Hollywood Director 1992.

Chapter 59 Update Successfully
[The film has been produced and the box office subsidies are being calculated...]

[Host participation is 78.3%, movie completion is 90.6%]

[Rewards: 3.5 times the box office subsidy; Director experience +20%; Director physical fitness +10%]

【Updating...】

【Update successful】

[The new box office subsidy is based on the host's participation, film completion, film awards, film publicity and distribution investment, and the degree of film compliance with the market. The higher the index, the richer the subsidy reward.]

After the film screening, Scott Rudin, Brian Grazer, Robert Shea, Harvey Weinstein and others, on behalf of their respective film companies, proposed cooperation to Link, hoping to be the agent for the distribution of this film.

Link breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that everyone recognized the film.

In the early 1990s, art films were still the mainstream, and people working in the film and television industry took movies more seriously, treating them as an artistic career.

This also leads to filmmakers and the media taking a more serious attitude towards movies. When judging the quality of a movie, the standards are higher, requiring the movie to not only be artistic, but also have viewing value and conform to the main theme.

Although Link's first film, "Buried", was relatively crude in production, it has a profound theme, sees the big picture from the small, and uses personal destiny to criticize the Cold War that has not yet ended, advocating peace and opposing war.

In addition, Link is quite skilled in the use of cameras during filming, and the plot structure is relatively mature, with a certain artistry.

This is also the reason why "Buried" received a lot of criticism after its release, but was still accepted by the mainstream film industry.

But "Paranormal Activity" is different. It is a completely mysterious movie that uses horror and thriller as its selling point. It is a commercial movie and has almost no artistic quality.

It is not easy for such a film to be recognized by most of the producers present.

However, after Link chatted with Scott Rudin, Brian Grazer, Steven Soderbergh and others, he gradually understood why they appreciated the film - its innovation and fun.

The original "Paranormal Activity" was filmed in 07 and released in 2009. It was a work that followed the trend of movies such as "The Blair Witch Project" and "REC".

Before the release of "Paranormal Activity", this type of pseudo-documentary film was no longer new in the market, let alone innovative.

Moving the filming time of this movie forward fifteen years and having it appear in theaters as a documentary-style film is undoubtedly an innovation and an exploration of film art.

Scott Rudin said that with the popularity of handheld video recorders, many people are wondering if they can become directors and make a good movie if they have a camera.

No one has tried this before, some people did it because of technology, some people did it because of funding.

Now Link has made a movie with a good plot with only $2, a horror movie that can make people scream.

This movie fully proves that ordinary people can make good movies with unprofessional tools and a small amount of money.

This kind of innovation has great implications for the development of the film industry. Perhaps the future will be an era where 'everyone is a director'.

This is the greatest significance of this movie.

Hearing the compliments from several people, Link also felt elated.

However, when it came to discussing the film distribution rights, these producers changed their gentle attitude and were only willing to pay very little to buy the film distribution rights, and did not even give them a share of the box office revenue.

Among them, 20th Century Fox, which offered the highest bid, offered two options.

One is to buy out the global distribution rights and videotape and peripheral copyrights for US$300 million.

The second option is 100 million US dollars, 10% global box office share, and buying out all film copyrights.

Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures and other companies offered lower bids.

The reason why they are unwilling to pay a high price.

The reason is that the filming technique of this movie is too novel and has never appeared on the market before, and it is not known whether the audience can accept it.

The distribution company has no idea of the box office situation, so the higher the price they offer, the greater the risk.

The second point is that if this movie wants to achieve good box office results, the pre-promotion must be done well to arouse the interest of the audience.

It takes a lot of money to do publicity, millions or even tens of millions. The more you invest, the greater the risk.

In order to avoid losses, they can only lower the price of acquiring copyrights.

During the negotiations, Link's condition was that he could waive the basic copyright fee, but the North American box office share must be above 25%, and the overseas box office share must not be less than 15%.

After hearing his conditions, the representatives of the film company shook their heads and said they were unacceptable.

The first round of negotiations also broke down.

Afterwards, Robert Shea and Harvey Weinstein approached him one after another.

He expressed his willingness to co-distribute "Paranormal Activity" with Guess What Films, and the box office share can be allocated according to his requirements.

Their demands are to obtain the copyright for the sequel to "Paranormal Activity" and to cooperate with Link to produce "Seven Deadly Sins" and "The Butterfly Effect", with the investment share of the two film companies being no less than 50%.

Link considered it and refused.

New Line Cinema and Miramax are independent film companies whose distribution capabilities are much weaker than those of the Big Seven.

When distributing a movie, you also need to spend money to purchase channel resources from several large media groups, which is not very cost-effective.

The only benefit of working with the two companies is that you can get more publicity funds.

But Link is not short of money at the moment.

Cooperating with New Line and Miramax can get more publicity funds, but you also have to give them a lot of box office revenue afterwards.

Being independently produced and distributed by Guess the Movies, it is impossible for it to lose money, but it can make more money.

Since the seven major film studios are not optimistic about this movie and are unwilling to give more share, let Guess Pictures distribute it.

After seeing Robert Shea off, Link called Michael Leeson, Daniel DeVito and others to his office for a meeting to discuss the film's distribution.

The distribution of "Paranormal Activity" by Guess Films is actually similar to the process of his own-funded distribution of "Buried".

It’s just that he has money and connections now, so the whole process will be smoother.

"Boss, it's not good."

Liu Xiaoli hurried into the office, her pretty face looking serious and a little angry.

"What's the matter? Don't worry, take your time, we are all here, there is nothing that can't be solved."

Link handed her a cup of tea.

“When we held an internal preview, a group of reporters came downstairs to interview us.

In an interview, Fred Olin cursed our film as a bad movie, saying that a three-year-old child could make it. Other producers also responded negatively, saying that the film was bad and that you are not a professional director.

"Any more?"

“Later, several producers were so scared that they left early after watching half of the film. Although they did not accept any interviews when they left, the reporters saw them leaving halfway and also thought that the quality of the film was not good.

The PR department received news that many media outlets have prepared articles and plan to report these negative news tomorrow, hyping up our movie as being bad. The PR department asked whether they should inform the media to suppress these news.

Liu Xiaoli asked.

"First ask which media outlets they are, newspapers or TV stations with high sales, and spend some money on PR to get rid of those news. As for the tabloids, don't worry about them for now. There is still some time before the movie is released, and the tabloid reports will not affect our movie."

"Okay, I'll go ask."

Liu Xiaoli left the office in a hurry, holding a folder. She looked very capable in her office suit.

(End of this chapter)