Hollywood starts with an agent

Chapter 98 Animation Overlord
Aaron sat in his office chair at Dawn Pictures, with a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle spread out on his desk.
Disney's animated film "The Little Mermaid" sold 900 million videotapes!

“Is this really how animation makes money?”

Aaron's heart beat faster uncontrollably. This ordinary videotape costs $19.9.

900 million discs were sold, which means sales of nearly 1.8 million US dollars. After deducting various costs, Disney can earn at least more than half of that, and there is also rental income, laser disc sales, etc.

The Little Mermaid was also released during the Christmas season two years ago, with a total box office of $1.1 million in North America and $2.2 million worldwide.
More importantly, the bulk of Disney's animation revenue actually comes from various peripheral and derivative products, such as the licensing of various products such as toys!
The revenue of "The Little Mermaid" is higher than that of "Pretty Woman" at Disney.

This year, Disney will also release the animated film "Beauty and the Beast"!
"The animation overlord, is that true?"

When it comes to 2D hand-drawn animation, Disney is indeed the undisputed king.

Aaron knew that he couldn't compete with Disney in 2D hand-drawn animation, so he had to put some effort into 3D computer animation.

After Steve Jobs left Apple, the acquired Pixar Animation Company became Dawn's target, and now Jobs' focus is on the NeXT computer company he founded!

At this time, Esther Beckett came to Aaron's office and said, "Boss, this is a script that Gary Foster sent over."

Aaron took it and looked at it. "Hmm, 'Sleepless in Seattle'!"

The story is not complicated. It is about a widowed man with a child and a journalist woman who get to know each other and fall in love through radio and station.

The future seems to be a romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Although it is not as good as "Pretty Woman", it is also a very successful commercial film.

"Eselin, this script is good. Let Brad negotiate. Buy the script from Samsung and we will develop it ourselves."

"Of course, the distribution is still from Samsung!"

Since Samsung dislikes this kind of script, Aaron actually likes it;

Anyway, the script is still being revised, so Suguang can develop it in the second half of this year.

"Ok."

"By the way, how's the filming progress of 'Captain Hook' going over at Samsung?"

Aaron certainly didn't care about "Hook" but wanted to be involved in another Steven Spielberg work, "Schindler's List".

"Captain Hook? It's postponed!"

"The crew had a lot of problems. Dustin Hoffman wasn't in good shape, and the lead actress, Julia Roberts, was in a trance because of a breakup and was smoking marijuana all day, etc..."

Aaron nodded. After the filming of "Hook" was completed, Steven Spielberg would probably start officially working on the projects of "Jurassic Park" and "Schindler's List"!
This year, Dawn Pictures' project, "Scent of a Woman," is to be developed, and now there's also "Sleepless in Seattle";
If you have extra energy, you can also consider "Speed", mainly because action films are more time-consuming and expensive to develop than art films and romance films.

With the opening of the 1991st Berlin International Film Festival in mid-to-late February 2, although it was the first time that East and West Germany had jointly held the festival;

However, due to the economic crisis and the sudden outbreak of the Gulf War, there were only 25 films from around the world participating in the competition.

Jonathan Demme won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director for "The Silence of the Lambs", which is the first major award for this film!
At the end of February, US President Bush announced the end of the war to liberate Kuwait and a ceasefire;

The Gulf War lasted only 1 days, starting in mid-to-late January. Most of the time was spent in air combat, with the ground war lasting just over 42 hours, and Iraq was completely powerless to fight back.

In his West Hollywood apartment, Aaron leaned back on the sofa and watched the CNN live broadcast. "This Gulf War has made CNN famous all over the world!"

CNN immediately turned on its satellite broadcast, broadcasting non-stop footage of the war, drawing everyone's attention. Nicole Kidman, standing nearby, put down her script and paused, "I thought you were focusing on the war itself, but CNN?"

CNN is about to start its journey to become the ratings king. It will have to wait until after 9/11 for FNC (Fox News) to surpass it.

CNN is the first cable TV station to broadcast news 24 hours a day, which is even more impressive than the three major wireless broadcasting networks!
"How about this script? It's pretty good, right? I found it from Samsung, and Dawn Pictures is going to develop it this year."

"After Ghost is released, it will probably be officially developed."

Nicole Kidman was watching Sleepless in Seattle. Sugon wanted to develop the film, but Samsung had no objection at all, as they retained the distribution rights.

As for the heroine, there is no need to think about it, it must be Nicole Kidman.

"It's fine with me. It's a romantic comedy, and I think it's pretty good," Nicole Kidman would certainly have no objection, as she is a newcomer.

However, producer Gary Foster approached director Garry Marshall to direct the film, but was rejected. He also approached other screenwriters to revise the script, but it still didn't satisfy TriStar Films.
The person currently revising the script of "Sleepless in Seattle" is veteran screenwriter David Ward, but the director has not yet been determined!
However, Aaron was also dissatisfied with David Ward's adaptation. This guy didn't understand the true meaning of romantic comedy. He was old and didn't understand modern love.

Aaron nodded, "I'm going to invite the screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally to adapt this script;"

"By then, I hope to confirm the director as soon as possible!"

Aaron's plan for Sleepless in Seattle is to invest $2000 million, which should be enough;
After all, the budget of "Scent of a Woman" is about this number. This is mainly because Al Pacino's salary increased due to the huge success of "Pretty Woman", and it is estimated to be around 500 million US dollars.

"Well, your vision is definitely better than that of ordinary producers," Nicole Kidman came and sat down next to Aaron.

"By the way, 'Boyz n the Hood' is going to be released soon. How many theaters has Columbia arranged for it to open in?"

Aaron was delighted when talking about this. "We've arranged quite a few, over 800. I guess the previous publicity strategy worked."

Dawn Pictures itself invested millions of dollars in marketing for both Boyz n the Hood and The Silence of the Lambs;

Of course Columbia invested more, probably because the test screenings were very good, which gave Columbia confidence!
"That's great," Nicole Kidman said and kissed Aaron directly. The two hadn't seen each other for a while, which made Nicole very excited.

"Hmm," Aaron responded as he groped the girl's body, then made Nicole Kidman raise her hands and remove her sweater!
"Who are you going to choose as the male lead?"

Nicole Kidman asked as she unhooked her bra.

"Let's decide on a director first," Aaron pushed the girl directly onto the sofa.

As for Tom Hanks, the original male lead of "Sleepless in Seattle", he is very good, but it is a bit early now.

"Do you have any recommendations?"

Nicole Kidman hugged the man and smiled, "Do you want to try it?"

Aaron's eyes widened. "Are you going to throw $2000 million into the Pacific Ocean?"

In the future, maybe Aaron will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars every minute. Should he become an actor?
Being pointed at by others, Aaron must be crazy to have such thoughts...

　Yesterday, it seems that chapter was reviewed and released today, which is quite interesting...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)