Simon took out the script of "The Butterfly Effect" from his backpack and handed it to Jonathan Friedman.
Jonathan Friedman did not open it, but glanced at the cover, then pressed the script on the table and continued to look at him with a smile.
In this case, Simon organized his thoughts and began to elaborate: "This is a suspense thriller with a soft science fiction nature. Since he was very young, people around Ivan have often discovered that this child will do some extraordinary things for no reason. Strange or even bizarre behavior. However, Ivan always claimed afterwards that he could not remember the situation at all. The doctor classified Ivan's condition as intermittent amnesia and recommended him to keep a diary for auxiliary treatment. "
When Simon said this, he noticed that Jonathan Friedman's expression showed some curiosity, so he continued.
The general plot idea of "The Butterfly Effect" is a story about a young man who has the ability to go back to the past by reading diaries. In order to make up for his past regrets, he travels through time and space again and again to try to change his life.
However, every time the male protagonist tries to change the past, when he returns to the time when he was twenty years old, he finds that everything around him does not develop as he imagined, and even gets worse.
The biggest feature of "The Butterfly Effect" is its rigorous plot that is so interlocking that it makes people laugh. The whole story is like a well-conceived network, and all the details can find echoing nodes in other places.
Therefore, this film is considered a classic in the hearts of many suspense thriller lovers.
In the original time and space, the production company of "The Butterfly Effect" was New Line Cinema. Simon heard that the film had many endings during the editing process. However, the one he finally chose was the darkest and most impactful one. After trying again and again without satisfactory results, the male protagonist returned to his mother's womb in despair and strangled himself with his umbilical cord.
Then the whole story came to an abrupt end.
After Simon finished speaking briefly, Jonathan Friedman, who originally had no expectations for him, fell silent.
The first part of Robert Zemeckis' "Back to the Future" was released just last year and won the annual box office championship in 1985.
Therefore, Simon's script, which has similar time-travel elements to "Back to the Future", was far beyond Jonathan Friedman's expectations. He even felt that this story was even better than "Back to the Future" in terms of pure conception. Even better.
At least for now, just such a very novel script idea is enough to convince him to recommend Simon to WMA's literary agency department.
You know, Hollywood is also full of a lot of following trends. It is only because of the generally long production cycle of Hollywood movies that people do not feel that one movie is popular in the first half of the year and a lot of similar movies are released in the second half.
Therefore, when "Back to the Future" won last year's box office championship, Simon's idea, as long as it is paired with a relatively complete script, will definitely arouse strong interest from Hollywood studios.
In addition, such a strangely conceived thriller is exactly the type of project that Jonathan Friedman is currently looking for.
The key now is, what is the quality of the script in hand
After all, Hollywood has never lacked creativity. What it lacks is just perfect story scripts that can be transformed into wonderful films based on relevant creativity.
Many Hollywood movies usually go through lengthy revisions that take several years during the script creation stage. The main reason is that there are too many details that need to be refined between a workable script and the original story idea.
Thinking quickly in his mind, he lowered his head and glanced at the cover of the script in his hand. Jonathan Friedman subconsciously asked a question similar to Catherine's yesterday: "Simon, can you first explain the meaning of the 'Butterfly Effect'?"
Simon nodded and once again explained the theory of Professor Edward Lorenz of MIT.
After listening to this, Jonathan Friedman asked a question that surprised him: "So, you went to MIT?"
"No," Simon shook his head, but immediately added: "I entered Stanford last year and received a full scholarship, but I dropped out early due to some changes."
When Simon said this, Jonathan Friedman's expression changed significantly.
Although Stanford University does not belong to the Ivy League in the United States, in fact, the overall strength of this top university on the west coast of the United States has surpassed most of the league members, and it has a prominent place in the world university rankings.
Simon was able to enter Stanford University on a full scholarship. Even though he had dropped out at this time, this qualification would definitely raise Jonathan Friedman's evaluation of him several notches.
Simon also knew in his heart that he was actually conducting an interview now.
Westerners don't pay attention to modesty. The better a person performs during the interview, the greater the success rate.
Therefore, Simon had no hesitation in taking advantage of his qualifications at this time.
After Simon finished speaking, he saw Jonathan Friedman glance at his watch with a hesitant expression, and then spoke at the right time: "Mr. Friedman, the first ten pages of the script are the outline of the story I made. Maybe you can take a look at it first. It’s a little more detailed than what I just told.”
Jonathan Friedman nodded when he heard this, no longer entangled, and readily opened the script in front of him.
However, the content on the first page of the script once again stunned him. It was a copyright registration certificate from the Writers Guild of America.
With a slight shake of his head and a smile, Jonathan Friedman flipped through it, but his initial perception of Simon completely changed in his heart. The young man opposite was obviously not one of those hot-headed young people who just jumped into Hollywood and thought they could make it big.
Then when he saw the beautiful and neat English handwriting even though it was a copy, Jonathan Friedman was no longer too surprised. Of course, my evaluation of Simon has inevitably improved a lot again.
Hollywood may have more copyright disputes and lawsuits every year than the movies it produces. It was Simon's helpless move to directly paste the WGA's copyright registration certificate on the title page. He is not so naive as to think that an industry giant like WMA cannot do the little trick of appropriating other people's scripts.
Now Simon couldn't withstand such twists and turns, so he simply cut off some possible disputes at their source.
In fact, as Jonathan Friedman thought, even though he inherited the memories of twelve other people, Simon is definitely not the kind of fool who thinks he will be a blockbuster once he steps into Hollywood.
From the moment he first came up with the idea of coming to Los Angeles to try his luck, Simon had already started making very detailed plans.
Although he has a pretty good skin, Simon has no intention of becoming an actor. His first-stage goal is to become a director, but without any qualifications and connections, this is obviously unlikely in the short term.
Then, starting with a screenwriter with a slightly lower threshold is a very good choice.
According to some information in Simon's memory, the two major writers' unions on the east and west coasts of Hollywood register more than 60,000 scripts every year, which seems to be a very large number. But in Hollywood as a whole, the total number of all theatrical movies, TV movies, and low-budget independent movies released directly to video every year is no problem, exceeding 600.
The success rate of 1% is already very high in Simon's opinion.
What's more, among the tens of thousands of screenplays that appear every year, mediocrity still accounts for the majority. But as a time-traveler, the scripts Simon can come up with are basically the best works after going through the waves.
Moreover, in the initial process of selecting scripts, Simon also carefully weighed various factors.
As a newcomer to Hollywood, if you want to ensure that your script is favored by the film company as much as possible, you must first produce it at a low cost. If Simon takes out the "Titanic" script now, there is a 99% chance that it will be accepted by the film company. People throw it directly into the trash can. Secondly, the story must be novel enough to make people’s eyes shine. Finally, the script idea would ideally include popular elements from some of the box-office blockbusters of recent years.
"The Butterfly Effect" fully meets the above three criteria: low cost, new ideas, and time-travel elements to follow last year's box office champion "Back to the Future."
In the office, it was quiet for a moment as Jonathan Friedman read.
When the knock on the door came to mind, Jonathan Friedman found himself unconsciously reading the text of the script. The text of the script in the standard Hollywood format also looks impeccable. The beautiful handwritten English not only does not have any sense of violation, but also creates a more comfortable reading experience.
He was immersed in reading and was suddenly interrupted. Jonathan Friedman raised his head with some displeasure and found his assistant Owen Wright standing by the door and gestured towards him. Only then did he react.
After looking at his schedule, Jonathan Friedman said to his assistant: "If Courteney has nothing else to do, let her wait for a while. The same goes for subsequent appointments. I will get off work later today."
After hearing this, Owen Wright looked at Simon who was sitting with his back to him in surprise, nodded and was about to leave the office when Jonathan Friedman stopped him again and ordered: "Also, make two cups of coffee and come in .”
When the door closed again, Jonathan Friedman smiled at Simon and didn't explain anything. He just turned his attention back to the script in front of him.
Simon didn't mind and casually glanced at the electronic watch on his wrist.
The time now is 4:13.
In other words, Jonathan Friedman should have only reserved 10 minutes of meeting time for himself. If his performance was unsatisfactory, he might have been sent away by now.
Simon didn't have any grudges about this, and he would probably be the same way.
Politeness is a person's self-cultivation, but work must still follow the rules. He is still an unknown Hollywood rookie, naturally only worth 10 minutes.
Owen Wright quickly came in with two cups of coffee. Simon took the coffee cups, thanked him, and continued to wait patiently for Jonathan Friedman to read the script.