"I like the two movies you produced by Daydream, 'Dirty Dancing' and 'Love Is Not for Sale'. They made me very excited. Especially my mother, 'Dirty Dancing' was just right.

It was something that happened when she was young, and she also participated in the Peace Corps project and went overseas to promote the ideas of JFK's leadership."

The person who said this to Ronald was Thomas Stephenson Jr., a theater manager from New Jersey and New York whom Ronald had known at the Western Film Showcase in Las Vegas.

His father owned five theaters in New Jersey, and continued to invest in building new multiplex theaters in department stores in the suburbs of the city. The business gradually expanded to New York State, and also cooperated with the Northeastern Connecticut, Pennsylvania,

Theater chain operators in Washington, D.C. and other states have formed an alliance.

Ronald's Daydream Pictures has initially reached an agreement with them to release the movie. This time, they will bring "Love Is Not For Sale", which has just been edited and received an R-rating from the MPAA, in conjunction with "Dirty Dancing".

I did a test screening with them, hoping to get a better release time and screen.

Thomas Stephenson Jr. liked Ronald's movies very much. After the test screening, he came over to chat with Ronald and Douglas Hanson Jr., an important shareholder of Daydream.

"So, how many copies are you going to order?" Ronald asked this aggressive cinema heir. Thomas Sr. gradually put him in charge of all aspects of cinema operations, preparing him to take over when he had enough experience.

"My personal love is one thing, but business is another." Thomas Stephenson Jr.'s current position is as the buyer of his father's theater chain and several partner theaters in New Jersey.

Both the schedule and the number of copies have important suggestions.

"Oh, why do you say that? Your taste is very good, and your taste is very similar to the taste of ordinary American audiences. I think from a business perspective, you should also order more copies of the movies produced by our company.

"

Douglas Jr. and he are of the same age. They are both rich second generations. They plan to inherit their ancestors' business in the future. They also like movies, so they have something in common.

"I personally like these two movies very much. Especially "Dirty Dancing" directed by Ronald. The narrative of this movie is very smooth and the emotions are well mobilized. I was so moved at the end that I almost cried.

But business is business, and our cinema operators in the Northeast still mainly purchase movies from the seven major studios. I hope you can understand."

"Yeah, I understand, it's a marketing issue." Ronald nodded.

This question was often heard when he and distribution manager Cannold met with movie theater buyers on the West Coast.

The seven major studios will invest heavily in the marketing of movies. They release a fixed number of movies every year, purchase TV advertising time, newspaper space, buy film critics, and even have fixed suppliers for on-site posters.

The purchase volume is large and stable, and you can get big discounts.

A daydream is like setting up a distribution company specifically for the filming of "Dirty Dancing". "Love Is Not for Sale" was acquired by the way. All marketing costs are 30% higher than the purchase price of the Seventh Group.

Double.

If we assume that the two movies are of the same quality and have the same budget, the movie theater will certainly be willing to buy a movie from the Big Seven, which has deep pockets, and the marketing they invest will be able to attract a lot of viewers.

On the other hand, Ronald's movies are not starring well-known stars. The only thing that the audience has an impression of is Ronald. And the seven movies released at the same time are either starring stars or old series movies like 007

, as long as the audience sees a name, they will want to watch it.

This is why Ronald set aside twice the production cost to spend on marketing. At least it should make cinemas feel that it would not be a loss to buy their movies and show them.

But this was all known in advance. Ronald was neither disappointed nor blindly optimistic.

A few weeks after returning from Cannes, he joined Michelle Cannold's team, starting from Los Angeles, San Francisco and other places in California on the West Coast, to Seattle, Washington, and then to Las Vegas, Nevada.

,, and then enter the deep southern states.

There are no very large cities in the southern states, like Houston, Dallas and San Antonio in Texas. The time spent has to be evenly distributed among all the cities, which is very hard.

After completing a circle there, it then turned north and went to industrial cities such as Chicago and Detroit in the Great Lakes region of the Midwest. Finally, it passed through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and finally arrived at the seat of America's earliest thirteen states.

Along the way, Ronald has basically understood the mentality of movie theater buyers and operators.

When running a movie theater, it is not very important to them which movie is the best-seller. The most important thing is to ensure that the movie you buy will not be offline within a week of its release due to insufficient audiences.

Among the movies released every year, only less than 20% can achieve an attendance rate of more than 50% and can make cinemas make a lot of money.

For other movies, the most important purpose is to keep operating without losing money. If you accidentally buy an independently produced movie, but the attendance is low due to insufficient marketing and insufficient audiences, those losses will make the cinema lose money.

The operators lost all their money.

After all, the movie theater business is a competition of who can fill the seats more fully.

Along the way, Ronald had grown accustomed to their lack of confidence in their marketing efforts. So he was about to explain his marketing plan to Thomas Stephenson Jr.

In addition to having invited film critics from major media to attend the film critics' special event, Ronald also cooperated with the three major studios, Universal, Paramount, and Disney. During their free time in marketing their own films, Ronald

Borrow their media resources.

The most important thing is, of course, the real money spent on advertisements on MTV and other TV stations, and with the connections accumulated over the years, he and several leading actors attended multiple talk show TV programs and accepted interviews on talk shows, expanding his reach among the general audience.

Influence.

"I believe in the strength of daydreams," Thomas Stephenson Jr. smiled a little baby-faced. "You all mentioned these in the media package. Of course I believe in your determination."

Some producers will stop investing in marketing due to poor box office, poor reviews from film critics, or low ratings from live audiences. Therefore, the operators of these cinemas usually do not believe in the promises of the producers. Rona

Decai explained and guaranteed again and again.

"Actually, I'm worried about two other things." Thomas Stephenson Jr. said to Ronald.

"Please tell us, we should be honest with each other. There is nothing we can't say to make money, and we can talk about it." Douglas Hansen Jr. immediately showed his sincerity, took Thomas Jr.'s hand, and asked him to sit down and talk in detail.

It is rare to find a movie theater operator who can express specific concerns to producers.

After all, movies are a very risky industry, and you need to calibrate your understanding of reality at all times. Many directors and star-turned-producers often cannot tell whether others’ words are flattery or the truth, and they will not be able to tell the truth until the final release.

I realized I was surrounded by lies.

"The first thing is the MPAA rating of 'Love Is Not For Sale'. Our cinema operators don't really like R-rated movies..."

Thomas Stephenson Jr. explained the current thinking of movie theaters. When the film rating system first appeared, movie theaters felt that violence and pornography might attract more adult audiences to the theaters.

However, several X-rated movies have failed at the box office, and the average box office of R-rated movies is not higher than that of PG movies.

Those ordinary family viewers who watch "The Sound of Music" will not just go to the cinema to watch it even if they hear about a good X-rated movie. They also have to worry about the impact on their families and children.

Nowadays, the main group of moviegoers who go to movie theaters are teenagers. Although they like exciting plots, after all, R-rated movies require the company of adults, and many female viewers don't like too many violent scenes.

In the past few years, thanks to the vigorous public relations efforts of major directors such as Spielberg, the MPAA passed a new rating of PG-13. The new rating has many less violent and... shots, but can provide enough sensory stimulation. The most important thing is

Yes, you do not need to see your driver’s license to watch PG-13.

Therefore, PG-13 quickly replaced PG and R-rated movies, becoming the favorite among young moviegoers and earning the highest average box office.

More importantly, watching these scenes that make people nervous or have their blood pumping will make people nervous and eat more French fries and popcorn. The unusually large amounts of salt or sugar in them will make people nervous.

People are thirsty, which increases the sales of Coke.

In addition to the box office, PG-13 is also stimulating sales of other soft drinks and snacks in movie theaters.

"'Love Is Not For Sale', our director Steve Rush is already making urgent changes and will submit it to the MPAA for re-rating soon. We discovered this problem when we were on the West Coast, so we made urgent changes and it will be released next week

There are results.”

At the first stop of Ronald's nationwide sales tour in Los Angeles, he knew that he and a bunch of rookies from Daydream had made a mistake. An emergency meeting was held and the conclusion was that "Love Is Not for Sale" needed to be significantly revised.

Many plots that director Rush included in the finished film, such as an intimate scene between the heroine Cindy and her ex-boyfriend's football player, and many very explicit conversations among high school students discussing boyfriends and girlfriends, were deleted.

Director Steve Rush's creative freedom was interfered with and he lost his temper with Ronald. He said that he was no longer the director who made such epoch-making youth films as "Fast-paced Richmond High"

, turned into a profit-seeking businessman.

This made Ronald very sad and he was really speechless.

Rush's anger is reasonable. If "Love Is Not For Sale" does not depict the real life of high school students, it will completely degenerate from a "fast-paced" and realistic movie into a teen romantic comedy that only scratches the surface of reality.

Crossed.

"Make money first. As long as you can make money in this movie, you will have more creative freedom in the future." Ronald thought for a long time and had to repeat what Roger Corman said to him back then.

listen:

"Listen, Director Rush. As long as you modify this movie according to my opinions, you will never have to work for me again."

Steve Rush was really moved by Roger Corman's golden words, and cut the movie to PG-13 standards exactly as Ronald wanted. Ronald watched the revised version in Chicago last week

The version has been urgently submitted to the MPAA and is awaiting revision of the rating.

"Very good. If I can get a PG-13 rating, my theater will increase the number of copies it buys, and I will also convince other operators in the alliance. They are all very optimistic about my vision."

Thomas Stephenson Jr. is very happy that his opinions are valued by Ronald. Daydream is now in the initial stage, and it is good to be able to value the opinions of cinema operators.

"The second thing is that you have to get better movie reviews." Thomas Stephenson Jr. raised his second finger.

"The urban suburbs in the Northeast are one of the most educated places in America. Children here take drama and art classes in high school. Most of their parents are college graduates, and their judgment of movies is quite high.

Rely on recommendations from film critics.

Especially places like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and DC have strong trust in the film reviews of several newspapers in New York."

This chapter is not finished yet, please click the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The box office of a movie in the first week of its release is determined by the number of viewers it attracts. In the Northeast, the effectiveness of film critics is greater than in the Deep South and Midwest

Much bigger.

Sometimes, only well-educated residents of middle-class suburban communities in New York can understand the film reviews in the New York Times and the New York Post.

"We are working hard on this. I can at least guarantee that the media in New York will most likely say good things for us."

Bribing film critics is something that cannot be discussed in a general way. When Ronald talks about it to this extent, even movie theater practitioners can understand it.

In addition to spending heavily at the Chicago Film Critics Association to sponsor their annual conference, Ronald is also sponsoring the New York Film Critics Association to sponsor a retrospective of their favorite women's films, as well as next year's New York Film Critics Association awards.

Of course, all this money was disseminated through the old money connections of Little Douglas, through various foundations, trusts, and cultural promotion associations.
To be continued...