Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1329 Ronald, the Good Guy of the Navy

"Nora, Nathan has to go..." After talking to the parents of the boy named Nathan Watt, Ronald gave him another day. But little Nathan was still the same. As long as he was not filmed, he would make all kinds of "accidents" to make trouble.

"But if we replace him, there is no suitable boy to take his place. Wait a minute, I'll get the photos of all the boys I've auditioned." Nora Ephron was also very anxious.

Every day of delay is a cost. Nathan Watt not only always disrupts the filming, he also steals the spotlight. Tom Hanks, who is filming with him, is also affected and has not yet entered the state.

"He was very good during the audition and rehearsal, without this problem. How come he became like this after the actual filming?" Nora Ephron was so anxious that her face fell. If it was a less friendly producer, the director might have to be changed by now. Who made you make a mistake in the audition?

"I think it's because of his parents. They are typical Hollywood parents..." Ronald had seen parents like this before, but it is rare to see parents as typical as Nathan's.

In fact, this is a psychological problem for little Nathan. Making trouble when there is no shot of him is actually a disguised way of stealing the spotlight. Children of a young age are usually in a playful and curious state of mind when filming TV series. But he is always full of anxiety. As long as there is a shot where he is not the center of the camera, he will anxiously make trouble and destroy it until he becomes the center.

This mentality was obviously developed in the fierce competition of auditions for child actors. Behind it, it must be inseparable from the deliberate indoctrination of parents, who must win over other competitors in the audition, even if they have to resort to tricks.

A boy under eight years old, who couldn't tell the difference between an audition and a formal shoot, obviously saw Tom Hanks as a competitor...

The two cast members in the hotel room. After selecting dozens of possible candidates, the assistants brought the audition videotapes for the two to watch. Later, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and others also came to watch...

"I think this is good..." Ronald pressed the pause button and pointed at a slightly fat boy on TV.

"Ross Marinzer," the assistant announced the name of the child actor. "He has appeared in the Fox teen drama "Heartbeat," guest-starred in three episodes of the ABC sitcom "Who's the Boss?", and played a regular supporting role in "Roseanne" called "Sami Miller..."

"Him? I eliminated him in the first round because he wasn't cute enough..." Nora Ephron looked at the fat boy and couldn't figure out why Ronald thought he was good.

"What do you think?" Ronald asked Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

"That's good. I was also fat when I was a kid." Hanks was embarrassed by Nathan and felt that this fat Ross looked very honest.

"A child like this is actually not bad. My cousin's son is like this. He is very approachable..." Meg Ryan also voted in favor.

"He looks like an average American boy. Nathan is still too handsome..." Ronald chose him because he looks very real, and this kind of realism is needed for Sleepless in Seattle.

Another point is that this child does not have any outstanding acting skills, unlike Nathan or Macaulay Culkin, the leading actor of "Home Alone", who are talented child actors at first glance.

This is not a comedy, at least the scenes between the child and the father are not a comedy. Therefore, the unsculpted child actors are more able to show the reality of a particularly unreal fairy tale that the audience needs.

Ross Malinsky was soon called to Seattle, and after two test shots, Ronald made a decisive decision to make the substitution.

"Humph, why did you replace my son? This is unfair. Let me tell you, we have had close communication with the Screen Actors Guild, and they have expressed great concern about this. This is not my first day in Hollywood, and I know reporters in all major newspapers. I also know several fair-minded lawyers. You should replace my son as soon as possible, or give our...son the compensation he deserves..."

The person who accompanied Nathan who was replaced was his mother. She had been in Hollywood for many years and came to negotiate with Ronald after hearing the news. Her purpose was nothing more than two: to get his son's role back or to pay a large sum of money. Anyway, those lawyers who were willing to file a lawsuit for free and get a share of the compensation said that this violated Hollywood's practice. Paramount had also lost money for similar things before.

"I have to go to New York for something, you come and talk to him." Ronald was too lazy to pay attention to such a stupid mother and asked the on-site production director to stay and explain to him.

"Hey, you..." Nathan's mother pulled Ronald's sleeve and stopped him from leaving.

"Don't try to lie to us. He will delay us for a few days by asking you to agree. You must give me an answer now. Okay or not, or I will find a lawyer." He said while shaking a phone book in his hand.

"Well, you can call a lawyer. You can also sue us in court. We may win, and you won't get a penny. Or we may lose, and we will have to pay you three times the minimum wage, multiplied by your son's work time, which is equivalent to three thousand dollars. Oh, and you have to split the money with your lawyer.

But the court will ask us to present evidence and explain the reasonable reasons for replacing your son. Then the fact that your son, under your wrong instigation, disrupted the filming of the crew and caused hundreds of thousands of yuan in losses will be made public.

You can ask him what will happen.”

Nathan's mother was shocked by Ronald's confident statement, and for a moment she didn't know whether it was true or not. She involuntarily let go of Ronald's sleeve and turned to the production director.

"When the time comes, I can guarantee that no crew in America, from Hollywood to NBC's studio in New York, will hire your son. You'd better come to me, sign an agreement, take the full salary that your son is entitled to according to the agreement, and leave obediently."

"Ah, well, can I still get the full salary?" Nathan's mother was happy again.

"Aren't you very familiar with the people from the Screen Actors Guild? How come you don't even know this?"

……

After spending a few days on the set to sort out everything, Ronald was going to the East Coast to sort out other things for "Sleepless in Seattle".

The first is the location of the filming. In Seattle, the crew spent a lot of money and communicated with the Seattle City Government, and was able to approve the request to film at several iconic landmarks in Seattle.

Because of Ronald's reputation, the City Hall agreed to this request, which is something that few city governments outside of Los Angeles would agree to. After all, Ronald's film "Working Girl" made the ferry on Staten Island, the most backward island in New York, famous, and it has now become one of the must-see attractions for tourists.

Seattle is also an emerging industrial city for high-tech, IT, and pharmaceutical industries, and many well-known design companies have settled here. If the movie is popular, then Pike Place Market, Sorrento Hotel, Alki Beach, Fremont Bridge, Dahlia Restaurant, etc., will become tourist attractions and increase employment opportunities for the tourism industry.

However, these scenic spots can only be used for shooting exterior scenes and aerial shots. It is impossible to suspend official duties and lend them to the crew for a few days.

Therefore, this movie, which features many famous attractions, also requires a large venue that can be used as a studio to build various interior scenes.

The crew searched for a place, but Seattle is not a traditional industrial city and there is no warehouse large enough to borrow. They only found one suitable location around Seattle, which is the Navy's Cape Sand Naval Base.

Because the film had to meet the release date, the filming started almost immediately after Nora Ephron finished the script. So many things could not be done in time and Ronald had to step in to handle them.

Cape Sand Naval Base is such an example. Because this naval base is also subject to closure under the current president's disarmament policy. So now basically the managers of the base are thinking about keeping their jobs and going to another good place for the navy, rather than being stationed in a hellhole like Guantanamo. So not many people pay attention to the fact that a film crew wants to rent it.

After contacting them several times, no substantial progress was made. The naval officers who had been contacted before because of the filming of "Top Gun" were also busy looking for other ways out.

Ronald had no choice but to call the office of John Warner, the former Navy Secretary and current Virginia Senator, through the former Navy Hollywood Liaison Department. This man was a senior Navy man and knew Hollywood well because he was Elizabeth Taylor's sixth husband...

"Mr. Senator..."

John Warner met Ronald in an office inside the Senate.
"Look, this is a good young man from our navy." John Warner is a hardliner and a powerful figure on Capitol Hill. He is very dissatisfied with the current president's disarmament policy and is planning some formal opposition actions. He was very satisfied when he met Ronald. The surge in the number of people joining the navy that year was inseparable from this good young man.

"I heard that your father also participated in the Vietnam War? In which unit did he serve?" On John Warner's desk, Ronald's experience, which was compiled by his assistant this morning, was placed. He was a believer in the theory of origin, and he believed that people with military backgrounds, especially children of the navy, were the true pillars of the United States.

"Yes, he is in the Marine Corps. But my grandfather was a fighter pilot in the Navy..." Ronald told the glorious family history.

"I knew it. To be able to shoot such a good aerial combat scene, he must have experience. Hahahaha... I originally thought he was a director like John Ford who had filmed real naval battles..."

John Warner was delighted and patted Ronald on the shoulder. The young man was handsome and pleasing to the eye. "Liz told me about you. You are a very good director. We need more movies like Top Gun. Can you make a sequel?"

"Mr. Senator, the alliance has disintegrated. We no longer have such a natural imaginary enemy, and the audience's tastes are also changing. In addition, the office that cooperates with the Navy and Hollywood is also being closed. It is difficult for us to get strong support from the Navy like we did in the past, and to provide us with the convenience of real filming. At that time, we even fired two air-to-air missiles. Now my production company can't afford such a high budget..."

"Alas, this country cannot do without the navy... The current disarmament of the president is really... They also want to retire the F-14A... Forget it, I will call the navy, you go and contact the base rental..."

John Warner waved his hand and let Ronald go first. The leader of the Elephant Party actually presided over the disarmament. The current leader has gone too far in some things. The alliance is gone, but is there still an imaginary enemy? There are many countries in the world that pose a threat to America.

……

Things went smoothly afterwards. The Cape Sand Naval Base was rented to the crew for two months at a symbolic price. The crew moved in immediately and began working on various props and sets. They just waited for the crew to come in and shoot.

Ronald returned to New York from DC. He met with Bannon on Wall Street. There was a film crew there that needed his help.

"The Empire State Building, can't you just not take a picture of it? Or use that magic of your computer to fake one? Can't you?"

Ronald came to New York mainly to get the Empire State Building filming done. The final climax of the film is Sam and Annie, imitating the Hollywood movie "The Golden Alliance" of that year, where the hero and heroine meet on the rooftop of the Empire State Building.

This place is a landmark building in America and New York. Whenever a movie is shot about New York, there is always a one-second shot of the Empire State Building or the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center so that the audience can know that it is in New York.

Unlike this indicative shot, Sleepless in Seattle required shooting the actual rooftop scene and close-up aerial photography of the Empire State Building, all of which required the consent of everyone in the Empire State Building.

The real estate industry and finance are closely related, so Ronald found Bannon and tried to communicate directly with the owner of the Empire State Building through him.

But Bannon shook his head when he heard this. The owner of the Empire State Building is Harry Helmsley, but the one who really has the final say is his wife, Leona Helmsley. This woman is very difficult to deal with.

"It's not that exaggerated. I just borrowed it for the filming..." Ronald thought Bannon was exaggerating.

"Her nickname is the Queen of Mean. Her only son Jay died, and a few days after the funeral, she sent an eviction notice to her daughter-in-law and sued her for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This story is so famous that even on Wall Street, there are few people who don't admire her..."

"Where is she now?" Ronald thought this was too exaggerated. He decided to try to talk to her. If that didn't work, he could just take a helicopter to take some secret photos. He had a good relationship with the NYPD anyway, so he could just get a permit to shoot nearby.

"In prison..."

……

Through his private lawyer, Ronald contacted the minimum-security prison that was specifically for wealthy people from Wall Street.

Leona Helmsley, the evil queen and owner of the Empire State Building, was sentenced to sixteen years in prison for tax evasion. The real decisive witness was her housekeeper Elizabeth Baum. The housekeeper testified in court that Leona Helmsley often said, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes..."

Although Leona denied saying this in court, the housekeeper and the maid often talked about how Leona abused them when testifying in court, which had a very bad influence on the jury, so she was sentenced to a very high sentence. Her lawyer later appealed and the sentence was reduced to twenty months. She only recently started serving her sentence.

"We hope that Mrs Helmsley will agree to our filming, which will have a public relations benefit for her application for parole and medical parole."

Ronald contacted Helmsley's assistant, but she refused to meet him. Finally, he contacted her public relations manager through Pat Kingsley. She was about to visit the prison and discussed with Helmsley how to use public opinion to alleviate some of the public's negative feelings towards her.

"I will pass on my message. Please wait for the result of my visit this time."

(End of this chapter)