Hollywood Tycoon [US Entertainment + Business War]

Every year, the Golden Globe Awards are actually the focus of media attention on the second day, but this year is different.The attention of all the media is on Universal Pictures, an old Hollywood film company that has been gaining popularity in recent years.The past ten years of Universal Pictures have been too moist. In the early stage, it recruited Hollywood's ace director-Spielberg, and in the later stage, it recruited Hollywood's gold medal screenwriter-Jed Sherman.It stands to reason that as long as such a good brand is well managed, it is no problem to create a century-old career for Universal Pictures.However, everything has changed.

When Jed hinted at the Golden Globe Awards that he would leave Universal, the "Hollywood Reporter" broke the news again. Director Spielberg was instigated by Paramount to leave Universal, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dave Wei Geffen three established the "DreamWorks Films."Moreover, the "Hollywood Report" further obtained the composition of DreamWorks shares, and Paramount became the company's fourth largest shareholder with a 15% stake.In fact, seeing former Paramount vice president Katzenberg suddenly became the president of DreamWorks, everyone guessed that the relationship between this company and Paramount is not simple.

After kicking off the relationship between Hollywood and Paramount, the "Hollywood Reporter" even reported the meeting between Jed and Redstone.According to an insider close to Redstone, Paramount will assume the distribution rights of all films produced by Jade's Galaxy Film Production Company within the next five years.At the same time next year, Paramount will invest in inviting DreamWorks to film a script written by Jed.The film will be the first in a "new Hollywood triangle" of Paramount, DreamWorks and Galaxy Films.

At the end of the article, the "Hollywood Reporter" couldn't help but sympathetically bowed to Universal Pictures, thinking that Universal had lost its hope of finally rising at the end of the century.However, I don't know whether Universal will appreciate this consolation, but the decline in the stock of Universal's parent company seems to indicate something.

At this time, Jed has no interest in paying attention to outside discussions. He is currently discussing the production of the new movie with Stanley Jaffe.Jia Fei was an employee who jumped to Jade together with Lansing, but because Jade only had a Dongfeng TV production company at that time, which was responsible for the production of TV dramas, Jia Fei had a very painful stay.Fortunately, Lansing has always been optimistic about Jade, so he always persuades Jia Fei to be patient.

Sure enough, when Jade announced the establishment of Galaxy Film Production Company, Jia Fei was also announced as the general manager of the new company.Back then, Jia Fei and Lansing also opened a film distribution company. In Jed's view, Lansing was good at production, so she was left at Dongfeng TV, which had no leader.Now is the time to need Jia Fei's distribution ability, so Jia Fei has the honor to become the general manager of the production company.Under normal circumstances, the general manager of the production company will automatically become the executive producer of the film by default, and then he will designate a special producer (Producer) to be responsible for the budget of the film and the preparation of the crew.

However, Yinhe Movies is not big at present, so Jia Fei is naturally the producer and producer.A good supervisor or producer needs to have an insight into the analysis of the film market at any time, evaluate whether the film is worth shooting, and then what is the positioning of the film.In fact, to put it simply, a film company will have at least three labels, corresponding to three different market positions.

For example, the mainstream label of Paramount Distribution Company is "Paramount Pictures". The commercial blockbusters such as "Transformers" that everyone usually watches are released by this label. The main purpose is the box office, and the second is awards; Paramount also has a label "Paramount Vantage" (Paramount Vantage) that specializes in releasing art films and independent films. The label "Insurge Pictures" (Insurge Pictures), which specializes in releasing cult movies or B-grade movies, most of the movies under this label are "The Devil Inside" and "Grease" and other movies that are dedicated to specific audiences.

So Jia Fei's responsibility as a producer is to determine the positioning of this film, is it to become a blockbuster commercial blockbuster?Or become an art film that will go down in film history?Or is it becoming a masterpiece that will never disappear in the mouths of niche movie fans?As a new company, Jia Fei naturally hopes that Jed will immediately shoot a popcorn movie, horror movies, comedies are good, even greasy romance movies are also good.However, a script that Jed handed over to Jia Fei turned out to be a prison theme. Even if the original work was Stephen King's work, Jia Fei still had some headaches.

The prison theme is not a very flattering theme. First of all, this theme determines that at least half of the characters in this movie are criminals.Although Americans love crime films so much, the premise of their love is that these criminals are finally punished.The prison theme can be subdivided into two directions, either the protagonist feels life in prison, or the prison escape theme.Who wants to watch a movie that understands life!Moviegoers don't go to movie theaters to be influenced or educated.If you escape from prison, this theme is really bad, and if you don't pay attention, you will offend movie fans, which is very dangerous.

But since it was Jed's script, Jia Fei still read it patiently.About half an hour later, Jia Fei raised his head with an expression of disbelief on his face.In fact, he is familiar with Stephen King's novels, but he has hardly read the original script of this movie.But just this adapted script is so ups and downs, and you don't know what the ending is until you see the end.

"It's going to be a great movie, but it's not for us, Mr. Sherman." Jaffe put the script aside. "Galaxy Movie is still a newborn baby, she needs a lot of money to nourish, and this movie, I'm sorry, I can see nothing but a few vague trophies."

"Mr. Jia Fei, this will become a classic, and you agree with it." As a director, it is common to quarrel with the producer, and Jed did not force the film because he is the actual boss of the company people. "We need classics!"

"Yes, we need classics." Jia Fei nodded, "But, not now. Mr. Sherman, do you know how much money our company has on the books? Our cash can only support one medium-budget film plus one A small budget movie, if you're going to pick The Shawshank Redemption I predict we'll be bankrupt by the end of the year, is that what you want to see? Of course, if Mr. Sherman is going to make a movie of his own to play for tickets , then please invest in yourself and don’t involve Yinhe in it, okay? For a small company, money is the most important thing! Live, and then we can talk about art!”

"Okay, I compromise." Jed raised his hand. "You said we can make another low-budget movie, right? I'll give you a script, a script about a horror movie. I promise this movie will definitely How about getting a blockbuster in exchange for my shooting plan?"

Jia Fei handed the script to Jed, "Before I see the horror movie script, let's end the conversation here."

Jed had no choice but to take the script and leave the general manager's office of Galaxy Films. The employees outside saw their boss being trained so miserably by their own experience, and they couldn't help but chuckle.But Jed didn't care. If his film company didn't have such a person to check it, he was really worried that his company might not be able to continue.

After leaving the office, Jed naturally drove back to his mansion in Beverly Hills and started thinking about a new script in the office.Now that the scope has narrowed down to horror movies, Jed starts to recall the small budgets of horror movies in his mind.Soon he found two suitable scripts, one was "The Blair Witch" and the other was "Ghost Story".Comparatively speaking, the latter part was much more successful than the former part, but since hand-held video recorders are still a very rare thing these days, Jade chose the film "The Blair Witch".

In fact, the script of this movie is so bad that it is completely a student work.But it was this movie that created the "pseudo-documentary trend" in horror films of later generations, and even "Ghost Story" was affected by it.But since it was Jed who wrote the script in this life, some obvious flaws would naturally have to be removed, and with the atmosphere of the Japanese horror movies of later generations, Jed was completely aiming to scare a few Yankees to death.

Because Jed is a student of USC himself, he changed the University of Maryland students in the original script to students of USC with a stroke of a pen.In order to complete their graduation work, three students from the University of Southern California disappeared mysteriously when they went to the forest to film the plot. The US government spent half a year not finding them, and could only declare them as missing persons.And just a year later, someone found several rolls of video film in a small wooden house, which not only revealed the mystery of the disappearance of the college student, but also opened up an incredible story...

The script didn't take too much time for Jed, and he took the script to find Jia Fei again the next day.This time Jia Fei didn't say anything, just watched the script quietly. "Mr. Sherman, we need to finish this movie as soon as possible."

Jed nodded in agreement. The main film schedules in the United States are summer and Christmas, and of course there are two small schedules, Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving.Generally speaking, most of the summer movies are popcorn movies, and all kinds of action blockbusters, horror movies, thrillers, and comedies are released in this time frame; while the Christmas file is aimed at the major awards of the next year. Therefore, not every film company's annual blockbuster is a drama film with various serious themes.As a low-budget horror film, there is no need to join in the fun during the Christmas season at the end of last year. Usually, in the early days of the summer holiday season, the action movies of various companies have not been released to collect a sum of money.

That's why Jia Fei reminded Jed that the shooting time should not be too long, because if the schedule at the end of June is to be met, the production of the film must be completed in May, and the post-production must be completed within half a month.Rao is so in a hurry, I'm afraid the publicity period still can't keep up.If a movie is completely supported by word of mouth without publicity, it will basically not survive three weeks.Movie theaters are not fools. If your movie doesn’t sell at the box office in the first week, then the second week will definitely reduce the number of screens and arrange it to unpopular schedules or remote screening halls. Naturally, in the third week, it will be released casually and you will be directly released. of.So expecting word-of-mouth support is completely hopeless. Unless you are really the kind of amazing blockbuster, it will be your end after three weeks of screening.

Jed knew what Jafei was worried about, so he suggested: "Our publicity cycle can start now. You can arrange a tabloid reporter to investigate the disappearance of a Southern California student, and then report it in a serial form in the tabloid. I think The media in California will follow up in one month at most, and the national media will participate in the report in another month and a half at the most. At that time, I should have basically finished filming, and I can add some stills and clips to the report. Finally, when our film editing is completed, It's time to expose this lie. You see, a perfect propaganda report is completed."

"Mr. Sherman, if you do this, you will most likely be sued." Jia Fei couldn't help reminding.

"Thank God, we have the First Amendment!" Jed laughed. "As long as we don't have any direct financial relationship with that reporter and his newspaper, all the problems are out of our hands. For the newspaper and the reporter. , what they lose is their credibility, the First Amendment is enough to protect them from being prosecuted or punished. More importantly, do you think a tabloid and its third-rate reporters have any credibility? Instead of letting them spread rumors every day that Michael Jackson sleeps in In the coffin, why not do something for us." Jed said nonchalantly, since he had this proposal, he naturally thought of a way out.

Jia Fei had to admit that Jade's proposal was very reasonable, and after consulting the company's lawyers, he also agreed to this promotional plan.And so began preparations for Galaxy Films' debut film, The Blair Witch.Fortunately, the cost of this film is not high. According to Jed's idea, the actors should try to use brand new actors, and it doesn't matter if their acting skills are tender.And don't hire someone who is too good for photography, otherwise you won't be able to shoot the original "student film" feeling of the script.After throwing these jobs to Jia Fei, Jed is preparing for the Oscars.The filming of the new movie would naturally have to wait until the awards ceremony was over, otherwise the entire Hollywood would be caught in the craze of the awards season, and it would be difficult to find staff.

The biggest climax of this year’s Oscars came when Brad Gray, Chairman of Paramount, Spielberg of DreamWorks and Jed of Galaxy Films joined hands to qualify on the red carpet. Although none of the three were handsome or beautiful, they But it became the most topical combination of the day.The Oscar Organizing Committee is naturally happy to bring together the key figures of the three most popular companies, which is also very helpful for spreading the Oscars.Wherever the three of them went, not only the spotlights kept flashing, but also the reporters asked questions one after another.

But don't look at the three people who appeared on the red carpet very high-profile, but they didn't intend to answer the reporters' questions at all.No matter what the reporter asked, the three of them just responded with a smile.After a slight delay on the red carpet, the three returned to their seats in the Chinese theater.Paramount will naturally do what Paramount does, and Jed and Spielberg will naturally work with the "Schindler's List" crew.Since the film is distributed by Universal, there must be a lot of Universal staff around.Since everyone's relationship is not harmonious recently, the whole crew looks a little awkward.

Not long after the awards ceremony began, Jed opened the record for "Schindler's List" with "Best Adapted Screenplay".Seeing such a young person take away the screenwriting award, the host couldn't help teasing Jed one or two.After all, Jade left too much lace news for Los Angeles, and any of them were hot news at the time.Jed was not angry either, and laughed out loud with the host's teasing.

Due to the particularity of the theme of "Schindler's List", everyone is ready to accompany this year's Oscars.In fact, in addition to "Schindler's List", there is also a "Jurassic Park" also directed by Spielberg and distributed by Universal Pictures.Although the theme of "Jurassic Park" is destined to have nothing to do with the main awards, technical awards are also awards.Best Visual Effects, Best Sound and Best Sound Mixing went to Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound.Jed couldn't help but secretly slandered Lucas for not allowing him to invest in Skywalker sound effects, but fortunately, having shares in Industrial Light & Magic was also good.

While "Jurassic Park" wasn't enough to challenge "Schindler's List," "The Piano Lesson" and "The Philadelphia Story" could.However, compared to "The Piano Lesson" which won several good awards, "Philadelphia Story" is a bit embarrassing.But soon, the best original score for a film was awarded to "Streets of Philadelphia", which finally made "Philadelphia Story" go.

When it comes to performance awards, the previous most popular "Schindler's List" was completely wiped out.Both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress were won by "The Piano Lesson", while Ralph Fiennes, who played the villain Goethe in "Schindler's List", lost to the actor of "The Fugitive". The supporting role made Fiennes look at the award presenter in shock.Immediately afterwards, Liam Neeson, who played Oscar Schindler, also lost the best actor, losing to Tom Hanks in "The Philadelphia Story".Seeing Hanks' ecstatic expression and Neeson's rather lonely expression, Jed didn't know whether to be happy or sad.

But the next most important best director and best film were won by "Schindler's List".Since Jed was the co-director of the film, he also became the youngest best director in Oscar history.As for the best film award, naturally, two directors accompanied representatives of the production company to accept the award.The vice president representing Universal looked at Spielberg and Jade beside him, and couldn't help but sighed secretly, and this shot was just captured by a photographer and named "Universal's Sigh".