Made in Hollywood

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In the afternoon after the trial meeting, relevant people from 20th Century Fox gathered in a small meeting room to discuss the film they just watched in the morning. The film exceeded everyone’s highest expectations. For these professionals in the industry , Maybe it’s difficult to judge whether the film will really be accepted by the market, but it’s not that difficult to distinguish bad film from well-made.

Maybe it was because of the initial recognition of "Life and Death" in my heart, maybe it was because of George Lucas, ceo Jeff Gianopoulos also appeared in this conference room.

"Collett, let me talk about your opinion first."

Waiting for the secretary to serve everyone coffee, Townsend Rothman said, "I can see that you have some thoughts about this film."

"This is a very thrilling action film that is not in the traditional sense."

After roughly organizing the language, Camelot Singh directly expressed his opinion, "The young director named Duke did better than I thought. Every detail of the film was polished brightly by him. It looks so perfect..."

＊As the most senior film selection expert on Fox in the 20th century, Camelot Singh's attitude is very obvious.

"Townsend, how about you?"

Just when Camelot Singer’s voice just fell, CEO Jeff Giannopoulos directly asked Townsend Rothman, as the director of the distribution department, his opinion is extremely important, "What do you think we should use? Treat this movie with such a strategy."

"Most parts of "Life and Death" are excellent. Although there are flaws in the plot logic and certain scenes, Duke Rosenberg used a lot of short shots, and the super fast pace brought people A sense of urgency that a top-notch big production has."

Putting down the coffee cup, Townsend Rosman’s speech was not fast, “Generally speaking, movie trailers must be a collection of the best shots, best visual effects, and most exciting moments in the movie, but Rosenberg There are such shots everywhere in this movie, like a row of labels, each one is stimulating adrenaline."

"This is an excellent action entertainment movie." He concluded.

As a true professional, Townsend Rothman certainly does not look at commercial films stupidly from a literary perspective.

"But we can't ignore the risks behind the film."

Since the discussion started, Tim Fisher has been observing the situation. It is an inevitable trend for Fox to sign this movie in the 20th century. He cannot change this. He also admits that the movie is indeed thrilling and has many selling points, but he does not I don't want to see this movie go viral.

First of all, this is a movie introduced by his rival in the future CEO.

Secondly, a caring person will definitely find that the script has been handed to him. If the film is successful, it means that his vision is wrong and it will definitely cause some bad effects.

"Although North American action movies have become popular in recent years, we should not forget that audiences’ tastes are fickle, and no one knows when they will get tired of this genre. Also, this film lacks appealing power. Star actors are extremely unfavorable during publicity, which means we have to devote more resources to publicity..."

None of the people who can become executives of the six major companies are idiots. Tim Fisher Luo listed all the facts.

"Introduce films according to category b to formulate and distribute."

After discussion, many high-level executives gradually reached a consensus, and CEO Jeff Giannopoulos made the final decision based on these opinions, "arrange the film's rating, trial screening and screening as soon as possible."

This is the safest way, and no one else has objections.

After the preview meeting, Duke cut two trailers according to the requirements of Twentieth Century Fox. The production of the film is roughly over, but he did not take a holiday for himself, and continued to maintain close contact with the Speed ​​Studio. The distribution company The publicity strategy of the film is also an indispensable condition for the success of the film.

The distribution company is at the top of this circle. Even with the support of Lucasfilm, new directors like him will not have any right to speak in the negotiation. Duke did not participate in the negotiation. Professionals will naturally do professional things. .

In less than a week, Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox negotiated a distribution contract.

Twentieth Century Fox will become the North American distributor of "Life and Death", taking 15% of the North American box office and 50% of the North American television and video copyright revenue as distribution fees, and enjoys the right of first refusal to overseas distribution rights , And the advance advertising costs such as promotion, marketing and production of copies will be withheld from the box office first after the film is down-grade in North America.

At the same time, Twentieth Century Fox also formulated a North American release schedule for the film.

In the next two weeks, Twentieth Century Fox will hold a screening room for fans and film critics. According to the response of the screening, appropriate publicity funds will be invested to build momentum for the film. In the traditional film off-season in mid-April, 20 theaters will be used. The line-point projection method pushed "Speed ​​of Life and Death" onto the North American theaters.

The schedule was quickly delivered to Duke. Although he was dissatisfied with the conservative distribution strategy of 20th Century Fox, he knew that he had no capital to dispute this.

In the 20th century, Fox adopted the safest and most beneficial distribution method for the distributors. Duke also wanted the film to be opened in North America with 1,000 or even 3,000 theaters, but that was just an unrealistic delusion!

Not to mention the high publicity costs that must be spent on large-scale releases, the money for making copies alone is a huge amount of money.

Nowadays, printing a 35mm copy is about US$600. If the film is released on 3,000 screens, that’s US$1.8 million. In the case of uncertain film market prospects, 20th Century Fox will not give generously.

Hollywood's big companies have everything to do with scams, but they have never been charities.

The film is drawn in a click-to-show mode. Twentieth Century Fox can observe the market's reaction. If the audience has a good reputation and a good box office performance, they can print thousands of copies in a short period of time and expand the screening scale rapidly. It's not difficult at all.

In the end, the film went viral and the 20th Century Fox got a high commission; the film failed, and the 20th Century Fox did not lose much.

This is the simplest rule in Hollywood. People without capital must abide by the rules.

Duke knows very well that before "Speed ​​of Life" shows enough potential in the market, 20th Century Fox will never invest too much resources, and formulate a detailed publicity strategy for the film, except that the film can really see clearly In addition to its selling point, Lucasfilm must have played a lot in it.

Time gradually came to the end of February, and the media still did not see the advertisements and news of "Life and Death Hour". Duke's insomnia has a tendency to worsen, even if he knows that he should maintain a steady state of mind, even if his face never shows. Anxious, but the dry climate of Los Angeles can easily make people feel irritable. Fortunately, there has been a rare light rain in recent days, and the cool air has brought rare comfort.

Although the prospects are unclear, Duke has already begun to write a second script, which can also distract him a little, and not have to think about the success or failure of "Life and Death" all day, because even if he thinks more, he can't play much role now. .

The second script is still an action movie. It will be a story about soldiers full of explosions, gun battles and betrayals.

On the last day of February, Duke threw away all his work and rushed to Los Angeles International Airport to see off the only friend he met on the crew.

"This is my father, this is my mother..."

Before the boarding gate, Sofia Coppola introduced her family to Duke. Although these famous people do not know him, Duke must know them.

Francis Coppola and his wife had greeted Duke, and they moved a little away from here, giving the space to the young people, obviously they had misunderstood something.

"This is my cousin..."

In the end, Sophia took him to a man who was very strange and very old. Duke quickly reached out and shook his hand, "It's nice to meet you, Nicholas."

"I am also glad to meet you."

Now Nicholas can barely be considered second-line, and his temper is not as strange as his looks.

"Nicholas, you may have a common topic."

There was still some time before boarding, Sophia stood beside Duke and Cage. "Duke just made a movie and signed a distribution contract with Twentieth Century Fox."

"Director?" Cage asked.

"Yes." Duke smiled modestly, "an action movie."

"Oh."

Cage immediately lost his interest. Now he is a standard literary youth, obviously indifferent to action movies.

The boarding prompt sounded on the radio. Sophia hugged her parents one by one, walked to Duke again, tilted her head to look at him, "I wish your film will sell well, great director!"

"Wish you get rid of the assistant position as soon as possible." Duke said in the same tone. "Perhaps the next time I see you, you have become a top fashion designer."

"Of course!" Sophia Coppola was confident.

Just as she turned around and was about to go in, Duke added, "If you get fired by Chanel, you can come back and continue to be my assistant!"

After that, he didn't give Sophia any chance to fight back and turned around and left.

Greeted the Coppola family and declined their dinner invitation. Duke drove his Chevrolet back to his Santa Monica home, parked the car in the garage, and walked to the courtyard door, opened the mailbox, and took it out. A large pile of mail.

Entering the living room, Duke put his mother's mail on the newspaper rack, opened several of his own, and sat on the couch.

One is a credit card bill from the bank. Some time ago, Duke just received another $20,000 of the $120,000 director's remuneration. Paying off the credit card is not a problem, and the financial burden has been temporarily eased.

The other is an invitation letter sent by Twentieth Century Fox, inviting him to participate in the screening in early March.