"What's going on?"

Walker-Smith sat on the couch, holding a glass of vodka with ice cubes in his right hand, his bow tie untied and half-hung around his neck.

His assistant Erin Carter, wearing a short red dress, replied: "They didn't agree to our offer to buy the rights, not even the initial adaptation rights. ”

"It's not sold for $5 million, does he really think that this "Lord of the Rings" is a work that can be compared to "The Da Vinci Code"? Paramount's people just want to grab a life-saving straw, and it seems that they are forced by us!"

As a producer at Disney, Walker Smith came here to promote his upcoming movie, and he heard that Paramount wanted to buy the rights to Zhang Chu's new book, so he got involved.

"At present, the opinions given by the company's script experts are that it is difficult to adapt and has little value. But if the price is right, you can buy it back to fill the script library, and wait for Zhang Chu's work to be released a few years before adapting it. There is a grapevine that Warner Bros. offered a price of $10 million, which is twice as much as ours, and Zhang Chu also cooperated with Warner, and their "Life of Pi" will be released in the awards season and officially hit the Oscars!"

These large companies all have spies on each other, and they can't hide any movement from each other, and these issues of price will also be exposed.

It's almost impossible to complete a big project in a low-key way, unless you cut through the mess quickly and close the contract very quickly.

Walker Smith glanced at the book "The Lord of the Rings" next to him, he wanted to win the film and television adaptation rights of this book, but he didn't want to spend that much.

Even if it's the company's money, you have to apply!

"Damn, after the writer becomes famous, the cost of this adaptation will skyrocket. ”

That being said, every film company hopes that the writer's work will become popular, so that the audience will be more after the adaptation.

Of course, there are also some people who focus on those writers who are not famous, as long as the story is exciting, they can buy the film and television copyright, even if they buy the entire copyright for hundreds of thousands of dollars or even tens of thousands of dollars.

This is the practice of many copyright companies hoarding copyrights, casting a wide net, and then slowly fishing for some of these excellent works to be recommended to film companies, and the income generated in the middle has nothing to do with the writer!

But Zhang Chu is different, the cost of his film adaptation rights has completed a triple jump, and several works have received the attention of major manufacturers, and it is impossible to reduce the adaptation cost when "The Lord of the Rings" has reached the top of the global bestseller list.

The matter of self-depreciation has always existed in legends and news reports, and this reduced value is to be filled with the rest of the benefits.

It's like Zhang Chu didn't charge the film and television adaptation fees of the crew of "Farewell My Concubine", but put all this money in dividends.

At first glance, he seems to have lost a lot of money, at least seven or even eight figures in the cost of adaptation, in exchange for an uncertain box office prospect.

This situation is very rare, Zhang Chu can cooperate with small companies like this, but he doesn't need to use large companies, there is no need to help them save money, and the other party is not willing to take out the dividends.

Film adaptations have always accounted for an important part of Hollywood films, and almost 42% of the films that won the Oscar for Best Picture were adapted from them. In the market, movies through adaptations account for more than 50%, of which 20% are born out of movies, and this proportion is still rising in recent years!

The magic of words lies in the space of imagination, and the brilliance of movies is to turn these magnificent imaginations into real images, even if they may be criticized and scolded by book lovers for being incomplete, but it may also be a magical alchemy.

There are fewer and fewer original films, and many film and television works are adapted from comics, songs, stage plays, biographies, real events, etc., and these stories have a clear structure and complete and moving content.

In Hollywood's rights dealing, there is already a fixed template for normative operations.

Unlike in China, the rights to film and television adaptations of books are often in the hands of the authors themselves, not the publishers, and best-selling authors like Zhang Chu cannot be coveted unless they are particularly well-funded or have a strong network.

Their asking prices are often very high, and they may have been won by local tyrant companies early.

The approach of ordinary Hollywood companies is to target books that have been published for several years, and whose authors may have a certain degree of popularity in a certain circle, but are not yet well known to the general public, which is the most cost-effective literary work.

Walker Smith thinks that Zhang Chu's "The Lord of the Rings" is low-cost!

If he signed the book, it would be a bit risky, so he thought about it and didn't plan to update the offer.

……

At the same time, at Universal's project meeting, President Donna Longray is reviewing the project reports in hand.

As the only female president of Hollywood's six major film companies, Donna Longray has a brilliant resume, no worse than the CEOs of the other companies!

The former New Line executive joined Universal Pictures after 2001 and has produced excellent titles including "Fast and Furious", "Despicable Me", "Unbreakable" and "Ace Spy", and is one of the best film executives.

"Chris, I see the report says you have an idea for The Lord of the Rings?"

"That's right, we found out from the online database of the Copyright Office that the copyright of his book was indeed registered, and the United States and Europe found any copyright transactions and rights transfers. I feel that this work has a deep potential to be tapped. The senior management of Random House, whom I met at the reception before, revealed to me some information that Zhang Chu has actually completed the creation of the second part of the Lord of the Rings, but plans to wait for him to finish the third part and put it on the market together. ”

Universal Pictures has done very well at the global box office in the last two years, second only to Disney, which is the only one.

But Donna is not satisfied with competing with Warner Bros. for the second position, she wants to be first!

If you always use the tactics of the film sea and produce it at a small cost, you will not be able to pile up a high box office no matter what, and you will only attract yourself the same infamy as Warner Bros. - bad movies.

Therefore, the development of commercial series blockbusters is the top priority, and there are very few works that can take on this heavy responsibility, and even if there are, they will have been carved up a long time ago!

So Donna thought for a moment and said, "Although several other film companies are now bidding semi-publicly, let's keep up with them for the time being." Chris, you and the script development department hurry up and use a reliable screenwriter to write a simple script and prepare for casting, and we will skip the initial adaptation rights deal and take the adaptation rights of his series of works ourselves. The faster the better, this is our chance!"

"No problem, I'll go now. ”

"You know what I mean, you have to be strict and strong, so that no one else can know about it. ”