Simon took out the script of "The Butterfly Effect" from his backpack and handed it to Jonathan Friedman.

Jonathan Friedman did not open it, but glanced at the cover, then pressed the script on the table and continued to look at him with a smile.

In this case, Simon organized his thoughts and began to elaborate: "This is a suspense thriller with a soft science fiction nature. Since he was very young, people around Ivan have often discovered that this child will do some extraordinary things for no reason.

Strange or even bizarre behavior. However, Ivan always claimed afterwards that he could not remember the situation at all. The doctor classified Ivan's condition as intermittent amnesia and recommended him to keep a diary for auxiliary treatment.

"

When Simon said this, he noticed that Jonathan Friedman's expression showed some curiosity, so he continued.

The general plot idea of ​​"The Butterfly Effect" is a story about a young man who has the ability to go back to the past by reading diaries. In order to make up for his past regrets, he travels through time and space again and again to try to change his life.

However, every time the male protagonist tries to change the past, when he returns to the time when he was twenty years old, he finds that everything around him does not develop as he imagined, and even gets worse.

The biggest feature of "The Butterfly Effect" is its rigorous plot that is so interconnected that it makes people laugh. The whole story is like a well-conceived network, and all the details can find echoing nodes in other places.

Therefore, this film is regarded as a classic in the hearts of many suspense thriller lovers.

In the original time and space, the production company of "The Butterfly Effect" was New Line Cinema. Simon heard that the film had many endings during the editing process. However, he finally chose the darkest and most impactful one. The male protagonist was in

After repeated unsatisfactory attempts, he returned to his mother's womb in despair and strangled himself with the umbilical cord.

Then the whole story came to an abrupt end.

After Simon finished speaking briefly, Jonathan Friedman, who originally had no expectations for him, fell silent.

The first part of Robert Zemeckis' "Back to the Future" was released just last year and won the annual box office championship in 1985.

Therefore, Simon's script, which has similar time-travel elements to "Back to the Future", was far beyond Jonathan Friedman's expectations. He even felt that this story was even better than "Back to the Future" in terms of pure conception.

Even better.

At least for now, just such a very novel script idea is enough to convince him to recommend Simon to the literary agency department of WMA.

You must know that Hollywood is also full of a lot of following trends. It is only because of the generally long production cycle of Hollywood movies that people do not feel that one movie is popular in the first half of the year and a lot of similar movies are released in the second half.

Therefore, when "Back to the Future" won last year's box office championship, Simon's idea, as long as it is paired with a relatively complete script, will definitely arouse strong interest from Hollywood film companies.

In addition, such a strangely conceived thriller happens to be the type of project that Jonathan Friedman is looking for recently.

The key now is, what is the quality of the script in hand?

After all, Hollywood has never lacked creativity. What it lacks is just perfect story scripts that can be transformed into wonderful films based on relevant creativity.

Many Hollywood movies usually go through lengthy revisions that take several years during the script creation stage. The main reason is that there are too many details that need to be refined between a workable script and the original story idea.

Thinking quickly in his mind, he lowered his head and glanced at the cover of the script in his hand. Jonathan Friedman subconsciously asked a question similar to Catherine's yesterday: "Simon, can you first explain the meaning of the 'butterfly effect'?"

Simon nodded and once again explained the theory of Professor Edward Lorenz of MIT.

After listening to this, Jonathan Friedman asked a question that surprised him: "So, you went to MIT?"

"No," Simon shook his head, but immediately added: "I entered Stanford last year and received a full scholarship, but I dropped out early due to some changes."

When Simon said this, Jonathan Friedman's expression changed significantly.

Although Stanford University does not belong to the Ivy League in the United States, in fact, the overall strength of this top university on the west coast of the United States has surpassed that of most alliance members, and it has a prominent place in the world university rankings.

Simon was able to enter Stanford University with a full scholarship. Even though he had dropped out of school at this time, this qualification would definitely raise Jonathan Friedman's evaluation of him several notches.

Simon also understood in his heart that he was actually conducting an interview now.

Westerners don't pay attention to modesty. The better a person performs during the interview, the greater the success rate.

Therefore, Simon had no hesitation in taking advantage of his qualifications at this time.

After Simon finished speaking, he saw Jonathan Friedman glance at his watch with a hesitant expression, and then spoke at the right time: "Mr. Friedman, the first ten pages of the script are the outline of the story I made. Maybe you can take a look at it first.

It’s a little more detailed than what I just told.”

Jonathan Friedman nodded when he heard this, no longer entangled, and readily opened the script in front of him.

However, the content on the first page of the script once again stunned him. It was a copyright registration certificate from the Writers Guild of America.

Shaking his head slightly and smiling, Jonathan Friedman flipped through it, but his initial perception of Simon completely changed in his heart. The young man opposite was obviously not one of those hot-headed people who just jumped into Hollywood and thought they could make a career.

green.

Then when he saw the beautiful and neat English handwriting even though it was a photocopy, Jonathan Friedman was no longer too surprised. Of course, his evaluation of Simon inevitably improved a lot again.

Hollywood may have more copyright disputes and lawsuits every year than the movies it produces. Directly affixing WGA's copyright registration certificate on the title page is Simon's helpless move. He is not naive enough to think that industry giants like WMA cannot embezzle others.

Little moves in the script.

Now Simon couldn't withstand such twists and turns, so he simply cut off some possible disputes at their source.

In fact, as Jonathan Friedman thought, even though he inherited the memories of twelve other people, Simon is definitely not the kind of fool who thinks he will be a blockbuster once he steps into Hollywood.

From the moment he first came up with the idea of ​​coming to Los Angeles to try his luck, Simon had already started making very detailed plans.

Although he has a pretty good skin, Simon has no intention of taking the path of an actor. His first goal is to become a director, but without any qualifications and connections, this is obviously unlikely in the short term.

Then, starting with a screenwriter with a slightly lower threshold is a very good choice.

According to some information in Simon's memory, the two major writers' unions on the east and west coasts of Hollywood register more than 60,000 scripts every year. This seems to be a very huge number. But in the entire Hollywood, all theatrical movies, TV movies and direct-to-video movies every year

The total number of low-budget independent films released on video cassettes would exceed 600, which is still fine.

The success rate of 1% is already very high in Simon's opinion.

What's more, among the tens of thousands of scripts that appear every year, mediocrity still accounts for the majority. But as a time traveler, the scripts that Simon can come up with are basically the best ones after being washed away by the waves.

Moreover, in the initial process of selecting the script, Simon also carefully weighed various factors.

As a newcomer to Hollywood, if you want to ensure that your script is favored by the film company as much as possible, you must first produce it at a low cost. If Simon takes out the "Titanic" script now, there is a 99% chance that it will be accepted by the film company.

People are thrown directly into the trash can. Secondly, the story must be novel enough to make people's eyes brighter. Finally, the script idea should preferably cover the popular elements of some box office blockbusters in recent years.

"The Butterfly Effect" fully meets the above three criteria: low cost, new ideas, and time-travel elements to follow last year's box office champion "Back to the Future."

In the office, the surroundings were quiet for a moment as Jonathan Friedman read.

When he heard the knock on the door, Jonathan Friedman found that he had unknowingly begun to read the text of the script. The text of the script in the standard Hollywood format also looked impeccable. The beautiful handwritten English not only did not have any sense of violation, but also made it feel more comfortable.

People have a more comfortable reading experience.

He was immersed in reading and was suddenly interrupted. Jonathan Friedman raised his head with some displeasure and found that his assistant Owen Wright was standing by the door and gestured towards him. Only then did he react.

After looking at his schedule, Jonathan Friedman said to his assistant: "If Courteney has nothing else to do, let her wait for a while. The same goes for subsequent appointments. I will get off work later today."

Upon hearing this, Owen Wright looked at Simon who was sitting with his back to him with some surprise, nodded and was about to exit the office, when Jonathan Friedman stopped him again and ordered: "Also, make two cups of coffee and come in."

.”

When the door closed again, Jonathan Friedman smiled at Simon and didn't explain anything. He just turned his attention back to the script in front of him.

Simon didn't mind and casually glanced at the electronic watch on his wrist.

The time now is 4:13.

In other words, Jonathan Friedman should have only reserved 10 minutes of meeting time for himself. If his performance was unsatisfactory, he might have been sent away by now.

Simon didn't have any grudges about this, and he would probably be the same way.

Politeness is a person's accomplishment, but work must still follow the rules. He is still an unknown Hollywood rookie, so naturally he is only worth 10 minutes.
Chapter completed!