Rating issues

Time has come to the end of July without knowing it.

Today is July 28th, Monday.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Simon arrived at Fox Studios in Century City, Beverly Hills on time.

Since the injury on his body has not completely recovered, Simon did not ride a bike anymore today, instead booking a rental.

Upon arriving at Fox Studios, Simon realized that he did not have a pass. The guard looked suspiciously at the young man who claimed to be attending the film production conference, and it took him a while to agree to make a call for him.

A few minutes later, the assistant of the producer of "Butterfly Effect" David Giller came to the gate and brought Simon in.

Simon followed the assistant to David Giller's office, and Brian de Palma had arrived early, which made Simon feel a little embarrassed. However, David Giller and Brian de Palma didn't care too much, and asked with concern how Simon's injury recovered.

A brief greeting, Peter Sanders, a vice president of Fox Pictures, and Vincent Hill, a professional script analyst under Fox Pictures, also arrived, and today's meeting officially began.

In a small conference room in the administration building of Fox Studios, three film creators, David Giller, Brian de Palma, and Simon, and two others were sitting around the conference table. The secretary took a copy of the script and A memo was distributed.

The previous "Butterfly Effect" script has been polished for 7 years and has been very perfect. Simon doesn't feel that there is still much that can be modified according to the script of the final movie.

However, when Simon opened the memo made by the script analyst named Vincent Hill present, he felt that he wanted to get the remaining $60,000 in the balance, obviously not. It's not that easy.

Last Thursday, while Simon was still in the hospital, he had received his first payment check for $140,000 in his contract with Fox.

In the memo in front of him, from the title of the script to the final end of the story, Vincent Hill put forward a very detailed evaluation and corresponding revision suggestions. Simon looked through it roughly and found that the number of comments exceeds 50, which is almost equivalent to facing one revision for every two pages of the script.

Putting down the memo in his hand, Simon raised his head and looked at the other people. Except for Vincent Hill, the other three were also reading the memo. David Giller and Peter Sanders were calm and calm. Ryan de Palma frowned slightly.

As a screenwriter who just debuted, Simon knows that he does not have much say in the revision of the script. If he wants to get the follow-up payment of $60,000, he can only honestly modify the script according to the requirements of the film company, or give up this right to let Fox hire other screenwriters.

Thinking this way, Simon turned his attention back to the memo in front of him.

Even if he didn't have much voice, Simon made up his mind to maintain the integrity of the script as much as possible.

After a while, Brian de Palma spoke first, with obvious dissatisfaction in his tone, and directly asked Fox Vice President Peter Sanders: "Peter, you want to make this film a PG- Level 13, right?"

Simon looked up again when he heard Brian de Palma speak.

After carefully reading the memo in his hand, Simon also discovered Fox's intentions.

In the first version of the "Butterfly Effect" script, there are too many adult elements with heavy flavors, and the tone of the film is also gloomy, and it will easily be rated R in the future. This means that teenagers under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult to watch, which in fact is equivalent to blocking a large part of the young audience from the theater.

At this point, based on the recommendations in the memo in his hand, Simon realized that Fox obviously wanted to overturn most of the plots that might affect the rating of the movie.

As the world's largest film market, the United States has launched a mature film classification system early on.

According to the regulations of the Motion Picture Association of America (MP+), theatrical movies in North America are divided into five levels: G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17. The G grade is the most relaxed popular grade, meaning that all ages can watch it. The NC-17 level is the most restrictive level, and young people under the age of 17 are prohibited from watching. In addition to the three levels, the closer to the NC-17 level, the narrower the audience.

From a purely business perspective, this behavior of Fox is actually understandable.

If the film can be adjusted from the R level to the PG-13 level, which only requires parents to watch under the age of 13, then the market audience for the film will expand a lot in the future.

However, from the perspective of the "Butterfly Effect" story itself, it seems very unwise for Fox to do so.

"Brian, you have to know that the investment in this movie is 10 million US dollars," Peter Sanders replied unchanged after hearing Brian de Palma's questioning: "So, we must Consider the commercial prospects of the film."

Brian de Palma shook his head and said: "In my opinion, the "Butterfly Effect" script is quite perfect. If you do this, it will only destroy the overall structure of the script. Moreover, starting with "Witch Carrie" The films I directed have always been R-rated. As long as they are good films, they will get enough commercial returns, so I don't think there is anything wrong with this."

"Since Simon can write a perfect script, he can also re-modify a more perfect script in accordance with our requirements," Peter Sanders responded to Brian de Palma, but he took advantage of the situation. Turning to Simon, I am quite familiar: "So, Simon, do you have this confidence?"

Although Peter Sanders's tone was very gentle and he also carried elder encouragement, Simon clearly felt that the other party's words were somewhat aimed at him.

Even if he understands that he does not have much say in this matter, Simon did not intend to be an echo worm, feeling the faint target of the other party, Simon is even more unceremonious: "Mr. Sanders, with all due respect, "Butterfly "Effect" itself is already a very tightly linked story script, like a big net, if any one of the threads is touched, the overall situation may be involved. If you modify it according to the requirements of this memo, you will get a good chance. It's already a completely different story. So, if Fox wants a PG-13 film, maybe I can rewrite the script."

Peter Sanders did not expect that Simon would be so sharp when he spoke. He remembered that the young man had just smashed five youth's leg bones last week. He subconsciously suppressed the refutation he wanted to blurt out, raised his eyebrows, and turned. David Giller: "David, what do you mean?"

With some smiles on David Giller's face, he raised the memo in his hand and said: "Peter, the result of my communication with Ronald last week is not like this. Speaking of classification, Fox is this summer file. The two films released in early June, "Space Station", PG level, budget of 18 million US dollars, but in the end only got a poor box office of 9 million US dollars. Last month's "Alien 2", R level, similar 18.5 million U.S. dollar budget, just two weeks after the release, the box office has reached 25 million U.S. dollars, so I don't think there is any problem with "Butterfly Effect" being rated as R in the future. If you insist that today's meeting be conducted in accordance with this memo, I will only I can choose to cancel today's meeting and talk to Ronald again."