Chapter 175 The strong dragon does not overwhelm the local snake, going round and round to return to the root
It was said before that around 1980, Golden Harvest wanted to send Jackie Chan to Hollywood, but they didn’t understand the market and were not acclimatized, which caused the movie "Killer's Trenches" to go up and down, and the long-term screening only got 8 million. At the box office, there was only a little splash.
Although they spent a lot of money later, with an investment of 18 million, "Cannonball Speed" was released, and the box office performance of 72 million seemed to be boundless, but Uncle Long was a dead-on-the-job in it, and he couldn't get any invitations. credit.
Later, because of the box office hit, it was mentioned that the sequel "Cannonball Run 2" by the male third film was a big hit, with an investment of 20 million, but only 28 million in the box office.
They didn't believe in evil and continued to make a movie "The Dragon Detective". Even if it sold meat in the European and American versions, it only earned 980,000 at the box office. Ever since, the situation of three consecutive career attacks was formed. .
To be fair, in the show business circle, if an actor plays the leading role in three consecutive attacks, no investors will use him.
But this is a pot of market development, and Uncle Long himself is still very popular in Xiangjiang.
In addition, in the same year that "The Dragon Detective" hit the street, four films "Fu Xing Zhao Zhao", "Summer Lucky Star", "Police Story" and "Dragon Heart" were released, making Uncle Long the first in the history of Hong Kong movies. A guy who single-handedly dominated the top four box office charts for the whole year.
While writing legends, they are no longer entangled in Hollywood.
Instead, he re-rooted in Xiangjiang and continued to work as a desperate Saburo.
But people, you have to think a little bit, right?
In the area of Xiangjiang, it was praised by the audience as "Two Mondays", which has already touched the ceiling of the market.
After all, Uncle Long had just won the top four records in the annual box office rankings by himself. Two years later, he made eleven films a year, six of which entered the top ten box office, and won the box office runner-up with "Prison Storm" Fa Ge to break.
Following that, Master Xing won the box office for four consecutive times, and created the miracle of winning the top five box office rankings by himself in 1992.
In this case, even if the three of them decide the winner, the audience will not lift one of them to the altar. In addition, after Fa Ge finished filming "Peace Hotel", he also intends to go to Hollywood to develop, so, with " Uncle Long, who once again touched the box office ceiling of Xiangjiang, picked up the ambition he left behind ten years ago and wanted to come to Hollywood to have a try.
After learning his lesson, he made another shot...
Naturally, it is impossible to follow the old path of failure!
Even the high-spirited Xu Wenqiang knew to ask Wu Baige for help, and asked the other party to find a good book for him. Uncle Long, who had once stumbled on the problem of having no connections, was aiming at his big senior brother of course!
Many people said that Baye Yuan and Uncle Long had a feud, because after "Drunken Master" and "Serpentine Hand", the two stopped cooperating.
And in various public occasions in the future, Yuan Baye said that Li Lianjie, the kung fu emperor with whom he had mutual contacts, was better than Uncle Long. Of course, special venues like IKEA Home City are not counted.
After all, in the case of using weapons to fight with weapons, if the purple sweet potato essence comes, you have to kneel down to Uncle Long.
It is precisely because of this kind of non-cooperation and belittlement that people feel that they have long since died of old age.
But in fact, the two of them didn't cooperate back then, purely because Uncle Long's artist contract was signed in the company of his adoptive father Luo Wei, and Uncle Long's adoptive father Luo Wei was a firefighter and took photos with Bruce Lee. He is the director of "Brother Tangshan", "Fist of Fury", and the only guy who directly **** off Bruce Lee on the set.
When filming "Fist of Fury", Luo Wei and Bruce Lee each had a grand master's chair, facing each other madly. In the end, it was a martial arts show. Bruce Lee drew his sword and almost chopped Luo Wei off!
After parting ways with Bruce Lee, Luo Wei, who continued to make kung fu movies, found Uncle Long who was about to change his career as a chef. It wasn't until Yuan Baye and his father borrowed Uncle Long from Luo Wei's hands and started the road of kung fu comedy that Uncle Long finally became popular.
As soon as Uncle Long became popular, Luo Wei felt that nonsense was evil, so he asked Uncle Long back again. There was a contract, and Yuan Baye had no choice but to watch Uncle Long live again with tens of thousands of yuan per play. life.
That's right, he is obviously a adopted son, but the treatment is about the same as the 9527 in Hua Taishi's residence.
Due to the low salary, Uncle Long was taken over by Golden Harvest not long after, and Baye Yuan, who lost Uncle Long, also found a substitute with his boss Siyuan Films—Chinese-American Li Yuanba.
I don't know if it is the head of the eighteen heroes of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the reincarnation of the golden-winged roc eagle, who tore up the world's second Yuwen Chengdu, killed the world's third Pei Yuanqing with three hammers, and Li Yuanba, who killed an army of 1.2 million. Can't afford it.
After the popularity of "Dragon Ninja" and being called "the new generation of Jackie Chan", this guy called himself the number one hero in the world, and said to the Treasure Island producer who wanted to bid for him:
"If you can handle my boss Wu Siyuan, I'll make a movie for you."
Hearing this promise, Yuan Baye's boss, Wu Siyuan, was directly beaten and seriously injured by the underworld in Baodao. In a panic, Yuan Baye and Wu Siyuan issued a banning order, personally banning the second-generation Uncle Long who had finally found it.
Even if he apologized, he ignored it. After all, this act of hiring a murderer to beat the boss is more brain-dead than Gobert.
After that, Yuan Baye became a martial arts instructor with peace of mind and cooperated with Golden Harvest for a long time. Uncle Long's "Double Dragon Club", which won more than 30 million box office in 1992, was his martial arts guide. kung fu comedy.
The conflicts between the two of them all arose because of Luo Wei, and with the decline of Luo Wei, the two had no other scruples.
Especially after learning that his elder brother Yuan Baye was "accidentally" hired by Hollywood as an action director, this guy who wanted to break into Hollywood again naturally aimed at Roland who specially invited the elder brother to Hollywood .
To put it bluntly, even if Golden Harvest maintained a good cooperative relationship with New Line before, in front of Roland, Warner's subsidiary New Line is a younger brother! Being able to climb up the relationship with Roland is equivalent to getting six levels of distribution resources!
Although they didn't know the twists and turns in "The Seven Deadly Sins" and "The Shawshank Redemption" a few months ago, it doesn't matter, they just need to know that when Roland releases the movie, he can find a bunch of guys they can't afford Just give it an endorsement!
They just need to understand that selling "Red Fan District" to Roland, the profits they get will definitely crush the new line, and that's enough!
But the problem is, just as they were procrastinating, they visited Los Angeles and wanted to meet Roland...
Roland, the little sheep, has been fooled by the truck driver and ran away...
Can't get in touch!
This special code is annoying!
You know, in order to seize this opportunity, Uncle Long went to find his godfather, the founder of Golden Harvest, He Guanchang. "Sold out a long time ago!
Why wait until now?
"What should we do now? We can't sit here all the time, can we?" After making a few calls and confirming that Roland's cell phone was turned off, Uncle Long leaned back and fell on the sofa.
At this moment, he is as helpless as Sun Zhengyi who wants to do good things.
I asked for door-to-door delivery but couldn’t deliver it. Is there any reason for this?
"How about we go directly to Sony?" Seeing the situation, AngLee who was sitting on the side suggested.
He can understand Uncle Long's mood at the moment.
Three years ago, when "The Wedding Banquet" was looking for a distribution company, he was even more desperate than Uncle Long now when he hit the wall one after another.
"Go to Sony? Can this work?" Uncle Long, who wanted to seize the opportunity to show his talents, was hesitant. "After all, New Line is a subsidiary of Warner. If we contact Roland, it will be considered that New Line has an idea. They There is no way to move Roland, and if we contact Sony directly and get rejected, it will not be easy to go back and find a new line."
"New Line will think that we treat him as a spare tire. Since we don't value them, they won't value us."
"I'm different from you, you've been working with Sony all the time."
In addition to the first "Pushing Hands", Roland bought the next "Wedding Banquet" and "Eating and Drinking Men and Women" at a one-off price, and then threw them directly to Sony for distribution.
Not only that, the "Sense and Sensibility" with an investment of up to 16 million is also a project of Sony.
Or in other words, with just the label 'Roland likes his work', he has been able to obtain a high degree of creative freedom from the project; in the eyes of most people, he has already won the award for the best foreign language film with "The Wedding Banquet". Ang Lee is Roland's man, as long as he doesn't waste money recklessly, he will turn a blind eye to the production director who is following the crew.
After all, in Sony's territory, no one will have trouble with Roland.
"Why don't you call Sony and ask about the situation?"
Although Uncle Long couldn't go straight to Sony due to the relationship between various parties, Yuan Baye understood that just waiting here is not a problem!
"You make a phone call, pretend to ask about the box office of "Sense and Sensibility", and tell them by the way that you want to thank Roland, but his cell phone cannot be reached, and ask Sony if he knows where he went. "
yes!
This method works!
After reacting, Uncle Long regained hope, and Ang Lee, who had helped Roland find Mr. Yuan, did not hesitate and dialed Sony directly. But when he said something politely and went straight to the point, the answer Sony gave him was , it made him look dark.
"Miss Evelyn, what do you mean, Roland Allen was still on the phone with you this morning?"
"Oh, I see. After he handed over everything to you, he flew to Mexico with director James Cameron to officially join the crew of a new project invested by Fox?"
"But the flight from Los Angeles to Mexico seems to be more than three hours?"
"They should be here by now!"
"Huh? You don't know the specific things?"
"So, is there any other way to reach him?"
"Yes, yes, yes, I have something to ask him."
"It's more urgent."
"It's about the movies."
"Uh...you misunderstood, it's not about the release of Sense and Sensibility, it's..."
"Yes, just looking for someone."
"What? You said that if I'm just looking for someone, I can call Kate directly?"
"Kate? Which Kate?"
"Kate Winslet?!!"
"Didn't she just go to the premiere of Sense and Sensibility with me?"
"What? You said she was picked by director James Cameron?...Ah, that's not right! You said that she has already entered the shortlist and is waiting for Roland and James to make a decision? So, she should be in Mexico too?"
...
That's right, when the truck driver told Roland that you should start with a relationship, it meant that he had already selected the actress, or in other words, the final list was in his hands.
In fact, after Roland was finalized to participate in the film, the truck driver modified the script on his own initiative, setting the age of both the male and female protagonists at seventeen, and when screening, it was even simpler. Isn't it over for Roland to choose his age?
The first thing that came into his eyes was Alisa Dushku, who had collaborated in "True Lies", that is, the daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie, how to make the governor's son and daughter fall in love An exciting thing;
Secondly, Claire Danes, who won the 52nd Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series with "My So-Called Life", has already taken the lead in cooperating with Xiao Lizi in "Romeo and Juliet". I just don't know if Roland would mind;
Besides, there is Rose Byrne, a guy with the same name as Rose, the heroine of "Titanic". She is also a child star and starred in "Dallas Dolls" at the age of twelve. The most impressive thing is The heroine in "Latent" in Wan Ziren's horror universe is also the first lover of Professor X in "X-Men: Apocalypse";
Of course, Christina Ricci, the heroine of "The Ghost Horse" invested and produced by Amblin Entertainment last year, is also within the scope of the truck driver's confirmation, and like Kelly who made her debut with Disney's "The Mickey Mouse Club"- Russell was also on the list, as was Gabrielle Anwar, who played Al Pacino's dance moves in "Scent of a Woman."
The truck driver's way of finding someone is very simple, that is, just scroll up according to Roland's age.
As for the standard, there are only three...
Young, who meet the age requirement of a seventeen-year-old young girl;
Beautiful ones must amaze the audience at a glance, so various global beauties rankings have become a real help for truck drivers to browse and search;
While satisfying these two points, it must also be Roland's favorite.
After all, this is not him acting, but Roland acting.
If Roland stares at the heroine and doesn't move, then don't shoot this romance movie, just pack it up and go home, wash up and sleep!
Although Fox is willing to spend money desperately for Roland's sake, truck drivers will not relax their standards and lower their requirements because the money comes too easily; with tickets to New York, Fox really doesn't care about the profit and loss of the entire movie , but if it was really a loss, it would be Roland and his job, so...
In the words of the truck driver, that is—
"This time you choose the heroine yourself, but my personal suggestion is to choose one you like, and then really have a relationship."
"You have half a year to prepare. During this period, I will keep your mobile phone. Of course, if your assistants and bodyguards must find you, then I can't help it. After all, I can't leave them in Los Angeles."
"but…"
"I want you to remember..."
"It's not that we don't want to lose, but we can't lose..."
"For them, our influence in front of the public is the most valuable thing..."
"The fact that they accept you doesn't mean it's safe. Before you officially transform, your fans are the foundation for you to stand firm..."
“Our goal is not to surpass Jurassic Park…”
"It is to create the love of the century that moves the world..."
"Have to..."
Note: ① Fa Ge's first film in Hollywood, "Stand-In Killer", was actually Zhang Jiazhen and Wu Yusen as sponsors. They are the producers, and the investor WCG is theirs. They didn't invest money from their own people. How could it be the first film? Just be the protagonist? ②The matter of Bruce Lee slashing Luo Wei was not news from the roadside news agency, Jin Yong used his own name in "Ming Pao" to hammer it out. As for how Jin Yong would know, Ni Kuang who ghost-written "Tian Long Ba Bu" and blinded Ah Zi was the screenwriter used by Luo Wei, and "Jing Wu Men" where the accident happened was co-edited by Ni Kuang and them. (The characters in Quentin's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" actually quoted these people's Xiangjiang reports) ③Jackie Chan has two fathers and one father. The two fathers are the biological father and his master Yu Zhanyuan. , he was the adoptive father when he was in Lo Wei Pictures, but after he left Golden Harvest, he stopped calling him that. ④Maybe many people don't know about Li Yuanba, he was promoted by Yuan Heping to stand up to Jackie Chan, but it's a pity that his brain is not very good. ⑤Why did you cooperate with Jackie Chan on New Line? Because New Line bought Golden Harvest's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". ⑥All the actresses who appeared in this article have participated in the audition for "Titanic", and Rose's age in the script is indeed seventeen years old. There was also Macaulay Culkin on the invitation list, but his father was very noisy at the time, so he was not allowed to go. In reality, Cameron was gradually looking for actors as he got older step by step.
(end of this chapter)