Hollywood Drawing

While Wayne was diving headfirst into the preparations for "The Flash" and had to fly back and forth from time to time between the "X-Men" crew in Montreal, Canada, and the "Charlie's Angels" crew in Miami, time was gradually advancing, and the North American summer schedule, The beginning is gradually coming to an end.

Almost every year, the summer season is the most important movie schedule in North America, and it is also a box-office harvesting carnival for Hollywood studios. It starts from the first weekend in May and ends on September 1, with a total duration of about 122 movies. Oh my god, in this not-so-long timeline, there are probably more than 200 films released every year, which shows how fierce the competition is.

From the start of the summer season in May to mid-August this year, films released by Warner Bros. have once again become the undisputed number one box office hit by Hollywood studios.

The first one to bear the brunt is "The Dark Knight". Once this film was released in mid-May, even with strong competition from "Jurassic Park 2", it also won the box office championship in North America for four consecutive weeks. You know, this However, competition in the summer season is extremely fierce, and four consecutive box office championships show that the film's popularity is unprecedented before.

Until now, "The Dark Knight" has been shown in only a little over a thousand theaters in the North American theater market, and its box office potential has been exhausted early. However, in the face of the achievements that have been made The record-setting North American box office of US$548 million is still praised by the media from time to time.

If the results obtained overseas are included, the film has already collected US$1.184 billion from the world, firmly occupying the first place in the box office of film history, surpassing the second-ranked "Jurassic Park", and approaching US$100 million. box office.

The second is "The Matrix Reloaded", which Wayne is an investor, producer, and screenwriter. This film relies on the good reputation of the previous film. Since its release weekend, it has shown a dominance. After more than two months of screening, the North American box office has reached 279 million U.S. dollars, and the global box office has reached 735 million U.S. dollars.

The continuous success of the "Matrix" series not only allowed Zack Snyder to completely overcome the doubts of commercial film directors, but also made Charlize Theron, a South African beauty, completely popular. With her slim waist, long legs, and tight black leather clothes, she has become a North American star. , and even the dream lover of male movie fans around the world.

As the protagonist, Li Guohao also took a firm step towards becoming a first-line action actor in Hollywood with the success of this film. Before the third film, which is still in the final stages of filming, is released, Wayne's agent Jimmy has already started contract negotiations for the next film with his agent. Obviously, after the "Matrix" series, it is impossible to invite him to participate in projects at a low price. This has nothing to do with the relationship between the two parties.

In addition to these two films that have a close relationship with Wayne, Warner Bros. has invested in, produced and distributed films such as "Contact" with a box office of 126 million US dollars, "Conspiracy Theory" with a box office of 96 million US dollars, and "L.A. Confidential" with a box office of 72 million US dollars. ”, $73 million for “The Devil’s Advocate” and so on.

It is worth mentioning that the movie "Unchained", directed by Steven Spielberg himself and starring Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman, only achieved a little over 40 million US dollars in North America. Obviously, such a movie with not so strong commercial flavor has caused Steven Spielberg to be wildly ridiculed by the media for his old age.

After discussions between DreamWorks and Warner Bros., they also chose to abandon the overseas tour of this film. Therefore, the total box office of "Unlocked" stayed at more than 40 million US dollars, becoming Steven Spear's In recent years, Berg's films have been relatively rare and not so eye-catching at the box office.

Others would doubt, ridicule, and wildly question the old Jewish man because he was old, but Wayne never took these seriously. If we only talk about the success rate of movies, this old Jewish man can really be regarded as a master of success in the industry, and he rarely fails in his films.

Especially for this film, "Unchained", anyone with a discerning eye can see that this is a trial work for cooperation between DreamWorks and Warner Bros. When it comes down to it, no one in the industry takes it seriously.

Wayne knows very well that it won't take long. As long as next summer's Memorial Day, this old Jewish man will shock the world again and return with an R-rated epic World War II war movie. This movie does not lack warmth and cruelty of war. A classic movie with scenes and reflections on war, it is destined to be worshiped by movie fans as soon as it is released, and they can't wait to be labeled the best war movie in history.

This year’s summer releases include Wayne’s “The Dark Knight,” Zack Snyder’s “The Matrix: Reloaded,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park 2.” , there are not many dazzling works left to people.

Especially compared with the summer movies of previous years, it seems that the intensity of competition and the number of classic films are showing a clear downward trend. Before the end of the year, some American media have even claimed that Hollywood has been declining since the 1980s. The golden age that started in the early 2000s is coming to an end. This year, let alone compared with 1993 when the gods were fighting, there is a significant gap compared with the previous two years.

Take a look at the films that have grossed over 100 million, including MGM United Artists' "007: Tomorrow Never Dies," Twentieth Century Fox's "Star Wars Holiday Special" and so on. Almost all of them are resting on Chi Luoluo's laurels.

The only one that stands out is Sony Columbia's "Men in Black," a sci-fi comedy starring Will Smith that continues his usual acting style. Apart from "The Dark Knight" and "Jurassic Park," 2" and "The Matrix: Reloaded", it is the only film with a box office of more than 200 million US dollars in North America.

This year's North American summer season is coming to an end, and countless media outlets firmly believe that this year's film rankings have been released, and it will be difficult for other films to achieve surprising results in the future.

"Don't rush to conclusions. It's too early to say this now."

In the Warner Studio studio, when Charles Rowan also used the same tone and firmly determined that no film could shake the box office status of "The Dark Knight", Wayne uncharacteristically shook his head. Everyone else I think he is being modest, but I am afraid that only he knows what is waiting for the world next.

It seems like what the media said, this year's summer season only has the first movie to do well at the box office, and there is no grand occasion like the previous years when good movies appeared every week, but in fact, it is far from what the media said.

Just because the summer season started this year, "The Dark Knight" and "Jurassic Park 2" were destined to be huge hits. Many films had to choose to withdraw and change their release schedules. And what about these big-investment, big-production films? Almost all of them were self-righteously placed in December.

This has resulted in a surprisingly strong competition until the end of this year in December. Even if you leave out Truck Drivers, which crashed the world's ships, there will still be films such as "Good Will Hunting" and "As Good As Good" competing against each other. Impact on the cinema market.

"Guillermo and I checked out the Vancouver locations, and they completely met the filming requirements."

Producer Charles Rowan saw that Wayne didn't really want to talk about box office matters, so he simply skipped the small talk and talked directly about the location scouting process with the assistant director. "According to your request, all the locations in Canada were used for the filming of the film. The main shooting locations were moved to Warner Studios in Los Angeles, and green screens were used for the first time on a large scale. Gilmore and I were both happy this time. I’ve seen it, there’s no problem with the filming location in Canada, and I’ve also contacted the local municipal departments...”

Several people were walking and talking, and when they came to a corner of the studio, they stopped. In front of them, the protagonist of the film, James Franco, stood in front of a piece of green cloth. His body was covered with various capture sensors, and he was following the staff. The conductor is doing the special training required for subsequent film shooting.

The equipment on his body is the so-called motion capture sensor. This technology officially appeared on the big screen for the first time. It is well known to movie fans and ordinary people. It should be Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings". However, in fact, Motion capture has been widely used in Hollywood since the early 1990s.

Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" or the characters in "Avatar" were far from the first movies to use this technology. The first Hollywood movie to use this technology was actually Disney's " "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". In the following years, Disney also continued to use this technology on a small scale in its own animated features.

At the beginning of preparations for "The Flash", Wayne sent someone to contact Analysis (American Devil), a company founded in 1982 and a pioneer in the field of motion capture. After receiving the reply, he made the decision to shoot the main scenes of the film in Los Angeles.

In fact, the idea for this aspect comes from the first film "Iron Man". Due to the sudden popularity of "Iron Man", the filming process has long been exposed by netizens, especially Robert Downey Jr. wearing a sensor. The various actions performed in front of the green screen were finally displayed on the big screen as various flying and fighting special effects.

"You are creating a new production model in Hollywood again, Wayne." Charles Rowan looked at James Franco who was training, turned his head and sighed in a low voice: "Before you, no one has ever made a film noir. In the mainstream, no one has ever dared to use an anti-hero as the protagonist like "The Dark Knight" did. Now, you have become a pioneer in the technical field, but this time it is far from your production style. . ”

As we all know, no matter how the media reports on Wayne's films, and no matter how brilliant his films have been in the commercial market, in the minds of senior people in the industry, Wayne strictly belongs to the traditional academic school, even harshly speaking. , he can be regarded as a member of the old-school directors, and he is fundamentally different from the technological pioneers of the era such as James Cameron and George Lucas.

This is the deepest impression he left on the film industry. After all, no matter how popular his movies are, they have never been popcorn in the audio-visual feast. They have always been about telling stories to impress people. This time "The Flash" uses motion capture and other technologies to shoot the main special effects shots, which is obviously different from his previous shooting methods.

"Don't label me, Charles." Wayne smiled and took the lead to leave the training area. "I have never been a specific type of director, and I am not obsessed with traditional film. Starting from "Happy Death Day" back then, the only thing that can affect my production style here is the box office!"

This is the thing that most acquaintances around me can’t figure out. The outside world’s analysis and evaluation of Wayne’s works are correct, but his starting point has always been market performance. To this day, many acquaintances around him still can’t understand it. understand.