As soon as he got out of Los Angeles International Airport, Murphy saw Bill Rossi. He and Gail gado got into the business car driven by bill Rossi''s driver, ignored the questions from reporters around him, and sped toward the fox building in Century City.
In the car, Bill rosis used the fastest speed to tell Murphy the details of the troubles encountered by the wolf of Wall Street.
It''s not too complicated. The preview of "the wolf of Wall Street" was held before, and the response was quite good. In the 20th century, Fox also launched word-of-mouth propaganda for the preview.
Everything is going well in this respect.
Before leaving Los Angeles to attend the Sino US film forum in Shanghai, Murphy sent the edited version of Wall Street wolf to MPAA, which is commonly known as the American Film Association, for review and grading. The scale of the film is large. He and 20th Century Fox did not expect to be Rated PG-13, which is obviously impossible. The original target is r.
Only in this way can the film be shown on a large scale in North America.
The trouble lies in the film''s rating. The review committee of the American Film Association issued a warning to 20th Century Fox and Stanton studios at the same time. If the final film remains in the version submitted by Murphy for review, Wall Street wolf can only be rated NC-17!
This means that the film can not appear in the mainstream cinema, the box office will be completely on the street.
Although MPAA is not an official organization, it is only an industry association, and film rating has never been written into the specific law, almost all film dealers and cinemas are complying with such industry regulations, including Murphy and Stanton studios.
Even Ross, who sells drugs and illegal guns, has to follow certain rules, not to mention the legal industry of the film industry.
Murphy met Carla Firth at Fox house, where she also saw the official announcement about "Wall Street wolf" issued by the American Film Association.
The content of the notice is very simple. The audit committee of the American Film Association warned him that if he did not delete and modify the "Wall Street wolf" scenes of sex and nudity, the film would be rated NC-17.
According to the classification system of American films, they will classify films released in cinemas into g-level, pg-level, PG-13 level, r-level and NC-17 level. Among them, grade g stands for films that people of any age can watch, such as "robot story", but NC-17 is the most stringent level in the classification system. Because such films involve sex and violence scenes, people under the age of 17 (including 17) are forbidden to watch.
Limiting the age of the audience will naturally affect the screening scale and attendance rate of the film. Murphy''s original planning of R level is only restricted level. This level does not completely prohibit people under 17 years old from watching, and the screening scale of the film will not be greatly affected.
This kind of film covers a wide range, and any film with more action and explosion scenes or more realistic scenes may be rated as this level.
"The best way is to cut." Carla Firth, holding her chest in both hands, walked back and forth in the office, and said to Murphy, "if you cut down some scenes properly, and the company can think of some ways, the R level will be OK."
Murphy nodded. "That''s all I can do."
It''s an industry rule, not a personal force. He''s not stupid enough to ignore the warning from the Motion Picture Association of America. Proper deletion is necessary, but he doesn''t need to delete all large-scale scenes. 20th century fox is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and has a certain say in the review and rating.
Strictly speaking, the American Film Association represents the interests of the six major Hollywood companies. Its main members are Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Sony Columbia, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and 20th century fox.
From this aspect, we can also see the strength of the six major companies in this industry. As long as we have a normal head, we can see the absurdity of the so-called new companies challenging the status of the six major companies and dominating Hollywood in this era.
To a certain extent, many of the existing rules of Hollywood movies are made by the six major companies. Within the rules made by others, do you want to defeat them? Nothing else, MPAA is enough.
It''s true that movies don''t need to be graded. There is no law in the United States to enforce this. However, 99% of North American cinemas will not show movies without grading. There is no box office figure as the basis, and the subsequent peripheral revenue is empty talk.
Indeed, unlike the scissors on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, MPAA''s grading audit has only one basic standard, which will be criticized by countless people for its high and low performance. However, the audit takes time. MPAA''s audit can be completed in the shortest time or in the longest time, which can easily affect the release and schedule of a film.
The six major companies rarely use such low-level means, because they can''t use them at all. They firmly control the distribution channels, and this alone can hold the throat of countless small film companies and new film companies.
In the past two years, Lion Gate has been booming with some fans'' works. Just like DreamWorks in its heyday, it seems that it will become the seventh largest company in Hollywood at any time. However, people at the top of the industry pyramid know that when these fan series are finished, Lion Gate will be beaten back to its original shape, even better than DreamWorks.Murphy clearly remembers that lion gate soon got into a dilemma and even prepared to sell shares to some enterprises across the Pacific in order to obtain the necessary financing.
"How long can you finish the revision?" Carla Firth looked at Murphy and asked, "do you need to change the schedule?"
It''s going to be October soon. The film was originally scheduled to be released in early November. If it takes too long to revise, the schedule must be revised ahead of time. We can''t wait for it to be released soon. The revision and review of rating have not been completed yet. It will be ten times more troublesome than it is now to temporarily change the schedule at that time, and it will really affect the box office revenue of the film.
It''s a big deal for any film to modify the schedule. Murphy thought about it seriously for a while before saying, "well, you can communicate with MPAA to find out which scenes need to be modified."
Carla Firth nodded. "I''ll take this."
"Only when you ask about the situation can I decide how to change it."
For example, the deletion of a movie lens is not just a simple and rude deletion of a sensitive lens. Murphy, from the nearly 1000 minutes of lens material, went through three procedures of initial cutting, fine cutting and review editing, and then came to the conclusion that the film was sent to MPAA for review. There are not only connections between the lens and the lens, but also echoes in many places, even for large-scale lens, some of them are not It''s going to move the whole body.
If you cut a key shot of the hero and heroine, maybe the whole play and the whole paragraph will have to be edited again.
Editing is always time-consuming.
Murphy said to Carla Firth, "I''ve decided how to change it so that I can determine the time needed."
"That''s good." Kara Firth also knows that it''s not realistic to ask Murphy to give an answer, "Murphy, I''ll contact the company''s representative in MPAA now. Later, you should give me a specific time as soon as possible. "
"Well." Murphy nodded seriously.
If the schedule needs to be changed, the earlier the time, the smaller the negative impact.
If it''s not a last resort, neither Murphy nor 20th century fox want to change the schedule of Wall Street wolf.
In Hollywood, there has long been a very mature system for film arrangement. Since the dispute over the summer season of Spielberg''s great white shark in 1975, the arrangement of films in various periods every year has become a must-have skill for Hollywood executives and a required course in the competitive market.
Most of the distribution companies will determine the specific schedule of the blockbuster half a year or even a year ago, so that they have the opportunity to spend more time planning the whole marketing operation strategy. Just like the publicity influence of each Murphy film, they can carefully plan different ways and channels at each time point to build momentum for the film publicity, so as to achieve box office success.
"Unless you have to," Murphy told Gail gado on the bus back to wave manor, "film companies rarely change their schedules."
Gail gado nodded and asked, "is there always a reason?"
She''s on her way to becoming a producer and wants to know enough about every part of the industry.
"In short, there are two reasons."
Murphy talked about this from Gail gado''s actual needs. He pointed up a finger and said, "first of all, if the previous schedule has been known by many audiences, changing the schedule will bring them a lot of trouble. The audiences are looking forward to the weekend when they find that the film is delayed. Such disappointment will become a disaster of film public relations through the spread of social networking sites 。”
First put up the second finger, Murphy said, "secondly, changing the schedule will make the film''s marketing plan chaotic. Generally, the film will release the trailer a few months before the release, buy out the TV advertisement three or four weeks before the release, and increase the firepower and multi platform publicity a week before the release. The change of schedule will make the film company''s marketing department have to redo the plan, which will consume time and money."
In any way, Murphy doesn''t want to change the schedule of Wall Street wolf, but many things won''t be changed by his own will. After receiving a fax from Carla Firth, he found that many sensitive scenes involved are more critical. If you delete them directly, it will certainly affect the fluency of the whole scene, and the parts involved in these scenes will be reviewed New clips are inevitable.
Fortunately, there''s no need to make major adjustments to the whole film, which means that Murphy doesn''t have to spend months editing as he did in post production.
Call Jody Griffith, Murphy talked with him all morning, determined that the film adjustment will take about 25 days, plus MPAA''s approval rating, "the wolf of Wall Street" would be very unrealistic to release in early November. (to be continued). )