Made in Hollywood

From the last failure, David Ellison has learned a lot of experience and lessons, and fully understands that it is definitely not an easy thing to succeed in Hollywood, and it is not something that can be easily achieved with money and a script. .

After the complete failure of "Air Combat Heroes", he was dormant for a period of time. This is not to lose confidence, but to figure out some things, such as why "Air Combat Heroes" lost so badly to "Batman: War Hour"? Apart from the director and other differences between the two sides, what other factors have affected the market response?

David Ellison soon found out that "Air Fighter" is an original film without any audience and fan base before, and "Batman: War Hour" is a reboot of the failed series, but Bruce ? Wayne has tens of millions of fans across the US...

This alone opened the gap between the two films.

Then, David Ellison discovered the fact that Hollywood studios rarely give original screenplays a chance, and instead have a huge passion for hit novels and comics.

In the mind of David Ellison, it is not difficult to find the reason. Originality means no audience base and huge investment risk, while popular novels and comics have a certain audience. Although they are adapted into movies, they will be welcomed by some fans. Exclusion, but can attract a lot of people's attention.

So, he put the production direction of the second film on the adaptation of the famous work.

After a series of investigations and competitions, David Ellison won the film adaptation rights of a famous science fiction novel, and raised a huge sum of 150 million US dollars to start filming and production.

In order to ensure the success of this investment and to compete with Duke Rosenberg's new work, David Ellison, despite the strong resistance of his collaborator Michael Ovitz, recruited a great deal from CAA. Will Smith, who has market appeal, starred.

also. He also saw Duke's past campaigns in publicity and marketing, and specially invited Will Smith's daughter to play a father-daughter pair with Will Smith in the film.

And this Richard Matheson's novel is well-known enough, and it was put on the big screen twice in 1964 and 1971. This time he hired a lot of money to win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for "A Beautiful Mind". Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the script, has done a lot of preparatory work.

After the crew started filming. It has also been going well, and everything is foreshadowing to David Ellison that this is bound to be a profitable and even a hit movie.

Standing in the middle of Washington Square, watching Will Smith's performance, David Ellison walked over to a trailer and found Michael Ovitz, who continued to work with him.

He asked directly, "Michael. Did I get the results of what I asked you to confirm? When is Duke Rosenberg's new film coming out?"

Michael Ovitz frowned slightly, somewhat unhappy, but still said, "Warner Brothers and Duke Studio have not announced a specific time, but according to Duke Rosenberg's habit in recent years. The Dark Knight should be It will be released in the summer of next year.”

"Early May next year?" David Ellison said with his arms crossed, and after a moment's consideration, "to make sure that our film can be completed by April next year."

Although he was uncomfortable with David Ellison's tone, Michael Ovitz suppressed his displeasure. "It will definitely be done."

After speaking, he walked towards the shooting venue.

David Ellison stared at his back. Shaked his head slightly.

From the failure of "Air Combat Heroes", he also saw another thing, that is, the famous Michael Ovitz has fallen behind, looking at films and projects. Seriously behind this era, his concept is still stuck in the last century.

Discovering this situation, David Ellison will of course not hand over his projects to Michael Ovitz, and even directly rejected the other party's packaging policy in the new film. For example, the starring used last year's Will Smith, who only joined CAA, was directed by Francis Lawrence of William Morris.

With Michael Ovitz and his artist management company to be used, David Ellison also left plenty of positions for the other party.

It's just that he already has a plan in his heart. After this project, his team will accumulate a lot of experience, and it is time to throw away this outdated artist management company.

He also doesn't like the package service policy. In fact, people with a slightly stronger desire to control don't like this service policy very much.

For example, Martin Scorsese, Hollywood is circulating a news that old Martin, who jumped from CAA to the artist management company for Michael Ovitz, is also fed up with this policy and the artist management company's severely declining Oscar PR capabilities. Ready to jump ship again.

In the Hollywood circle, everyone knows that the artist management company that carried Michael Ovitz's second entrepreneurial ambition has never developed into a first-line entertainment agency. After several years of ups and downs, there is hardly any rising I hope that the actors and directors with promising futures are all ready to change jobs.

Even Michael Bay, the director who no one cares about after the failure of "Escape from Clone Island", is preparing for the termination of his contract with Michael Ovitz.

Otherwise, after seeing some of David Ellison's intentions, Michael Ovitz would not choose to forbear.

After all, there are very few big production projects he can get now.

David Ellison was thinking, and so was Michael Ovitz.

Strictly speaking, he didn't have much say in this project. After fighting with Duke Rosenberg for so many years, he gradually felt old and tired, especially the cooperation with David Ellison, and found that Hollywood is Moving in some new directions, foreign capital is also changing the rules of the game in this circle.

Thinking of what his old friend Martin Scorsese told him about leaving the artist management company, Michael Ovitz suddenly felt that he should retire?

Michael Ovitz and the artist management company are not doing well recently, and Duke is of course aware that the competition between brokerage companies is even fiercer than that of production and distribution companies. Many companies such as CAA, ICM and William Morris have already The digging hand reached out to the artist management company.

"Nancy, aren't you liaising with Artist Management's clients?"

In the office, Duke said to his agent, "Take Michael Bay as much as possible."

"Michael Bay?" Nancy Josephson said a little strangely, "Since the failure of "Escape from the Clone Island" directly led to the collapse of DreamWorks, Michael Bay has been ignored, and he has been recognized as a past tense. "

Duke shook his head, "In Hollywood, there are many directors who can make niche independent films and literary films, but there are not many big-production directors who can integrate many commercial elements."

Nancy Josephson thought for a moment, "I'll let someone contact Michael Bay."

Exploding Bay can be said to be the director who was most influenced by Duke's appearance, especially when he took over the adaptation rights of "Transformers", which directly caused Michael Bay to lose the opportunity to restart the rise.

A live-action Transformers movie is on Duke's plans, but it's a long series, and he's always looking for a director for the future of the movie.

Without a doubt, there is no director better suited to the series than Bombshell.

Nancy Josephson is now in control of ICM and is also the largest partner. How to dig a foothold is a familiar way, and Duke is not too worried. After all, Michael Bay is at the lowest point in his life.

He focused more on the preparation of the film.

Entering October, the preparatory work has come to an end. Including the two new actors Heath Ledger and Nicholas Cage, all the main actors have entered the crew, and they are also communicating and rehearsing with each other, for the upcoming drama. Get ready for the shoot.

In addition, the preparations Duke explained are either ready or about to be completed.

After doing a lot of experiments, Jos Williams found a suitable explosion method; the film crew in charge of John Schwartzman can operate the IMAX camera very skillfully; Lamborghini specially modified the Batmobile and Batmobile , a relatively bulky IMAX camera can be set up in the front position of the vehicle.

Since the Batman movie has been prepared once, the second preparation seems to be particularly smooth.

Just as the preparatory work for "The Dark Knight" came to an end, "Iron Man" also ended its more than five-month screening and was officially released from major theaters in North America.

In fact, since August, the box office figures that "Iron Man" can get are better than nothing. Until now, the box office has not increased significantly compared with August, and the final North American box office has stayed at 389.95 million US dollars. .

However, after this period of screening, without waiting for Marvel to make a move, the global box office of "Iron Man" successfully crossed the $700 million mark and reached $702.11 million.

The film's overseas tour is not over yet, and there is still room for growth at the global box office.

As the film went down in North America, the DVD was officially released. Compared with the film of the same box office level in the past, the DVD of "Iron Man" was affected by the overall market trend, and the sales volume declined slightly. The deluxe edition sold a total of 4.5 million copies in its first week, and sales just topped $100 million.

However, on the network side, the video-on-demand revenue of films has increased significantly compared with last year's films of the same level, and about $4.2 million was earned through pay-on-demand in one week.

Although this number is not dazzling, the future potential is unlimited.

Shortly after the release of "Iron Man", the "Dark Knight", which had been prepared for several months, also reached the shooting stage. (To be continued ~^~)