Hollywood Hunter

In Los Angeles, as the center of Hollywood moves westward, more and more celebrities in the film and television entertainment industry tend to settle in the affluent area of ​​Brentwood, which is closer to Malibu, instead of the once-hot Beverly Hills.

Annika Settle, who has quickly gained a foothold in Hollywood in recent years by relying on her good girlfriends, recently purchased a villa that is entirely her own, and the location is in Brentwood.

Although it is not the most golden highland area, but in just a few years, she can spell out her own real estate, and Annika is only satisfied with herself.

It's October 25th.

Wednesday.

As soon as the morning light came on, Annika had already woken up, mainly because Lena Kane, who stayed here last night, started to get up first, which forced Annika, who wanted to sleep late, to sit up.

Even if the relationship between the two parties is very close, subconsciously, they are always unwilling to lose too much to Lina.

After the two dressed and washed, they left the bedroom. In the villa, the maid from Wei's family who was in charge of their daily work had already started to work earlier.

Regardless of daily trivialities such as breakfast, the two women came to the gym together, and after a brief warm-up, they stepped on the treadmill.

Pressing the jog button, Annika noticed that Lena next to her unfolded a comic book that had been turned over many times before on the treadmill console, and began to focus on two tasks. After thinking about it, she did not follow the imitation, but just caught up with this topic: "This "Watchmen", the first comic work to win the Hugo Award that year, has enough connotations. However, I always feel that it is a bit unwise for Zach to choose this project."

The famous "Watchmen" is a story produced by DC Comics in 1986. It is independent of DC's mainstream superhero universe.

The comic explores a very heavy and eternal topic: how to stop war?

The story offers several answers.

The final one is to establish a common and powerful enemy for all people on earth, so that the world will always face threats and be forced to unite together and stop fighting each other.

However, in order to teach mankind a profound lesson, there is a price for doing such a game.

Then again.

Will humans really learn their lesson?

Lena Kane was jogging while flipping through the comics in front of her. Hearing the voice of her best friend, she said without turning her head, "This is a work that many comic fans expect to be put on the big screen. The halo of the Hugo Award that year, in addition, with the success of "Resident Evil" and "Spartan 300 Warriors", Zach has also accumulated enough experience, all of which are favorable conditions. As for whether it will be successful in the end, the movie is a gamble , who can guarantee success?"

Annika couldn't refute, she paused, and asked, "Simon, what should we do?"

This time, it is obviously impossible for DC to transfer the copyright of "Watchmen" to Daenerys Entertainment, even if it is impossible to produce together. Therefore, after cooperating with Daenerys Entertainment on two projects, or in other words, after being popularized by Daenerys, Zack Schneider wanted to make this project and could only cooperate with Warner.

In a way, it's a betrayal.

You know, Daenerys has contracts for three films with Schneider, and only completed two before. Therefore, if that side does not let go, Schneider simply cannot go beyond Daenerys' agreement to cooperate with other studios.

Lena nodded without turning her head: "Simon has agreed."

Annika was surprised: "When?"

The two girls were said to be inseparable too much, but they knew each other's every move quite well because of the intimacy deliberately created by a certain man.

So, a certain man agreed to this, how could she not know?

Lina finally glanced over, and looked away again, but she could see a smile from the side of her face: "When you were taking a shower last night, I sent him an email, but I didn't expect to get a response right away, and we chatted online for a while."

Annika opened her mouth, and then her face, which hadn't sweated yet, flushed a little.

Last night, after taking a bath, she was quite active.

All I remember was Lena setting aside the laptop on her lap, and then, of course, there was no time to talk about it.

After a while, Annika finally spoke again, with a bit of half-truth and half-fake jealousy: "Hmph, you actually took advantage of my shower to have sex with another man."

Lina turned a page of the manga in front of her, and said with a smile, "This sentence is strange. It cannot be called 'other man', because you are not a man. Besides, the two of us, if we really want to You can only be a woman if you make a distinction."

"Hmm, you're a man, okay?" Annika speeded up the treadmill, expressing emotion deliberately: "My God, Simon Westero actually likes men, this is really a big gossip. "

Lina smiled, but did not continue to talk nonsense with Annika, but said: "Simon also said that he is looking forward to this project. I am not surprised at all. My man, how could he not have such a heart."

"Yeah, my man's man."

Lena still didn't mind Anika's embarrassment and petty mischief, and said in a serious tone: "Anyway, Daenerys's side is fine, Annie, do you want to try to be a screenwriter?"

Speaking of business, Annika also restrained her expression, and had carefully read the comics of "Watchmen" in advance. At this time, she shook her head and said: "I think the story of this comic itself has a high degree of completion, and it can be directly used as a template. film and television city

Okay, there's no room for screenwriting, and besides, I'm writing "Death Video" and juggling the Farrelly brothers' new project at the same time, so where's the time? "

Under the strategy finalized by Simon, the development of the sequels of the multiple projects that Lena was responsible for, whether it was "The Blair Witch" or "Resident Evil", was temporarily put on hold.

So consider opening up a new ip.

At the beginning, Simon gave Lena several pseudo-documentary ideas in memory. After discussion, the two women chose "Death Video", which combines pseudo-documentary and zombie elements. The original version was a Spanish film. The reason for this choice is because I found that this story is also very suitable for developing into a horror game.

The success of the previous "Resident Evil" games is obvious to all.

Therefore, Annika started the construction of this series after the end of the summer file. It also refers to the "Resident Evil" series. Although the whole story starts from an apartment, the ins and outs related to this story, whether it is the timeline , or various details, are going to be filled in.

The two girls plan to set up a game studio to independently develop the game while Settle Entertainment and Daenerys are cooperating to develop the movie.

Of course, there was no plan to fly solo.

Whether it is a movie or a game, the production funds are going to be obtained from Daenerys, and they just hope to get more income from it.

Daenerys is also happy to see this, and it is not because of the relationship between the two women and their boss that they are treated specially.

Or one thing Simon understood early on.

Complete self-production and self-marketing will eventually only lead to internal rigidity of the enterprise. Like the TV industry, a certain degree of "separation of production and broadcasting" is adopted, sufficient internal initiative is retained, and fresh blood is continuously introduced from the outside, while stimulating competition. Only in this way can a company maintain its vitality for a longer period of time.

Therefore, whether it is film, TV or games, Simon encourages cooperation with third parties.

Of course, the premise is that the absolute initiative and the largest share of benefits must be on the side of the Westeros system.

Simon doesn't work for other people.

Another project of the Farrelly brothers is another cooperation between the two parties after "I'm Crazy About Mary".

Still comedy.

However, unlike "Crazy About Mary", which stubbornly withstood the reappearance of the butterfly effect, this time it is a brand new project called "Trouble of Genius", which is different from the middle-aged man in "Crazy About Mary". Love, this time taking the route of youth comedy, is closer to the kind of "American Pie", but the feature is still the joke-style spoof of "Saturday Night Live".

The project is already being filmed, and it is initially planned to be released in Easter next year.

The two projects have already taken up most of Annika's time. She doesn't have the energy to take on the screenwriting task of "The Watcher". However, the main reason is that she doesn't think there is much room for development. Work out on a new genre.

Lina didn't force herself to hear what Annika said.

In fact, I am also troubled by the adaptation of "Watchmen".

This story, now that it has won the Hugo Award, has proved its excellence.

If "Watchmen" is a super long comic, it can be trimmed and trimmed, but unfortunately, this is a story that can basically be told in one movie. Therefore, there is really not much room for screenwriters to play.

However, if certain changes cannot be made to the story and the script is followed, in the future, will the audience feel that this is just a visual repetition?

Lena couldn't make up her mind until she finished exercising.

It can only be discussed with Warner and Zack Schneider. In fact, she has no decision-making power and can only give certain suggestions. Of course, because of a certain status and previous success, neither of the other two parties would ignore her suggestion.

After the two women had breakfast, they each started their day's work.

Annika is going to the set of "The Trouble of Genius", the project is filming in Santa Monica, and she will stay there all day today.

Lina has a lot of things to do. After all, she is still working as an agent now, and she has more than 20 clients under her name without knowing it. It has only been promoting economic system reforms similar to CAA, and it may not be busy.

When we arrived at the WMA headquarters in Century City, the first thing we paid attention to was "The Horror Cruise" which is currently being screened.

Because the story structure is too complicated, even if Beckinsale is the heroine, New World Pictures is still not very optimistic about the performance of "Horror Cruise" in the theater market. In the end, Lena fought hard and won 7 million yuan. Publicity expenses, and, using the characteristics of the film itself, launched a small-scale viral marketing on the Internet platform with a small marketing cost, the core of which is 'Who is the murderer? ! '

To be honest, the marketing this time is not as successful as "The Blair Witch". After all, if you want to stir up public discussion, you must reveal enough information, but this movie reveals too much, especially a certain final secret, then it will be lost The biggest suspense of the film.

After all, it still attracted a certain amount of attention.

With the release of the film, the marketing is still going on. The special story structure and the final truth have sparked more discussions than before the filming started.

The result now is that there must be no problem with around 14 million in the first week.

However, compared to the 30 million domestic box office forecasts of all parties, Lena is more optimistic. Perhaps, this project has the hope of hitting 40 million US dollars in the domestic market. to 40

million, the total cost of production and publicity will be fully recovered, and the follow-up will be to make money. Moreover, as long as the reputation is big enough, the greater potential of this project is obviously still in the follow-up home entertainment channel.

Therefore, after getting a general understanding of the latest box office data and market feedback, Lina contacted New World Pictures, hoping that they could add some more publicity expenses to make this project more popular.

It is certain that this project will make money, and New World Pictures is also very face-saving, and plans to add another 3 million US dollars to make up the 10 million publicity investment.

However, Danny Morris, president of New World Pictures, who personally discussed with Lena on the phone, inevitably joked that more investment in announcements and prolonging the payback period will definitely affect the share time of this project.

Considering conflicts of interest, brokers are not allowed to get involved in film and television production.

However, the rules were broken by caa's packaging strategy as early as the 1980s. Although she did not directly hold the shares of Settle Entertainment, which is temporarily fully owned by her best friend, Lena can still benefit from the various projects that the two parties have cooperated with. Get a share of the income.

Lena is not in a hurry about this either.

After all, everyone has a consensus that the bulk of the project's revenue must come from peripheral channels. What's more, the world's largest video rental chain is owned by Daenerys Entertainment.

After finishing this matter and dealing with other daily routines, around noon, Lena drove to the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Noon was a meal with Warner Bros. Pictures President Alan Horn, and Zach Snyder also attended. After getting the approval of a certain man, at noon, everyone's cooperation on "Watchmen" was officially finalized.

The meal talk lasted an hour.

Things are almost done.

It is a pity that this project was not able to be packaged again. However, it is just a pity. After all, such a super blockbuster with an estimated investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, let alone a superhero comic movie that Warner is very fancy, is impossible. Let Settle Entertainment, a small workshop, take care of it alone.

Another thing that is quite satisfactory is that Warner gave Schneider a director's salary of US$10 million, plus a 10% share of the global box office gross profit.

This double ten agreement, for a director who only shoots two films, even if both films are very successful, is actually quite generous. After all, even based on the total investment of 150 million yuan in production and publicity, as long as the global box office can reach 500 million yuan, it is estimated that the director will be able to get at least another 5 million US dollars in share, which is equivalent to the industry's maximum salary of 15 million US dollars.

If it exceeds 500 million, it will be as successful as other DC comics, and the total revenue of 20 to 30 million US dollars will not be a problem.

The income level of a single project of 20 to 30 million US dollars is already the treatment of a super first-line director.