Hollywood Road

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"Director's signature right?" Murphy asked puzzledly. "Even if Frank Miller is signed, no one would think that he actually directed this film, especially the media and companies in the industry. This point of judgment must be Yes?"

"These won't affect you." Bill Rossis completely agreed with Murphy's words, and then he raised areas that Murphy didn't even think about. "Don't forget, you are a member of the directors' union!"

"Uh..." Murphy was even more puzzled, "Is it related to whether I am a member of the directors' union?"

Bill Rossis nodded and said, "It has a very big relationship."

He saw that Murphy didn't know at all, and he explained slowly, "The directors' union has a rule that a work directed by a director of the union cannot have two names in the director's column at the same time!"

Murphy suddenly realized, "So that's how it is."

Frowning for a while, he said again, "This is indeed a trouble."

Murphy doesn't know much about the many regulations of the directors' union. He only knows that the directors' union can protect many of his legal rights, but he does not know that there are many restrictions.

If you follow Frank Miller's requirements, it will undoubtedly go against the rules of the directors' union, but if you reject Frank Miller, this negotiation may fall apart.

Murphy had no choice but to look at Bill Rossis, who undoubtedly had much more knowledge and experience than himself.

"Is there no way to get the best of both worlds, Bill?" he asked.

Bill Rossis thought for a while before he said, "It's not without it. In fact, there are some things that the directors' union just has rules, but they don't care much. Many times they open their eyes and close them."

Murphy nodded slightly, Bill Rossis's words were not without reason, even in this land of North America, sometimes regulations are dead, but those who enforce them are alive.

"Such as the director's signature, title format, directors' union, these regulations are very unpopular, and no one usually notices it." If it weren't for Bill Rossis's reminder, Murphy would never think of these at all, "especially George Lucas. At the beginning, because the title of Star Wars did not meet the regulations, after resigning from the directors' union, the union not only revised the regulations of the title, but also stopped deliberately reviewing these unremarkable regulations. They usually closed their eyes."

Murphy understood what Bill Rossis meant. "You mean we don't need to care about the rules of the directors' union."

"It's not indifferent," Bill Rossis said again. "We don't want to talk or publicize, and the directors' union has no need to pursue it."

This is probably the meaning of the people who do not appoint officials and do not investigate.

"Will this be in trouble?" Murphy didn't care about Frank Miller's signature director, "Will it affect the shooting in the future."

Bill Rossis thought for a while and said confidently, "You have the support of caa, what can you worry about?"

He obviously has strong confidence in the brokerage company behind him, which is also the commonality of every caa broker.

Since working as interns in the mail room, they have been instilled with too many powerful concepts of caa.

Murphy thought for a while. He is just a relatively unremarkable director. This is not a Hollywood first-line production. The chance of being targeted by the directors’ union is still very low. Even if it is targeted, it’s just a trick. , Caa and Miramax standing behind him are not vegetarian either.

"Bill," Murphy confessed again, "you communicate with Miramax and Harvey Weinstein."

Bill Rossis nodded, "Leave it to me, don't worry."

After Frank Miller was settled once again, the negotiations between the two sides continued. Although the negotiation process was still very difficult, there were breakthroughs. In particular, the existence of Frank Miller was definitely the key to this negotiation.

Because of the original agreement with Dark Horse Comics, without Frank Miller’s nod, dc comics could not sell the copyrights of Frank Miller’s creations such as "Spartan Three Hundred Warriors" and "Sin City".

As we all know, comics themselves can generate limited benefits.

After arduous negotiations in number theory, coupled with caa's centering coordination, Miramax finally reached an adaptation agreement with Dark Horse Comics.

In this agreement, Miramax needs to pay the Dark Horse Comics a basic adaptation copyright fee of US$6 million in three installments. After the film officially enters the market, it will pay a 15% annual profit share to Dark Horse Comics in the year of its premiere. In the second year, 10% of the annual profit share is paid, and in the third year, this ratio is reduced to 5%, and subsequent payments are made at this ratio.

How much of it is the personal dividend of Frank Miller, the original author, is a matter between him and the dark horse comics.

At the same time, at the insistence of Frank Miller, there are also provisions on directors in the memorandum clause of the agreement. In the agreement, Murphy must be the director of the project, and the producer must obtain the approval of Frank Miller if he wants to change the director.

Frank Miller has been preventing the adaptation of the film from deviating from the comic style track from beginning to end.

To get the right to adapt, it was the turn of caa to negotiate with Miramax, the most important of which was the salary of the production staff behind a series of packaging services.

Because "Planet of Horror" has brought a lot of money to Miramax, the film has accumulated more than 55 million US dollars at the global box office by the end of September. Like all Hollywood studios, Miramax also believes in success. You can continue the successful business principles, fully agree with the plan in Murphy’s plan, and continue to use the front-screen Robert Downey Jr., James Franco, Seth Logan, Jonah Hill, etc., just There are doubts about Sienna Miller, but it is also a small problem that can be resolved through negotiation.

Philip Raschel, Paul Wilson, Helena Espola, David Robbie and Jack Watson behind the scenes have no objection.

They also understand the importance of a mature and tacit production team in making a film.

So Miramax once again asked Erica Steinberg to be the producer of the project.

However, not everything will go so smoothly.

In the negotiations between Bill Rossis and Erica Steinberg on the salary of Murphy and others, they encountered some troubles.

According to Murphy’s budget and Miramax’s estimate, the production investment of this project could not be less than 30 million U.S. dollars. Even for a film company of Miramax’s level, such a large investment can be felt. pressure.

In particular, they invested heavily in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill", but the film has been delayed due to various relationships and has not yet been released, and the entire company's capital chain has been somewhat tight.

Even if part of the production funds can be solved through financing and pre-sales, Miramax still needs to invest a certain amount of start-up capital, and they inevitably have to compress the initial investment to reduce investment risks and capital pressure.

Therefore, Miramax didn't want to pay Murphy, the director and other actors, an exorbitant basic salary.

Especially Murphy, the global box office of two consecutive films has exceeded 50 million U.S. dollars, which has allowed Bill Rossis to call out a five million U.S. dollar director's pay to Miramax.

Such remuneration will undoubtedly further push up the production cost of the film. For Miramax, who has a tight capital chain, this is an undesirable situation. They need to reduce the pressure and the production team needs to share the risk.

In Hollywood, the best way is to squeeze this part of the cost into the latter part of the division. The profit of the film is not good, and the creative team can't get much compensation.

Miramax only offered a basic remuneration of two million dollars. Murphy had no objection to this, but explained that Bill Rossis did his best to fight for it in the later period.

After two rounds of negotiations, the two sides quickly reached an agreement.

Before the filming started and after all production was completed, Murphy could receive a basic remuneration of US$1 million each in two installments. If the North American box office of "Sin City" exceeds the established production cost line of US$35 million in the future , He can get a basic reward of 1.5 million U.S. dollars. If the North American box office reaches 50 million U.S. dollars, he can get a share reward of 3 million U.S. dollars, and 80 million U.S. dollars is 4.5 million U.S. dollars. One hundred million dollars is six million dollars.

This is only part of the sharing agreement. Under the negotiation of Bill Rossis, Murphy will also participate in the peripheral dividends of the film for the first time.

According to the agreement signed by the two parties, in addition to the ratio set by the union, Murphy will also receive 1% of the copyright income of "Sin City" North American television and video tapes as compensation.

This ratio is indeed not high. For example, if the first-round TV broadcast rights of the film are sold for several million dollars, he can only get tens of thousands of dollars, but this is a long-term meal ticket, and the film will not only be shown on the TV station for one round. , DVD counts both rental and sales, which means that as long as the film still exists, it may bring him income.

To put it in an exaggeration, even if he goes bankrupt and runs out of money one day, he won't even be a problem with eating.

As for the overseas box office that Hollywood films are now increasingly relying on, Murphy has not yet been eligible to participate in the sharing.

Indeed, in order to reduce financial pressure and reduce risks, many crews will sign a sharing agreement with even lesser-known actors and directors, but the agreement party lacks qualifications and wants to get a high proportion of the share, which can only be said to be idiotic.

Murphy knows very well that his continuous upward climb of Hollywood is a step-by-step approach, not a delusion.

After these negotiations were settled, the crew was formally established. Frank Miller also came to Los Angeles from New York to join the crew. However, he is a named director. Almost all important positions in the crew are Murphy’s long-term partners, even if he wants to do it. What, it wouldn't be possible without Murphy nodding and agreeing.

Of course, Murphy's film is based on comic style, and there is no conceptual conflict between the two parties.

And Frank Miller is not the kind of publicity person, the more important thing for this position is to supervise, not to create contradictions.

In contrast, it was Harvey Weinstein's actor request, which made Murphy more embarrassed and opposed.