Hollywood Hunter

Unconsciously time has come to the end of July.

Today is July 28, Monday.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Simon arrived at Fox Studios in Century City, Beverly Hills on time.

Because the injuries on his body have not been completely recovered, Simon did not ride the bike today, but made an appointment for rent.

When he arrived at Fox Studios, Simon realized that he didn't have a pass. The guard looked suspiciously at the young man who claimed to be in a film production meeting. It took a while before he agreed to call him.

A few minutes later, the assistant of the producer of the Butterfly Effect David Giller came to the gate and brought Simon in.

Simon came to David Giller's office with the assistant, and Brian de Palma had arrived early, which made Simon feel a little embarrassed.However, neither David Giller nor Brian de Palma cared about Simon’s injuries.

Briefly for a moment, Peter Sanders, a vice president of Fox Films, and Vincent Hill, another Fox-based professional script analyst, also arrived, and today's meeting officially began.

In a small conference room of the Fox Studios administrative building, three film creators David Giller, Brian de Palma and Simon and two others sat around the conference table. The secretary copied the script and A memo was distributed.

The previous "Butterfly Effect" script has been polished for 7 years and has been perfected.Simon doesn't think there is much room for modification in the script he took out according to the final cinematic version of the movie.

However, when Simon opened the memo made by the script analyst named Vincent Hill, he felt that he wanted to get the remaining balance of $60,000. It's not that easy.

Last Thursday, while Simon was still in the hospital, he had received the first payment check of $140,000 in a contract with Fox.

In the current memo, from the title of the script to the end of the story, Vincent Hill put forward a very detailed evaluation and corresponding amendment suggestions.Simon roughly turned it over and found that the number of comments exceeded 50, which is almost equivalent to facing a revision opinion every two pages of the script.

Putting down the memo in his hand, Simon looked up at several other people. In addition to Vincent Hill, three other people were reading the memo. David Giller and Peter Sanders looked calm Ryan de Palma frowned slightly.

As a newly-written screenwriter, Simon knew that he didn't have much say in script modification.In order to get a follow-up payment of $60,000, he can only honestly modify the script according to the requirements of the film company, or, give up this power and let Fox hire other screenwriters.

Thinking this, Simon turned his attention back to the memo in front of him.

Even without much say, Simon made up his mind to maintain the integrity of the script as much as possible.

A moment later, Brian de Palma first opened his mouth, with obvious dissatisfaction in his tone, and directly asked Fox Vice President Peter Sanders: "Peter, you want to make this film PG- Level 13, right?"

Hearing Brian de Palma speak, Simon raised his head again.

After carefully reading the memo in his hand, Simon also discovered Fox's intention.

The original "Butterfly Effect" script has too many adult elements with heavy tastes, and the tone of the film is also gray. It will be easy to be rated R-level in the future.This means that young people under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult before they can watch. In fact, it means that a large part of the young audience is blocked from the theater.

At this point, according to the recommendations in the memo in his hand, Simon realized that Fox obviously wanted to overthrow most of the plots that might affect the movie's rating.

As the world's largest film market, the United States has implemented a mature film grading system very early.

According to the regulations of the American Film Association (MPAA), theater films in North America are divided into five levels: G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17.Among them, the G-class is the most relaxed public class, meaning that it can be watched by all ages.The NC-17 level is the most restrictive level, and teenagers under the age of 17 are prohibited from watching.In addition to the three ratings, the closer to the NC-17 level, the narrower the audience.

From a purely business perspective, Fox's behavior is actually understandable.

If the film can be adjusted from R-level to PG-13 level where parents are required to watch it, then the market audience of the film will expand a lot in the future.

However, from the "Butterfly Effect" story itself, it seems very unwise for Fox to do so.

"Brian, you know, the investment in this movie is $10 million," Peter Sanders replied unchanged, after hearing the question from Brian de Palma: "So, we must Consider the commercial prospects of the movie."

Brian de Palma shook his head and said: "In my opinion, the script of "Butterfly Effect" is already quite perfect. You will only destroy the overall structure of the script. And, starting from "Witch Carrie" The movies I directed have always been R-rated. As long as it is a good movie, it will get enough commercial returns, so I don’t think there is anything wrong with this."

"Since Simon can write a perfect script, he can also revise a more perfect script according to our requirements," Peter Sanders responded to Brian de Palma in this way, but he took the trend. Turning to Simon, I was familiar with it a little bit: "So, Simon, do you have this confidence?"

Although Peter Sanders's tone was very kind, and with elder encouragement, Simon was keenly aware of the unkindness in the other party's words.

Even if he knew he didn't have much say in this matter, Simon didn't plan to be an echo bug.

Feeling the subtle targeting of Peter Sanders, Simon is no longer polite: "Mr. Sanders, IMHO, "Butterfly Effect" itself is already a very tightly intertwined story script, just like A big net, toggling any one of these threads may involve the whole situation. If you modify it according to the requirements in this memo, you may end up with a completely different story. So if Fox wants a PG- For a level 13 movie, maybe I can write a new script."

Peter Sanders didn't expect Simon to be so sharp as soon as he spoke, remembering that the young man had just smashed the legs of five young men last week, and subconsciously suppressed the refutation he wanted to blurt out, raised his eyebrows and turned David Giller: "David, what do you mean?"

David Giller's expression on his face seemed to be non-smiling, raising the memo in his hand, saying: "Peter, the result of my communication with Ronald last week is not like this. Speaking of ratings, Fox is a summer file. The two films released in the beginning of June, "Space Station", PG level, 18 million US dollars budget, but finally only barely got 9 million box office. Last month's "Alien 2", R-class, similar to 18.5 million US dollars The budget, just two weeks after its release, the box office has reached 25 million US dollars, so I don’t think there is any problem with the "Butterfly Effect" being rated as R in the future. If you insist on today’s meeting in accordance with this memo, I can only Choose to cancel the meeting and go back to talk to Ronald."