Hollywood Hunter

Simon looked at the situation in front of him, wondering why the first production meeting of "Butterfly Effect" fell into this tit-for-tat embarrassment.

However, considering the attitudes of David Giller and Brian de Palma, Simon is not too worried about the progress of the matter. The two Hollywood bigs who also have the right to speak obviously have the same position.

Confirming this, Simon would relax and begin to analyze the situation in front of him secretly.

Hollywood also has a very complicated power structure.But under normal circumstances, to determine the size of a person's authority in Hollywood, it is actually very simple, only need to look at his affiliation, that is, to which class in Hollywood is this person responsible.

From what David Giller just said, Simon realized that the other party should be directly responsible for the president of Fox Pictures Ronald Goldberg, and was not under the control of the current Fox Vice President Peter Sanders. Those can be described as even-level.

Even from the momentum of the two people communicating, Simon also noticed that David Giller clearly had the upper hand.

Since he wants to cooperate on the "Butterfly Effect" project, Simon naturally did some homework in advance.

Simon Giller, who is in his fifties this year, is the producer of "Alien 2" that Fox is releasing.Then, combined with the deliberate comparison of David Giller's words, Simon realized that Peter Sanders is likely to be related to Fox's failed "Space Station" project at the summer box office.

With a budget of US$18 million and the best quality schedule in early June, the box office was only in the early stages of 9 million, which is not so big.

Things really happened as Simon expected.

With David Giller's last words, Peter Sanders' face suddenly looked awkward, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. Then he said: "David, I'm doing this just for the company's 10 million. The dollar investment is responsible and does not mean to anyone."

David Giller felt that Peter Sanders had softened, and he no longer chased after him, saying: "Of course, this is your responsibility. However, Peter, all you need to make sure is that the movie investment is used in The right place, not finger-pointing at the content of the movie, is the job of Brian and I."

Peter Sanders felt the strong bargaining power in David Giller's tone and hesitated for a moment before shrugging: "Okay, I hope you don't mess up this movie."

Seizure failed.

Simon secretly reached such a conclusion and glanced at Peter Sanders again, realizing at the same time that this was a guy who was good at bullying and fearing to be ruthless.

Peter Sanders' intention to seize the leading role in the creation of "Butterfly Effect" was blocked by David Giller, and the following meeting was obviously much normal.

However, even so, David Giller and Brian de Palma still made a lot of comments on the script modification.

David Giller's opinion mainly focused on the movie title and story ending, which is similar to the content of the just memo.

As a producer who needs to consider the future business prospects of the film, David Giller also hopes that the film will have a more popular name.At the same time, David also hopes that Simon can rewrite a more gentle end, instead of ending in the actor strangling himself in the mother's womb.

This undoubtedly returned to the original ending.

Brian de Palma’s opinion is that the protagonist’s childhood scene can be compressed to less than 20 minutes, so as not to make this part too long.

Compared with the original memo, which was almost chaotic, both of them had very professional opinions at this time. Although Simon could not fully agree, he also responded very seriously.

The three main creators were discussing unattendedly, but Peter Sanders, who was laid aside, did not leave, still relying on the conference room,

In the internal restaurant of Fox Studios, after several contacts, David Giller and Brian de Palma were very fond of Simon, a promising young man. After ordering lunch, David Giller also took the initiative Revealed to Simon some inside stories that are not secrets.

It turned out that the "Space Station", which had a box office defeat in the summer, was Peter Sanders' matchmaking project. Fox not only gave the film a high-spec production budget of 18 million US dollars, the best film schedule, Fox Film President Ronald Goldberg also personally named the executive producer.

All of this is due to the heroine of Space Station, named Kate Capshaw, Steven Spielberg's fiancee.

Hearing this, Simon also immediately understood what Fox did.

In the original space and time, it is no exaggeration to say that in the last three decades of the twentieth century, Hollywood was almost the world of Spielberg.

With the great success of such films as "Great White Shark", "Alien ET", "Treasure Hunter", "Jurassic Park" and so on, Spielberg is completely a Hollywood star.Although Spielberg belongs to the direct directors of Warner, Universal and Paramount, but other than the three majors, any other company is also trying everything to try to have a relationship with Spielberg.

In addition to the "Space Station" just now, Simon also recently saw in "The Hollywood Reporter" that Disney has also approved an animated live-action movie in collaboration with Spielberg's Anberlin Pictures, named "Who Framed" "Roger Rabbit".

In order to become a member of the'Spielberg camp', Disney's budget for this movie is as high as $45 million.You should know that in the 1980s, the budget cost of Hollywood major movies was generally controlled within 20 million US dollars.Only movies related to Spielberg can easily break through this heavy budget limit and even double the average budget cost.

In the restaurant, he noticed the faint envy and fascination on Simon's face, and the two middle-aged people, both 40 and 50 years old, smiled at each other.

Every year, countless young people in Hollywood dream of becoming the second Spielberg, but very few can achieve something in the end.

But the young people in front of him, just less than two months after entering Hollywood, have already attracted the attention of many people, plus the undoubted talent shown by Simon, David Giller and Brian de Palma We all realize that Simon will definitely be able to make a difference in Hollywood in the future.

Therefore, at this time, the two Hollywood stars who had already achieved fame in their middle ages did not mind pushing the young man.

David Giller slightly inspired Simon’s ambitions, and Brian de Palma, who was also sitting opposite Simon, also asked: "Simon, listen to Jonathan, you plan to make an experimental movie, you can Tell me about it? Maybe David and I can give you some advice."

Simon did not realize that the two middle-aged people in front of him were intentionally or unintentionally supporting their thoughts. Even if they knew it, he would only appreciate each other's kindness.Past life has been in a similar circle for more than ten years, Simon knows the importance of connections in this circle.

"Actually, I wanted to say this at the morning meeting," Simon heard Brian de Palma's question and took out the script and sub-shots of "Rola Run" from the backpack on the side chair The draft, handed to David Giller and Brian de Palma, said: "David, and Brian, I don’t think we need to change the movie name of the Butterfly Effect. Some time ago In the incident, due to many media reports, many people have actually noticed the term "butterfly effect". Moreover, the experimental film called "Laura Run" that I plan to produce can also be explained very vividly. The concept of the butterfly effect. By then, if Fox can give some media resources support, through this movie, the concept of the "butterfly effect" will spread more widely. In the end, even if some people do not understand the meaning of this word, This vocabulary can also be a suspense that attracts viewers to enter the cinema as long as the overall popularity of the movie is put into operation."

Although aware of Simon’s careful thinking about using Fox to help promote his own movie, Simon’s rhetoric about film marketing still made David Giller, who just opened the script of “Laura Run”, nod his head slightly. .Next to David Giller, Brian de Palma was attracted by Simon's highly professional split-lens drawings.

Seeing that both were interested, Simon naturally shifted the topic to "Roller Run" and continued: "About "Roller Run", this is an experimental film with a parallel three-segment structure. The story is very simple , Laura’s boyfriend Manny accidentally lost $100,000. To prevent her boyfriend from being killed by her boss, Laura must raise $100,000 in 20 minutes and rush to Manny’s location. However, I want to use video games In order to show this story, according to the video game's reversion settings, in order to raise 100,000 US dollars and rush to his boyfriend, Laura made three different attempts in the same scene. The results of these three attempts are different. At the same time, every run of Lola has also caused a very subtle impact on the lives of some people who met on the road. These effects continue to magnify, which ultimately leads to completely different life trends for these people. This is the butterfly effect."

The script of "Rola Run" is not long. David Giller listened to Simon's comment and has quickly read the story of Lola hitting the woman pushing the stroller at the first intersection.Brian de Palma was attracted by Simon's split-lens drawings, and he did not ignore Simon's exposition. He looked up and asked, "Simon, how are you going to express this'butterfly effect'?"

"Photo montage," Simon replied succinctly: "Every time Lola meets with a clue person, he can insert a quick photo montage to show these people's subsequent life direction."

Hearing Simon's explanation, Brian de Palmas thought for a moment, and gradually showed an admiring expression on his face. He couldn't help raising his hand and tapping gently on the table, saying: "Very amazing idea."

Although he has already seen this form of expression in the script in advance, David Giller still nodded his head and praised without hesitation: "Excellent."

Both David Giller and Brian de Palma have been immersed in Hollywood for decades. The longer they stay together, the more they can experience how difficult it is to innovate in this circle. .

As Simon continued to explain, the two even felt faintly that if Simon's movie, if done, it would definitely become the object of many Hollywood filmmakers to learn to imitate in the future.

The waitress in the restaurant had already served lunch, but the three of them did not mean to dine.

After talking carefully for more than half an hour, David Giller said: "So, Simon, you mean, are you going to complete this movie with your "Butterfly Effect" manuscript?"

Simon nodded and said, "Yeah."

David Giller thought for a while and said: "Your contract is paid a total of 200,000 US dollars, excluding broker commissions and reserved taxes, and only a maximum of 150,000 US dollars. If you are shooting with a 16MM camera, you may also It’s enough, but it’s a waste of your script, why not make a standard 35MM film?”

Simon paused and said, "David, I originally planned to use 35MM film."

David Giller's tone was also paused this time, saying: "You mean, the movie is definitely two completely different production specifications. Your movie also involves a large number of location scenes, and there is no complete one. Professional crew support, it is very difficult to implement shooting. So, $150,000, it is impossible to complete the film."

Hearing David Giller, a well-known Hollywood producer with decades of production experience, Simon finally confirmed a doubt that had been lingering in his heart since this time.

The original version of "Roller Run", all aspects of the production level, whether it is the picture, soundtrack, lighting, scenery and even editing, there is no sign of too many low-cost movies.Simon had always thought that this might be due to the genius of director Tom Tikway.The production cost and flexibility of the film industry have always been very large.

Moreover, Simon does not know much about the general specifications of German film production.

The 350,000 German mark in memory, converted into US dollars, is about 180,000.Converted into RMB, it is almost 1.5 million.1.5 million yuan. In 1998, making a movie was definitely more than enough.

However, with the in-depth progress of all aspects of the preparation of "Roller Run" these days, Simon also feels that his own funds are a bit stretched to complete the film. Simon even began to subconsciously simplify the shooting specifications of some scenes.

Now, with David Giller's spot breaking, Simon finally confirms that he probably missed the budget size of "Rola Run".

Perhaps, in the original time and space, the production cost of "Roller Run" was not 350,000 German marks at all. I should be, I remember one less!