Chapter 20 Negotiation

  Jerry Zach waved his hands excitedly and shouted loudly. His waving hands suddenly swept across Gail's nose. Her nose was sore from the pain and she began to cry. She squatted on the ground and covered her face with her hands.

  Jim didn't see what happened clearly and thought Jerry hit Gail. He rushed out from the inner room, pushed Jerry away, and then went to help Gail.

  The one who looked like Jerry's brother in the trio saw his brother being pushed down and rushed up to beat Jim...

  Ronald took a step forward, grabbed the shoulders of the man who wanted to hit Jim, put one foot between his legs, hooked one ankle, gently pulled back, and turned his upper body, and the man fell to the ground.

  Then Ronald glanced at him from the corner of his eye, quickly turned his head and squatted, avoiding Jerry Zach's fist from behind, turned his head and reached out to clamp his shoulders, and used his hips to hold Jerry's waist, and gently pulled his hands... Jerry was also put down.

  Ronald stepped forward and pulled Jim up, then shouted:

  "Everyone stop! It's all a misunderstanding!"

  At this time, Roger Coleman also left the office, and other employees who were working overtime in the office also gathered outside the boss's executive office to watch the excitement, forming a large circle.

  Ronald explained to everyone: "This is a misunderstanding, everyone calm down, no one is injured."

  The third person in the trio helped the Zach brothers up from the ground and patted the dust off their bodies. He said: "We are not here to fight, we just want to talk to Mr. Coleman."

  He saw that Ronald had water on his hands, and the two of them just fell to the ground and didn't hurt.

  As he said that, he stretched out his hand: "Hello, we have no ill intentions."

  Ronald shook his hand: "I am Ronald Smith, you talk to Mr. Coleman first, I'll go see Gail."

  Gail recovered, and Jim helped her to the bathroom to deal with it.

  Roger Corman waved to everyone, "Go back to work, it's okay." Then he thought for a moment, picked up the phone and called the front desk:

  "This is Roger. Are Julie and Joe Dante still in the conference room? Okay, please ask them to come up to my office."

  Then Roger raised his hand and asked the trio to come into the office to talk. The three of them came in and chose three seats by the window at the conference table and sat down side by side.

  After a while, the boss's wife Julie Corman and co-director Joe Dante also came. The two sides had equal numbers and sat opposite each other.

  Ronald saw that Gail had not come back yet, so he went to make 6 cups of coffee and sent them in. He was about to close the door and leave.

  "You should stay and listen too, you can learn something."

  Roger Corman looked at the number of people here. He was not dominant, and there was also a woman. He still called Ronald, who had just been so powerful.

  Ronald closed the door, pulled out the chair closest to the door, sat down and listened.

  It turns out that Jerry Zucker, his brother, and a good friend from high school are a long-term cooperative trio. They wrote a comedy movie about airplanes and wanted Roger to invest in it.

  But Roger thought the script was not good. It was all jokes, with no storyline at all. There were also various fake advertisements in the middle to satirize it. No one would pay for fake advertisements. Although the story is not important for low-cost movies, it is unheard of that there is no story at all.

  In addition, Roger Corman has rarely made comedy movies in recent years, so he is unwilling to invest.

  Although Jerry Zucker is the youngest of the three, he has the highest talent and is the leader of the trio.

He joined "Rock High School" as the second group director, hoping to use his talent to impress Roger Corman to reconsider investment.

  What the trio did not expect was that a lady they had previously approached to attract investment had lunch with Paramount's Chief Operating Officer (COO) Michael Eisner last week and recommended the trio to Eisner.

  Eisner expressed his interest in this subject matter and ordered his general Katzenberg to handle the matter.

  Katzenberg read the script, and his opinion was the same as Roger Corman's, that the script was not complete, but just a collection of jokes. He asked the trio to use two weeks to restart and rewrite the script with Paramount's screenwriter doctor. He would give the green light to the project if he was satisfied, and the total investment was expected to be $3.5 million.

  The trio was very happy, but they didn't expect Jerry to have a problem when negotiating with Roger Corman. Jerry still had 5 days of filming to be completed at "Rock and Roll High School". So Jerry pestered Roger all day today, wanting Roger to give up the last 5 days on the contract.

  The two sides were deadlocked on this point.

  Jerry Zucker proposed that the salary paid in advance could be refunded, and Roger would find someone to complete the remaining 5 days, allowing them to go to Paramount to write the script wholeheartedly.

  Roger Corman felt that he could not find a suitable successor in a short time, so he asked them to stay and finish the filming before leaving.

  The two sides argued for more than ten minutes, and Ronald listened carefully beside them and heard two meanings.

  Jerry's trio must go to Paramount. If Roger disagrees, they can just not come to work. If there are legal disputes in the future, there will be ways to remedy them. And Paramount's $3.5 million pie fell on their heads. If they lose this opportunity, they don't know when the next one will fall.

  Roger Corman's attitude is also very clear. You can't abandon the crew and run away.

  The second group director generally refers to the second group of filming personnel who act separately from the crew. It is also equipped with a director and a photographer. The second group mainly shoots some exterior scenes without the protagonist, empty shots to explain the environment, scenes between supporting roles, etc. The purpose of setting up the second group is to shorten the shooting cycle. Money is spent like water during the shooting stage. If a few days can be saved, it will also be a lot of money.

  But Roger is a stingy person. He will exploit people until there is no oil and water.

  This has resulted in the second group director of New World Production not only having the above tasks, but also having to shoot a lot of plot content in parallel with the crew. If the crew did not finish shooting on a certain day, Roger Corman would tear the remaining scenes from the script, and give the reshoots to the second group, and throw the reshoots that could not be reshot into the trash can.

  This way of shooting means that the second group has become half of the crew, and the workload is not small.

  Therefore, the second group director of "Rock High School" must be familiar with the shooting situation of the crew. If someone is replaced rashly, it may be better to wait for Allen to finish shooting the main group's scenes and then come back to shoot the content of the second group.

  ...

  "This is unacceptable!" Jerry Zucker was a little angry. He did not expect Roger to disagree today.

  "Why not let Joe Dante come to shoot? He is familiar with the crew situation and can also be the director. It only takes a few days and does not delay his other work. He was originally helping the crew with Allen to direct."

  "Alan needs Joe. If Joe is not there, it will be a big setback and unfair to him. Because when we were shooting "Piranha" last year, Allen was also helping the crew and helped Joe complete the directing work of the first movie. He is returning the favor." Roger Corman replied.

  This is certainly part of the reason. But Ronald thinks the real key is that Joe Dante has escaped from the sea of suffering with last year's "Piranha" and obtained the highest level of membership of the Directors Guild. He came to help Alan Ekush to repay a favor, but he has no obligation to help Roger Corman solve the problem.

  Jerry Zucker knew this, of course, and he immediately argued: "This is complete nonsense. Allen's level is not bad, why does Joe have to be a co-director in the crew? This is not the American federal government. There is a president and a deputy president as a backup."

  The two sides were about to quarrel again. At this time, the third person in the trio who shook hands with Ronald suddenly interrupted:

  "I heard from Jerry that your sample film yesterday was shot by a crew assistant. Why don't you ask him to shoot it instead of Jerry?"

  Jerry Zucker, Joe Dante, and Roger's wife Julie all looked at Ronald.

  (End of this chapter)