nodded, he came to discuss the release arrangement of "Night of the Comet" with the other party, I hope they made money from "Valley Girl" this time, and when it is his turn, they can sign more theaters.

"Actually, we are not a conservative company." Mr. President took a breath. He was afraid that Ronald would not be satisfied. "The main reason why we didn't spread it out on a large scale was because Martha Coolidge was sued. She The sticky title is 'Valley Girl', exactly the same as last year's top three hits.

The creator of the    song sued us, and the court ruled last month that we didn't break the rules, because we didn't use that song as an interlude, and the court thought the audience wouldn't confuse the name of the song and the movie.

   But this lawsuit dragged on for a long time, and many theaters were not very optimistic about us before, for fear that the judgment would be unfavorable to us. "

   "Tom, what about My Night of the Comet? When are we going to release it, and how many theaters will it open?" Ronald asked.

  Tom Coleman pointed at Ronald, "I'm going to discuss this plan with you today", and he took out a release schedule and explained it to Ronald.

"Our expected revenue will be good. It is expected that many cinemas will have additional screenings for the revenue of this single venue, so we estimate that the box office revenue can exceed 10 million. With this revenue, we can apply for a preferential loan from the bank, so booking By the opening time, we can find at least a thousand theaters."

   "That's great", Ronald beamed, the number was much better than he thought.

"We give the Valley Girls a month, and then the third weekend of May is your 'Night of the Comet', and by the end of May, the summer Star Wars Episode VI, and 007 in mid-June will all start to preempt At the box office, we just happened to find a space to insert it."

   "In four weeks, based on the trend of the Valley Girls, it seems that they can still occupy a place in the box office chart." Ronald thought, it is impossible to remove them all at once.

"It's hard to make a breakthrough. The market in big cities is limited, and the box office of teen comedy in a single hall generally declines very quickly. Of course, we will adjust according to the situation. Seven hundred houses will be used to show your movie."

  Ronald is very happy that Atlantic has the money and can immediately expand the scale of the show and make copies. After working hard for a long time, it is time to finally meet the audience and decide the outcome of the flop.

   After finishing the work here, Ronald went to see Cameron again.

  Gail is not a housewife type of woman, and the house is a little messy. Cameron sat alone at the desk, typing constantly. The Commod computer Ronald gave him was displaying lines of text.

   On the other side of the table, there is a typewriter with a stack of typed papers on it.

   "What's this?" Ronald saw Cameron stop, picked up the paper curiously and asked him.

   "Here's a job Gal got me, you know, 'Terminator' was delayed, and I was broke, so I had to write the script for the studio."

   "Hehe, me too." Ronald saw the caption above, "Aliens", "Is this a sequel to Aliens? Directed by Ridley Scott?"

   "Yeah, they think it's time to start the sequel." Cameron saw Ronald take it seriously. "What do you think? I typed it in two places so I could separate the two projects."

   "I don't know, but the alien shots are disgusting and terrifying, and it's not easy for you to surpass them."

   "It's exactly the same as my idea, so I titled the sequel Aliens, so that the battle scenes can be the main focus, just like a hero constantly killing multiple aliens and saving humans."

   "Fighting and horror?" Ronald thought to himself, "It's really hard to write a sequel, and you have to take care of the characters in the original, and you have to write new ideas."

   "What? You also wrote a sequel?"

"Yes, a sequel to First Blood. I'm going to let Rambo's prison term expire, and then go to Vietnam to rescue the prisoners of war abandoned by America. But Rambo has PTSD in the original, and he has a very negative view of the government and the motherland, why? I'm still trying to figure out how to get him to make this change."

   "Use love. Love heals wounds."

   "That's right, I'm trying to find a Vietnamese girlfriend for him. Let's exchange it after writing."

  "OK", Cameron is going to write again after taking a break.

   "By the way, how did you find your heroine?"

   "Deborah Wenger has intentions and is talking."

   "Oh, she's not bad, she's a good actress who is soft and steely."

After saying goodbye to Cameron and returning home, Ronald finished writing the script outline of "First Blood 2" and submitted it to Stallone for approval through Nisita. If agreed, Ronald could get the first payment, and then continue.

   The next day, Nisita told him that the script outline was rejected.

   "Why? What's not good?" Ronald expanded on the story given by Stallone.

   "Sly said you spent too much time on Rambo's transformation, leaving him not enough time to fight in Vietnam."

   "Bullshit, Rambo was released from prison at the beginning, and then went to Vietnam to kill the Quartet? Then why not change the name and shoot it, so how can the audience who watched the first movie turn around?"

  Nisita glanced at Ronald, got up and closed the door, "I don't know, is that the reason?"

   "Shxt! No way?" Ronald was shocked, just because his younger brother tried to force Cynthia Rhodes, he took his anger on himself?

   "I protested to Mr. Ovitz, but he was tough too."

   "Then forget it." If Stallone was dissatisfied with himself, then it would be in vain to revise, "The big deal is that I can sell some stocks, but it's not that I can't live."

"Don't say that, I got you a new screenwriting job." Nisita breathed a sigh of relief. When he went to Ovitz's office to protest in the morning, Ovitz scolded him and told him to go back and think about Stallone And Ronald, who can bring more profits to CAA. If Ronald insisted, it would be difficult.

   "Didn't I offend someone this time?" Ronald joked.

   "Of course not", Nisita laughed, "On the contrary, it's your benefactor."

"It's Frank Price, the president of Columbia, who paid 350,000 to buy your script debut 'My Brother's Protector'. Recently, he took advantage of Universal for letting 'ET Alien' go. He was ousted by the people of the new owner Coca-Cola.

   But he can stay in Colombia for six months before officially leaving. No, another record company owner wanted to enter the film industry and asked him to recommend candidates. Frank Price thinks of you considering the musical script you wrote for Stallone and RSO Records.

  'My Brother's Protector' was not filmed at the end, he wanted to deal with these things before he left. "

   "How much is the price?"

   "$200,000, adapt a news story, will you do it?"

   "Go on, why not? Frank Price is still very reliable in his payment." Ronald rubbed his hands excitedly.

   (end of this chapter)