Time had unknowingly arrived at the end of July.
Today was Monday, July 28th.
At nine in the morning, Simon arrived punctually at the Fox Studio in Century City, Beverly Hills.
Since his injuries hadn't fully recovered, Simon didn't ride his bike today but instead booked a taxi.
Upon arriving at Fox Studio, Simon realized he didn't have a pass to enter. The gatekeeper eyed the young man, who claimed to be there for a film production meeting, with suspicion. After some convincing, he agreed to make a phone call for him.
A few minutes later, David Giler's assistant for 'The Butterfly Effect' arrived at the main gate and led Simon inside.
Simon followed the assistant to David Giler's office. Brian De Palma had already arrived, which made Simon feel a bit embarrassed. However, David Giler and Brian De Palma didn't seem to mind and even asked with concern about Simon's recovery.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Peter Sanders, a Vice President of Fox Filmed Entertainment, and Vincent Hill, a professional script analyst from Fox, also arrived, and the meeting officially began.
In a small conference room in the Fox Studio executive building, David Giler, Brian De Palma, and Simon, the three main creators of the film, along with the other two, sat around the conference table. The secretary distributed copies of the script and a memo.
In his original life, 'The Butterfly Effect' script had been refined over seven years and was already very complete. Simon didn't think there was much that could be changed in the script he had presented, which was based on the final theatrical version of the film.
However, when Simon opened the memo prepared by the script analyst present, named Vincent Hill, he realized that getting the remaining $60,000 payment would clearly not be so easy.
Last Thursday, while Simon was still in the hospital, he had already received the first check of $140,000 for his script, as stipulated in his contract with Fox.
On the memo in front of him, from the script's title to the final ending, Vincent Hill had provided very detailed evaluations and corresponding revision suggestions. Simon quickly skimmed through it and found that there were over 50 annotations, almost one revision suggestion for every two pages of the script.
Putting down the memo, Simon looked up at the others. Besides Vincent Hill, the other three were also reading the memo. David Giler and Peter Sanders showed no change in expression, but Brian De Palma frowned slightly.
As a rookie screenwriter, Simon knew he didn't have much say in script revisions. To get the remaining $60,000, he could only honestly revise the script according to the film company's requirements, or give up this right and let Fox hire other screenwriters.
With that thought, Simon refocused his attention on the memo in front of him.
Even without much say, Simon was determined to maintain the integrity of the script as much as possible.
A moment later, Brian De Palma spoke first, with clear dissatisfaction in his tone, directly asking Fox Vice President Peter Sanders, "Peter, you want to make this film PG-13, right?"
Hearing Brian De Palma speak, Simon looked up again.
After carefully reading the memo, Simon also understood Fox's intentions.
The initial 'The Butterfly Effect' script, due to its many heavy adult elements and a rather dark tone, would easily be rated R. This meant that teenagers under 17 would need to be accompanied by an adult to watch it, effectively blocking a large portion of the teenage audience from theatres.
At this point, based on the suggestions in the memo, Simon realized that Fox clearly wanted to overturn most of the plot points that might affect the film's rating.
As the largest film market in the world, the United States had long adopted a mature film rating system.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) regulations, North American theatrical films are divided into five categories: G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. G is the most lenient general audience rating, meaning all ages can watch it. NC-17 is the strictest restricted rating, prohibiting all viewers under 17. For the other three ratings, the closer they are to NC-17, the narrower the audience becomes.
From a purely commercial perspective, Fox's actions were actually understandable.
If the film could be adjusted from an R rating to a PG-13 rating, where only children under 13 require parental accompaniment, then the film's market audience would significantly expand.
However, from the perspective of 'The Butterfly Effect' story itself, Fox's approach seemed very unwise.
"Brian, you need to know that the investment for this film is $10 million," Peter Sanders replied, his expression unchanged, upon hearing Brian De Palma's questioning. "Therefore, we must consider the film's commercial prospects".
Brian De Palma shook his head, "In my opinion, the script for 'The Butterfly Effect' is already quite perfect. What you're doing will only destroy the overall structure of the script. Moreover, ever since 'Carrie,' all the films I've directed have been R-rated. As long as it's a good film, it will get enough commercial returns, so I don't think there's anything wrong with that".
"Since Simon can write a perfect script, he can also revise it to an even more perfect one according to our requirements," Peter Sanders responded to Brian De Palma, then turned to Simon, quite familiarly saying, "So, Simon, do you have that confidence?"
Although Peter Sanders' tone was very gentle and carried an elder-like encouragement, Simon clearly felt a hint of targeting in his words.
Even though he knew he didn't have much say in this matter, Simon didn't intend to be a yes-man. Feeling the subtle targeting, Simon replied somewhat impolitely, "Mr. Sanders, with all due respect, 'The Butterfly Effect' itself is already a very tightly interwoven story script, like a large net. Disturbing any single thread within it could affect the entire structure. If we revise it according to the requirements in this memo, the result might very well be a completely different story. Therefore, if Fox wants a PG-13 film, perhaps I could write a new script instead".
Peter Sanders hadn't expected Simon's words to be so sharp right from the start. Remembering that the young man had just broken the leg bones of five youths last week, he subconsciously suppressed the refutation he wanted to blurt out, raised an eyebrow, and turned to David Giler: "David, what do you think?"
David Giler's face showed a somewhat enigmatic expression. He raised the memo in his hand and said, "Peter, the result of my discussion with Ronald last week wasn't like this. Speaking of ratings, Fox's two films released this summer, 'Space Station' in early June, PG-rated, with an $18 million budget, only took in a pathetic $9 million at the box office. Last month's 'Aliens 2,' R-rated, with a similar $18.5 million budget, reached $25 million at the box office in just two weeks of release. So, I don't think there's any problem with 'The Butterfly Effect' being rated R in the future. If you insist on today's meeting proceeding according to this memo, I can only choose to cancel today's meeting and then go talk to Ronald again".