Heads Up Hollywood

All is ready except for the opportunity.

Now Tang En can finally put down everything at hand and concentrate on preparing for the movie "The Avengers".

If nothing else, "The Avengers" will be Twain's last Marvel movie.

He opened the prelude to Marvel with a "Spider-Man".

It is enough to use another "Avengers" to complete the first phase of Marvel Pictures.

Marvel's movies have gone beyond the concept of movies in the traditional sense.

Kind of like a hardcover version of a big-screen feature-length TV show.

have a unified style.

In the past, Hollywood movie series basically revolved around the director, screenwriter, producer and other main creative teams to make sequels. Through the continuity of the main creators, the style continuation of the series of movies is completed.

For example, the pioneering work of superhero movies-the "Superman" trilogy.

The first three films of "Superman" were directed by Richard Donner and Richard Lester, mainly written by David Newman and Mario Puzo, and starring Christopher Reeve.

When there is an accident with this lineup, the "Superman" movie will immediately have problems.

Because every director has a different style of directing.

If the style of the same series of movies is too different, the audience will definitely not buy it.

However, Marvel Studios broke this law.

In the big series of Marvel's "Avengers", apart from the pioneering work "Spider-Man", fans don't even know who the directors of the latter films are.

After the style of the entire series has been established, the uniqueness of the director has been reduced to the point where it is difficult to recognize.

The series style of the movie must be put above the main creative team!

It's like an American drama.

For example, "Band of Brothers" has a total of 10 episodes, directed by 10 different directors, but the style is surprisingly unified. It is difficult for ordinary audiences to distinguish through the content of the film and television.

In this way, the importance of the director will be greatly reduced, and the artistry of the work will also be greatly reduced.

Even Tang En, when filming "The Avengers", had to closely follow the style, style, rhythm and narrative flow determined by Marvel Studios for the "Avengers" series.

Ordinary movie fans are of course looking forward to the filming of "The Avengers" by a top director like Dunn Walker.

However, people in the industry were quite shocked by Tang En's decision.

It was hard for them to realize that a great director of Tang En's level would actually shoot a... craft movie.

The soul of film is creation.

However, when filming "The Avengers", to a large extent, there was no room for creation, but a step-by-step assembly.

It would be like having Jobs come down to the factory floor and assemble the iMac.

It's not impossible, it's a waste of money.

"Many colleagues in the industry still can't see the situation clearly, and they still don't understand the concept upgrade of commercial movies."

In the past few days, Tang En has held many meetings with many high-level executives of Marvel Pictures, including the main creative teams of the two Marvel films "Ant-Man 2" and "Iron Man" that have been completed.

Twain wanted to establish the correctness of Marvel Pictures' strategy from a theoretical point of view, so as to give the directors confidence. At the same time, it also encourages Marvel executives not to care about outside rumors, and firmly believes in the existing management, creation and production styles of Marvel Pictures.

"Since the 1970s, sci-fi themes have gradually become a popular field for commercial films. Movie props and special effects have become the wings that support sci-fi movies to take off. After entering the 21st century, computer digital imaging technology has fully taken over the production of special effects."

"In the past, Hollywood regarded creativity as the soul of movies. Even today, this is an iron law of movies. However, in commercial films, especially sci-fi commercial films, the concept of film has been upgraded! Today, commercial For movies, technology and creativity begin to stand shoulder to shoulder!"

"Many film critics, even many producers and directors are puzzled, why the box office of "Pirate League 2: Dead Man's Chest" is so high? That movie, from a creative point of view, is really good. , 65% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes is enough to show that this is not a story with excellent ideas. But the result? We have all seen it.”

In the conference room of Marvel Pictures, Twain, sitting at the head of the round table, talked freely.

What a deafening theory that technology and creativity stand shoulder to shoulder!

The current Twain can definitely be regarded as a master of film theory in Hollywood.

What he said is justifying the name of Marvel's movie!

Especially the director of "Iron Man" Jon Favreau, the director of "Ant-Man 2" Doug Liman, the director of "Spider-Man 3" Sam Raimi and others.

Nina Jacobson added with a smile: "The latest data shows that "Pirate League 2: Dead Man's Chest" has been released for three weeks, with a US box office of 320 million US dollars and a global box office of more than 680 million US dollars. It seems that the global box office It’s only a matter of time before it exceeds $1 billion.”

So far, this summer's summer box office champion is the DreamWorks animation "Shrek 2".

The film is still in theaters, with a North American box office of $410 million and a global box office of $790 million.

However, in the field of live-action movies, "Pirate League 2: Dead Man's Chest" is a well-deserved king, and even "Ghost Rider", which led a dark trend for a while, has to bow down.

As the president of Marvel Pictures, Nina Jacobson should be aggrieved when she sees that "Pirate League 2" crushes "Ghost Rider" at the box office, at least not too happy.

However, Tang En had already promised her.

In the future, she will take over Bill McNick's position and take charge of Tang En Pictures!

"Pirate Alliance 2" is a well-known movie series under Tang En Pictures.

In addition, there are "Harry Potter", "007", "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", "National Treasure", "Mad Max", "Night at the Museum" and many other series brands that can be developed.

Compared with Marvel Pictures, it is even worse.

During this time, she was in a good mood.

Tang En went on to say: "Some time ago, George told me that the movie world of "Pirate Alliance" was comparable to that of "Star Wars". To be honest, I was a little flattered. But having said that, "Star Wars" The idea of ​​"...isn't it a family drama in the space field? In my opinion, whether it is "Pirate Alliance" or "Star Wars", it is far away from the unprecedented movie universe created by Marvel Pictures Far inferior!"

"The previous film series, whether it is "Star Wars", "Harry Potter", "Mission Impossible", "Lord of the Rings", are all linear plots. Only Marvel's movie universe has a network structure. Each superhero is like a small star in the starry sky. They reflect each other and form a grand world system. Every new Marvel movie can be regarded as a sequel or extra chapter of the previous movie. It can also be regarded as a trailer for the next movie.”

"What is the biggest feature of the finale of the big series "The Avengers"? Is it really an assembled movie, as the outside world said? Yes, and no! This will be the first time in history. Put many superheroes with different personalities, different superpowers, and from different worlds into the same universe construction."

"We are going to create a world!"

...

Back then, George Lucas created a technological precedent and shot "Star Wars", which skyrocketed.

If Cameron wants to challenge "Star Wars", he must also develop a technological precedent!

For "Avatar", Cameron almost has to renovate and integrate the current Hollywood film technology, which is far from being as simple as 3D.

This naturally made Tang En cheaper.

Tang En wanted to borrow several techniques from it and apply them to the filming of "The Avengers". Among them, the two most important are real-time preview technology and facial expression capture technology.

However, when the filming started, the technical problems had not been resolved.

"Avatar" was officially started shooting in 2007.

It's only 2004 now.

The technology is not mature yet.

Fortunately, the real-time preview technology is not as good as the visual presentation, but at least it can have a general appearance, and can provide specific visual analysis for the director team and special effects team, which is much better than the previous green screen shooting with dark eyes.

There is a big problem with expression capture technology.

This is a set of equipment developed by the Optical Physics Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for which New Universal spent a total of 30 million US dollars!

Of course, the US$30 million is not only a set of equipment, but also a detailed research and development process and related technical materials, which can be provided to Dolby Laboratories for learning and scientific research.

This headset-type optical expression capture system, because the design is too complicated, occasionally has a small problem of electric leakage, which is relatively dangerous.

After more than a month, it still hasn't been resolved.

"What do you think we should do?" Tang En was very displeased after hearing this report.

Nina Jacobson will personally serve as the executive producer of "The Avengers", and she is also very helpless, "There are two options, either to use old-fashioned expression capture technology, or...you can only postpone the shooting schedule .I watched some shots of "The Polar Express", and ILM's expression capture is excellent."

Tang En said angrily: "If I want to use the technology of Industrial Light \u0026 Magic, how can I spend 30 million US dollars to buy such a set of semi-finished equipment?"

The visual effects of "Avatar" are too shocking.

"The Polar Express" is far inferior to it.

With the good ones, of course you can’t use the bad ones.

Nina Jacobson tentatively said: "If it doesn't work, let's postpone it. "Ant-Man 2" didn't finish filming until the end of June, "Iron Man" only finished filming for a week, and "Thor" even had to be filmed in mid-August. The actor It's too hard for us to film continuously."

Tang En frowned.

It is of course very tiring for an actor to film in continuous rotation.

But for production companies, there are great benefits-saving money!

For example, in "Thor", all costumes, props, sets, and even movie shots and actors' status can be well connected to "The Avengers".

If there is a one-year interval between shooting, all arrangements will have to be rearranged, and there will be an additional expense.

Now, "Ant-Man 2" and "Iron Man" have just finished filming, and "Thor" is still being filmed, so it is the best time to start "The Avengers".

Why did the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy have to be shot in three consecutive films?

The biggest reason is that continuous shooting saves money!

If the shooting schedule of "The Avengers" is postponed, I am afraid that at least an additional 20-30 million US dollars will be spent.

It's enough to buy a set of the latest headgear optical expression capture equipment.