Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 699 Ronald Asks Coppola

   Ronald came to Coppola's house on the outskirts of San Francisco.

  Coppola deliberately cooked by himself in the big house where the mortgage had been paid off, rectified a table of dishes, and served Ronald to dinner.

The "Cotton Club" he previously filmed had a budget of 50 million yuan. Obviously, he spent a lot of money on his "Diorama" company. Although it hurt the heroine Diane and the hero Richard Gere, he finally took the front. Two "Apocalypse Now" and "Old Love, New Love" led to the repayment of most of the huge high-interest loans.

   Ronald said hello to Coppola's wife, Eleanor, and handed Coppola the script. Several people drank the red wine of Coppola winery, accompanied by various Italian meats, and ate happily.

"Aha, sure you're not a director who just wants to make commercial high-concept movies, Ronald. I heard Pauline Carr in New York approached you, good, good. Your first film was How talented, only then entered the Hollywood creative mode, but this time you finally returned to the right path."

   "How do you say this? Why do you know so much just by looking at the cover?" Ronald was surprised, he hadn't told Coppola about the "moonlight sultry" plot before.

"Look at this script, there are so many coffee marks on the cover, you can see that it has been in the seven major studios for several times." Coppola pointed to the traces of coffee, red wine, etc. on the cover of the script to Ronald. said.

"This kind of script must be liked by people from all studios, but it does not conform to the current trend of commercial publicity, so it will be read repeatedly without results. If you hadn't seen it, it would have been silent. That company's script library."

  Coppola opened the script with his fingers and quickly flipped through it. Directors have the ability to read quickly, and Coppola can read quickly. After ten minutes, he knew that this was a Broadway-style movie that had nothing to do with gangsters or anything.

   Now the five major Italian families in New York are closely pursued by the prosecutor Rudy. Every family has high-level arrests and prosecutions. Seeing that their power is getting smaller and smaller, Coppola will soon not have to inform them of the need for any Italian script.

   "What do you think of this script? I have a great desire to create it, and my whole body is full of impulsiveness." Ronald ate a meatball, and he felt that he had regained a little passion for making his debut.

  Coppola took a sip of wine and ate a slice of salami, "Well, you're a romantic comedy, I don't mind."

  Coppola's romantic comedy "Old Love, New Love" threw the house, mortgaged the big house, and had a bad time with Mrs. Eleanor. In addition, he had a new love during that time, and he had a big conflict with his wife, and he almost got divorced. He stopped touching the subject after that.

"Actually, this time, I want to ask you face-to-face. I ran into a little problem when I signed the distributor. Several studios have verbally agreed, but they have not signed the contract. I know if they have any questions about the film I have doubts about being able to sell, but I have already made two super-selling movies, so can I be self-willed?"

   "The producers can't hear that, Ronald. Shhh..." Coppola laughed.

   "Actually, when we led the project, it was similar to the workers who stopped at the docks in San Francisco.

  When they landed on the shore, they would tie a thin rope to a small iron ball and throw it ashore, and then the workers on the shore would pick up the iron ball and keep pulling it up.

   Then a thicker rope, then a thicker rope, and finally a cable about the size of your wrist.

  If you throw the thick cable in the first place, you can't throw it ashore. "

   "Isn't that what it means to be abducted?" Ronald secretly complained.

   "Then how can I throw the rope where the seven studios can get it?"

"Cuckoo..." Coppola looked very happy, "You still have less contact with us Italian filmmakers. The stereotype of Italians in Hollywood is that they like to talk big, no matter what position we are in, we always show Show that you are here to beg me, I have many choices.

   This is not our arrogance, but good. It's called the boss mentality, and you can try it. It was like that when I was filming The Godfather. There were a few people who wanted to replace my directorship, and I went over and fired them first.

   I still don’t know if I have the authority to fire them, but I just did it, and the results of the later samples were good, so they approved it. "

   "Hey..." Ronald understood in his heart, isn't it just bragging?

These seven major studios are also in a competitive relationship. It is impossible to share everything with the executives of the other party. As long as they are bold, they can use a gap to cut in. When they see their self-confidence, I am afraid not Ask yourself back.

   After thinking about his style of conduct, Ronald probably had an idea. Of course, he couldn't completely copy Coppola's approach, it had to conform to his usual attitude.

  The biggest problem was solved, Ronald let go of his body and mind and started to devour Coppola's food, constantly praising the deliciousness of Italian food, which made Coppola's wife very happy.

   "So after The Godfather, when you were an independent diorama production company, did you use this method to deal with Hollywood?"

After three rounds of wine, Ronald began to compliment Coppola's directorial level.

  Coppola was coaxed very happily by the new box office winner, and talked about the past.

"Actually, when George Lucas was in the diorama, his 'American Diorama' was once requested by the publisher Universal to edit it. That executive didn't understand anything, but he had to cut out a few shots to show it. his power.

   At that time, George was very unhappy. I saw how uncomfortable he was, and I felt that Universal was disrespecting my employees. I took out the checkbook and signed a $600,000 producer to buy back George's rights from Universal.

  Universal saw that I was so determined, so he began to smooth things out, and finally agreed to reduce the cut shots. I also persuaded George to modify a few insignificant places.

  Hey, now it seems that this is my biggest mistake in running the diorama film business. Instead of taking the check back, I should insist on buying the copy rights. American style paintings finally sold more than 100 million box office in North America in 1973. "

   "By the way, in your new film, the hero is named Ronnie. Did you change it on purpose?" Coppola talked about Ronald's new film.

   "No, the original author was originally called this name."

"This writer must be Italian and write our lives very well. I bet more than half of the scenes in the whole script were shot in the kitchen, we Italians are like that, what a thing, sweet, frustrating Yes, maybe what others think is irrelevant, is a big thing for us Italians and needs to be solved in the kitchen.

   We have a proverb in Italy, the table is God. "

Ronald smiled and didn't say that the screenwriter was Irish, "That's right, I really like these scenes of eating around the table. But it's a test for casting, maybe I need to find more drama actors, they compare Get used to this kind of play."

   "Ronnie, who are you looking for?" Coppola asked, "It must be very explosive, it is not easy to find, and many of the plots are driven by him here."

   "This character has a very painful heart, so I plan to find an actor who is full of pain inside."

   Ronald looked at Coppola, "Has Nick picked up a new show recently?"

   "Oh, hahaha... He didn't pick up a new drama after Peji Su was going to get married."

  Coppola saw that Ronald was very good, and heard what he meant, and asked Nick Cage to audition. Very happy, Ronald has a lot of respect for this Italian culture of helping each other, such a good boy. It's just a pity that it's not Italian, but it's nothing, as long as you marry an Italian girl, you can be considered an Italian director's successor.

   The nephew of Nicolas Cage, although he changed his stage name and is no longer called Coppola, is the son of his eldest brother after all. When he was shooting Peggy Sue, he had too many ideas and had a deep conflict with the heroine Katherine Turner.

  Cage insisted on using a hoarse, slurred voice to portray the heroine Peggy Sue's husband. Kathryn Turner couldn't accept playing opposite a slurred man, and nearly contacted the producers to switch Cage midway through.

  Thanks to Coppola's mediation, there was no change of roles, and the filming was barely finished.

After the film came out, there was no chemistry between Cage and Katherine Turner on the screen. The two did not have the sweetness of a high school sweetheart at all, and their affection with middle-aged couples, but divorced couples disliked each other very much. reality.

   Looking at it this way, Cage's choice was still wrong. Even if your understanding of the characters is correct, it's not worth the damage to destroy the chemistry between the most important hero and heroine in the movie.

  This made Cage very hurt, and he was in a bad mood, but it was a bit in tune with the kind of inner pain actor Ronald was looking for.

   "I'm so happy today. You have time to come to the premiere of my Peggy Sue's getting married..."

   Coppola drank too much wine, and after talking for a while, he started to doze off.

   Ronald saw that he was very tired, so he asked his wife Eleanor, "Is Francis busy now? Is the new film finished?"

"Yes, his new film 'Stone Garden' has just finished filming on location at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. Plus he was busy revising the copy of 'Peggy Sue's Getting Married' and he was very tired during this time. .

   But I'm glad that Francis finally paid off the mortgage on the house. This is the house we bought after the first The Godfather movie was released. There are sweet memories of our family here. I don't want the bank to take him away. "

   "I don't think so, Francis has found his genius, and everyone says he plays best under pressure. You don't have to worry too much."

  …

   returned to Hollywood, Ronald found Nisita, and the two went to see Tanin, the president of Paramount.

"Ned, I have a lot of studios competing for this movie. We've always had a good time working together, so I'll give you a little more time, two weeks. Think about it, in two weeks if you don't have a conclusion, I'll go with someone else. Signed."

   Ronald said what he had been practicing for a long time.

   "Have you got the heroine? Cher agreed?" Ned Tanin was very nervous and quickly asked the heroine about the progress.

   "Not yet, and I don't necessarily have to use her. I've sent scripts to Sally Field, Barbara Hirsch, and Diane Keaton. I don't set any restrictions on who is suitable."

   "Two weeks? Two weeks? Well, I'll give you an answer in two weeks." Ned Tanin sent Ronald away.

   He closed them, drew the curtains, and thought about things in the dim light.

   "Is Ronald really competing with other studios? Or did he learn this Hollywood rhetoric from someone? It's really a headache."

   (end of this chapter)