"John Hughes and I had several phone calls about "Uncle Buck," and he expressed great interest in working with us. However, Hughes' offer was 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 a base salary of 1 dollar plus a share of box office and video tapes, maybe I will agree immediately."
John Hughes is the screenwriter and producer of "Home Alone" in the original time and space.
Since "Spring is Not a Day for Reading" two years ago, Simon has been paying attention to the other party's movements.
Most of the works of this Hollywood filmmaker who created a standard "Hughes model" are basically a rebellious protagonist with a "bear" attribute. In "Home Alone", Kevin uses the form of playing videos to frighten two people. The stupid thief's method is exactly the same as the details in "Spring Is Not a Day for Reading" in which the male protagonist Phyllis pretends to be sick and asks for leave through electronic onomatopoeia.
After "Spring Is Not a Reading Day", John Hughes's several movies in the past two years have been very average at the box office. If it hadn't been for "Uncle Buck", Simon would not have had much interest in working with him. However, Simon happened to remember that John Hughes had the inspiration for "Home Alone" during the filming of "Uncle Buck."
Amy listened to Simon's teasing and explained: "Hughes's previous movies all required 10% omni-channel profit sharing on the basis of basic salary. However, he probably imitated because he did not have confidence in our distribution strength. The model in which you cooperate with Fox and Orion calls out the quotation for box office sharing. In fact, the remuneration he can get is similar in the two methods, but he will get returns a few years earlier than the profit sharing model by directly taking profits from the box office."
Although the film model is single, John Hughes's films rarely lose money. In addition, the filmmaker personally writes and serves as producer for every project, and sometimes directs himself, requiring 10% An omni-channel profit-sharing model isn’t too much of a stretch either.
Simon looked through the information on John Hughes' previous works.
After "Spring Is Not a Reading Day", John Hughes has created a total of four scripts in the past two years, two of which grossed more than 40 million U.S. dollars, and two of which only grossed more than 10 million U.S. dollars. It can be said that the profit and loss are evenly divided. Of course, in Hollywood, this is This is already a very good result.
As for "Uncle Buck", the initial budget cost is US$15 million, and John Hughes is personally responsible for the three positions of screenwriter, director and producer.
Simon is not sure about the box office performance of this movie, but he is more optimistic. If the North American box office is calculated as US$40 million, the production cost is US$15 million, and Hughes will still take away US$10 million, including publicity and distribution costs. Daenerys Entertainment It will surely lose millions of dollars at the box office, and will have to rely on later video and television rights sales to recoup the cost.
Since the fundamental purpose is "Home Alone", Simon quickly made a decision, saying: "The basic salary of 6 million US dollars is too high. The maximum is 5 million US dollars. The budget cost of 15 million US dollars must also be stuck. If it is exceeded, then it must be It will be deducted from Hughes’ share. In addition, Daenerys Entertainment needs the right of first choice for one of Hughes’ future scripts under the same contract. Amy, you can talk to Hughes based on this framework.”
Speaking of which, Simon is actually looking forward to the script of "Home Alone" being dropped.
This possibility is actually very high. Unlike some screenwriters who often brew an idea in their mind for many years, John Hughes is a typical model mass-production screenwriter. This filmmaker regularly creates two scripts every year, and then Produced and distributed. At this frequency, maybe just a thought, and the original wonderful script is gone.
If the "Home Alone" script was slapped down, things would be a lot easier.
There are countless filmmakers in Hollywood who imitate the Hughes model. Even the Weinstein brothers have done so. It will not be too abrupt for Simon to produce a Hughes model script in the future. He can even say that he started from "Uncle Buck" inspired by.
"In this case, I will take the time to fly to Chicago and interview Hughes in the next few days. It will not be a big problem to win this project." Amy wrote the matter down in the memo and looked at her watch. Unknowingly, it was approaching six o'clock. It was already past the off-duty time, so I closed the memo and asked about what happened at noon: "How was your conversation with Semel?"
Simon briefly summarized the terms of cooperation agreed with Semel at noon, and warned: "While I am in Australia, you and Warner must work out a specific contract as soon as possible."
Amy reopened the memo to write down these things, and then asked: "So, which project do you plan to choose with Warner?"
“Amy Heckerling’s One Flew Over Childhood.”
Amy's writing hand paused and said: "Simon, I think it's better to go with "The Sixth Sense". This is a script signed by you personally. The creativity is also very good. It should have no problem with the box office exceeding 100 million. As for "Flying Over" "Child Innocence", this story is indeed very interesting, but if the box office does not exceed 100 million, we will have to lose another movie to Warner."
The original "The Sixth Sense" grossed more than $290 million at the North American box office and nearly $700 million worldwide.
Taking this project to cooperate with Warner, even if the film's box office shrank to only 500 million worldwide, Simon would not be willing to part with it.
Between "The Bodyguard" and "One Flew Up," Simon chose the latter mainly because "The Bodyguard," a comedy with a rich local style, should have less overseas box office potential than "The Bodyguard."
Simon did not explain too much to Amy and decided: "I don't want to give my script to anyone else, which is "One Flew Over the Child". Since we are cooperating with Warner, we can increase the budget and invite some more famous people. The protagonist, I am still very confident in this project.”
Amy nodded, continued writing, and asked again: "Simon, when I discussed the script of "Bodyguard" with Costner last Friday, he asked about "Dances with Wolves". During that time at the beginning of the year, we I have bought many projects, when are you going to do them?”
"Those are all projects that I am very optimistic about. Let's wait for the company's strength to consolidate for another year or two. I don't want to mess up any of them," Simon said, closing the document in front of him and saying, "Also, you just Said you were going to fly to Chicago?”
Amy explains: "John Hughes had always lived in Chicago and shot most of his movies in Chicago. He didn't like Los Angeles."
"In that case," Simon tapped his fingers on the table and said, "The company should add another business jet. Iger has to travel back and forth from the east and west coast every week for TV business. You and Rem also need to travel frequently, and the company The other executives and James’ side, one is definitely not enough.”
Amy raised her head: "Rent or buy?"
Simon smiled and said: "Rent, I don't want to add so many small planes, but I don't even want that Gulfstream now."