Before you know it, it's the end of July.

Today is Monday, July 28th.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Simon arrived on time at Fox Studios in Century City, Beverly Hills.

Since the injuries on his body have not fully recovered, Simon did not ride again today, but made an appointment for a rental.

When he arrived at Fox Studios, Simon realized that he didn't have a pass, and the doorman looked suspiciously at the young man who claimed to be coming to a filmmaking meeting, and agreed to make a phone call for him.

It was only a few minutes before an assistant to David Giller, the producer of "The Butterfly Effect," arrived at the gate and brought Simon in.

Simon followed the assistant to David Giller's office, and Brian de Palma had arrived early, much to Simon's embarrassment. However, David Giller and Brian de Palma were not too concerned and asked with concern how Simon's recovery was going.

After a brief greeting, Peter Sanders, a vice president of Fox Films, and Vincent Hill, another professional script analyst under Fox, also arrived one after another, and today's meeting officially began.

In a small conference room in the administration building of Fox Studios, three of the film's main creators, David Giller, Brian de Palma and Simon, along with two others, sat around a conference table, and the secretary handed out copies of the script and a memo.

The script of the former "Butterfly Effect" has been polished for 7 years and has been very perfect. Simon didn't think he had much to do with the script he came up with in the final theatrical version of the film.

However, when Simon opened the memo made by the script analyst named Vincent Hill in the room, he realized that it was obviously not so easy for him to get the remaining $60,000 in final payment.

Last Thursday, while Simon was still in the hospital, he had already received his first $140,000 check on his contract with Fox.

From the title of the script to the final ending of the story, Vincent Hill has made a very detailed assessment and suggested changes accordingly. Simon roughly flipped through the pages and found that there were more than 50 annotations, which was almost equivalent to one revision for every two pages of the script.

Putting down the memo in his hand, Simon looked up at the other people, except for Vincent Hill, the other three were also reading the memo, David Giller and Peter Saunders were impassive, but Brian de Parma frowned slightly.

As a screenwriter who has just debuted, Simon is well aware that he doesn't have much say in script revision. In order to get the final payment of the next $60,000, he can only honestly revise the script according to the requirements of the studio, or give up this right and let Fox hire other screenwriters.

With that in mind, Simon turned his attention back to the memo in front of him.

Even if he didn't have much to say, Simon was determined to preserve the integrity of the script as much as possible.

After a while, Brian De Palma opened his mouth first, with obvious dissatisfaction in his tone, and asked Fox Vice President Peter Sanders directly: "Peter, you want to make this film PG-13, right?"

Hearing Brian de Palma speak, Simon looked up again.

After carefully reading the memo in his hand, Simon also discovered Fox's intentions.

The original version of the script of "The Butterfly Effect" has too many adult elements with heavy tastes, and the tone of the film is also gray, and it will easily be rated R in the future. This means that children under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult to watch, effectively blocking a large proportion of young audiences from the theater.

At this point, based on the advice in the memo in hand, Simon realized that Fox was clearly trying to overturn most of the plot that could affect the film's rating.

As the world's largest film market, the United States has long implemented a mature film classification system.

According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), theatrical films in North America are divided into five grades: G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. Among them, the G rating is the most lenient mass class, which means that it can be watched by all ages. The NC-17 rating is the most restrictive and is forbidden for children under the age of 17. In addition, the closer to the NC-17 rating, the narrower the audience will be.

From a purely commercial point of view, Fox's behavior is actually understandable.

If the film can be adjusted from R rating to PG-13 rating for children under 13 years old who need to be accompanied by parents, then the market audience of the film will expand a lot in the future.

However, from the perspective of the story of "The Butterfly Effect" itself, it seems very unwise for Fox to do this.

"Brian, you know, the investment in this film is 10 million dollars," Peter Sanders replied with an unchanged expression when he heard Brian De Palma's question, "So, we have to think about the commercial future of the film." ”

Brian de Palma shook his head and said, "In my opinion, the script of "The Butterfly Effect" is quite perfect. If you do that, you're only going to destroy the overall structure of the script. And, starting with Carrie the Witch, the films I've directed have always been R-rated. As long as it's a good movie, it's going to get enough commercial returns, so I don't think there's anything wrong with that. ”

"Since Simon can write a perfect script, then he can also revise a more perfect script according to our requirements," Peter Saunders responded to Brian de Palma, but turned to Simon, a little familiar, "So, Simon, do you have this confidence?"

Although Peter Saunders's tone was very gentle and there was elder-like encouragement, Simon clearly felt that the other party's words were a little aimed at him.

Even if he understood that he didn't have much say in this matter, Simon didn't plan to be an echo worm, feeling the other party's faint target, Simon said a little unceremoniously: "Mr. Sanders, with all due respect, "The Butterfly Effect" itself is already a very tightly interlocking story, like a big net, and pulling any one of the silk threads may involve the overall situation. If you do what the memo asks, you're likely to end up with a completely different story. So, if Fox wanted a PG-13 film, maybe I could have rewritten a script. ”

Peter Saunders didn't expect Simon's words to be so sharp as soon as he opened his mouth, remembering that this young man had just broken the leg bones of five young people last week, he subconsciously suppressed the refutation he wanted to blurt out, raised his eyebrows, and turned to David Giller: "David, what do you mean?"

David Giller showed some smiling expressions on his face, raised the memo in his hand, and said, "Peter, the result of my communication with Ronald last week was not like this. Speaking of classification, Fox's two movies released this summer, "Space Station" in early June, PG rating, with a budget of $18 million, only got a pitiful $9 million box office in the end. Last month's "Alien 2", R-rated, with a similar budget of $18.5 million, has already reached $25 million at the box office in just two weeks of release, so I don't think there is anything wrong with "Butterfly Effect" being rated R-rated in the future. If you insist that today's meeting proceed according to this memo, I will have no choice but to cancel today's meeting and go back and talk to Ronald. ”