Chapter 521

This year's Sundance Film Festival opens on January 15.

Robert Redford personally called Simon to attend the opening ceremony of the festival, which happened to be Friday, and planned to take Janet to park city for the weekend.

The westero system is so huge that Simon can never finish his work now. Therefore, on weekdays, although we will arrange more work schedules as much as possible, we are no longer fully engaged, but reserve enough rest time.

The opening ceremony is normally held at 1 p.m. on Friday, still at the Egyptian theater in park city.

However, compared with Simon's first appearance in Park City, Sundance is not what it used to be.

In the past six years, the Sundance Film Festival has witnessed the emergence of "Lola Run", "sex, lies and videos", "some girls", "metropolises", "water dogs" and other films that are either good or well received. Even the original super popular classic love film "pretty girl" was originally written by Sundance. At the same time, the festival also trained a large number of new and cutting-edge filmmakers, including Simon.

All of these make the attention of Sundance Film Festival continue to increase, and thus form a virtuous circle, attracting more and more filmmakers to participate.

Simon and Janet arrived at the Egyptian theatre ten minutes ahead of schedule. Compared with the desolate exhibition of "Lola Run" in memory, the Egyptian theatre was bustling. Although there is still no red carpet, it does not hinder the gathering of media reporters and a large number of fans.

As soon as he entered the theater, Robert Redford came to meet him in person, as well as Robert Redford, who also came to the festival.

When he called to invite him, Redford had no expectations at all.

Simon's status is not what it used to be. Even with the rapid development of Sundance Film Festival, it's hard for him to have too much confidence in front of this young man.

I didn't expect Simon to agree.

Nature is overjoyed.

As Simon is now, as long as he shows up in Park City, even if he doesn't do anything, it can bring a very strong advertising effect. This not only means that the style of Sundance will be greatly improved, but also many things that the film festival wants to promote will become easier.

After all, westero is here. What's impossible?

After a brief hug and greeting, we temporarily moved to the backstage.

Then there was a series of greetings.

Robert De Niro's appearance this time is mainly due to the fact that one of his films will be the opening film of the festival, which is called "boy's life".

This is a biographical feature film, about a pair of dependent mother and son moved to Seattle after a series of stories.

Simon, who plays "boy" Toby in the film, is also very familiar with Leonardo DiCaprio. The actress who plays the boy's mother is Alan Bakin. Simon also knows her. Last year, gaomen pictures bought the copyright of "in the name of my father" from Bakin's husband Gabriel Bourne.

The opening ceremony will begin soon.

You enter the screening hall and sit down. Radford is in charge of the show as usual.

Simon has seen the relevant information of this year's Sundance Film Festival in advance.

In this year's competition, there are two films belonging to gaomen pictures.

One is invested and produced by gaomen film company. It's called "youth of fire", starring Tim Ross, Phoebe Katz, Bridget Fonda and other stars. It tells the love, desire, promise and life of young people in several small towns in Arizona.

The production cost of "hot youth" is 2.5 million US dollars, which is not a key project of gaomen film in 1993.

Simon saw the film, not bad, not good, but very in line with the atmosphere of Sundance.

Of course, the possibility of winning a prize is not too great.

Because there are several other very good movies this year.

The other one is called "killer Elegy".

This is a new Mexican director, Robert Rodriguez, who raised $7000 to complete the work.

Because of the close cooperation between danilisi entertainment and gaomen film, when the film was just submitted for selection, it was noticed by gaomen film team and bought for $100000 in advance. Not only that, danilisi entertainment also signed the next film contract with Rodriguez in advance.

In addition to the two danylis entertainment films, Simon also pays attention to a "beauty in the box" and another new director, Brian singer's debut feature film "media.".

"Beauty in the box", starring Julian sanders and Shirley Finn, tells the story of a surgeon who Amputates each other's limbs and raises them in a box in order to get the infatuated woman.

As for "media storm", I remember the award-winning works of this session of Sundance jury.

Simon actually noticed the film produced by an independent film company in advance, but didn't instruct gaomen film to buy the copyright.It's mainly about Brian singer.

It's not because of Brian singer's private affairs. There are so many worse people in the circle.

After all, Hollywood is largely a hunting ground, with a cruel top-down food chain. If you can't climb to the top of the food chain and become a hunter, and you don't want to leave this circle, you have to accept your life.

Simon just doesn't like Brian Singh mixing too much personal interest in his films.

For example, in the X-Men series, not to mention the leading role, the supporting role in the film is full of beautiful guys who are haunted everywhere.

Because there was no other arrangement, Simon did not leave after the opening ceremony and continued to watch the opening film in the Egyptian theater.

In the evening, they left the Egyptian theater, had dinner with Radford and others, and then went to the Sundance college at the foot of the ski resort on the west side of Park City to attend the opening party.

"It's a pity this time, Simon. I'm more inclined to do it with Denise. However, Michael is in charge of the project, and you know his relationship with Eisner. "

At the party scene full of people, Redford and Simon talk about his next movie with a little apology.

"Behind the scenes lies" is adapted from a TV competition scandal in the 1950s when the television industry was just rising. It tells the story of a quiz game producer who, in order to get the audience rating, did not hesitate to cheat and revealed the answer to the contestants in advance.

Last year, Robert Redford worked with Denise entertainment on two films, peach trade and river love.

Needless to say, after the release of the two films in September last year, river love finally made more than 40 million US dollars at the box office, which also brought a good profit to Denise entertainment, and initially made the new Superman actor Brad Pitt popular.

Over the years, Redford's brokerage contract has been in CAA, and the two consecutive works have been sold well, which makes Redford's next work "behind the scenes lie" also popular.

After the news of the project came to light, Denise entertainment immediately showed her interest.

Then, naturally, other studios are not to be outdone.

After a period of competition, because of the personal relationship between CAA president Michael owitz and Disney leader Michael Eisner, and the quotation, behind the scenes lie was finally won by Disney.

The film has also started shooting recently and is expected to be released in a popular schedule at the end of the year.

After all, movies are business.

If Denise entertainment is willing to raise the price, it is not impossible to get the project.

It's just that Simon was not interested in the movie doomed to failure in his memory from the beginning. Deliberately showing interest was just a strategy.

In the final bidding stage, Simon actually stopped the possibility of adding weight.

Although Disney won the film, it also won the competition, which increased the production cost of the film from about $30 million to $40 million.

With the production cost of 40 million US dollars, considering the publicity, the film in the North American market must at least get the box office equivalent to the production budget, so as to ensure that it can recover all the investment in the omni channel range.

In Simon's fragmentary memory, the box office of "behind the scenes lies" is only about $20 million.

Now that the project is in Disney's hands, the film company will not only lose money, but also bear the loss of the hot schedule at the end of the year.

In fact, this is what Simon is promoting intentionally or unconsciously.

Simon has never forgotten the idea of suppressing Disney step by step.

This time, the "behind the scenes lie" is just a piece left at random.

Of course, on the surface, Simon doesn't show any flaws. He also shows a regretful expression on his face, saying: "behind the scenes lies is a wonderful project, and I also think it's a pity. However, we will certainly have cooperation opportunities in the future."

They talked for a while. Redford left to socialize with others. Simon also went to DeNiro to talk about another project with him.

Janet took Simon's arm and waited for Redford to walk away. She said with a smile, "you don't really think about that project, do you?"

Simon nodded: "yes, a hole for Disney."

"Did Eisner provoke you?"

"No," Simon said. After greeting Denzel Washington, she continued to whisper, "if daenerys wants to continue to expand, she can only squeeze the living space of other studios as much as possible."

In the past year, the box office share of the entire danilisi entertainment films in the North American market has reached nearly 40%. For the film industry, this is definitely a ceiling level existence.

Hollywood still has seven major studios. Under the strong impact of danilisi entertainment, the other six studios have an average market share of less than 10% in the past year.For example, Columbia Pictures, a subsidiary of Sony, last year's best box office performance was Coppola's "four hundred years of surprise". As of December 31, 1992, the box office was just over $80 million. The box office of 15 films released throughout the year was less than $50 million, except for "four hundred years of surprise". The overall box office of all 15 films was only $330 million, accounting for 5.36 billion in North America The dollar's share of the annual box office is a pitiful 6.1%.

After the annual box office statistics came out, the news that Sony plans to quit Hollywood came out again in the media.

There is paramount. Last year's best box office movie "game of Patriot" was released in the summer season. The final box office was only $83.35 million. There were 16 films released in the whole year. Except for "game of Patriot" with a box office of more than $80 million and Eddie Murphy's comedy "darts" with a box office of more than $70 million, other projects were lukewarm. The total box office of the whole year was $310 million and the market share was high 7%, which is even bleaker than Columbia Pictures.

In addition to Colombia and paramount, the other four are better off than danielis.

In addition to the big seven, due to danielis Entertainment's involvement in minority areas such as horror films and art films, other second - and third tier film companies, such as Xinxian and Orion, have only 11% of the total market share, and none of them are popular films.

It's obvious that the seven major Hollywood competitors have been squeezed to a certain limit by danielis entertainment.

In this case, if danielis entertainment wants to continue its expansion, it can only take the means of completely eliminating its competitors.

In a short period of time, big studios like Disney can't be eliminated. However, some measures can be taken to make these studios weaker.

Simon's short-term goal is to clean up the second - and third tier film companies in Hollywood with independent distribution capability as much as possible, such as Miramax, who was crushed to death by Simon a few days ago, Orion, which is going from bad to worse, and the new line film industry, which is in trouble because Simon has reversed its development direction.

The key to the development of Hollywood second - and third tier film companies is to have the ability of independent distribution, otherwise, they can only become the vassal of big studios forever.

When Denise entertainment was just founded, Simon wanted to break the monopoly of big studios.

Now, with the change of identity and position, the concept will naturally change. What Simon needs to do is to further strengthen the monopoly of Hollywood film distribution channels.

After the completion of the planned clean-up, the small film companies in the second and third tier can certainly continue to exist, but they can only exist as independent production companies attached to the big studios, only participate in production, and provide content supplement for the big studios. If these companies show their ambition to set foot in the distribution field, danelis entertainment will mercilessly crack down on them.

At the party, Simon and Janet talk in a low voice and come to De Niro. They stop talking. Simon and De Niro discuss another recent project.

Last year, he worked with Michael Mann on "the last Mohicans", and the director of TV series transformation submitted a new project called "stealing the line of fire".

Stealing the wire is one of Simon's favorite Hollywood movies.

At the beginning, when he just entered the circle and attended the Party of Bryan De Palma's family, standing on the hillside of Beverly Hills and looking at the lights of Los Angeles, Simon thought of the film inexplicably.

Many things have changed over the years. The project of "stealing the line of fire" has not been fanned out by his big butterfly, because like many films with a bumpy life, Michael Mann had an idea for this project since it was published in the 1980s. It was not until the box office success of "the last mosikan", a project that had been tossed around among many studios, that it won Denise: the green light for entertainment.