Chapter 455

"Hello, Mr. Jia!" Jon Landau looked carefully at the young man in front of him for several times. He couldn't help but doubt that the young man is really capable of taking over 135 million investment as director Chen said?

At the same time, director Chen Da, who followed him, looked at boss Jia nervously. He only hoped that when boss Jia refused, he could give himself some face and find an appropriate reason not to make himself too ugly, let alone blow his cowhide.

"Hello, Mr. Landau!" boss Jia also listened and shook hands with Jon Landau. Boss Jia knew that he was the producer of the Titanic in history. Unexpectedly, director Chen met him. He really did a good thing.

"That's the case!" Jon Landau gave a general introduction to Titanic.

In fact, the film Titanic is not the film that 20th century fox wanted to make. In fact, 20th century fox has never considered making a shipwreck film.

The film was offered by James Cameron, the former truck driver.

James Cameron used to be a truck driver. Later, after watching the Star Wars movies in the cinema, he found that truck driver is a career with no future at all (it's really lucky that he didn't find it until this time). Making movies is the greatest.

So James Cameron declared himself a film director without any professional film education.

Don't mention that James Cameron really became a director after a lot of fuss in Hollywood.

First, filming piranha 2 gained a certain reputation and capital

In 1984, he raised a fund to write and direct a film called terminator.

This film is certainly no stranger to everyone. It won the popularity of Governor Schwarzenegger and won 68 million global box office at a cost of $6.5 million.

Then, Cameron wrote and directed the film "alien 2", which is also a film that is no stranger to everyone. It won 120 million box office worldwide and seven Oscar nominations.

Then came Terminator 2, a sequel that really pushed the terminator series to glory, with a total box office of 200 million in North America and 500 million in the world.

Anyway, the director's achievements in Hollywood are simply a monster. One film is higher than another, and each film can make amazing achievements. When such a director once again proposes to make and direct a new film, naturally no film company will refuse.

At the beginning, after Cameron released the news of the new film, all the six major Hollywood film companies wanted to invest in Cameron's new film.

But when Cameron took out the script of the new film, all six major film companies retreated again.

The reason is very simple, the film investment is too large, and the theme is too small.

Cameron took out the script of the Titanic, but the whole script was still very rough at this time, with only a simple outline.

When the six major film companies finished reading the script and found that Cameron planned to make a disaster film of historical shipwreck, they all flinched.

The film is so small that American audiences have never been used to watching it. The only shipwreck film in history also made the investment company lose money at that time. The investment of millions of dollars only earned hundreds of thousands of dollars at the box office.

More importantly, the film company can't see what the selling point of a shipwreck film can be.

There is neither the horror of alien series nor the fierce struggle of terminator series. More importantly, watching this movie script is actually the main love. More than half of the shipwreck film is actually describing love.

What's more, the hero finally died.

It's reasonable that in 1993, you put such a factor of shipwreck + love + abuse together to make a film, and you also need a $135 million investment at one go. Only a fool can believe that the film can catch fire.

Anyway, if such a story is published at the starting point, it must be scolded by countless shennongs. It is extremely poisonous, and then I specially write it. I'm going to abandon the pit.

Because the audience who like watching love movies and disaster movies are not on the same channel at all, and this kind of film has no stimulation.

There may be no problem making literary and artistic films, but it is impossible to become a commercial blockbuster with an investment of $135 million.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with the idea of the six major Hollywood film companies. Later, Huaxia also invested in shooting two episodes of films, called Taiping wheel. It invited John Woo, a famous Chinese director, and a series of international first-line film stars, such as Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kanagawa, with an investment of up to $40 million.

Anyway, a series of settings, plots and casting are all about the Titanic.

As a result, the global box office of the top and bottom films was less than 300 million... In parentheses... RMB, which was a mess.

In fact, the quality of this film is quite good. Although there are some shortcomings such as delayed plot and insufficient special effects, overall, the quality kills 90% of domestic films.

But the box office was a fiasco, and the audience was not interested. It perfectly met the expectations of all Hollywood film companies for the Titanic in 1993.

So, don't blame these Hollywood film companies for their poor eyesight and lack of vision. It can only be said that Cameron is too awesome and the dollar is really fragrant. The most important thing is that the node of the birth of the film coincides with the era of the full outbreak of computer special effects, so that the audience can see the special effects scene in the film, which is the most important thing.

But these things only boss Jia knows, and the six major Hollywood film companies don't know!

Therefore, the 135 million box office and the script of the Titanic immediately persuaded five of the six major film companies, and only 20th century fox was still hesitant.

Because the CEO of 20th Century Fox happens to be a CEO who likes to invest in special effects blockbusters, he also loves special effects blockbusters, so he hesitated.

Cameron took the opportunity to post it and described countless bright futures to 20th century fox, such as being sure to make a lot of money. Finally, he really fooled 20th century fox, and the two sides signed an investment and shooting contract.

But the problem is that the contract has been signed, and 20th Century Fox regretted it. This is a $135 million investment. You know, at that time, the book value of 20th century fox was only $80 million.

Of course, if 20th century fox made up his mind to invest in shooting even if he borrowed money from the bank, it would be easy to spend $135 million.

However, the board of directors of 20th Century Fox insisted on expressing their opposition. After reading the film script, the members of the board of directors, like other film companies, felt that the film was definitely a loss of money. American audiences would not be interested in such a film of special effects + love + shipwreck + dead man. They would never approve fox to invest by borrowing money.

This makes 20th Century Fox very painful. Historically, they delayed for a year until Cameron's film "true lies" was finished, and they didn't put the scheduled funds in place.

Finally, Jon Landau went to find the behind the scenes boss of 20th century fox, that is, Mr. Murdoch, the president of News Corporation and the son-in-law familiar to the Chinese people, to have a sincere communication. Finally, Murdoch nodded and approved the investment plan and asked 20th century fox to borrow a loan. It was enough for us $135 million to start shooting the Titanic.

At this time, when the Titanic was just approved, Jon Landau was not forced to find Murdoch. Now he is just crazy looking for partners willing to invest and jointly invest in the film.

In this way, the risk does not have to be borne by 20th Century Fox alone.

But at this time, the name of the Titanic has spread all over the investment circle of Hollywood. When all the five major film companies refused and the board of directors of 20th Century Fox refused, none of these investors were optimistic about the future of the Titanic. Jon Landau looked for investors in Hollywood and Wall Street, and none of them was willing to invest.

Just when he was a little desperate, he happened to meet director Chen Da at a business party and heard him boast about his story of farewell my concubine.

Especially during that period, he rushed into the investor's office alone and spent five hours persuading the investor without vision to invest in his farewell my concubine, which was a legend of success.

And the investor is still very rich, with assets of hundreds of millions of dollars or something.

Then boss Jia was watched by Jon Landau.