[US Entertainment] Hollywood reverses life

"This is Jack Hansen." Jack grabbed the phone from under the covers at four o'clock in the morning.

When I saw the call, it turned out to be Tom Cruise.

He cursed, "I said man, what are you going to do when you're up at four in the morning?"

Tom sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the luxury suite of the hotel, with a yellow desk lamp and a laptop in front of him.

He sat on the chair and slowly lay down, stretched his waist and relaxed his limbs, "Didn't you give me an extra job on your own initiative?"

"Oh? You mean the "Juno" project? Have you read the script?" Jack Hansen became excited at this time. After all, he is very optimistic about this movie, and he is also very happy to hang up with the film's producers. His own name, if the movie is really successful, then he can also increase his bargaining chip.

Tom drew a circle on the rim of the glass with his finger, his eyes lost in thought, "It's a movie worth investing in."

"Oh?" Jack said joyfully, "I'll tell you, your vision has always been discerning. Better than those of us who graduated from film institutions of higher learning!"

Tom scratched his hair smartly with his hands and pulled them back from his head, "Don't belittle yourself, your professional knowledge is still very useful."

He really hasn't read many books. It can be said that all his experience comes from actual combat, including the selection of films.But after being in Hollywood for decades, he already has his own set of film selection strategies and ideas, and he has basically made no mistakes.

Since "Top Gun" became Hollywood's super money printing machine in 1986, almost none of the films he has made in the past 20 years have not made money, only earning more and less.

No one can deny that he is indeed an irreplaceable superstar of this era.

Jack then asked: "So you mean, we can invest in this movie?"

Tom didn't answer right away, he stared at the screen with an intriguing gaze. On the screen was the main page of Joy Grant on imdb, with a picture of her on it, and several movies with a bad number.

He sighed, then smiled, "But I have to understand her background, you know I don't like young people like this, I don't think she was such a negative person before, can change overnight .”

"We shouldn't look at what other people have done in the past. We can just focus on the "Juno" we have now. The script is really good, isn't it?"

Tom said lightly: "But I don't believe that she can make a good script."

"Then what do you mean, we have to give up such a good script? Or do we buy it and shoot it ourselves?"

Tom's voice was tepid, and he couldn't guess the emotion, "No, let her shoot."

Jack was taken aback, was he playing with him?He asked rhetorically: "Why do I feel that you are a bit out of line today, do you want to invest in this movie?"

Tom's eyes fell on the photo on Joy's homepage. In the photo, Joy smiled brightly. The refraction of the sun made her eyes seem to have stars falling. He hesitated for a moment, and then said: "I said let her take pictures, Isn't the meaning clear enough?"

"Why? You obviously don't like her." Jack really didn't understand.

He didn't answer Jack, and he didn't intend to answer. He said directly in the tone of the end: "That's it, you can deal with the next thing, it's fine within the 200 million quota."

"Okay, I know, you are getting weirder now."

Then the phone was hung up.

Tom put the phone on the table, added half a bag of sugar to the coffee, and then looked at the thick mist coming out of the cup, and fell into a long thought.

You obviously don't like that young girl, why did you agree to invest this money in her?

Because he saw himself in her eyes today when he was young, and he seemed to see the 18-year-old self who had nothing and was alone in Hollywood.

At that time, he had nothing, and was even ridiculed by people for being too short, too dark, and acting too fake to be an actor, and he stayed in Hollywood for several years and was still unknown, and it was difficult to audition for small supporting roles.

But he didn't give up. Under such circumstances, he still wanted to be an excellent actor.

Now this Joey Grant, she also has nothing. The media abandoned her, her old club fired her, her fiancé left her, her property was about to be confiscated, and she was also ridiculed and ridiculed by the world.

But, at the same time, she didn't intend to give up.

She is in such a situation, and she still has to go on, and she looks full of confidence.

This is the same as him back then.

He can empathize.

He knows what kind of mood people will feel when they are in troughs and difficulties, and he also knows how much courage it takes to stick to their dreams at such times.

He didn't know whether it was that Joey Grant's acting skills were so good that he deceived him, a professional actor, or she really planned to go on so firmly.

Anyway, he believed it, and this time he decided to believe her.

He wanted to see if she would really surprise him.

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On the third day back in Los Angeles, Joy received an email in surprise. Jack wanted to verify some details with her, as well as some incidental requirements, such as publishing work requiring them to be consultants. Participation is necessary, for example, they will sign a sharing agreement with Joey in the end, for example, they will have one or two "supervisor" personnel to come to the crew and so on.

In short, businessmen are doing whatever is beneficial to them. In Joey's view, this agreement is more like a prostitution agreement, which is equivalent to selling most of the rights and interests of "Juno" to them, and they don't need to do anything to wait for the distribution. Money will do.

But in order to be able to shoot the movie quickly, Joey didn't care so much, after all, she was not qualified to negotiate these conditions with others.

Shooting a movie in the United States is not that simple. It needs to set up a company, attract investment, raise funds, and insure (if the filming is not completed, the insurance company will lose money), and after the insurance is insured, the completion guarantee company will evaluate the project and come every day. The set urged to speed up the progress, and the supervision budget would not exceed the standard.

After all, not everyone is James Cameron. When filming "Titanic", he repeatedly asked 20th Century Fox and Paramount for money over the budget, and Summer Redstone was so angry that he wanted to expose it. The table is gone, just because the plate of the table is not printed with the logo of Baixing Company, it costs 200 million to remake the props.

Because "Harvard Life" was completely funded by herself, many steps were omitted, but now that the revised "Juno" has investors coming in, everything will follow the rules.

First, Joey immediately went to Texas to register a company.

Why travel thousands of miles from Los Angeles, California to Texas, it is because there are preferential policies for companies registered in Texas, and the price is cheaper.

Joey registered a studio called "doasinfinity", and the registration fee was much cheaper than in California.

As for the shooting location, the heroine of the original version of "Harvard Life" was the 20-year-old Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson who came to Hollywood to develop. This was recruited by Joy from the actor's guild. She was originally in Sweden. Acted in some soap operas, and in "Mission: Impossible 12 Mysterious Country" 5 years later, she became well-known as the female lead of Liangtang.

The reason why Joy chose this Nordic cold white-skinned actress was mainly because of the Swedish tax rebate subsidy, so that she could hire this actress without spending a salary.

Speaking of tax rebates, this has been a long-standing issue in the United States, California, where Hollywood is located, and many places abroad.It can be said that among the ten films nominated for Oscars, nine of them were not shot in Hollywood or in the United States.

Tax credits make Hollywood less attractive.

The reason is simple. California, where Hollywood is located, and even the United States, are unwilling to increase tax rebate subsidies.

Facts have proved that the shooting of movies can bring short-term economic benefits to the location, so Canada, the United Kingdom, and some Nordic countries have begun to introduce tax rebate and subsidy policies to attract Hollywood filmmakers to shoot.

You know, a policy-related tax rebate subsidy can save the producer 30%-40% of the cost.How tempting it is for producers.

More than ten years later, in order to enter Hollywood, Wanda boss Wang Jianlin even issued a list of 40% tax rebate subsidies to American film companies!

Although the support of independent films in the United States is overwhelming, only commercial films can really get local tax rebate subsidies, so many independent films choose to go overseas or shoot in states other than California, in order to get more subsidies, and Hollywood itself Most studios have long been reduced to tourist attractions.

What is confusing is that California is not at all nervous about the massive outflow of its own resources, and still does not introduce any large-scale tax rebate subsidies. Maybe Hollywood does still have enough self-confidence.

So most of the actors in Joey's movie are from Sweden, of course for the attractive tax rebates in Sweden.

Due to limited funds, she did not go overseas or to other states for the shooting location, but in order to save costs, she put the shooting location in the San Fernando Valley.

At least the San Fernando Valley is a lot cheaper than Hollywood.

The San Fernando Valley, which is rich in 90% of porn movies in the United States, has produced countless top porn stars in the United States, and the porn stars there are mainly cheap, and their acting skills are not bad.

Joey almost wanted to find an actress there directly, but considering her reputation is so bad, maybe the media will slander her for having an affair with porn stars in the San Fernando Valley...

Because the old version of "Harvard Life" has been filmed before, the contract needs to be re-signed to shoot the new version of "Juno". personnel.

After all, I have shot once before, and many things can be settled by contacting and re-signing the contract again, instead of bothering to finalize it like the first time shooting.

Afterwards, Jack's funds were also in place. After completing the above steps, she took the crew, the assistant director of "surveillance" sent by Jack, and the guarantor of the guarantee company to the San Fernando Valley.