The day after meeting Paul Greengrass, Ronan waited for his agent, Dean, and the two sides also entered into formal negotiations.

In terms of salary, the two sides negotiated relatively smoothly, and Paul Greengrass clearly convinced his agent.

As for how to convince him, Ronan is not very clear, but the agent is a service provider in Hollywood after all, if the customer insists on doing something, it is difficult for the agent to stop it, the two sides are really going to be deadlocked, and it is not difficult for actors and directors in the industry to fire the agent squid.

Perhaps the people who formulated the "Entertainment Act" learned the lesson of the big studio era when actors belonged to the production company, and fundamentally eliminated the possibility of the agency banning the actor.

Recently, there has also been a lot of rumors that two of CAA's most important clients, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, are ready to jump out of their broker contracts with CAA and instead have their professional managers in charge of all kinds of brokerage business.

If Ronan remembers correctly, not long after entering the new millennium, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio broke away from the CAA, completely scrapped the brokerage business, and replaced the business with managers in charge.

After the CAA squid was fired this time, it was the manager's matchmaking, and the two began to cooperate for many years.

As long as Paul Greengrass insists on taking "The Identity of Byrne" and Dean strongly disagrees, Ronan can unite with Paul Greengrass and get him out of Dean's trouble without much effort.

However, there will definitely be some trouble in the follow-up, after all, Dean is from William Morris.

Fortunately, Dean is a smart guy and knows that with Paul Greengrass's situation, it will be difficult to find a director position for a big-budget action film other than Ronan's project.

But Dean still worked the salary, and Ronan made some concessions.

If "The Identity of Byrne" can exceed the production budget at the North American box office in the future, Paul Greengrass can get a box office bonus equivalent to his salary.

In the next two sequels, Paul Greengrass's salary rose to 3.5 percent and 7 percent of the total budget.

The remuneration still adopts the more casual payment model of the independent film industry, with 30% paid when the two parties sign the contract, 30% before the start of filming, and the remaining 40% paid when all production is completed.

The salary was negotiated, and negotiations on other matters went on for two days, mainly Ronan's request for Paul Greengrass, and Dean's fight for Paul Greengrass's corresponding power.

This is a business cooperation, and all promises can only be effective if they are written on the contract.

Dean, on his part, proposes the power of the director's signature, insurance, travel expenses, living allowances, and post-production director's editing.

Ronan didn't dwell too much on these little things, and even gave Paul Greengrass the authority to preside over the post-editing.

This is different from the final editing rights, where Paul Greengrass can finally submit one or more versions of the editing to Ronan that he is happy with, and Ronan, as the person who has the final editing rights, has the right to modify and re-edit it, and even make major changes, such as changing the ending, etc.

How much power you get, there are naturally corresponding obligations.

Ronan will not fully trust the director at all, after all, he has seen too many commercial nightmares brought about by the director's free play in his previous life, and Paul Greengrass's directing power must be within the scope of his demarcation.

He asked Paul Greengrass to immediately engage in the pre-development and subsequent formal preparation of "The Identity of Bourne" after signing the contract, to work with screenwriter Tony Gilroy to complete the script, to produce the submitted edited version of the film, not to exceed the budget for shooting, to be consistent with the script, and to comply with the PG-13 classification regulations for theatrical editing.

Just in time for the new weekend, Ronan officially signed a directing contract with Paul Greengrass for the "Bourne" trilogy on behalf of Shahai Entertainment, which solved a crucial part of the preparation and filming of this series.

Paul Greengrass is full of enthusiasm for his work, and the day after signing the contract, he threw himself into the pre-development of "The Identity of Byrne".

Since the promotion of "Ace Agent" has long ended, George Clint has also joined the crew of "The Identity of Bourne" and continues to coordinate all aspects of daily work as a production manager.

Ronan got the director, and naturally turned his attention to the actors, and people sent an invitation to Matt Damon's agency, Matt Damon is now a second-tier star actor, if he can be invited to play Jason Bourne, whether it is to obtain third-party completion guarantee insurance from the firefighter fund, or to go overseas to raise production funds, it can bring benefits.

Matt Damon's side did not respond immediately, though.

Ronan didn't get in and invite over and over again, which is easy to make the other party talk about salary or other conditions, Matt Damon is the first choice, not a must.

"What about the heroine?" asked George Clint, "looking for a German actress?"

Ronan thought for a while and said, "The heroine is not in a hurry, vase characters are easy to find." ”

I remember that the heroine in my previous life seems to be the one who played Lola in "Lola Run", I don't remember what her name is, and she is not a famous star.

George Clint also said of the director: "Signing a three-film directing contract with Paul Greengrass at one time can save a lot of money in the future. ”

"I can definitely save some. Ronan said honestly: "But if 'The Identity of Bourne' is successful, Paul Greengrass and his agent will inevitably ask for a change in the contract, and we will have to make some concessions." ”

George Clint also understands this truth, saying: "If you really want to make a mess like Edward Norton and Paramount Pictures, it will become a lose-lose situation." ”

Ronan also didn't want to see such a situation, since it was a business cooperation, it was impossible to make the other party unprofitable.

Of course, if he was a scoundrel like Edward Norton, he certainly wouldn't say yes.

A few years ago, when Edward Norton was an unknown young actor, he signed a three-film contract with Paramount Pictures in order to get the role in "Fear of the First Degree" from Paramount Pictures.

As we all know, opportunities in Hollywood are the rarest.

Just like Paul Greengrass, when the opportunity presented him, there was no capital to pick and choose, Edward Norton faced the first real movie role in his life, did not hesitate to sign a contract with Paramount Pictures, and then became famous through this film.

Next, films such as "Sex Book Tycoon", "Everybody Says I Love You" and "Fight Club" made Edward Norton even more famous.

After Edward Norton and Paramount Pictures worked together for the second time, the two sides had a fundamental difference in philosophy, Paramount offered Edward Norton commercial films, while Edward Nord was the quintessential lover of literature and art.

This directly led to sharp contradictions between the two sides, with Edward Norton simply denying the existence of the three-film contract and repeatedly shirking the project offered by Paramount Pictures.

Paramount Pictures sued Edward Nord last month.

This lawsuit may drag on for a long time, but Paramount Pictures and even other Hollywood companies will keep an eye on Edward Nord until he loses the case.

Edward Nord's behavior is already challenging the default rules of the industry.

In his previous life, Edward Nord lost the lawsuit, and then had to go to "Stealing the Day" to play a lewd villain, that is, the role of killing Charlize Theron's father.

This is a classic lose-lose case, Paramount Pictures does not provide film projects and roles suitable for Edward Norton, and Edward Nord does not speak of the spirit of contract after being annoyed and angry.

Ronan often studies some classic cases in Hollywood, combined with the memories of his past life, and draws lessons from them.

There are a few that are worth learning from.

On Friday, "The Grim Reaper Comes" also entered the second weekend after its release, with Disney Studios' "Straight Dancer" and Warner Bros.'s "Miracle in the Green" opening at the same time.

The latter is starring Tom Hanks.

However, "The Miracle of the Green Mile" obviously does not belong to the genre that exploded at the beginning of the box office, and it is relatively literary and artistic in style, which is more suitable for long-term screening.

Despite Tom Hanks' support, the film grossed only $18 million in its opening weekend in more than 2,850 theaters.

The performance of "Straight Dancer" in the first weekend of less than 10 million US dollars is not very competitive at all.

In contrast, the two older films, "Here Comes the Grim Reaper" and "Toy Story 2", are exceptionally strong.

"Toy Story 2" earned $18.64 million in its third weekend and topped the box office the following week.

In second place at the box office was "The Grim Reaper," which fell just 32 percent from its opening weekend to $18.35 million.

"The Grim Reaper" has grossed $54.2 million at the North American box office.

Ronan also saw the possibility of recovering his investment just through the North American box office.

Ronan doesn't know how much money was spent on publicity and marketing in his previous life, but Embassy Pictures is definitely spending more, and has invested $11 million in publicity and distribution so far.

Investments will continue to follow, with a total expected expenditure of $13 million.

Fortunately, "Blair the Witch" has made Relativity Entertainment have plenty of cash flow, otherwise Ronan would have to find a way to take out a loan or raise money.

After this weekend, the irreversible success of "Death Comes" has taken a break from the film's work and began to haunt the bustling Los Angeles area with Beverly Hills as the core, frequently attending celebrity or studio parties to see what Hollywood's awards season is all about.

At the same time, I also met more people and further broadened my network.