Once you pick a favorite script, well, at this time the actor and director are already there, because the script is arranged by the brokerage company, and the roles in it are clearly distinguished by who plays and who directs, and the film company only chooses to shoot and not shoot, and has no right to change the actors and directors. Therefore, in Hollywood, mainstream films are not initiated by film companies, but by the agency that has mastered all the big-name screenwriters and big-name actors to decide, whether the script should be filmed or not, but the agency does not have the right to shoot, and if you want to shoot, you have to hand it over to the 6 major film companies.

All the big-name movie actors, directors and screenwriters in Hollywood are all signed under the names of 10 big agencies. In order to allow these talents to reflect their abilities more scientifically, these brokerage companies also used a series of statistical means to come up with a set of formulas for evaluating the box office appeal of actors, directors and screenwriters, and then graded the actors, directors and screenwriters.

Quite simply, it is based on the box office of the films you have acted in, directed and written in the past three years. Among them, there are more than 10,000 single screens, that is, star actors, directors and screenwriters, you said that I won the Oscar 5 years ago, and I have taken a break in the past two years, I'm sorry, I deserve it, I only look at the data of the past three years to determine your worth, and I don't look at the data three and a half years ago, it's so cruel. Generally in Hollywood, the shooting cycle of big-budget movies is one and a half years, which means that it depends on the box office of your last two movies. If the box office of a single screen exceeds 10,000, you can get the top salary, you are a first-line superstar, if you don't meet this standard, you are a second-tier star, you can't be the protagonist of a big-budget film, and you can't get a top-level salary if you do. Don't talk to me about what happened before, it's useless!

What's the benefit of grading like this? There's only one benefit. It is to let actors, directors, and screenwriters not take the script indiscriminately because of money, let alone shoot that kind of low-cost film. This is not only responsible for actors, directors, and screenwriters, but also responsible for investors and audiences. There is a living example of a good interpretation of this rule, the famous Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage, because of personal financial reasons, had to take over the bad movie, and the box office plummeted. Then he will never be able to get a good film from a big production, because the agency directly lowers your level, unless a film company is willing to lower the expected box office, is the insurance company's shooting budget, and is willing to take great risks, he will have to shoot him, otherwise he will be more and more miserable. It's hard to roll over.

In fact, even if these six major film companies are willing to ask him to shoot films, it is unlikely, why? Because there are distributors, that is, movie theater chains, that limit the amount of investment you can make. That's right, it's so weird, the last link of the industrial chain in turn restricts the initial link of the industrial chain, but if you think about it carefully, Lao Mei is really wise, this trick is absolutely amazing.

The script is here, the actors are there, the director is there, and the film company is there, so let's start filming! If you don't have the money, who will shoot it for you? Where does the money come from? The main way is divided into two parts, one is called pre-sales and the other is called financing. In accordance with U.S. insurance laws, before the film is filmed. The pre-sale amount must account for more than 30% of the total investment before the financing activity can be continued, otherwise the insurance company will refuse to insure the film. For uninsured films, the actors' union, director's union, and screenwriters' union prohibit their own members from participating in filming. Let's put it bluntly. If the pre-sale is less than 30% of the investment, you won't be able to make this movie!

What is pre-sales? That is, the film company takes the script and goes to the managers of several major theaters. Let the theater managers estimate the price of the movie, and whoever bids the highest will be screened. It's a bit like an auction, they call it Bid in the industry. If the theater manager thinks that your play will get $100 million at the box office when it is finally screened, then he will pay you 30% of the advance money in advance, and the investment amount of your play is $100 million.

The vast majority of Hollywood blockbusters do not decide to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to shoot first, but through a series of rules and processes, an investment amount is rationally reversed. The purpose of this is also very clear, that is, to protect the interests of all parties, and not to involve others because of the judgment of one party, to put it bluntly, no one wants to pat their heads to make the decision, even if you have money, what you say does not count.

For example, for a big-budget film like "007" whose copyright is not in the agency or in the film company, that is, the copyright owner will find someone to write the script and find the film company to bid, this special case is allowed, but it is not common, it is generally the kind of movie that is changed with comics and cartoons, and the copyright owner is often those comic companies, they will have their other set of operations, so I won't say much here.

When the producer gets the 30% pre-sale money, the film still can't be made, and you have to take this pre-sale contract to apply for a loan from a bank that specializes in lending to film companies, and this bank will lend you a loan of 60% of the pre-sale contract amount. If the pre-sale price is 33 million US dollars, the bank will lend you more than 18 million yuan and directly use your pre-sale contract as collateral. Now the producer has almost 50 million dollars in his hands, and then you have to do one more thing, which is to apply for a tax refund, which state you plan to be the filming location, go to whichever state you want to be the filming location, and get the consumption tax back, so that you can get at least 9% or so of the tax.

The producer now has more than 50% of the budget in hand, and in this case, the film can start shooting. Well, at this time, we have really entered the financing stage, that is to say, whether it is a social investor or a variety of closed-end funds, if you want to invest, you can only invest this 50% of the money, no matter how rich you are, it is impossible to directly invest it wholly, that is nonsense.

In the remaining 50% of the investment, there are many rules and restrictions, the simplest is open investment and blind investment. What is Mingtou? That is, if you explicitly invest in a certain movie, you will invest 10% of the money, and you will account for 10% of the shares. Blind casting is more interesting, if there are 5 movies to be filmed now, and you want to invest, but you don't know which movie will make money, you can use this blind casting method. At this time, the money you invest will randomly choose a film as a reward, and you can invest 10% of the money, which can account for 20% of the shares of the film, which is a bit like hitting a big luck.

Through this series of means, the film has finally made up the budget and started filming, and the problem arises again, what should I do if the budget is exceeded? There are a lot of such things in the Chinese film circle, and the drama that has been clearly agreed to invest 100 million yuan in advance is in the hands of a certain director, and the money is not enough to spend, and the investor has to make additional investment, and if the investment is chased, it will become 200 million, maybe it is not enough.

At this time, the investor will be very uncomfortable, which is equivalent to being kidnapped by someone, and if you don't add it, the previous investment will be all invalid! If you add it, it is a question of whether you can earn it back. And no matter how rich you are, the feeling of being hacked and deceived is very awkward, which hurts the confidence of investors.

This situation can become the norm in China, but in Hollywood, two words, don't think about it! Why are Americans so powerful? It's not that they're powerful, it's that their rules are so powerful, and if there's one link that you want to violate, then you don't even want to play around the whole chain. Here's another big guy here, and that's the insurance company!

As mentioned earlier, whether you are making a movie or a TV series, you have to take out special insurance, and the entire insurance premium is calculated according to a few percent of the total budget, which is very high. But if you don't go on, the government won't force you, because this is a normal economic activity of the people, but if you don't have insurance, none of the members of the actors' union, director's union, screenwriters' union, or even the extras' guild will come to take over your filming, because the first article of these union rules stipulates that you can't take on uninsured plays.

Well, you don't invest in insurance, and you won't spend any money in vain, because it is stipulated in this insurance agreement that if you take out insurance, the insurance company will pay for the budget overrun. In other words, as long as you are insured before the filming of this movie starts, then investors can sleep with peace of mind, even if the budget is overrun, it will not let investors pay a penny more, and the insurance company will take care of it.

If there is an obligation, there must be a right, and when the insurance company intervenes, it will scrutinize your budget, and it doesn't matter if you want to spend a penny more. The inspectors of those insurance companies are second only to the tax police in the United States, and they are like hungry wolves. And once you are insured, the insurance company will cover it to the end, and even the legal obligations after the release of the film will help you, if someone sues you for any problems with the movie, you don't care, the legal responsibility is all borne by the insurance company.

So throughout the filming of the film, the insurance company's rights are very large. It can decide the use of a certain actor, the use of a certain song, the use of a certain extra, as long as it finds out that there is a problem with the identity of the actor, a problem with the copyright of the song, and the use of uncontracted extras, it can immediately stop your film or even not be released, or even directly freeze your shooting funds. It is precisely because of this that the insurance company is like a third-party regulator outside the industry, adding another layer of insurance to the shooting, investment, and distribution of the film in a neutral position to ensure that the general direction is not wrong. At the same time, it also ensures that all parties involved cannot be the boss, and everything must be communicated, compromised, and balanced within the rules. (To be continued......)

PS:PS: I'm starting to change the monthly pass today.,Don't miss it when you pass by.,The monthly pass can't give birth to a cub if you cover it.,Vote for it with a trembling hand......