New Line Cinema was founded in 1967, and its boss was Bob Shea.
At first, it only catered to American universities, releasing some terrible European and local films. A few years ago, it entered the production industry and made low-cost horror films, but did not achieve much success. There are countless small companies in Hollywood, and some of them are unlucky.
A film went bankrupt before it was made. Bob Shea was very capable and strictly controlled costs. Although the profit from each film was small, he did not lose money, and he operated smoothly for more than ten years.
In 1990, New Line's luck came.
Golden Harvest participated in the production of a film "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and 20th Century Fox bought the rights. However, they felt that the market response would not be very good and they did not dare to release it. They sold it to New Line and it took more than 100 million US dollars at the box office.
New Line began to prosper, and was acquired by Warner. Since then, it has produced countless classics, such as "Lord of the Rings", "Dead Man", "Blade", etc. As we all know, Hollywood's accountants are no less than Wall Street.
The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy had a box office revenue of nearly 3 billion U.S. dollars, but in the end there was no profit, and not a cent of the profit was given to Peter Jackson and the Tolkien Foundation.
According to their estimates, the gross revenue of "Lord of the Rings" including box office, DVD, cable TV and other product sales can reach 6 billion US dollars. Night.
Bob Shea, 43, returns home from the set of the show.
New Line is making a horror film with a budget of 400,000 US dollars, which only has the elements, psychedelic drugs, blood plasma, motorcycles, and big breasts.
The American film market is large and rich, providing distribution channels for all types of films. This type of B-level film is exclusively for drive-in theaters, late-night channels and the video market, and can earn tens of thousands of dollars.
He opened a can of beer, sat tiredly on the sofa, and turned on the TV.
The news was playing on the TV, and it was the scene of a group of people smashing cars at the scene of "Orphan". They all seemed to be high, well, maybe they were actually high. A female reporter appeared on camera to report, and her big breasts attracted people's attention.
.
"You should be filming under such conditions. Why do you want to be a reporter? You have to spread your legs anyway."
Bob Shea muttered, and then the screen turned, and an Asian face appeared, saying seriously: "I thank them for their sincerity for art... They have built a bridge of friendship between China and the United States...
Subtitle introduction: Chen, producer and screenwriter of "Orphan". A few seconds of footage flashed by.
But Bob Shea scratched his head, found his business card holder, flipped through it, and pulled out a business card. The information on it just matched.
It seems that last year, a well-known American couple introduced a Hong Kong filmmaker to themselves. Please! Although he has watched Bruce Lee and some Hong Kong films, it does not mean that he approves of the film industry there.
Except for Hollywood, the whole world is very backward, and those art guys in Europe who like nudity are even more ridiculous.
He politely agreed at the time and turned around and forgot about it. He didn't expect to be able to connect with each other after a year. "Is this the person who made "Orphan's Grudge"?"
"It seems that there is another film that won the Golden Bear Award."
Bob Shea recalled the news he read in the newspaper and couldn't help but think about it.
He just watched "Orphan" yesterday, and it was surprisingly very good, and it scratched the itch of Americans. 20th Century Fox's shameless car-smashing promotion directly caused a wave of popularity, and many people went crazy over the car-smashing.
I have to buy a movie ticket.
He estimates that the box office of this film may be between 20 million and 30 million.
New Line was too small and did not consider overseas, focusing on local low-cost horror films. But at this moment, he saw that "Orphan" was made by a Hong Kong person - he thought that Chen Qi was a Hong Kong person, which meant that this person understood
For the US market.
Bob Shea did what he thought of and immediately called his friends at 20th Century Fox and inquired about the hotel where the delegation was staying.
Liu Zhigu was greatly shocked yesterday, but he is recovering today.
Before breakfast every day, he would gather for roll call and talk about the day's itinerary. He said: "The U.S. government has an event in the morning. We will go to Universal Studios to listen to their producers, directors, and technicians talk about the production of Hollywood movies.
process.
In the afternoon we went to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. There is a dinosaur exhibition there, Comrade Dong Zhiming!" "Yes!"
"According to the arrangement, you have to give them a lecture this afternoon. Are you ready?" "You are ready. You will never embarrass the motherland!"
Dinosaur expert Dong Zhiming went abroad for the first time and was extremely nervous.
During this trip, in addition to the cultural exchange between movies, we also brought an additional small project, which was the exchange on the excavation of dinosaur fossils. Dong Zhiming also brought some gifts. We had breakfast together.
After dinner, we set off to Universal Studios in the northwest suburbs of Los Angeles. Everyone understood that this is an American studio + amusement park, and we were all very curious. We went down to the lobby on the first floor and waited for the bus.
Liu Zhigu watched all directions and listened to all directions. He did not dare to relax for a moment after coming to the United States. The rooms he arranged were all on the same floor. Two people were on duty every night until dawn the next day. Li Wenhua and Yan Shunkai sat on the sofa and chatted. Gong Xue held
Looking back and forth in the small mirror, a few others held a magazine and discussed...
Chen Qi couldn't sit still and wandered back and forth.
When he walked to the door, a middle-aged white man happened to come from outside. He seemed to know him and walked straight up. Whoops!
Liu Zhigu is horny again, who? A stranger? What?
He ran over in a hurry, and Chen Qi was also confused. The other party took out his business card and introduced himself: "New Line Cinema, Bob Shea!" "Oh! It seems that Ed only remembered me a year later. He just
Contact you? Mr. Shea!"
Chen Qi smiled.
"I'm sorry for my negligence. I came to visit today and hope we have a good start." Bob Shea also smiled.
Chen Qi was noncommittal and introduced Liu Zhigu: "I am with the visiting delegation this time, and this is our team leader... We have many activities today. Sorry, we don't have time to receive you.
The car is here, we have to go!"
He pulled Liu Zhigu away and got into the car.
"Last year I was filming "Orphan" and I asked Ed to help contact New Line Cinema, but they didn't like me. Now that "Orphan" has done well, he thinks it's OK, so he came to see me.
"So that's it!"
Liu Zhigu breathed a sigh of relief. He was really afraid of having some secret contact, but he said again: "Xiao Chen, I'm here all the time. Isn't it bad for you to be so rude?" "What's wrong? We have something to do, so we don't have time to receive him.
Him? If he is sincere, he will definitely contact me again."
"But our schedule is very tight these days?" "Then let him wait!"
As soon as these words came out, everyone in the car was stunned. The staff of the foreign affairs department also looked at him. They wanted to say something like "diplomacy is no small matter" and "treat international friends politely" but were stopped by Chen Qi's gesture.
A very strange sense of disharmony slowly spread out, just like Gong Xue was confused.
Chapter completed!