Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 718 Female Movies

   Cameron's second theatrical feature film, the sequel to "Aliens," premiered at the Avco Theater in Los Angeles' Westwood district.

  The publisher, Twentieth Century Fox, seems to have a little trouble, the premiere has no stars, and even the TV reporters and newspaper reporters who bring reports are one size smaller than Paramount's.

   Ronald first saw producer Gail Hurd when he came up.

   "Thank you!" Gail was very grateful for the visit of his old friend. This premiere was all supported by himself and Cameron's former friends.

   "How about the finished film? I haven't seen it yet." Ronald asked quietly in Gale's ear.

   "It won't be much worse than your movie box office." Although Gale is not very satisfied with the scale of the premiere, he is very confident when it comes to the quality of the movie.

   "Oh yeah?" Ronald raised his eyebrows in surprise, "So confident?"

   "Yes, Jim's sequel took a lot of the disgusting aliens from the first episode and focused on the fighting spirit of the women, and the test screening worked very well."

   "That's good, we can compare," Ronald said half-jokingly.

   "You talk to Jim, he's waiting for Schwarzenegger."

   "OK," Ronald himself communicated with guests in the lobby of the premiere cinema.

There are really many acquaintances, including Cameron and Ronald in Roger Coleman's New Century Films, the heroines of the debut movie "High School of Rock", Day Young and PJ Sols.

  The old friends were quite happy together. Ronald and them chatted about the past and laughed.

   "Hello Ronald," the laughter draws "Alien 2's heroine Sigourney Weaver".

   "Sigourney", Ronald greeted her with a hug.

   Sigourney in a red dress with spaghetti straps and an open back, her dark brown hair combed high and eye-catching.

   Perhaps knowing the quality of the new film, Sigourney was in a good mood, and immediately chatted with Ronald.

   Those old friends of B-movies consciously spread out, making room for chatting with the current Hollywood celebrities.

  "This is my father, Pat Weaver", Sigourney chatted for a while, then pulled over an old man and introduced him to Ronald.

  Pat Weaver was the president of NBC in the early years. In the 1950s, he transferred a set of program operation methods of commercial radio to TV stations. It can be said that the various styles of the American TV industry are now determined by him.

   "Did you notice? There's no male lead in this movie. Sigourney's heroine takes most of the responsibilities of a male lead in a traditional adventure sci-fi movie."

   "You must be very proud."

   Ronald chatted with Sigourney's father. He found that the old man's eyes were really accurate, and Cameron's movie was very interesting.

   "Ronnie", after a round of social partners, Cameron and Schwarzenegger came together, and the three began to chat about the past of "Terminator".

   Ronald noticed that Schwarzenegger, who did not continue to participate in the bodybuilding competition, seemed to have a smaller muscle mass than before.

"Aha, you noticed." Schwarzenegger saw the meaning of Ronald's vision, "I don't want to be a muscle action star all the time, so now I'm weakening the audience's stereotype of me, trying some new roles, It gives me more personality."

   Ronald was impressed by the muscular guy with a thick Austrian accent. Unlike Stallone, each character has to highlight the muscles. Schwarzenegger began to try to quietly modify his star image very early, and he also signed up for a lot of acting training courses.

"But you are the champion of the world's bodybuilding competition. It is difficult for the audience to forget your muscle mass on the screen, right?" Ronald took a few more glances and transformed the image in the audience's mind. This is not particularly easy to do. Yes, especially when Schwarzenegger played like this with a two-man-wide physique.

   "I have some tricks. I found a few supporting characters who are bigger than me in the new film, so that the audience will pay more attention to my acting skills."

   "What movie?" Ronald looked at Cameron. He has a good relationship with Schwarzenegger.

   "It wasn't directed by me, it's a black sci-fi film, The Runnin Man" Cameron indicated that he was not working together again.

   "Interesting script, human beings are ruled by TV shows in 2019, they think what is shown on TV must be real.

   So those inmates in prison were given a chance to be challenged by the stars on TV, unarmed against ice hockey stars, cops, wrestling stars. As long as you live to the end, you can be freed from sin. "

   "2019? Running Man? Maybe humans didn't watch TV at that time, right?" Ronald blurted out, and he felt that the name of the movie was a bit familiar.

   "Maybe, but we are still looking for a suitable heroine, who must have a certain athletic ability and acting skills. Nowadays, actresses often only care about one side."

   "Well... do you have any requirements for the height of the actress?" Ronald heard that the heroine was still looking for him, and hurriedly asked.

   "Actually, it's a heroine, but there are not many scenes. There is no requirement for height, and we don't have many shots in the same frame. It's a distribution contract from Samsung Pictures (TriStar)..."

  Schwarzenegger heard the song and knew the elegance, and quickly introduced the relevant situation of the movie.

   "Thank you, I will find someone to clear it up."

   "Female star, eh?" Cameron winked at Ronald.

   "Haha..." Ronald put his arms around Cameron's shoulder, and the two walked into the auditorium, shoulder to shoulder. This kind of thing is common in Hollywood, and Ronald was not immune to the idea of ​​finding a role for Diane.

  Gail wasn't lying, Cameron did direct the sequel well, even better than the original.

   This is very difficult, in the history of Hollywood, the sequel is better than the original movie, that is, "The Godfather 2", "Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back" very few.

The additional difficulty of   Cameron is that he did not direct the first film.

However, Cameron's strength is extraordinary. It seems to be very simple to find a clue from the original film and develop it into the plot of the sequel, Alan Ripley (the role played by Sigourney Weaver), which is well done In order to kill the Quartet Alien, the feat of rescuing the little girl.

Just like the title of Aliens 2, the sequel changed the focus from a horror movie of disgusting-looking monsters to a triumphant song for female warriors, multiple alien monsters, killed by the heroine, and the audience was very is comfortable.

   "Wow wow wow..." Ronald and the audience applauded together.

   ended the premiere, and Gale was in high spirits. Everyone drank some champagne in the lounge and talked about the setting of the female protagonist.

  Gail's best friend, Martha Coolidge, who is also a film director, keeps promoting the idea of ​​women's movies. In her eyes, there are female producers, female protagonists, and the story is centered on women, and it is clear that this film can be titled as a female film no matter from that perspective.

   "No, not what I asked for, but Jim likes to have such a strong female protagonist in a movie."

  Gail laughed, and she quickly denied that it was not her influence.

   "What do you think, Ronald?" Martha Coolidge asked Ronald, turning her head.

  The two have a little relationship before. Ronald's second film "Night of the Comet" and her directorial debut "Valley Girl" were released at the same time in Atlantic Pictures.

   "I think it was Jim's idea, maybe to please Gale." Ronald's nonsense caused laughter from several female practitioners.

   "Seriously, I'm working on a female-led movie right now." Martha Coolidge brought the topic back to women's movies.

   "What movie?" Ronald asked with interest. The next few films he will be directing and producing also happen to feature female-centric characters.

"It was John Hughes' screenplay, called 'Some Kind of Wonderful', about a boy's best friend, the girl next door to help him pursue the man of his dreams, and finally, after reaching it, he found his favorite It's the story of the girl next door."

"Oh, he wrote the male version of 'Beauty in Pink' so quickly?" Ronald mentioned twice that the character setting of "Beauty in Pink" was wrong, and finally found out that the person around him was his true love, it should be a boy That's right.

   "Do you know this movie too? Actually, I think Hughes' script is a bit problematic, too romantic. I'm going to adapt it into a more realistic movie..."

   Martha Coolidge said a lot of her thoughts.

  Ronald frowned. Hughes was stealing his inspiration very fast. I heard that he could write the first draft of the script in a few nights.

  This story, which was supposed to be a romantic love story, now seems to be changed beyond recognition by Coolidge.

   Just in time, Ronald's manager Nisita came to him. He had already made an appointment with the senior management of Twentieth Century Fox, and Ronald will meet with them next to test whether the other party is interested in "spicy body dancing".

   "You guys continue, I'll go first if I have something to do."

   "Don't be a spoiler, Ronald. Today we should have a thorough discussion of women's films." Martha Coolidge was still the same blunt temper.

  Gail stood up to stop her best friend, she greeted Cameron and sent Ronald out by herself.

   "You're going to meet Twentieth Century Fox to talk about the project?" Gale asked.

   "Yes, would you like to see it?" Ronald handed the script.

  The relationship between the two is good, and Gale is now busy producing for her husband, so there is no conflict of interest.

  Gail took Ronald's script and flipped through it casually.

   "You can't do this script right, Twentieth Century Fox, the current owner, Barry Diller, is Jewish."

   "You think so too?" Ronald remembered that Gale was also half-Jewish.

   He and Nisita looked at each other. Could their guess be right? Jews don't like the story of a beautiful girl of their own ethnicity who was coaxed and abducted by a boy of Irish descent.

   "No one will tell you this explicitly, I've come across similar stuff before.

  Jewish gangs do bad things, Jewish girls do not abide by women's morals, Jews do immoral things. For plots like this, Jewish-owned studios generally reject such scripts on other grounds.

   You have to go to a non-Jewish studio, like Disney. Their founder, Walter, was consistently anti-Semitic. "

  Gail still agrees more with the Catholic education he received when he was a child. The relationship between the two is very good, and they speak openly.

   "Hey, it's a pity I'm in Disney, and I have a better relationship with the Jewish faction."

   "Then you have to try rice... not right..." Gale suddenly remembered something.

   Ronald also gave a wry smile, "Yes, MGM/United Artists, now the Jews are also going to be in power."

   "Don't worry too much, it's just a rumor. And if your movie really has the potential to sell well, they won't care."

   "I hope so." Ronald closed the script.

   Weintraub and Katzenberg used stories from women’s perspectives as an excuse to say that the market is not big enough. In fact, it is not entirely an excuse. It's just that this kind of small production with a narrow target market and content that is not very friendly to Jews, they are not willing to risk the risk of bad reputation in the Jewish circle.

   (end of this chapter)