Hollywood Director 1992.

Chapter 298 What? A trap falling from the sky?
Daniel DeVito did not come alone. He was accompanied by a middle-aged man with brown curly hair and a hooked nose.

Link also knew this person, Donald Simpson, the gold medal producer of Hollywood and the owner of Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films. He had participated in the production of films such as "Days of Thunder", "Flashdance", "Beverly Hills Cop 1/2/3", etc., and made stars such as Tom Cruise famous.

Link was curious about the other party's intention.

After the meeting, the two sides exchanged a few pleasantries, and Donald Simpson mentioned his intention. He had a big movie project and wanted to cooperate with Guess What Pictures.

Link was quite surprised. Donald Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were gold medal producers who often cooperated with the Big Seven Studios in the name of their companies to shoot large projects with costs of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

Although the two have not produced any successful movies in the past five years, they are also gold medal producers. A person's reputation is like a tree's shadow. The film projects they are interested in are the objects that the seven major film studios are vying for cooperation.

Now, when Guess What Pictures was under siege by the seven major film studios and many independent filmmakers and film companies were afraid to cooperate with Guess What Pictures, Donald Simpson took the initiative to find Guess What Pictures to cooperate with him with his film project.

This thoughtfulness is touching, and Link is looking forward to working with the other party.

He took the initiative to ask for the other party's script, and would consider cooperation as long as the script was not too bad.

The script brought by Donald Simpson is called "The Rock", which can be translated into "Rock" or "Indestructible", etc. The specific translation depends on the content of the story.

This script tells the story of a civilian hero.

The story begins with Fran Hammer, a retired brigadier general who participated in the Vietnam War. He was dissatisfied with the U.S. government's compensation and welfare policies for veterans, fallen soldiers and their families. He led his subordinates in an uprising, smuggled the U.S. military's latest biological and chemical weapons to Rock Island, and hijacked 81 tourists.

The rebels used the hostages as bargaining chips and demanded that the US government pay a ransom of $48 million within 1 hours, otherwise they would execute the hostages and attack San Francisco with poison gas bombs.

Rock Island was once the most heavily guarded prison in the United States. It had a strategic location and was easy to defend but difficult to attack.

After the hijacking, the San Francisco police sent a task force to attempt to raid the island, but were completely wiped out.

Just when the police were about to give up the operation, a construction engineer named Stanley volunteered to lead the team to attack Rock Island again.

Stanley had participated in the construction and maintenance of the prison and knew that there was a secret passage inside the prison that led directly to the core building on the island.

But when the police asked him to draw a detailed route, Stanley said the entrance was extremely hidden and could only be found if he was there in person.

After heated discussions, the police finally agreed to his plan and sent a second task force to follow him to Rock Island to carry out the rescue operation.

In fact, Stanley volunteered to fight because his wife and daughter were among the 81 hostages.

If the police give up the operation to rescue the hostages, his family will not be able to escape the disaster.

In order to save his wife and daughter, Stanley successfully led the task force into Rock Island with his in-depth understanding of the prison structure.

At the critical moment of the operation, he personally dismantled the device used by the robbers to launch biological weapons, completely shattering Hammer's plan.

In the end, Stanley not only rescued his wife and daughter, but also successfully rescued all the hostages. He became a civilian hero and was cheered by everyone.

After reading the script, Link felt somewhat familiar. After thinking about it carefully, he felt that the plot of the first third was similar to "The Rock" starring Nicolas Cage.

However, the main plot of "The Rock" is that Brigadier General Frank Hammer led dozens of retired Marines to occupy Rock Island and took 81 tourists as hostages to demand the US government.

In order to rescue the hostages, the US government arranged for former British agent John Mason to go to the island to rescue them.

John Mason once served time in the island prison and later successfully escaped from the island. He knew the route to the island better, and as long as he saved the tourists, he could be forgiven of his crime.

The film's protagonist is Stanley, a biological weapons scientist. His original mission was to monitor John Mason and prevent him from escaping. Later, he helped John Mason enter the island, rescue the hostages, and defeat the rebels led by Frank Hammer.

The previous version was rather dull and the dialogue wasn’t very interesting, whereas the dialogue in the movie version is more humorous and witty, with rich content and many popular memes.

Link read it again and thought to himself that the first version should be the original version, and the second version was a revised version with many revisions.

In fact, many original scripts are very different from the movies that are released. The reason is that the script has to be revised many times before it is made into a movie, and it will be revised repeatedly during the filming process. When the movie is edited, the script story will change again in order to consider the box office and the film market.

It's not even telling the same story.

This has also led to many directors writing and directing their own films in order to ensure the integrity of the script story.

"Director Link, what do you think of this script? Does it have the potential to be a big hit at the box office?"

Donald Simpson saw that he had finished watching, put down his coffee cup and asked. Link nodded, "It's very good, with gunfights, explosions, rapids, hand-to-hand combat, explosion scenes, etc. The plot is compact and thrilling, and it's worth investing in."

Donald Simpson's eyes lit up and he said enthusiastically, "Director Link, I'm glad you like this script. I'm currently looking for investors for this project. Do you have any ideas for investing?"

"What is the budget for this movie? How much investment is still needed?" Link asked.

Donald Simpson sighed and said, “I have been preparing for this project for more than two years, but the budget was too high, the initial budget was $1 million, and the Big Seven Studios were worried that they would not be able to recoup the cost and did not agree to invest.

I heard that Guess What Pictures has good production capabilities and is a good partner, so I brought the script here to give it a try. If Guess What Pictures is interested in investing, the project will be handed over to you for investment and production.

My requirement is that the film must be completed within two years, and I will serve as the producer of the project, with a salary of US$500 million and a 5% share of the global box office. "

"Boss, a budget of 1 million is too high. Our company has more than ten projects this year and we can't afford such a big project."

Daniel DeVito objected.

Link told Donald Simpson to wait a moment while he had a meeting with Daniel DeVito.

"Daniel, what do you think?"

In the next office, Link asked after taking a sip of water.

"Boss, this project requires too much investment and is too risky. The story of the script is also rather old-fashioned. It is far behind action movies like The Terminator, Die Hard, and 1. If you spend million to shoot such a movie, it is very likely that you will not be able to recover the cost."

Daniel DeVito counselled.

"I understand your thoughts, and I don't really like the design of the script, but the basic plot of the script is good, the old-fashioned parts can be modified, and the budget is too high, so we can find a way to cut it and reduce the risk. Overall, it is a film project worth investing in."

"Boss, are you sure you can revise the script?"

Daniel DeVito's eyes lit up. Link was not only a top commercial film director in Hollywood, but also a top screenwriter. There were almost no bad films or loss-making films written by him.

If Link is confident that the modifications can be made, this project is worth investing in.

"Yes! It's guaranteed to be a good story."

"Okay! Then let's take on this project and give it a try."

Daniel DeVito left the office confidently and found Donald Simpson to discuss cooperation. In order to avoid the agreed script being snatched away by the Big Seven Pictures again, the two parties first signed a copyright transaction agreement.

Guess What Pictures bought the script adaptation rights from Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer Films for $50, valid for three years.

If no film is made within three years, the copyright will automatically return to Donald Simpson Company.

After the film project was approved, Guess What Pictures hired Donald Simpson as co-producer with a salary of US$200 million but no share of the profits.

After three days of negotiations, the two sides reached a deal, and the "The Rock" project officially fell into the hands of Guess Pictures.

Link held the contract and smiled.

The 12 film projects scheduled for this year are mostly low-cost films, mainly art films, and there are relatively few heavyweight commercial films. There are only "Jerry Maguire" and "The Fifth Element", which are films co-produced with Columbia Pictures.

Without big-budget commercial films in hand, the films under Guess the Movies will not be very competitive in the box office market next year. They cannot be compared with the many blockbusters from the seven major film studios, nor can they maintain the rapid development momentum of Guess the Movies.

Now that he has "The Rock", if he seizes the time to make a few more movies, I guess the films produced by the studio will still be highly competitive in the next two years.

But he didn’t quite understand why this film project automatically came to Guess Pictures?

But this was a good thing, so he didn't think much about it and started to revise the script.

"Hahaha, Link, you're nothing more than that."

After signing the cooperation contract with Guess What Pictures, Donald Simpson got into the business car, looked at the terms in the contract and the check for $50, and he couldn't help laughing.

(End of this chapter)