被炒鱿鱼的经历如何引导《饥饿游戏》女制片人走向成功

    一个老笑话帮助电影《饥饿游戏》(The Hunger Games)的制片人妮娜·雅各布森度过了一段艰难的时光。大意是这样：圣诞节一大早，一个小孩醒来后就兴冲冲在圣诞树下寻找礼物，结果却发现了一堆粪便。不过，这个小孩依然兴奋地宣称，肯定有一匹小马藏在附近。“我总是尝试着找到那匹小马，” 雅各布森说。

    比如2006年那次。当年，她意外地被免去迪斯尼公司(Walt Disney)旗下博伟影业集团(Buena Vista Motion Picture Group)的总裁一职。尽管雅各布森监制了第一部《加勒比海盗》(Pirates of the Caribbean) 、《冲锋陷阵》(Remember the Titans)和第一部《纳尼亚传奇》(Chronicles of Narnia)等卖座影片，但她还是成为一次管理层变动的受害者之一。但这次被炒经历，却激励她着手创建自己的制作公司。

    2007年，雅各布森推出Color Force公司。该公司迅速获得杰夫·金尼 (Jeff Kinney) 著作《小屁孩日记》(Diary of a Wimpy Kid)的电影版权。根据电影融资网站The Numbers提供的数据，该系列的三部电影以5,500万美元的总预算获得了逾3.1亿美元的票房收入。《饥饿游戏》系列电影前两部的表现则更上一层楼，以2.1亿美元的总预算斩获18.5亿美元的票房收入。即将于11月21日上映的《饥饿游戏3：自由幻梦（上）》(The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1)，很可能将获得类似的票房收入。鉴于这份夺目的成绩单，雅各布森不只是找到一匹小马，而是一只载着她疾驰过好莱坞的麒麟——她不断开发自己真正喜爱的故事，然后将其转化为风行一时的商业大片。

    尽管获得了庞大的票房数字，但Color Force依然刻意地保持小规模运营方式。该公司目前仅有7名员工，每年专注于一两部影片。“这样一来，我就能够告诉别人，他们将成为我们开发的5个项目之一，而不是50个项目之一，” 雅各布森说。

    由于员工人数少，雅各布森必须亲自从事许多工作。在任何给定的一天，她总是忙忙碌碌的。她会去追求某本著作的改编权，寻找投资人支持项目，会见电影公司负责人，聘请编剧和导演，去拍摄片场，协助电影编辑或绘制电影分销策略。这种亲力亲为意味着她完全投入到每个项目之中。

    “我知道，只要是妮娜提出某个项目，她肯定知道如何制作，目标观众是谁，应该采用什么营销方式，” 福克斯2000影业公司(Fox 2000 Pictures)总裁伊丽莎白·高布乐说。“在她开始行动前，一切都已经过深思熟虑。” 高布乐曾经与雅各布森合作拍摄过电影《小屁孩日记》，并且在今年夏天与Color Force签订了一份优先合作协议。

    从商业的角度来看，一切都马虎不得。由于Color Force每年只开发寥寥几部电影，任何一个项目都不能成为哑弹。虽然《饥饿游戏》很可能为Color Force赢得了一笔可观收入（该公司已经获得一笔未透露金额的服务费，而且还参与了影片利润分成），但在变幻无常的电影业中，对于这样一家雄心勃勃，不断壮大的公司来说，这些资金不会永远持续下去。

    这种不可预测性意味着，关注细节是至关重要的。雅各布森的管理风格已经从对已经成型的项目进行最高层决策，转化为精雕细琢项目的每一个细节。“作为一位电影公司高管，我可以认为每个人都是有能力的，直至事实证明并非如此。当当你制作一部电影时，由于几乎没有时间来矫正出错的环节，你不得不抱有相反的心态：每个人都是不称职的，直至事实证明并非如此，”她说。“他们通常都有能力完成各自任务，但你必须得思考，如果这个环节出错了咋办？如果那个环节出错了咋办？”

    There’s an old joke that helps The Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson survive hard times. You know the one: A kid wakes up on Christmas morning to a pile of manure under the tree—only to excitedly claim that there must be a pony in there somewhere. “I always try to find the pony,” says Jacobson.

    Like that time she was unexpectedly let go from her gig as president of Walt Disney’s DIS -2.17% Buena Vista Motion Picture Group in 2006. Though Jacobson oversaw the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, Remember the Titans, and the first The Chronicles of Narnia film, among other blockbuster hits, she was one of the casualties in a management shake-up. But the firing pushed her to start her own production company.

    Jacobson launched Color Force in 2007. The company quickly secured the rights to Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. The three subsequent films in the series grossed more than $310 million on a total budget of $55 million, according to the movie finance site The Numbers. The first two The Hunger Games films have done even better, pulling in $1.85 billion on a total budget of $210 million. The next installment in the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, will likely reap a similar windfall when it’s released on November 21. Given that track record, Jacobson hasn’t just found a pony—she’s ridden a unicorn through Hollywood, developing stories that she genuinely loves and turning them into commercial hits.

    Despite the large box office numbers, Color Force purposely remains a relatively small operation. It has just seven employees focusing on one to two movies a year. “That gives us the ability to tell someone that they will be one of five projects we have, not one of 50,” says Jacobson.

    The low headcount keeps Jacobson busy. On any given day, she will pursue rights to material, find financiers to back projects, meet with studio heads, hire screenwriters and directors, be on a location shoot, assist in film editing or map out a film’s distribution strategy. Her ground-level involvement means that she is fully invested in each project.

    “I know that everything Nina submits is something that she knows how to make, who the audience is and how she would ask us to market and sell it,” says Fox 2000 Pictures president Elizabeth Gabler, who worked with Jacobson on Diary of a Wimpy Kid and signed Color Force to a first-look deal this summer. “Everything is completely thought out before she makes a move.”

    From a business standpoint, everything has to be. With only a few films in development, Color Force can’t afford to have any bombs. And while it likely earns a handsome payday from The Hunger Games—Color Force has been paid an undisclosed fee for its services and given a share of the profits—those funds don’t last forever for an ambitious, growing company in the fickle film industry.

    That unpredictability means attention to detail is crucial. Jacobson’s managerial style has transformed from top-line decision-making on projects already in good shape to sweating projects’ details. “As a studio executive, I took the approach that people are competent until proven otherwise. But when you make a movie, because there is so little time to fix things when they break, you have to almost come to it with the mindset that everyone is incompetent until proven otherwise,” she says. “They usually aren’t, but you have to think, What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong?”