The executives at 20th Century Fox were very dissatisfied. Bruce Willis proposed all kinds of outrageous shooting conditions, which is a typical symptom of a movie project in which the leading male star actor loses control.

Joel Silver is not very satisfied either. The star cost of the project is out of control, and the budget is still so large. The reasonable and unreasonable profits he can obtain will be greatly reduced.

And it was obvious that when Bruce Willis invited Ronald over to have an interview at his home, he must also be very dissatisfied.

20th Century Fox provided the production costs and distribution channels for this project. Joel Silver needed to solve various problems and conflicts according to the team from beginning to end. Bruce Willis contributed his unique screen image and fighting spirit.

The action performance of fate (seemingly).

So, Ronald only participated in the filming of the first film and had part of the production rights. In the sequel, he neither joined the team, nor did he choose the actors, nor was he the director, nor did he contribute to the special effects. Why should he?

Can you carve your own lucrative piece of this sequel cake that is very likely to be a hit?

Ronald's unique value is that he can settle these people, let them settle into their positions, and accept the share they can get for their efforts. If there is no such person to share the cake, then everyone will fight together and want to

I eat more and occupy more. The final result of the quarrel is that the project collapses, the filming cannot be completed, and no one can eat the cake.

…

"Diane, Ronald, welcome..."

Bruce Willis and Demi Moore let Ronald and Diane into their home.

The first thing Diane did was to check on Demi and Bruce's almost one-year-old daughter Rumer, who was sleeping on the crib. "Ah, the little baby is so cute. Will it be noisy at night?" Dane looked at her sleeping soundly.

little Rumer asked.

"Oh, I always have to wake up at night to feed the baby. It's very troublesome..." Demi Moore began to complain. Bruce Willis was always very chauvinistic. Sometimes he was woken up by his daughter at night and would throw out a few 100s.

Let Demi take care of the big dollar bills.

The two women gathered around Demi's eldest daughter and naturally chatted about parenting.

"Ah, brother. Marriage is really a troublesome thing for us men. Demi often does some things that are very difficult to understand. Women become another kind of animal after marriage."

Bruce Willis took Ronald to visit his new room of honor and opened a bottle of fine whiskey in an attempt to get closer to Ronald.

The two drank wine and ate salami, and naturally talked about their married life.

"What about?" Ronald raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect that a new woman like Demi Moore, who is full of independent spirit, would actually become arrogant after marriage.

"For example, we can obviously hire a nanny to stay at home and take care of Rumer. But Demi thinks this will affect our family life. When the baby starts crying in the middle of the night, she kicks my ass and asks me to give it to her.

Changing the baby's diaper...I think she just wants to instruct me to do this or that..."

"Um..." Ronald touched his forehead. It seemed that Demi Moore, like Diane, had some personal identity crises. She always wanted to do something to attract her husband's attention, so that she could show her independence.

Personality.

In contrast, Diane just tried different new dishes to satisfy herself, which may be considered her luck...

The two of them were drinking and watching TV. Today happened to be the current MLB All-Star Game. Bo Jackson hit a leadoff home run at the beginning. This was a rare exciting scene in the Baseball All-Star Game in recent years.

"Is there anything you want to tell me, Bruce?"

The two high-fived each other and drank the remaining wine in the glasses. Ronald signaled to the other party that it was time to get down to business.

"Ronald, you know I'm not a greedy person, but my salary in the sequel is still significantly less..."

"Tell me your feelings. Why do you think this salary figure is on the low side? I don't know much about the current salary level of male stars..." Ronald smiled. All kinds of excessive demands turned out to be because

The issue with the salary figure. Those are Bruce Willis’s deliberate attitude toward 20th Century Fox and the producers.

"Actually, this has nothing to do with money, but everything to do with respect..." Bruce Willis curled his lips and explained his reasoning.

Recently, People magazine did an inventory of Bruce Willis and male stars with similar characteristics to him, and gave it a very alarmist title, "Battle of the Biceps..."

"They were panting, sweating, their faces twisted, showing pain. They lifted barbells and dodged bullets. Beautiful girls clung to their overdeveloped chests. They galloped and roared into the cinema. The real battle was in

unfolding at the box office. They are the hotties of the summer and their ranks have never been bigger…”

While listening to Bruce Willis, Ronald picked up the People magazine that Willis had already prepared and put on the table, opened the article and started reading.

The first is Australian star Mel Gibson. Among these male action stars, he is a lightweight (the size of his biceps is the smallest).

His Lethal Weapon series has become a special branch of the action field, "with some crazy action stars"... His salary has reached more than 7 million US dollars.

In comparison, the person with the largest biceps is of course Arnold Schwarzenegger. The highest salary he received was US$10 million, plus profit sharing in the later period.

Bruce Willis's muscular dimension is in the middle of the two, but his blue-collar temperament and the storyline of ordinary people being forced into adventures make his Die Hard unique and remembered by the audience.

It is reported that 20th Century Fox gave him a salary of US$7.5 million for filming the sequel to Die Hard.

The last member of the biceps club is Eddie Murphy, a famous black comedy action star. His new movie Coming to America did very well at the box office in the summer, and Paramount gave him a salary of US$9 million.

As for "Another 48 Hours," the sequel to his 1982 hit "48 Hours" that he is about to shoot, he will receive a salary of US$12 million, plus an appropriate share of post-production profits.

Without this report, Bruce Willis might still be able to tolerate his $7.5 million salary. Now, the media has lined up his income and that of three other male action stars. This involves the same issue.

It's a matter of male celebrities squeezing each other's seats.

It seems that what Bruce Willis said is not (completely) about money, but about dignity, and it is not 100% bragging and nonsense.

In terms of box office explosion and audience madness, he is at least better than Schwarzenegger. Mel Gibson is an Australian, and the average American audience would not be happy with such a foreign star who occasionally reveals some Irish accents.

I don't like him as much as I like Willis.

The person Bruce Willis is most dissatisfied with is probably Eddie Murphy. Strictly speaking, he is not exactly a muscular action star, but he incorporates a lot of comedy elements into the movie.

For such an actor, he was able to receive nearly double Willis' salary and have a lot of control over the project, which made Bruce Willis very dissatisfied.

"But this salary does not completely represent the studio's recognition of you. It also has many historical and contractual reasons, which we also have to consider..."

Ronald scratched his head. How could he explain these reasons to Bruce Willis more reasonably and get his approval?

First of all, Schwarzenegger's salary of more than 10 million US dollars is the result of Minahan Golan's lavish behavior after receiving huge financing during the Cannon period.

At that time, Schwarzenegger and Stallone were twin action stars. Minahan took the lead in raising Stallone's salary to more than $12 million, which raised Schwarzenegger's salary as well.

He only received such a high salary for a short period of time. Later, because pure muscle action movies fell out of favor in the market, they soon could not get such a high salary.

Mel Gibson's basic skills are very good, and his performance has gone beyond the category of those action stars who only have muscular muscles. He gets this slightly low salary now entirely because he is not American.

As for Bruce Willis himself, his number of blockbuster movies has not yet caught up with the previous two. There are still some doubts in the market about the success of his Die Hard. The reason for this box office success is because

What about the male lead, or is it because of director McTiernan?

Fortunately, in the sequel, Ronald and Joel Silver changed directors, and it soon became clear who was more important in the Die Hard series.

"Bruce, let me put it this way, do you know how much Tom Cruise was getting paid when I was doing Top Gun?"

"How much is it?" Bruce Willis really didn't know, "3 million or 4 million?" He guessed a number at random. At that time, Tom Cruise had already filmed the famous film "It's Crazy" and several other movies.

This is a movie with a big-name director.

"It's only a little over 1 million. You can ask your agent for confirmation. This is not a secret in the industry."

Ronald thought for a while and decided to come up with the method of comparison.

Let Bruce Willis take a good look in the mirror and compare his salary level for his debut movie with other popular male stars.

Generally speaking, when a male star tries the big screen for the first time, he will get a relatively cheap salary. With Tom Cruise's popularity at that time, US$1 million is a more suitable price.

In the first episode of Die Hard, Bruce Willis received the standard of a top male star, a salary of 5 million US dollars. This was because Barry Diller, the boss of 20th Century Fox, wanted to deliberately favor him.

, it has a lot to do with proving that your film and television integration strategy is successful.

In other words, if we look at the normal prices, Bruce Willis actually earned more than 3 million more in the first film. If the first and second episodes of Die Hard are taken as one

On the whole, other stars who are comparable to him actually get about the same amount of money as he did in the sequel.

"I believe what you said, Ronald. You are one of the few people in Hollywood who tells the truth, and I completely believe in your explanation." Bruce Willis heard this and expressed his approval of Ronald's statement.

statement, but he changed the topic...

"But that was several years ago. The current movie market is completely different from previous years. Paramount also offered Eddie Murphy's sequel a condition of US$12 million, plus

Profit sharing in the later period...

I don’t understand, is there such a big gap between me and Eddie Murphy?”

Whether it is worth money or not is actually a matter of comparison. Ronald could only shake his head and smile bitterly, "Murphy is different..."

"What's the difference?" Bruce Willis looked dissatisfied. Why could black stars get higher salaries than white stars of the same status? He felt that he was not racially discriminatory, but that the natural movie-going population could

Represents some box office potential.

"Uh...", Ronald actually had many explanations in mind. For example, although Eddie Murphy is a black man, white people also like to watch black people playing tricks on the screen and get a kind of overlooking pleasure.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! For another example, Eddie Murphy is not a pure action star. His comedy skills are very profound, and his face makes you laugh when you look at it.

For another example, the fusion of action and comedy was originally the direction of a very successful commercial film in the 1980s. Eddie Murphy's really popular movie "Beverly Hills Cop" was taken over after Stallone gave up on it.

What makes this genre shine.

In the end, Ronald did not mention any of these reasons, but chose one that was more acceptable to Bruce Willis:

"You have to understand that he signed a contract to sell himself, and you enjoy much better creative freedom than he does..."

"Creative freedom?" Sure enough, Bruce Willis was interested.

"Ah, yes, Eddie Murphy signed an exclusive contract with Paramount for five movies. So no matter what bad movies Paramount gives him, he has to make them (of course, Paramount usually doesn't do this)

Yes, but Ronald didn't say...).
To be continued...