Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 790 Boys Rent Girls

   "Hey, well, I'll take the radio to my room later." Little Bud spent a long time with his girlfriend during this vacation, and he smiled when he saw Ronald.

   "When did you propose to Lucy?" Ronald knew that his extended family had a close relationship with Lucy, and Lucy was also very satisfied with this boyfriend who could have a serious job.

"Come on, I'm going to ask a real estate agent to find a suitable apartment nearby. I'm going to take Lucy over, and we'll settle down near your apartment. Lucy has learned some typing jobs and is looking for a word processor here. The secretarial work is not difficult, but the rent of the surrounding houses is a bit expensive."

   "Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it." Ronald was very happy when he heard Bud and his fiancée being so motivated, and prepared to rent a small apartment for them to live in at his own expense. Anyway, I can't do without this driver and assistant who knows everything.

   Little Bud was very different from when he first met him, his eccentric personality. A few years in the Marines made him less talkative and have some habit of saving money.

  Ronald didn't ask him about his experience. Anyway, every time he saw him, his mother had to say repeatedly for a long time that it was fortunate that Ronald saved Little Bud and let him complete his high school education in the Marine Corps.

   Ronald picked up the phone and asked his agent, Richard, to look for an apartment in the surrounding area.

  “Bell bell bell…”

   Another phone in the apartment rang in the living room, and Ronald motioned for Bud to pick it up. This call is mainly my work call in Daydream, and only people from Daydream Pictures will make calls.

   "Just get closer to me, yes, for little Bud and his girlfriend." Ronald explained Richard.

Then, he said to Bud, who had also answered the phone, "It's an appointment. The real estate economy that CAA cooperates with will call you to go see a house together. CAA often finds cheap and decent houses for actors who have just entered the industry. , have long-term partners.”

   "Ronald, I don't know how to thank you." Bud was very happy and could end the separation with his girlfriend.

   "It's a small matter, our parents are brothers, and so are we." Ronald waved his hand to let him not care, "Who was looking for me just now?"

"Oh, it's your general manager Ed. He said there was a guy named Bannon who claimed to be your friend and said he had a movie project and wanted to talk to you." Bud replied, just now he answered the phone in the living room .

   Ronald frowned, now that he was famous, some knew he was the behind-the-scenes boss of Daydream, and many claimed to be their friends. Daydream will communicate with Ronald to rule out liars and try their luck.

   "Bannon? Don't know. Let him go."

  Ronald never thought of having such a friend, "I have to go to CAA, please call Ed and explain."

   After finishing speaking, Ronald drove his Ferrari and went to CAA's office.

Tom Cruise thought about it for two days, and felt that Ronald said that it would be easier for him to play the mentally handicapped role to win the favor of the Oscars. There is some truth, so he put his thoughts to CAA President Michael Ovitz conveyed.

  Ovitz strongly persuaded him to consider the role of the younger brother with normal intelligence, and also said that if Cruise played the mentally retarded, it would damage the image of the star. And Dustin Hoffman often plays some abnormal roles, so the audience can accept it more easily.

   In short, Ovitz's point of view is that whether a character is mentally retarded or not has little to do with winning.

   After learning that Ronald was the mastermind behind Cruise to steal the role, Ovitz invited Ronald and Tom Cruise to a CAA interview.

   Outside Ovitz's super huge office, his secretary stood up neatly to guide Ronald and Cruise. The two walked through the aisle, and the secretary knocked on the door and led them in.

   "Aha, my favorite director client, and my favorite male star client are here."

  Michael Ovitz is very low-key in the outside world and never gives interviews, but in the kingdom of CAA, he is undoubtedly the king.

   Ronald hadn't seen this king for a long time. Back then, his virgin script had to be written by him before he could sign the contract. At that time, Ovitz was full of passion, and he sat on his words and acted on his work.

  CAA has developed very fast in recent years. It has successively signed a number of actors and directors. In addition to the screenwriter, Ovitz's script is the first, and the project packaging strategy has also been very successful.

   The top three films at the box office for several years can actually be said to be his producer. From the script, to the director, to the actors, CAA does it all. It's just that on the title credits, Ovitz can't sign because of legal reasons.

   "Ghostbusters" and other movies have made CAA a lot of money, and Ovitz has gradually become larger and larger, which can be found from the increase in the size of his office. Now his renovated office occupies almost a quarter of the first floor, much larger than the other partners.

   "I don't know why you feel that way, Ronald."

  Ovitz was blunt about his dislike of the idea of ​​Cruise being mentally handicapped.

   "He's a star, a big star! It's a crime against all the female audiences in America to let such a beautiful boy play a fool. Besides, Tom is young, and it doesn't look like Dustin's brother."

"But, Mr. Ovitz, Tom's a fool, and a pretty fool. Don't you think it's funny? And it helps him get an Oscar nomination. As for age, let's just change the script and let Tom play it. The fool who is younger is the younger one."

   Ronald insisted that if he wanted Cruise to be nominated for an Oscar, it would be best to play a completely different character from his image.

   "God, he's a star. A star is the kind of person who has the same qualities as the characters in every movie. We're talking about Tom, maybe the most beautiful star in Hollywood since Paul Newman."

   Ronald agrees with this classification.

  The existence of a movie star is the kind of person who makes the audience want to see his movie when they hear the person's name.

  If the star is like an ordinary actor, playing roles with different personalities, so that people can't see that the actor is playing, why should the audience be attracted by the star to buy tickets?

  Many stars, such as Harrison Ford, always have a sense of cynicism no matter what he plays. And the earlier James Stewart, although superb acting, but the role also comes with a strong typical American town hero characteristics.

   Ronald can't refute this statement. Cruise's management team also hopes that he will continue to go deeper under the image of a beautiful boy full of masculine impulses.

"But what we are discussing is winning. As for the problem of mental retardation affecting Tom's image, I also have a solution. Why don't we change the role of Raymond from mental retardation to autism. Autism is normal, even beyond the talent of ordinary people.

   I also heard that another type of autism, in addition to the difficulty of communicating with people, has amazing talents in other aspects. For example, math is very good, and you can calculate how many toothpicks are in the box in one second. "

  Ronald clings to what Cruise wants most—winning:

   "Tom's image is fixed on a handsome guy with mainstream American values. If he doesn't break through the shackles, what else is there to talk about Oscar?"

   "What do you mean by that?" Ovitz knew that Tom Cruise wanted to win an Oscar. The first thing he signed with CAA was to make a list of big-name directors he wanted to work with.

   "I mean, an actor whose role contains his own star qualities must make a breakthrough in his inherent image in order to win the Oscar."

   Ronald stretched out his hand and counted them one by one.

"Bogart, Humphrey Bogart, all his life he's played a tough tough guy, but he took the role of the best actor, but he played an incompetent, broken-mouthed boatman in the 'African Queen', and a little initiative No, the missionary played by Katherine Hepburn was eaten to death. Let him do whatever he wants. In order to win the favor of the old maid, he can muster the courage to do something serious.

  Henry Fonda, he played a life-long left-wing hero, was wronged and misunderstood, and was able to endure humiliation and lead the people to resist exploitation. But his role as the best actor is indeed the old and weak father in the golden pond.

   In the face of her daughter's liberating and progressive values, she embraces conservative family values ​​instead. Break through the shackles of the past. "

   "Ronald, you are generalizing. What about John Wayne? He won the best actor's 'The Earth's Thunder', didn't he still use the image of a typical Western movie hero to win the award?"

  Ovitz waved his hand, this kind of star positioning, the trick of balancing commercial value and critic awards, he has done countless times, and he knows how to refute Ronald's point of view.

   He began to talk endlessly about his understanding of winning awards, how actors should choose at different stages of their careers, how to plan their careers to be the best, and so on.

  Ovitz is strong, eloquent, and speaks very fast. He sounds logical and very confusing.

  Ronald clearly felt that Tom Cruise's inner balance shifted to the side of playing the normal brother again.

"Steven (Spielberg) and Sidney (Polak), they are very optimistic about your acting skills, you will have a good performance in this movie. Coupled with the operation of our CAA, get Nominations are very likely."

   "What do you think, Ronald, what Mr. Ovitz said also makes sense. John Wayne didn't break through his star image, and he also won the best actor. Maybe breaking his image is not necessarily necessary."

   Listening to Cruise say this, Ronald knew that his heart was already biased towards playing the normal brother Charlie.

   "If you insist..." Ronald shrugged, indicating that he had no intention of continuing the debate.

   Then he murmured at a volume that he could only hear, "Thunderbolt, John Wayne is playing a one-eyed dragon."

   Paula Wagner could already see the pregnancy, she whispered to Cruise next to her, and the two reached an agreement.

Nisita was behind Ronald and whispered in Ronald's ear, "You just said that Wayne is playing a one-eyed dragon, which can be considered to destroy the image. But Tom is not as smart as you, if Tom doesn't want to Playing the mentally handicapped, why don't we give up this project?"

   "Go out and talk." Ronald replied in a low voice.

"I'll try to figure out your opinion, Ronald. In fact, the role of Charlie is also difficult to play. I feel it is no less than a challenge for my brother's acting skills. When the time comes, I will exchange it with Dustin during rehearsal. Try the character. It's a good challenge for my acting."

  Tom came over and chatted with Ronald about his thoughts sincerely.

  Ronald looked at Cruise with a serious face, and a little thought appeared in his heart, "Poor Tom, you missed this role, I don't know how long it will take to get nominated."

  It is obvious that Ovitz, the president of CAA, wants to make him a big star. The more roles he plays, the more stereotyped he becomes. I don't know that he can still be as lucky as Henry Fonda and Humphrey Bogart. He can make a breakthrough in the twilight of his star career and win the best actor, and get what he wants?

"I'm no longer directing, Tom is no longer mentally retarded, and I'm not sure that his acting skills will meet the standards of the Oscar judges. Besides, I haven't been nominated for best director yet, so I'm not convincing enough to speak now." Ronald After leaving Ovitz's office with Nisita, we went to his office to continue the chat.

"I'll pass on your opinion to Paula. But I've got your interests in mind first. Dustin Hoffman is a big trouble, and all the directors and actors who have worked with him say he's a big ass. sore."

   and Tom Cruise are more superstitious that Hoffman has been nominated for the Oscar winner five times, and won the best actor statue with the Kramers. Nisita has been in the business for a long time and knows that Hoffman is actually a very troublesome partner.

   He is a typical method actor. In order to enter the play, he can constantly torture the director and fellow actors on the set. When playing the Kramers, for added credibility, he impromptuly threw a glass against the wall, and the shards slashed the face of the opposite actress Meryl Streep, almost disfigured.

   As for doing all kinds of strange behaviors on the set for acting, for example, when I played a marathon runner, I forced myself not to sleep for 72 hours. It's not uncommon for Lawrence Oliver, who is acting with him, to be nearly exhausted.

  Ronald has never been really recognized by the film critics, nor has he won an Oscar, or even the next director's union, or a director's award from the Film Critics Association. If Cruise plays the protagonist, the two can still have a positive interaction. If Dustin Hoffman plays the role, is there an accident on the set?

  The two reached an agreement and continued to look for a movie script that was more suitable for Ronald.

   "Your directing style is more like the Frank Capra of the golden age. You can always dig out the touching American spirit in the role of ordinary people. We will choose more scripts in this direction in the future.

   This kind of script that relies on mental retardation to highlight dramatic conflict..."

   "It doesn't necessarily suit me, does it?" Ronald answered.

   In fact, directors have their own areas of expertise, and Ronald really likes the stories of ordinary people. He is not very interested and enthusiastic about the dramatic stories that are far from ordinary people, such as growing up to be freaks, mentally retarded, or mentally ill, or born criminals.

   Since my friend Cruise doesn't play the role that is easy to win, there is no need to challenge myself.

   Meanwhile, in Ovitz's large office, he called Dustin Hoffman.

"Dustin, I've convinced Tom that the role of that brother Raymond is still yours. Also, they have an idea that Raymond is not a real intellectual disability, but an autistic person who is said to be autistic Some people have a particularly high IQ, what do you think, is it a little more difficult to act?"

   "I think about it, is what you said true? I will go to the Association of Patients with Autism to observe and observe."

  Dustin Hoffman has returned to the ranks of the highest-grossing male stars since "My Fair Lady". His salary in 1982 was $5.5 million.

   The salary inflation brought by Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the past two years has allowed Dustin to charge more.

   And Cruise doesn't have that much influence yet. In Top Gun, he has just stepped into the salary ranks of male stars, and there is still a lot of potential to grow.

   This is also the real reason why Ovitz prefers Dustin Hoffman to play this more promising award-winning mentally handicapped role, to be able to pay more.

   After coming out of CAA, Ronald remembered the countermeasure he had discussed with Nisita.

  Ovitz values ​​Dustin Hoffman, who is of the same ethnicity, and is sure that most of the mentally handicapped roles will let him play. You can withdraw gradually, show your diminished interest every time, and explain the situation to Cruise when the time is right. Withdrawing from this movie that Cruise is destined to perform is difficult and won't win awards.

  Film projects go on and on, and Ronald is not the first successful director to quit anyway. The two previous Jewish directors, Spielberg and Sidney Pollack, didn't stick to it, and they both quit halfway through.

He drove to his daydream film company, and the employees here are more practical. Everyone talks about the matter. The distribution of "Spicy Body Dance" is busy and orderly. Every time Ronald sees them, he feels more at ease. .

"I'm Ronald's friend. We attended the gathering of top entrepreneurs there in Dongying. You must go and spread the word. I didn't lie to you. My project is very important to Ronald. Don't delay. Your boss's business."

   A quarrel came from the front desk.

   Ronald heard what happened at the front desk and seemed to stop a man from letting him in, but the man's voice insisted that it was his friend.

   "Isn't that Bannon here?" Ronald opened the office and stuck his head out, "What's wrong? What happened? Who is it?"

   "Aha, Ronald. Nice to see you, nothing, your front desk is very responsible, I just forgot to make an appointment for you."

   "Ah, it's you..."

  Ronald remembered Bannon, the Wall Street banker he met outside the door when he was in Tokyo, the chairman of Kadokawa Press and Johnny's Office invited him to eat high-end cuisine.

   With a big head and a thick neck, wasn’t he the one who was reprimanding Tom Mount, the former vice president of Universal, who had always had a hard time with him?

   "Hello, Mr. Bannon?"

   "Call me Steve, Ronald."

  Bannon acted like every Hollywood banker, posing very familiar with Ronald, and came up to call his name affectionately.

   "How is your family? I'm going to visit your aunt on Veteran's Day."

   Ronald is not disgusted by this kind of familiarity, which is what bankers rely on for their meals.

   And their approach is not the same as Hollywood's excessive enthusiasm to false, although Ronald is not familiar with him, Bannon actually thinks that his aunt is the widow of a veteran.

   "How do you know my aunt?"

   Entered the small office and asked the front desk to bring coffee, Ronald asked curiously.

   "I did my homework." Bannon took a sip from the coffee machine without commenting.

   "Tell me, what's the matter with me?"

   "That's right, I didn't get a large amount of financing in Dongying, but the cooperation with Tom Mount will continue. This person is a waste, and I can only rely on myself.

  I found some old friends on Wall Street and finally got the money to make my first movie, and now I think…”

   said Bannon looked into Ronald's eyes, expecting his reaction.

   "Our company doesn't have the extra funds to shoot other movies now." Ronald also took a sip of his coffee. The cheap coffee machine didn't taste as good as instant coffee.

"No, I don't need your money. The money I got on Wall Street was enough to make this movie called 'Boys Rent Girls'. I came to find a distribution company. Our movies don't have stars, so the distribution company thought Looking for your help, I heard that you have a good relationship with Disney's touchstone, can you recommend..."

   "Boys rent girls?" Ronald heard the name of this weird script, reached out and took the script handed by Bannon, opened it and read it quickly.

   "This script is well written."

  Twenty minutes later, Ronald closed the script.

   is a fun teen romance.

  The male protagonist is a nerd Nerd, whose name happens to be Ronald. He fell in love with Cindy, the school's most popular cheerleader. Coincidentally, Nerd rents cheerleader Cindy as his fake girlfriend to teach him how to be popular with girls.

   After a series of coincidences, Nerd finally changed his face and really became a very popular boy, and finally made a fake with Cindy.

   Ronald felt that, aside from the immaturity of other parts, there was an idea in the script that Ronald liked. That's the plot of the heroine's ugly duckling turning into a swan.

   This kind of teenage sudden maturity, more popular, used to happen to female protagonists. Just like the "Wonderful" that Ronald just finished.

   But this script is just the other way around, it's the boy who changes his face and makes the girl fall in love. Presumably, there are plenty of boys in America who don't have girlfriends, and would love a plot like this.

  Thinking of this, Ronald looked up at Bannon "You said you did your homework?"

   "What?" Bannon was a little confused.

"If you've really done your homework, you should know that my daydream is also in the distribution business. My new movie will be released in about a thousand stores in the summer, if your movie can satisfy me , I can also release your movie, you don't have to ask Disney."

   "That's my dereliction of duty. I didn't do my homework well, of course I'm very interested." Bannon heard that it was released in a thousand theaters, and knew that Ronald had invested heavily in the distribution. At least in this movie, his "boys renting girls" can get a ride.

   (end of this chapter)