The cause of the incident originated from the script of "The Sixth Sense".
On July 22, a low-profile gossip newspaper in Los Angeles suddenly broke the news that the script for "The Sixth Sense" was not written by Simon Westeros himself, and that the real screenwriter of the film was actually the screenwriter of "Scream" Screenwriter Bruce Joy Robin.
Newspaper articles attacking Simon are actually stealing other people's creative achievements. Since Westeros is not the script writer of "The Sixth Sense", the recently discussed "He can see people" and other arguments are naturally nonsense.
Simon admitted that he did steal other people's creative results, but the original author of the script is still unknown. The newspaper's report completely violated the established facts of this time and space. It completely excerpted Simon and the script of "The Sixth Sense" and attributed it all to Bruce Joy, who was just a ghostwriter based on the outline of the story given by Simon. ·On Robin.
The box office of "The Sixth Sense" in three weeks was close to 120 million US dollars. During the same period, the films were overwhelmed. Other Hollywood studios are eager for the film to break some negative news. As a result, the newspaper article suddenly became a trigger.
Prompted by some, the media immediately began to cling to the incident.
Bruce Joy Robin is naturally the first target of inquiry by the media.
Originally, this matter could probably be resolved as long as Bruce Joy Robin firmly denied it. However, Bruce Joy Robin did not do this immediately.
As for the reason, in the final analysis it is for profit.
According to the current box office momentum, the total North American box office of "The Sixth Sense" is generally predicted to be between US$250 million and US$300 million, and the global box office is likely to double to US$600 million. The total global box office of US$600 million means that the film's post-production income from video tapes and TV broadcast rights will be very huge.
If Bruce Joy Robin had signed a contract with Daenerys Entertainment in accordance with the "Basic Agreement" of the Writers Guild of America, and only based on the sharing terms of the "Basic Agreement", he would have easily received millions of dollars in follow-up income in the future .
However, of the three film contracts Bruce Joey Robin originally signed with Daenerys Entertainment, only his own original "The Last Day" was signed in accordance with the WGA's "Basic Agreement". The other "Scream" For the two scripts "Scream" Part 1 and "The Sixth Sense", he signed long-term employment contracts. As a full-time screenwriter for Daenerys Entertainment, he wrote scripts for the company, with a weekly salary of US$2,000.
Bruce Joy Robin spent approximately 10 weeks on the scripts of "Scream" and "The Sixth Sense", and was paid $20,000 for each script.
Compared to Bruce Joy Robin's personal qualifications at the time, this salary was not shabby.
Moreover, after the box office success of "Scream", although there were some rumors that the script idea of "Scream" came from Simon, Bruce Joy Robin was successfully promoted to a first-line screenwriter in Hollywood. This is the case for many people in Hollywood. It's an opportunity that screenwriters with decades of experience may not be able to encounter even if they cheat.
According to the contract signed by both parties, as a full-time screenwriter, Bruce Joey Robin does not enjoy the right to share. This is actually a common practice in Hollywood to circumvent the WGA's "Basic Agreement" in order to save budget. Hollywood studios generally have Their own full-time screenwriters, these people usually create scripts based on the ideas of studio executives or other parties. Even members of the Writers Guild often cannot obtain the post-production share stipulated in the "Basic Agreement".
Then, here comes the problem.
Doesn't the WGA care about such behavior that violates the "Basic Agreement" of the Writers Guild of America
The answer is indeed no matter.
Although the WGA is a powerful industry union with the most frequent strikes in Hollywood, as long as it is consensual and no members file a complaint, it will basically not intervene.
In fact, not only the WGA, but also the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild have similar phenomena.
Steven Spielberg has been publicly complained by actors that he is very stingy in terms of remuneration. In order to reduce the actors' remuneration and post-production sharing, which is also stipulated in the Screen Actors Guild basic agreement, he often requires actors participating in his films to sign evasion actors. Contractual deed of union basic agreement.
However, there is also another common phenomenon in Hollywood.
As long as a film unexpectedly sells well at the box office, it is bound to be followed by various disputes for profit, or the uneven distribution of interests between producers and distributors, or someone jumping out to accuse plagiarism and demanding compensation, or profit. Related parties believe the studio is hiding profits, and so on and so forth.
A series of phenomenal movies over the years, from "Jaws" and "Star Wars" in the 1970s to "Top Gun" and "Rain Man" in recent years, have not been able to escape this 'curse'.
As for "The Sixth Sense", even if the film sells $100 million in North American box office, Bruce Joy Robin may still be able to treat it calmly. After the first part of "Scream", he was successfully promoted to a first-line screenwriter. Although In order to receive high-paying offers from other studios, he did not accept further invitations to write sequels, but he did not object to the original salary.
However, a super blockbuster with a global box office potential of 600 million makes it difficult for him to maintain his psychological balance.
This imbalance probably began to accumulate since the release of "Scream" last year.
Therefore, when the gossip newspaper article was exposed, Bruce Joy Robin not only failed to publicly deny it immediately as requested by Daenerys Entertainment, but instead dealt with the media while making demands to Daenerys Entertainment. , hoping that as the creator of the two movie scripts "Scream" and "The Sixth Sense", he could get some compensation from the huge profits of the film, and he unceremoniously offered a sky-high price of US$5 million. .
Simon was furious about this incident.
Another guy who is unwilling to abide by the contract and even uses force to intimidate.
Simon is a person who attaches great importance to contracts. Just like last year's "Pulp Fiction", Orion recovered at least US$100 million in net profits from a global box office of more than US$300 million, but he could only receive a box office share of more than US$15 million. . However, since the original contract was like this, Simon has never regretted it.
There is also the film contract owed to Disney. According to the original agreement, Simon only needs to pay a multi-million dollar liquidated damages to get rid of it. Relative to the scale of his net profit of hundreds of millions of dollars per movie, this is completely worth it, but Simon has no intention of doing so.
Although Simon stuck to his contract, Daenerys Entertainment encountered repeated breaches of promise.
Simon originally did not intend to compromise. Everyone's contract was written in black and white, and many of the original details were documented. Even if it went to court, Daenerys Entertainment was not afraid at all.
However, under Amy's persuasion, in order to prevent this incident from affecting the box office success of "The Sixth Sense", Simon reluctantly agreed to the proposal of private settlement. Bruce Joy Robin probably also knew that if his request was put on the table, it would be difficult to get a favorable result for him. Daenerys Entertainment bargained with the other party's lawyer several times and quickly confirmed a settlement of US$2 million. amount.
It's just that the tree wants to be quiet but the wind doesn't stop.
Daenerys Entertainment almost reached a settlement with Bruce Joy Robin, but the Writers Guild of America, which was already at odds with Daenerys Entertainment, suddenly jumped out and announced that it would publicly investigate Daenerys Entertainment and WGA membership Violation of the agreement harms the interests of union members.
In Hollywood, not to mention low-level screenwriters, even the top gold screenwriters often take on some private work and spend a few weeks working as a 'script doctor' for some projects. They receive a one-time generous remuneration, do not participate in signatures, and do not ask for profit sharing. , of course, does not need to be responsible for the commercial success or failure of the film.
There are also many people who complete the entire script without signing their name. The real screenwriter of Jim Carrey's famous "Dumb and Dumber" in the original time and space was actually not the Ferrari brothers. The first draft of the script was written by John Hugh, the screenwriter of "Home Alone" Si's hand.
Things are always like this. If you don't take it seriously, everything will be fine. If you take it seriously, it will cause trouble.
The two sides had deep grievances during last year's writers' strike, and perhaps there was some push from other forces. The Writers Guild of America was obviously very willing to confront Daenerys Entertainment about this matter, and even forced Daenerys Entertainment to proactively cooperate with the investigation, otherwise Daenerys Entertainment will be placed on the union blacklist and union members will be prohibited from continuing to cooperate with Daenerys Entertainment.
The serious consequences of the Writers Guild of America's strike last year are still fresh in our minds. The WGA's statement threatening to conduct a 'strike' solely against Daenerys Entertainment naturally cannot be ignored by Simon.
Once the worst happens, without preparation, many of Daenerys Entertainment's ongoing projects may come to a standstill. This year's autumn TV season is coming soon. If some of the TV series cannot be delivered on time due to a lack of writers, it will not only have a serious impact on Daenerys Entertainment's TV business, but will also have to pay the TV network a large amount of liquidated damages.
Since this matter was destined to no longer be concealed quietly, Daenerys Entertainment immediately gave up its plan to reconcile privately with Bruce Joy Robin. In addition to cooperating with the WGA's so-called investigation, it also publicly disclosed the entire matter. The inside story of the matter was published in the media.
Whether it was "Scream" or "The Sixth Sense", Simon personally completed a detailed story outline and privately discussed more details of the script with Bruce Joy Robin. Bruce Joyce Robin injected very little personal thought into either script, and his work was limited to expanding Simon's ideas into a full script of about two hours.
Not only the outline of the story, but also the minutes of several meetings between Simon and Bruce Joy Robin are available.
All of this has been exposed, and any normal person can probably figure out the right and wrong.
Santa Monica.
The time is Friday, July 28th.
Simon was no longer busy with the post-production of "Batman" this morning and came to his office at the company headquarters early in the morning.
When Amy walked in, Simon was looking through the box office data report for the past week.
Previously, on July 21, only one low-cost comedy "UHF" from Orion Pictures was released in North American theaters. It tells the story of a TV station, which is somewhat similar to Fox's two years ago, starring William Hurt and Holly Hunter stars in the box-office and award-winning "Broadcast News."
However, "UHF" did not have the good luck of "Broadcast News". It opened with a screen size of 1,295 and the box office in its first week was only 3.52 million US dollars. It did not pose any threat to the still strong "The Sixth Sense" and even It might as well be "The Bodyguard," which collected another $5.07 million in its eighth week of release.
On this week's box office list, "The Sixth Sense", which has entered its fourth week of release, has finally begun to expand its box office decline, reaching 19%. It collected another US$31.06 million in seven days, with a cumulative box office of US$150.02 million. Various data Still outstanding.
Warner Bros.' "Lethal Weapon 2" and Disney's promising "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" occupied the second and third spots respectively.
"License to Kill", released on July 14, set a new North American box office low since the birth of this classic spy film series, taking inflation into account. It only took in US$13.03 million in its first week. This week's box office It fell another 39%, only collecting US$7.83 million. The cumulative box office of US$20.86 million in two weeks was only half of the single-week box office of "The Sixth Sense" in its fourth week of release.
Although the 007 series has always accounted for the majority of the box office in overseas countries and has never suffered a loss so far, this sequel is expected to only have a local box office figure of more than 30 million US dollars in North America, which is far from meeting the expectations of the producers.
Simon remembered that due to the failure of this sequel and some entanglements in copyright lawsuits, the 007 series had been steadily maintaining a sequel for two or three years. After "007: License to Kill", it was not until 1995 that another sequel was released. This is a new work, with a time interval of 6 years, and the leading actor is also changed to Pierce Brosnan.
Amy sat down opposite Simon, waited patiently for a moment, noticed that he raised his head, and then said: "The WGA just sent someone over to take away some files of "Scream" and "The Sixth Sense". There are also Regarding "Rain Man," MGM had originally given up the idea of formally filing a lawsuit, but they just called and their attitude has become stronger again. Perhaps this lawsuit is inevitable."
Simon still pressed the box office report in his hand and asked Amy: "What do you think happened this time?"
Amy shook her head: "It's hard to say. Someone must be targeting us, but maybe it's not just which company. Those people should just be following the trend. After all, this time we took the initiative to expose our flaws. Well, Mi Gao Mei is just messing around."
Simon picked up a pencil at hand and looked at the box office report in front of him again. He was actually thinking about this just now. Moreover, he came to roughly similar conclusions to Amy.