"I spoke to John Hughes on the phone a few times about Uncle Buck, and he expressed great interest in working with us. However, Hughes offered a base salary of $6 million plus a 10% share of the North American box office. ”

Inside the conference room.

Simon noticed the smile on Amy's face as she introduced the proposal, and said, "If he was willing to accept a $1 base salary plus box office and videotape sharing model, maybe I would have agreed right away." ”

John Hughes is the writer and producer of Home Alone in the original plane.

Since "Spring Is Not a Reading Day" two years ago, Simon has been paying attention to each other's movements.

The Hollywood filmmaker, who has created a standard 'Hughes model', has mostly worked on a rebellious protagonist with a 'bear' attribute, and Kevin's use of video to deter the two stupid thieves in "Home Alone" is the same as the details of Phyllis, the male protagonist in "Spring Is Not a Reading Day", who pretended to be sick and took a leave of absence through electronic onomatopoeia.

After "Spring Is Not a Reading Day", John Hughes's several movies in the past two years have been very average at the box office, and if it weren't for "Uncle Buck", Simon would not have had much interest in working with him. It's just that Simon happens to remember that it was during the filming of "Uncle Barker" that John Hughes had the inspiration for "Home Alone".

Amy listened to Simon's ridicule and explained: "Hughes's previous films, on the basis of the base salary, all require 10% omni-channel profit sharing. However, he must not have confidence in our distribution strength, so he imitated the model of your cooperation with Fox and Orion and shouted out the box office share offer. In fact, the remuneration he can get in the two ways is about the same, but the direct commission from the box office is a few years earlier than the profit sharing model. ”

Despite the monolithic film model, John Hughes's films rarely lose money, and with the fact that the filmmaker writes and produces every project himself, and sometimes directs himself, it is not too much to ask for a 10% omnichannel profit sharing model.

Simon looked through the materials of John Hughes's previous works.

After "Spring Is Not a Reading Day", in the past two years, John Hughes has created a total of four scripts, two of which have grossed more than $40 million, and two have only grossed more than $10 million, which can be described as half a profit and a loss, of course, this is already a very good result in Hollywood.

As for "Uncle Buck," the initial budget cost is $15 million, with John Hughes personally in charge of three positions as writer, director, and producer.

Simon is not clear about the box office performance of this film, and is optimistic, if the production cost is $15 million according to the North American box office of $40 million, and Hughes will take $10 million, counting the publicity cost, Daenerys Entertainment will definitely lose millions of dollars at the box office, and can only rely on the sales of videotapes and TV broadcast rights in the later stage to recover the cost.

Since the fundamental purpose is "Home Alone", Simon quickly made a decision, saying: "The base salary of $6 million is too high, at most $5 million, and the budget cost of $15 million must also be stuck, and if it is exceeded, it must be deducted from Hughes's share." In addition, Daenerys Entertainment needs the right of first refusal for Hughes to write a future script under the same contract, Amy, you can talk to Hughes according to this framework. ”

Speaking of which, Simon is actually looking forward to the script of "Home Alone" being butterfly dropped.

Unlike screenwriters who tend to keep an idea in their heads for years, John Hughes is a typical model of production-ready screenwriters, who writes two scripts a year on a regular basis, then produces and distributes them. At such a frequency, it may be just a thought, and the original wonderful script is gone.

If the script of Home Alone is fanned, the next thing will be much easier.

There are countless Hollywood filmmakers who have imitated the Hughes model, even the Weinstein brothers have done so, and Simon will not be too abrupt to toss a Hughes model script in the future, and he can even be said to have been inspired by "Uncle Barker".

"In that case, I'll take the time to fly to Chicago in the next few days to meet with Hughes, and it's not a big problem to win this project," Amy wrote down the matter on the memo, looked at her watch, and before she knew it, it was close to six o'clock, and it was already past the end of work, so she closed the memo and asked about noon: "How did you talk to Semel?"

Simon briefly described the terms of the cooperation agreed with Semel at noon, and advised: "During the time I go to Australia, you can draw up a specific contract with Warner as soon as possible." ”

Amy reopened the memo to write down these things, and asked, "So, which project are you going to choose with Warner?"

"Amy Hecklin's One Flight Over Innocence. ”

Amy's writing hand paused, and said: "Simon, I think it's best to be "The Sixth Sense", this is your personal signature script, and the creativity is also very good, and it should be no problem for the box office to break 100 million." As for "Flying Over Innocence", this story is indeed very interesting, but if the box office fails to break 100 million, we will have to pay Warner another movie. ”

The original "The Sixth Sense" grossed more than $290 million in North America and nearly $700 million worldwide.

took out this project to cooperate with Warner, even if the box office of the film shrank to only 500 million in the world, Simon was reluctant.

Between "Bodyguard" and "Flying Innocence", Simon's choice of the latter is mainly because "Flying Innocence", a comedy with a strong local style, and "Bodyguard" should have little overseas box office potential.

Simon didn't explain too much to Amy and decided: "I don't want to give my script to anyone else, it's "Flying Over Innocence". Since we are working with Warners, we can increase the budget a little bit and invite a few more famous protagonists, and I am still very confident in this project. ”

Amy nodded, continued writing, and asked, "Simon, when I was discussing the script for 'The Bodyguard' with Costner last Friday, he asked about 'Dances with Wolves.'" We bought a lot of projects at the beginning of the year, when are you going to do that?"

"Those are projects that I am very optimistic about, and I don't want to mess up any of them when the company is strengthened for another year or two," Simon said, closing the file in front of him, and said, "Also, you just said you were going to fly to Chicago?"

Amy explains, "John Hughes has always lived in Chicago, most of his films have been shot in Chicago, and he doesn't like Los Angeles. ”

"In that case," Simon tapped his fingers lightly on the table, "let's add another business jet to the company, Iger has to travel back and forth between the east and west coasts every week for the TV business, you and Rem also need to travel a lot, and the other executives of the company and James's side, one is definitely not enough." ”

Amy looked up: "Rent or buy?"

Simon smiled: "Rent, I don't want to add so many small planes, but I don't want that Gulfstream now." ”