Hollywood Hunter

Taking back the post-production power of "Rainman", Simon didn't expect Barry Levinson to remain silent as he hoped.

What Simon didn't expect was that the next day, "The Hollywood Reporter" quickly published the front page news of "Barry Levinson was forced to withdraw from the later period of "Rainman"", and the article completely put Barry Levinson on the victim. From the standpoint, Simon described the whole process of Simon's indiscriminate interference in the production of the film from the filming stage of "Rainman" until yesterday, when Barry Levinson was forcibly kicked by Simon from his own project.

As scheduled in advance, on the day of the news, the two stars of "Rainman" Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were interviewed by CNN at the same time, accusing Simon of disrespecting the film creator.

Immediately afterwards, the American Directors Union issued a statement on Friday, claiming that it would investigate whether Daenerys Pictures had violated the rights of the directors.

In just a few days, Daenerys Pictures was quickly pushed to the center of a storm of public opinion.

Hollywood has always been a producer-centric system.

Whether it was Toby Hopper, the director of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the early 1980s, who was shot by the producer Spielberg in the "Ghost Drive" project, or "Justice" in Simon’s memory many years later. "League" redirected the tragedy, the director was kicked out of the film production process is very common.

However, more ordinary people are obviously not too concerned about these things.

Under the hype of the media accustomed to sensationalism, an event common in Hollywood was quickly rendered into a scandalous event.

new York.

Morton Street in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan.

Not far from New York University is a nine-story red brick building, which is the East Coast headquarters of New World Entertainment.

Nine-storey red brick building, New World Entertainment occupies six of them, half of the company's more than 110 employees except Marvel are here, and the other half are in Los Angeles.The office space on the sixth floor is more than enough for more than 50 employees. The current staff size of New World Entertainment is actually the result of several layoffs.

Because of its focus on TV program production, New World Entertainment’s East Coast originally had nearly a hundred employees, and nearly half of its layoffs in the past six months.It is only because the lease of the office building has not yet expired that this has always occupied a lot of free space.

The time is August 2, after a month-long financing and auditing work, Simon officially signed the acquisition agreement with the chairman of New World Entertainment Larry Cooper at the east coast headquarters of this company. Small and high-level executives have therefore gathered in New York.

In the morning, the various signing and handover processes ended. The two companies were mainly executives of New World Entertainment, large and small, and gathered in the largest meeting room in the office building after lunch.

Simon next intends to use the six-story office building directly as Daenerys Entertainment’s East Coast headquarters.Although he has bought several buildings with better conditions in Shangcheng District, according to the plan, the residents there will probably not start moving until around 1990.

Although it is the longest season in summer, a long meeting involving a series of issues such as personnel adjustments, financial planning, and project discussions has been held until the beginning of the Manhattan lantern.Fortunately, to avoid a company bankruptcy when everyone lost their jobs, but also followed a promising new owner, everyone's interest is very high.

At the end of the meeting, Daenerys Pictures also arranged a dinner party at a nearby hotel, so until ten o'clock in the middle of the night, all the talents dispersed.

Simon failed to be free, but returned to the New World Entertainment Headquarters with Amy Pascal, Robert Rem, and Robert Iger, who had successfully resigned from ABC to join Daenerys Pictures.

Everyone sat down in a small meeting room. Jennifer personally delivered coffee to everyone. Simon took the coffee handed over by the female assistant and whispered thanks, but the expression was not so easy.

"Simon, things continue to ferment like this,

If it is not necessary, after a busy day, everyone will naturally not gather together late at night.

What was being discussed at this time was naturally the incident of Barry Levinson being fired suddenly out of the past few days.Simon did not let this matter affect the work rhythm of Daenerys Pictures. He completed the acquisition of New World Entertainment step by step, and finally took this company and its most important Marvel Entertainment.

However, in any case, Daenerys Pictures must still face this problem.

What Simon has been wondering these days is why Barry Levinson made this known to everyone. Even, there is obviously a CAA shadow behind this.Although it is a first-line director, without the support of the entire CAA, Barry Levinson simply cannot make things so big in just a few days.

Everyone is a businessman after all.

If there is a demand, CAA can fully contact with himself, and should not tear his face so unabashedly, which is actually not good for both parties.Although the media is generally inclined to Barry Levinson, Hollywood is not short of discerning people.

Who hasn’t produced a few directors?

The people of your CAA family are so coquettish that if you are aggrieved, you will make things worse. All parties must be very careful when choosing cooperation.

However, these days, Simon has not received any news from the CAA.

With a habit of playing with a pencil in his hand, Simon lowered his head and glanced at it, and suddenly found out that he always seemed to be able to find a pencil on hand.He looked up suspiciously, and noticed the figure of Jennifer, and that was it.

Can't help but glance at a few ponytails shaking between the female assistant's movements, Simon quickly withdrew his attention, nodded at the already-received Robert Rem, and looked at the others: "What do you mean?"

Amy shook her head in silence.

Robert Iger has just been thinking about it all the time and heard Simon's inquiry, saying: "Recently, I always feel that I can't wait" in it."

Simon wondered: "Huh?"

Robert Iger sorted out his thoughts again and said, "If the information I know is correct, you just expelled Barry Levinson. This incident broke out the next day, and it was too deliberate and too anxious."

Robert Rem said: "Bob, it's nothing. You should know how powerful Ovits is in Hollywood. He only needs to make a few calls."

"Indeed, but, if it is me, I will definitely choose to communicate with Simon first, and then use these methods only if the negotiation is not correct," Robert Iger said, looking at Simon, saying: "But, Simon, Austria Witz didn’t contact you, did he?

Simon nodded and looked at Amy.

"We tried to contact CAA, but over there said that Ovitz went to Japan."

"If CAA intends to settle this matter, this is not a problem," Iger shook his head. "The problem now is that CAA has no intention of reconciliation. They seem to want to embarrass us."

Amy said: "Although we are not as good as the Seventh Party Congress, CAA should not be stupid enough to be completely stiff with us. There must be something inside that we don't know."

Robert Rem also said at this time: "Perhaps, is it possible that this is the Seventh Congress behind?"

Amy and Iger heard the words and were silent.

This summer file, which has entered the final stage, although Paramount Pictures has successfully won two box office billion yuan club films through two simple and full-saturated full-scale releases, but during this time, Hollywood's light has almost gathered in Dan Niris Pictures.

In addition to "Pulp Fiction" and "Instinct", Daenerys Pictures also launched a reality show like "Who Will Be a Millionaire".

These days, the company has also successfully sold another reality show "Big Brother" to Fox Television Network at a high price of $1 million per issue. Compared to the "survivor" with only more than ten issues per season, "Big Brother" has It is a standard 23 issues per season.

Moreover, shooting in a closed environment in a house, the production cost of each issue of "Big Brother" is almost the same as that of "Who Will Be a Millionaire", all around $30,

In addition, there is advertising revenue. Because of the demonstration success of "Who Will Be a Millionaire", the sponsorship cost of the program "Big Brother" is also enough to cover the production budget. Daenerys film industry equals 23 million easily. The net profit of the US dollar is credited, and the right to renegotiate according to the program viewing status in the next season is also retained.

Calculated, the three reality shows sold in the past few months, only the first quarter total can bring about $200 million in pre-tax profits for Daenerys, and the performance of the seven major universities in recent years is not counted Too good Colombia and MGM, the annual net profit scale may not be able to reach 200 million US dollars.

The reason why Mu Xiu is bound to be destroyed by Lin Feng is applicable to any industry in any country. Daenerys' film performance is too dazzling, and competitors will certainly not be indifferent.

but.

In the conference room, Simon immediately ruled out the possibility of the seven major shots.

Although "Pulp Fiction" and "Instinct" are very successful, but the studio has obtained profit sharing.Just like "Pulp Fiction", it is expected that only North America can get a box office of 150 million US dollars. Daenerys can only get 10% of the box office share and 5% of the North American local video tape sales share. The big head was still taken by Orion."Instinct" also gave half of the proceeds to Fox. As for several others, they still have or have relationships with Daenerys Films or look forward to this cooperative relationship. There is no incentive to make such harm to others. Things.

Even if it is the four major television networks, except for the CBS that has not been able to grab "Big Brother" and the "Beverly Wife", the other three companies have no incentive to do so to ensure the success of several reality TV shows.

motivation?

motivation!

Suddenly, Simon finally captured the key to the matter.

Michael Ovitz is not a fool, but is very smart and realistic.Then, if there is not enough motivation, he will not do the same.

The question now is.

What is the motivation for this whole thing?

Listening to the comments of Amy and others, Simon re-examined the cause and effect of the whole thing again and again. Suddenly, he finally understood something.

"OK, I probably know why Barry Levinson did this," tapped the table lightly, interrupting several people. Simon said: "It's too late, everyone go back to rest as soon as possible. Jenny, you arrange Take a look at the plane tomorrow morning and contact Ovitz by the way. He should be back. I will see him when I arrive in Los Angeles tomorrow."

Everyone was confused, Amy asked, "Simon, what the hell is going on?"

Simon stood up and said, "Amy, do you remember the broken things during the filming of "Rainman"? Whether it's Dustin Hoffman or Tom Cruise, and Barry Levinson, they A few are very optimistic about this project."

Amy nodded.

For this reason, during the filming of "Rainman", the entire crew was almost a play mentality. Everyone felt that this project was about to be smashed. Dustin Hoffman started shooting the film for the second week because of this project. The prospects are not good, even on the set, because of some small things, they shouted to the producer, "You go to Jack Nicholson, I don’t want to shoot", and finally I was persuaded to come back. Ting Hoffman and Tom Cruise even directly referred to the roles they played as'Two Fools Sitting in the Car'.

Obviously, judging from what Barry Levinson did in the later part of the film, the director's mentality is the same.

Simon felt the curious gaze of several people, and directly broke the point: "This is a big production costing 25 million US dollars after all, because Barry Levinson and Dustin Hoffman all think that this project will be box office. A disastrous defeat, which in turn affects your reputation and coffee positions, so if you are, what would you do?"

Amy Pascal, Robert Rem and Robert Egger glanced at the same time, and similar thoughts flashed in their minds.

However, none of the three spoke.

Obviously.

Shirk responsibility

However, this kind of thing is obviously not to be too agile, and probably few bosses will want to see employees who like to shirk their responsibilities.

Simon looked at the expression on the faces of the three people and knew they had understood.

Since Simon gave Barry Levinson a memorandum of his opinion on the modification of Rain Man a few days ago, rumors of Barry Levinson accusing Simon of excessive interference with this project have continued to appear in the circle.

Later, because of the serious'disagreement' with Simon about the direction of the film's creation, Barry Levinson naturally let himself be fired by Simon.Then, a few did not want to carry the bad reputation of making a box office disastrous film, of course, decisively throw this black pot on Simon.

Now that the situation is full of storms, even if the next box office of Rain Man hits the street, the public will obviously only blame Simon for the responsibility, and several of the film's main creators have become victims in the blink of an eye.