Hollywood Road

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As soon as he got out of Los Angeles International Airport, Murphy saw Bill Rosses. He and Gal Gadot got into the commercial vehicle driven by Bill Rosses' driver. He ignored the questions from the surrounding reporters and walked towards the century The Fox Tower in the city sped away.

In the car, Bill Rosses explained to Murphy the details of the trouble encountered by "The Wolf of Wall Street" at the fastest speed.

The matter is not too complicated. A trial screening of "The Wolf of Wall Street" was held before, and the response to the trial screening was quite good. Twentieth Century Fox is also launching word-of-mouth publicity for the trial screening.

Everything is going well on this front.

Before Murphy left Los Angeles and went to Shanghai to participate in the China-US Film Forum, he sent the edited version of "The Wolf of Wall Street" to the MPAA, commonly known as the Motion Picture Association of America, for review and grading. The scale of the film is relatively large , He and Twentieth Century Fox never thought of rating it as PG-13, which is obviously impossible, and the original goal was R rating.

Only in this way can the film be guaranteed a wide release in North America.

The trouble lies in the rating of the film. The review committee of the American Motion Picture Association issued a warning to 20th Century Fox and Stanton Studios. If the final film is maintained in the version submitted by Murphy for review, "The Wolf of Wall Street" "Can only be rated as NC-17!

This means that the film cannot appear in mainstream theaters, and the box office will completely hit the street.

Although the MPAA is not an official organization, but an industry association, and film ratings have never been written into specific laws, almost all filmmakers and theaters are abiding by such industry regulations, and Murphy and Stanton Studios are no exception.

Even Ross's dealing in drugs and illegal guns has to follow certain rules, let alone a legal industry such as the film industry.

Murphy met Kara Firth at the Fox Building, and she also saw the official announcement about "The Wolf of Wall Street" issued by the American Motion Picture Association here.

The content of the notice is very simple. The review committee of the American Motion Picture Association issued a warning to him. If he does not delete the pornography and nudity scenes in "The Wolf of Wall Street", the film will be rated as NC-17.

According to the grading system of American movies, they will divide the movies released in theaters into: G-rated, PG-rated, PG-13-rated, R-rated, and NC-17-rated. Among them, the G level represents movies that people of any age can watch, such as "Robot Story", but the NC-17 level is the most stringent level of the classification system, because this type of film involves pornography and violent scenes, so 17 years old are prohibited People under (including 17 years old) watch.

Restricting the age of the audience will naturally affect the screening scale and attendance rate of the film. Murphy originally planned that the R rating was only a restricted rating. influences.

This type of film covers a wide range, but any film with more action and explosion scenes, or a more realistic film may be rated at this level.

"The best way is to cut it." Kara Firth crossed her arms, paced back and forth in the office, and said to Murphy, "Cut some shots appropriately, and the company will think of a way, the R rating will definitely no problem."

Murphy nodded, "That's the only way to go."

This is an industry regulation, and it cannot be resisted by personal power. He will not be so stupid as to ignore the warning of the Motion Picture Association of America. Appropriate deletions are necessary, but there is no need to delete all large-scale shots, two. Tenth Century Fox itself is a member of the American Motion Picture Association and has a certain right to speak in the review and rating.

Strictly speaking, the Motion Picture Association of America represents the interests of the six major Hollywood companies, and its main members are also composed of Warner Bros., Walt Disney, Sony Columbia, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Twentieth Century Fox.

From this aspect, we can also see the power of the six major Hollywood companies in this industry. As long as the head is normal,

You can see the absurdity of so-called new companies challenging the status of the Big Six and dominating Hollywood in this era.

To a certain extent, many of the existing rules of Hollywood movies are formulated by the six major companies. Within the rules set by others, do you want to defeat them and still dominate? Not to mention anything else, the level of MPAA is enough.

It is true that movies do not need to be rated. There is no law in the United States to enforce this, but 99% of North American theaters will not show movies without ratings. Without box office figures as a basis, subsequent peripheral income is empty talk.

Indeed, MPAA’s grading review is not like the big scissors on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, which only has one basic standard. The specific implementation will be high and low, and it has been criticized by countless people. However, the review takes time, and the MPAA’s review can be done within the specified shortest time. It can also be completed within the longest period of time, which can easily affect the release and schedule of a film.

The Big Six companies seldom use such low-level means, because they don’t use them at all. They firmly control the distribution channels, and this alone can choke countless small and new film companies by the throat.

In the past two years, Lionsgate Films has become popular with some fan works, just like DreamWorks in its heyday, it seems that it will become the seventh largest company in Hollywood at any time, but the people at the top of the industry pyramid Everyone knows that when these fan series are over, Lionsgate will be beaten back to its original shape, not even better than DreamWorks.

Murphy remembers clearly that the former Lionsgate Films quickly fell into a dilemma, and even prepared to sell shares to some companies across the Pacific Ocean in order to obtain the necessary financing.

"How long will it take you to finish the revision?" Kara Firth looked at Murphy and asked, "Do you need to revise the schedule?"

It will be October soon, and the film was originally scheduled to be released in early November. If the revision takes too long, the schedule must be revised in advance. We can’t wait until it is about to be released. The revision and review and rating have not yet been completed. If we temporarily change the schedule at that time, it will It's ten times more troublesome than it is now, and it will really affect the film's box office revenue.

Modifying the schedule is a big deal for any film. Murphy thought about it for a while before saying, "Well, you should communicate with the MPAA to find out which scenes need to be modified."

Kara Firth nodded, "Leave this to me."

"You ask about the situation before I can decide how to change it."

For example, the deletion of a movie shot is not simply to delete a sensitive shot. Murphy went through three procedures of initial cut, fine cut and review and edit from the nearly 1,000-minute shot material. In the finished film sent to the MPAA for review, there is not only a connection between the shots, but also echoes in many places, even if it is a large-scale shot, some of them will affect the whole body.

If a key shot of the hero and heroine is cut, maybe the whole scene and the whole paragraph will have to be re-edited.

And editing has always been time-consuming.

Murphy said to Kara Firth again, "After deciding how to change, I can determine the time needed."

"That's good." Kara Firth also knew that it was unrealistic to ask Murphy to give an answer now, "Murphy, I will contact the company's representative in MPAA now. Later, you must give me a specific time as soon as possible."

"Yeah." Murphy nodded seriously.

If you need to change the schedule, the earlier the time, the less negative impact.

If it is not a last resort, neither Murphy nor 20th Century Fox wants to change the schedule of "The Wolf of Wall Street".

In Hollywood, there has long been a very mature system for movie scheduling. Since Spielberg's "Jaws" tore apart the disputes over the summer schedule in 1975, the arrangement of movies at different time slots every year has become a must-kill skill for Hollywood executives. A must-have course for taking your place in a competitive market.

Most of the distribution companies will determine the specific schedule of the blockbuster film half a year or even a year ago, so that they have the opportunity to spend more time planning the entire marketing operation strategy, just like the promotional impact of each of Murphy's films, in every At any point in time, different methods and channels can be carefully planned to create momentum for the film's promotion in order to achieve success at the box office.

"Unless it is absolutely necessary," Murphy said to Gal Gadot on the car back to Wave Manor, "The film company rarely changes the movie schedule."

Gal Gadot nodded and asked, "There must be a reason?"

She is on her way to become a producer and wants to know enough about every part of the industry.

"Simply put, there are two reasons."

When Murphy talked about this, he also considered Gal Gadot's actual needs. He raised a finger and said, "First of all, if the previous schedule has been known to many viewers, changing the schedule will bring them a lot of trouble. The disappointment of a weekend full of anticipation, only to find out that the film has been delayed, spread through social networking sites can be a PR disaster for a film."

After raising his second finger, Murphy said again, "Secondly, changing the schedule will mess up the marketing plan of the film. Generally, the trailer will be released a few months before the film is released, and the TV commercials will be bought out three or four weeks before the release. A week before the release, the multi-platform publicity is increased, and the change of the schedule will make the marketing department of the film company have to redo the plan, which is time-consuming and expensive.”

No matter how you look at it, Murphy doesn't want to change the schedule of "The Wolf of Wall Street", but many things will not depend on personal will. After receiving a fax from Kara Firth, he found that the sensitive issues involved There are quite a few shots that are critical. If they are deleted directly, it will inevitably affect the fluency of the whole scene. It is unavoidable to re-edit the scenes involved in these shots.

Fortunately, there are no major adjustments to the entire film, which means that Murphy no longer has to spend months editing in post-production.

Called Jody Griffith, Murphy talked with him all morning, it would take about twenty-five days to determine the adjustment of the film, plus the MPAA's review and rating, "The Wolf of Wall Street" wants to be released on November 1 A release at the beginning of the month would be very unrealistic.