Hollywood Road

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"Sorry,"

Taking out his phone and looking at it, Tony Guzman said to several people in the room, "I'll take the call."

After speaking, he walked out of the living room of the hotel suite, came to the balcony of a bedroom, and pressed the answer button, "Hello, this is Tony Guzman of Fox Searchlight."

An unfamiliar voice came from the receiver. After the other party said a few words, Tony Guzman frowned, remembered for a moment, turned his head and glanced at the living room, and said politely, "I'm sorry. Director Stanton, I may not be available during the recent period. I have a project to follow up."

He remembers that young director and that interesting movie. He exchanged contact information on purpose at the time. He originally planned to continue investigating the movie. But then when he was watching the movie, he encountered a more favorite object, and the interior of the Fox searchlight was also It is very important and requires immediate follow-up.

Toni Guzman politely declined the other party's invitation, and hung up the phone.

With this new project in front of him, he is basically not interested in new works like "Fruit Hard Candies". Sitting in the living room are senior executives from Ark Entertainment. The project they are talking about is a new work by Todd Field. "Unexpected Edge."

Not to mention that the starring role of the film is quite famous Tom Wilkinson, there is no comparison between the two directors, Murphy Stanton is silent, Todd Field’s last work "Ghost Invasion" received 9,000 in North America. Ten thousand dollars at the box office...

Tony Guzman knows how to choose between the two.

He has already decided to give up "Fruit Hard Candy", which he thought was good before, and is ready to win "Unexpected Edge" with all his strength.

At the airport of the Saint Denis Film Festival, a big fat man arrived late. After getting off the plane, he ordered the driver to rush to the hotel immediately. The company's professional filmmakers and buyers were waiting for him there.

Forty minutes later, Harvey Weinstein sat in the conference room of the hotel, looking at the list of films and materials submitted by many employees of Miramax. Most of them were in the media and circles recently. There are no unexpected surprises in films that have spread quickly, such as "Dark Night Lullaby", "Death Illusion" and other famous projects.

"That's it?" He frowned and looked at the dozen or so employees below, his voice gradually rising, "How do you do it? It's almost a week since the film festival started, and you just stared at them? How many distribution companies are staring at them? How much does it cost to win them?"

Although Miramax was acquired by Disney, Harvey Weinstein's operating style is completely different from that of Disney. He still follows the route of operating independent movies at a small cost.

The silence in the conference room shows the prestige of this big fat man in the company.

"Do you have any unpopular projects that you are optimistic about?" Harvey Weinstein asked again.

It's still quiet, and projects like "Blair the Witch" are not something you can encounter at every Saint Denis Film Festival.

Harvey Weinstein patted the conference table again and made a loud bang, which seemed to vent his anger. He ignored those people and waved his hand at random, "Go out."

Everyone rushed to leave, but Jones-Butler stayed.

Harvey Weinstein saw her, "What's wrong with you?"

Jones Butler walked over and put a piece of information in front of Harvey Weinstein, "This is a film produced by a small company called Stanton Studios, recommended by Bill Rossis of CAA. I went to see it with Moore and both thought there was a certain market potential."

Hearing what she said, Harvey Weinstein temporarily put down his work, opened the information and looked up, after a while, he looked up and said, "You gave it priority?"

"Yes." Jones-Butler stood on his right. "I guess the production cost of the film is about 200,000 to 300,000 US dollars. The people in the marketing department and I have estimated that this can be a volume of millions of dollars. Level item."

Harvey Weinstein was more assured of Jones Butler, and asked, "Is the project available?"

"No..." Jones-Butler said truthfully, "The initial negotiation has just been conducted, and there is a gap between our offer and the other's asking price."

After looking through all the information, Harvey Weinstein rarely became interested, "Call them and I will go to see that video tomorrow."

Murphy never thought that when he saw Jones Butler again, the other party brought Harvey Weinstein, the actual controller of Miramax, not to mention him, even Bill Rossis. , In front of predators in the circle like Harvey Weinstein, it is also an insignificant little person.

And Harvey Weinstein didn’t pay attention to the two of them, except for a polite greeting when they met. He didn’t say much from beginning to end, but patiently watched Murphy’s screening in the conference room again. "Fruit Hard Candies."

After the screening, Harvey Weinstein said the second sentence, the subject was Jones Butler, the voice was not very loud, Murphy vaguely heard it.

"Continue to negotiate."

After leaving this sentence, Harvey Weinstein left the conference room directly.

In fact, it is not difficult to imagine that Harvey Weinstein, who has always been fond of independent films, will be very busy when he comes to the St. Denis Film Festival, which is the main independent film. Even if Murphy looks at himself highly, he also knows Harvey Weinstein. I don't think too much about myself and a small production like "Fruit Hard Candies".

According to his speculation, this big fat man took a look and was nothing more than being responsible for the company's business. A transaction of nearly one million dollars could not be reached casually.

Every business and every project in this circle is far from being as casual as imagined outside.

Subsequently, Murphy and Jones-Butler began a seesaw-style negotiation. There was a huge gap between US$600,000 and US$1.5 million. The difficulty of the negotiations between the two parties can be imagined. Fortunately, whether it is Murphy or Jones-Butler , We all know that in order to complete the transaction, they must make some compromises.

As for the unreliable things such as mainstream commercial film distribution contracts and sharing agreements, Murphy no longer mentions that the cooperation between the two parties will only be carried out by buying out the copyright, and his energy is mainly focused on Stanton as much as possible. The job is to fight for more sell-out funds.

He can't make a project like "Fruit Hard Candy" forever, otherwise he can only stay at the bottom of Hollywood, and he will need more funds to complete his plan in the next step.

Like 90% of Hollywood directors, Murphy also developed a plan to start with a small independent production, accumulate a certain amount of funds and resumes, and gradually move towards mainstream movies.

After three days and five rounds of negotiations, Murphy and Jones-Butler finally reached an agreement.