Chapter 195

"John Hughes and I talked on the phone several times about Uncle buck, and he said he was very interested in working with us. However, Hughes offered a base salary of $6 million plus 10% of the North American box office share. "

In the conference room.

Simon noticed the smile on Amy's face when she introduced the proposal and said, "if he is willing to accept the sharing model of $1 base salary plus box office and video, maybe I will agree immediately."

John Hughes is the screenwriter and producer of "home is the kid" in the original space-time.

Simon has been following each other since spring is not a day for reading two years ago.

Most of the works of this Hollywood film, which has created a standard "Hughes model", are basically rebellious protagonists with the attribute of "bear". Kevin's way of deterring the two stupid thieves in the form of playing videos in "home is a kid" is exactly the same as that of the protagonist Phyllis in "spring is not a day for reading" who pretends to be sick and asks for leave through electronic onomatopoeia.

After "spring is not a day for reading", the box office of John Hughes's films in recent two years is very average. If it wasn't for "Uncle buck", Simon would not have been interested in working with him. However, Simon just remembers that it was in the process of shooting uncle buck that John Hughes got the inspiration of "the kid in charge of the house".

Amy listened to Simon's banter and explained: "Hughes's previous films, on the basis of base salary, all require 10% of Omni channel profit sharing. However, he should not have confidence in our distribution strength, so he imitated the mode of your cooperation with Fox and Orion and called out the box office share price. In fact, he can get the same reward in the two ways, but he can get the return several years ahead of the profit sharing model by directly drawing from the box office. "

Although the film model is single, John Hughes's films rarely lose money. In addition, every project of this filmmaker is written and produced by himself, and sometimes directed by himself. It's not too much to ask for a 10% Omni channel profit sharing model.

Simon looks through the materials of John Hughes' previous works.

After "spring is not a day for reading", John Hughes has written four plays in the past two years. The box office of two plays is more than 40 million US dollars, and the box office of two plays is only more than 10 million US dollars. It can be said that the profits and losses are half. Of course, this is a very good achievement in Hollywood.

As for uncle buck, the initial budget cost is $15 million, and John Hughes is personally responsible for the three positions of screenwriter, director and producer.

Simon is not clear about the box office results of the film. Be optimistic. If the box office in North America is 40 million US dollars, the production cost will be 15 million US dollars, and Hughes will take 10 million US dollars. If the publicity cost is included, Denise entertainment will definitely lose millions of US dollars at the box office, and can only recover the cost by selling the video and TV rights in the later period.

Since the fundamental purpose is "kid in charge", Simon made a decision quickly, saying: "the base salary of $6 million is too high, up to $5 million, and the budget cost of $15 million must be stuck. If it exceeds, it must be deducted from Hughes' share. In addition, danilisi entertainment needs to have the priority of Hughes' future script under the same contract. Amy, you can talk with Hughes according to this framework. "

In fact, Simon is more looking forward to the script of "kid in charge" being lost.

In fact, this possibility is very big. Unlike some screenwriters who often brew an idea in their minds for many years, John Hughes is a typical model mass production screenwriter. The filmmaker creates two plays a year, and then makes and distributes them. Under such a frequency, maybe it's just a thought difference, and the original wonderful script is gone.

If the script of "kid at home" is fanned out, the next thing will be much easier.

There are so many people in Hollywood who imitate Hughes model. Even the Weinstein brothers have done so. Simon will not be too abrupt to create a Hughes model script in the future. He can even be said to get inspiration from Uncle buck.

"In this case, I'll fly to Chicago in the next few days to have an interview with Hughes, and it won't be a big problem to win this project." Amy wrote down the matter in the memo and looked at her watch. Unconsciously, it was nearly six o'clock, and it was already past work time, so she closed the memo and asked about the matter at noon: "how was your talk with Semel?"

Simon outlined the terms of cooperation agreed with Semel at noon and told him, "while I'm going to Australia, you should draw up a specific contract with Warner as soon as possible."

Amy reopened the memo, wrote down these things, and then asked, "well, which project are you going to choose with Warner?"

"Amy heckling's over the boy."

Amy's writing hand stopped and said, "Simon, I think it's better to be" the sixth sense ". It's a script signed by you. It's also very creative. It should be ok if the box office is over 100 million. As for "flying over innocence", this story is really very interesting, but if the box office does not exceed 100 million, we will pay Warner another movie. "

The box office of the original sixth sense exceeded 290 million US dollars in North America and nearly 700 million US dollars in the world.Take out this project and cooperate with Warner, even if the box office of the film shrinks to only 500 million in the world, Simon is reluctant to give up.

The reason why Simon chose the latter between "bodyguard" and "flying over innocence" is that "flying over innocence", a comedy with strong local style, has little overseas box office potential compared with "bodyguard".

Simon didn't explain too much to Amy and decided: "I don't want to give my script to anyone else. It's" flying over innocence. ". Since we are cooperating with Warner, we can raise the budget and invite some more famous protagonists. I am very confident in this project. "

Amy nodded, continued to write, and then asked, "Simon, when I was discussing bodyguard with Costner last Friday, he asked about dancing with wolves. We bought a lot of projects at the beginning of the year. When are you going to do it? "

"I'm very optimistic about those projects. Let's wait a year or two for the company to consolidate its strength. I don't want to screw up any of them," Simon said, closing the previous documents and saying, "and you just said you're going to fly to Chicago?"

Amy explained: "John Hughes has always lived in Chicago and most of his films are made in Chicago. He doesn't like Los Angeles."

"In that case," Simon said, tapping his fingers on the desk, "let's add another business plane to the company. Edgar has to travel to and from the East and west coasts every week for the TV business. You and REM also need to travel a lot. There are other executives of the company and James. One is definitely not enough."

Amy looked up: "rent or buy?"

Simon said with a smile, "I don't want to add so many small planes. I just don't want that Gulfstream now."