《瘋狂英語》精選輯:明星的魅力
Star Power
A: The great lie in the movie business, and one that you'll hear all the time is "the material is everything". The material is actually nothing. OK, the material doesn't matter. You can show up with the greatest 1)script on earth and flop it down in front of the 2)studio executive and they can come back with the greatest reasons on earth not to become involved with it. And you realize that what really drives the entire business is 3)attachment.
B: Star power. In order to pre-sell a movie, in order to 4)convince somebody in Germany that they should put enormous amounts of money on the line to bet on the script, they could bet on a star.
C: A bad movie with Bruce Willis will make more money than a bad movie without Bruce Willis. And a good movie with Bruce Willis will still make a lot more money than a good movie without Bruce Willis. Yeah, the other thing, none of them want to pay taxes again... ever.
D: As part of creating an event, you want to anchor that around a large personality. And those personalities are few, as always, are few and far between. Even back in the old studio days, there were basically five to ten stars who were very big. And so everybody wants those very big stars.
E: It's ruled by fear. What they seem to want is to be believed of the necessity of making a decision, which goes like this: If Tom Cruise is in the movie, well, it's going to be a hit. And if it's not a hit with Tom Cruise, well, it's not our fault because the last five Tom Cruise pictures were hits.
(In the movie Mission Impossible II)
Tom Cruise: You got to be kidding!
明星的魅力
A: 電影行業(yè)有個(gè)彌天大謊，你常常聽到的一種說辭是“素材決定一切”。實(shí)際上素材什么也決定不了，明白了吧？素材怎樣無關(guān)痛癢。你可以亮出全世界最好的劇本，把它遞到電影公司主管的面前，他們也能找到最堂皇的理由拒絕拍攝，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)真正讓這個(gè)行業(yè)運(yùn)作的力量說穿了就是明星效應(yīng)。
B: 運(yùn)用明星的魅力。為了能提前賣出電影，為了要說服德國(guó)的某個(gè)人投資大筆金額來拍片，他們就要打出明星的招牌。
C: 有布魯斯·威利斯的一部爛片要比沒有布魯斯·威利斯的一部爛片賺的錢更多。有布魯斯·威利斯的一部好片比沒有布魯斯·威利斯的一部好片賺的錢更多。還有一件事，他們中無人愿意交兩次稅，永遠(yuǎn)是這樣。
D: 要?jiǎng)?chuàng)作一部大片，你必不可少地要用上一些明星。而真正的明星鳳毛麟角，少之又少。哪怕是回頭看看，電影史上也只有那么五到十人是算得上巨星的。所以人人都想找那幾個(gè)真正的巨星來拍片。
E: 這種效應(yīng)是由懼怕所操控的。人們似乎確信在做決策時(shí)，這么想是理所應(yīng)當(dāng)?shù)模喝绻谐霈F(xiàn)了湯姆·克魯斯，好了，片子一定會(huì)賣座；而如果有了湯姆·克魯斯也不賣座呢，啊，那可不是我們的錯(cuò)，因?yàn)闇?middot;克魯斯的前五部片子都很賣座。
（電影《碟中諜II》中的對(duì)白）
湯姆·克魯斯：你在開玩笑吧！
注釋:
1) script n. 劇本
2) studio n. 電影廠
3) attachment n. 附屬；依戀
4) convince v. 使確信，使信服
