Hollywood legendary director

In the second week of April, after the "Oprah Talk Show" was recorded and aired, Paramount Pictures and Harp Television both released relevant news feeds. Under the baptism of this heat, it was originally at the box office. The slightly declining rise of "Three Fools in Bollywood" made a mid-range effort. It won US$8.8456 million in three days over the weekend and finally defended the weekly box office ranking champion this week with a result of US$12,234,200.

At this time, the film has as many as 1,320 theaters in North America, and the market performance of "Three Fools in Bollywood" nearly a month later made the premiere of "Hart's War" held this week. Can not help but ashamed.

By the third week, as other new works entered the theater one after another, "Three Fools in Bollywood" only received $5.3212 million in a single week, and the number of weekly box office champions ended in 3 weeks, ranking 9th.

According to the trend of this percentage decline in the box office, the potential of "Three Fools in Bollywood" in North America is almost exhausted, and Paramount Pictures has gradually begun to reduce the number of theaters showing it.

The media's attention to Lehman has also begun to fade, and his unwillingness to cooperate is also an important reason.

For example, "Vanity Fair" magazine wanted to invite him to shoot a group of photos, used as a cover and also as a small interview, but Lehman refused.

He would rather stay in the hotel to watch old movies, copy shooting techniques, or think about new movie ideas than to shoot photos.

Firstly, he didn't want to devote his energy to such indifferent things; secondly, taking photos and accepting interviews did not give much impetus to his career.

The latter is one of the most important factors.

He is a director, not an actor, and he does not need to rely on his face to eat, nor does he need a spotlight to enhance the potential value of his image.

Any magazine interviews, celebrity parties...you can’t indulge in these.

What he needs is to maintain his professionalism and to maintain progress, not to get lost in the temptation of success, and to wake up until the end of his life.

That's silly.

So Lehmann happily rejected the request of Vanity Fair and rejected many party invitations.He knows that the success of a movie is not determined by how many celebrity parties or magazine covers you have attended, but by the film itself.

By the time the film was finally drawn, the box office of "Three Fools in Bollywood" in North America was $97.26 million.

Only this place, Lehman can get dividends from it is likely to reach 2.95 million US dollars.

As the film went down, and under the strong request of Europa Pictures, the production, investment, distribution, and theaters of "Three Fools in Bollywood" were all prepared to share their own cakes.

According to relevant regulations in North America, if a film is shown for a long period of time, the theater will pay the distributor the first share in about a month, and the subsequent share will also vary with the agreement and the release time. , But most of them can achieve that the distributor can get all the box office share within the next week of the movie.

However, when this money is in the hands of the distributor, it is unknown when he will pay the producer and other beneficiaries.

Especially those independent filmmakers, distributors who have been dragging for a year and a half are not called procrastination at all. Even the six major Hollywood film studios with excellent reputation, debts and delays in payment are endless, and they have been brought to the Delaware Commercial Chancery Court. There are countless cases.

In other words, never overestimate the moral standards of Hollywood studios.

This is why Lehmann must first find Europa Pictures to find out. Just like Paramount Pictures, when facing such a film company with strong strength in France, they will never do it for these tens of millions. U.S. dollars lost big because of small losses.

In the end of April, an accounting firm entrusted by Lehman also participated in the whole process of splitting the accounts, and started close economic business dealings with Paramount Pictures and Europa Pictures, and checked the dense accounts of large and small. File and box office data of various regions are divided into calculations.

Lehman can't get involved in this kind of thing at all. His presence will have no effect except to add to the chaos. Although the professional accountants of PricewaterhouseCoopers charge high fees, they are worthy of entrustment in terms of their business capabilities and the company's reputation.

Besides, he also invited a law firm to represent Lehmann's Mann studio to supervise the whole process.

Double insurance is not too much.

After all, there are so many exchanges of interests involved, it is always right to be more careful.

Paramount Pictures signed the most conventional split account with the theaters. After the theaters deduct fixed expenses, they are divided into different proportions with the issuer during different periods of the screening, and after deducting miscellaneous payments such as taxes and fees. , Paramount Pictures got a little more than 52 million US dollars.

This part of the money, Europa Pictures does not have the right to use the first manual, as a real channel distributor, Paramount can first draw 31.2 million US dollars of it.

Fortunately, the costs of publicity and public relations and film copying do not need to be recalculated. The remaining 20.8 million US dollars were successfully delivered to Europa Pictures.

Looking at it this way, Paramount Pictures only spent about 12 million in costs, and achieved a return of 19.2 million US dollars.

Issuing companies have broad publicity channels and powerful distribution capabilities. It is not without reason that they can stand at the top of the industry. Such easy money making is really eye-catching.

After the money came to Europa Pictures, it began to divide the cake according to the director agreement signed with Lehmann.

Remuneration plus dividends, plus an additional red envelope bonus, Lehman received 3.4 million US dollars.

But this aspect of the North American market did not end in this way, because he had to pay federal personal income tax, California personal income tax to the tax bureau...

There are so many taxes in the United States that ordinary people can’t figure out how to deal with it according to regulations, let alone how to deal with it according to the regulations. Therefore, it was finally figured out under the arrangement of the accounting firm hired. The money will probably only be There were 2.95 million US dollars finally received.

After the United States’ accounts have been processed, there are more than 30 million box office revenues accumulated overseas that have not yet been calculated.

Up to now, the French mainland has also been drawn. Because of the gap in the market's own capacity, "Three Fools in Bollywood" only got more than 40 million euros at the box office.

More than 170 million box offices worldwide have accumulated.

Also, these are only part of the film’s revenue creation, and the surrounding operations of "Three Fools in Bollywood" are equally valuable.

The first is the copyright of television broadcasting and videotape, because the distributor is born with a 50% right.

Europa Pictures completely dominated the entire negotiation process.

After several seesaw-style biddings, the French video tape copyright of "Three Stupies in Bollywood" was sold for 7 million, and the TV copyright also received 5 million. Europa Pictures first took away 6 million from it.

The income split has reached this point, and Lehman also commissioned an accounting firm to ask Europa Pictures to settle the remaining part of the account that belongs to the director as soon as possible.

And the time limit is to see this payment within one month.

It's not that Lehmann is worried about his own part of the income, but that he doesn't believe in Europa Pictures' morality.

Oh, no, he doesn't believe in the ethical standards of any film company.

His Mann studio is just an empty shell, unable to play a strong supervisory role for Europa Pictures, and he does not have any effective financial monitoring measures, and Europa Pictures, as a publisher, falsely reports profits and offsets. There are many methods such as tax offsetting, but they can't think of it.

In particular, the operation of video tapes and film peripheral copyrights, which are long-term revenue, can be manipulated more and more secretly.

Yes, France has a variety of expressly stipulated laws to protect the benefits of all parties, but even in North America, where regulation is more stringent, Hollywood giants dare to pit the funds of the vampires on Wall Street, let alone Europa Pictures. It is the first step to gain exposure to film revenue in overseas markets all over the world.

This is not an era when information will be more circulated in the future. Supervision is simply a idiot. Instead of placing hopes on Europa Pictures’ corporate ethics, it is better to determine your own part of the income as soon as possible and then deliver it.As for the less, it doesn't matter, as long as you get the part of the income you have already seen.

In this way, Lehman’s income as a director is clear. The box office balance of 8.84 million (plus North American and overseas parts and tax deductions) and 7.6 million under various copyright proceeds, totaling 16.44 million US dollars.

The remaining long-term benefits depend on how Europa Pictures is willing to give it. Anyway, he got the money first.

Among them, as a personal reward, he crossed out 2.44 million (plus bonus money).

The remaining 14 million US dollars is deposited into the accounts of Mann Studio.

Public is public and private is private. The boundaries cannot be confused. Even Ryan, as the producer of part-time film management on set management, also has related remuneration to him, which is not included in the studio’s account. .

Although they are friends, they still have a clear distinction between public and private.

When doing business, public accounting involves individuals, which is the most undesirable.

After getting this huge sum of money, his life hasn't changed much, he still lives in the original apartment.

Oh, yes, he is now back in North America. Last time he went back, just to make a good account with Europa Pictures.

In addition, Ryan changed a car to facilitate everyone's travel.

Well, it was a Mercedes-Benz business car, which was much larger and more comfortable than his original car.

When the time came to the beginning of May, Paramount Pictures sent invitations as scheduled, inviting Lehman and other creative teams to one of their receptions.

They also came here for this.