Chapter 256

Santa Monica.

In a screening room of danielis entertainment headquarters, when another "Batman" sample film was shown on the screen, the assistant came forward and whispered to remind Terry Semel that it was already five o'clock in the afternoon.

Looking back on the experience of watching the film for more than three hours, Semel was filled with a strong shock.

Today is May 5th, Friday.

Simon's accident coma happened in February. As a representative of Warner, Semel flew to Australia to visit him. At that time, the situation was special. He didn't take time to watch Batman. Today, he saw the sample film for the first time.

The post editing of "Batman" was synchronized with the shooting. It took Simon only a week to complete the first version of the film, six and a half hours to rough cut the sample film after he returned to Los Angeles.

Terry Semel arrived in the afternoon. He only planned to spend an hour to have a general look at the effect of the sample film, but he stayed in the screening room for a whole afternoon. He didn't even know when Simon, who was watching the sample film with him at first, would leave.

Although it's time to leave work, Terry Semel still has an impulse to watch all the samples in the remaining three hours.

How could a movie be made like this?!

This is an idea that Semel repeated countless times during the process of watching the sample film.

During the preparation stage of Batman, Semel expressed his concern when he heard that Simon would use live action as much as possible.

Live action shooting can really increase the audience's sense of substitution, but at the same time, it is easy to make the whole film mediocre. Because in essence, "Batman" should be a science fiction film, and soft science fiction, this type of film should pursue a sense of surrealism.

Too close to reality, and the creator fails to fill in enough exciting superhero elements in the film, it will easily lead the audience to a psychological gap of "this is not the superhero world in their imagination".

If so, the film is doomed to failure.

As a result, in many unsuccessful preparations over the years, the directors who intend to take over the Batman project are basically inclined to set up scenes and create a Gotham City in the studio.

Now, Terry Semel has no worries at all.

It's just that most of the shots in the sample film have not been carefully toned, and they are no less amazing than the original "Lola Run", which is confirmed by Terry Semel. Simon's "Lola Run" has become a teaching sample of many film schools, but in Semel's view, many of the scenes in Batman sample even surpass "Lola Run".

Simon's exquisite use of lighting, color, composition and other elements makes the shots taken from the real city street scenes look like oil paintings carefully drawn by the top painters, some of which are even enough to be printed and hung on the wall as art works.

What's more, the overall cold and heavy dark tone style is enough to give the audience a surrealistic psychological hint, making people feel that this is not only their city, but also Gotham in the cartoon.

Of course, if it's just the amazing style of the lens, it's not enough to shock Semel.

Although the young man's control over the technical details of the film has reached the Oscar level, it is not impossible for other films to imitate if they are willing to spend money to set up a master backstage team.

What really shocked Semel was the content, especially the action scenes in the sample film.

Among the traditional Hollywood action movies, the high-end ones are Bruce Lee's Kung Fu, and the performance of action stars with profound knowledge, such as shange Winton, on the screen is also commendable, but most of them are ordinary fists that lack aesthetic feeling.

Because of the lack of highlights, the most popular action movies in Hollywood these years are action movies of gun fight by Stallone and others, with naked muscle men carrying machine guns and ignoring the enemy's bullets.

Terry Semel has actually seen some Oriental kung fu movies, but he also thinks that the action design of those movies is too complicated and lack of practicality.

Simon's action scenes in Batman make Semel feel strongly that he seems to have seen the future of Hollywood action movies.

Fighting, there is no old-fashioned street drunkard fighting, Batman boxing to the meat but not simple strength, the sense of quantity makes people blood boiling, Catwoman's light and sharp and the extreme display of women's body advantage also makes people blood gushing.

Chasing cars, there is no reason for the impact of the explosion, but facing the big screen crash rolling vehicles than directly blow up a pile of cars even shocking.

The gunfight, without the headless rush of bullets, the dangerous duel between the death shooter and Batman. In the slow motion, the pressure of the CG synthetic bullet makes Semel hold his breath. It turns out that a bullet can also become the protagonist of the lens at a certain moment.

In addition to these mainstream action scenes, Batman's wing flying, the use of bat darts and other props, and the cat girl's Leaping between city roofs by using gymnastics skills are enough to become a textbook for Hollywood commercial films in the future.Terry Semel can't wait to see the final film. Simon has achieved perfection in these details. As the best screenwriter in Hollywood, Semel doesn't think the plot of the film will be inferior to these details.

Even Semel has a feeling in his heart that this pioneering superhero movie will also get a pioneering box office figure.

However, this feeling is not good.

Remembering that DC has sold the copyright of Batman and wonder woman to Denise entertainment, and Warner didn't object to the transfer of Superman's copyright, Semel has a strong regret. He now firmly believes that Warner must have made a series of irreparable mistakes in the copyright of the three superheroes.

After all, although there are time limits in those licensing contracts, in fact, if the interests involved are too large, the copyright holders can not let go anyway.

Just like the original "Superman" copyright, although "Superman 4" failed at the box office, according to Semel's knowledge, Simon still spent $6 million to buy back the "Superman" copyright with only five years left from the Sargent family.

Moreover, although the original contract signed by DC and British producer Alexander Salkind will expire in 1992. However, according to the automatic renewal clause in the agreement, as long as the copyright of Superman has not been suspended for a long time, after 1992, if Sargent still intends to make a sequel, the license period will be automatically extended.

Now, the power of these terms is in Denise Entertainment's hands.

Obviously, as long as daenerys entertainment does not take the initiative to let go, Warner will never get back the copyright of Superman, and so will the copyright of Batman and wonder woman.

It's a mistake.

After sitting in the screening room for a few minutes, Semel got up and walked to the door. He asked his assistant, "is Simon still in the company?"

The assistant followed Semel out and said, "Mr. westlow left the company at three o'clock for the" pretty girl "crew."

Terry Semel wondered, "pretty girl?"

Assistant explained: "a project that danelis entertainment just started shooting this week, a love movie. Some time ago, the competition among the leading actors in the film was very fierce. Harrison Ford, Richard Kiel, Alec Baldwin, Daniel Day Lewis and other male stars all tried to fight for the script, but the role finally fell to a second tier British male star. It is said that westero himself decided that his name was Pierce Brosnan. The heroine is Julia Roberts in steel magnolia, which seems to have been decided for a long time

As Steve Roth's right-hand man, Terry Semel has been busy participating in the merger negotiations between Time Inc. and Warner Bros. in recent months, ignoring a lot of news from Hollywood.

Recalling that he couldn't find out the information about Pierce Brosnan, Semel asked his assistant to arrange a resume for him. He was also surprised. He didn't expect that Harrison Ford had begun to fight for the danilisi entertainment project, and he hadn't been able to talk about it yet.

Think about it, but feel relieved.

The star wars and Raider series, which started in the late 1970s, keep Harrison Ford as one of the few superstars in Hollywood.

However, the release of "Raider 3" at the end of the month also means that Harrison Ford's two trumps will be in a long period of silence. In recent years, Ford's films other than star wars and Raider are not outstanding at the box office. If he wants to keep his coffee seat after the dormancy of the two series, he must take the initiative to pursue some projects that are easy to sell.

Terry Semel left the screening room with his assistant. Simon didn't come back from the "pretty girl" crew. He just asked the staff to forward an invitation for tonight's cocktail party.

Back in Los Angeles, Simon just took a short weekend to get back to work.

The first thing to deal with is bodyguard and sixth sense.

The later stages of the two films have been basically completed, and Simon didn't completely let go of his attention to the two projects when he was in Melbourne. Finally, the film effects all met his expectations. This week, Simon personally adjusted some details of the two films, which will be officially sent to MPAA for rating next week.

The first TV Trailer of bodyguard, starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, has been officially broadcast on June 2 with 2021 screens.

Although the sixth sense, which is scheduled to be released on June 30, has already begun to launch publicity materials, the final publicity strategy has not yet been finalized.

Simon demanded that the plot of the sixth sense be kept strictly confidential during the production stage.

So far, in addition to the core creators of the cast, many supporting actors don't even know the complete plot of the sixth sense. However, after the completion of the film, Amy, REM and other senior executives generally feel that except for the final plot reversal, the film as a whole is very ordinary and basically has no bright spots.If it wasn't for Simon, the screenwriter of the film, and Robert De Niro, the company had no other choice. Amy would even propose to Simon to adjust the schedule of sixth sense.

According to Amy, the sample film of Uncle buck by John Hughes is quite good, but the film can't be finished until mid June, so the company has to schedule it at the end of the summer season like August 11.

In addition, John Hughes' second film "crazy Christmas holiday" this year is also in the shooting stage. The film starts shooting after "Uncle buck" is finished. The investor is Warner Bros., and it is planned to be shown on the Christmas show.

Simon originally worked with John Hughes on Uncle buck for the kid's home, and he also reserved a priority agreement on Hughes' play.

The script of "crazy Christmas holiday" was first sent to Denise entertainment, and Simon naturally chose to give up.

However, the later period of Uncle buck is more than half. John Hughes, inspired by Uncle buck in the original time and space, does not even have a shadow of the play "home by a kid". Macaulay Calkin does not appear in Uncle buck either.

Simon plans to wait until the end of the year. If John Hughes still doesn't come up with the script of "kid in charge", he will have to "make it difficult" himself.

In the afternoon, he watched the sample film with Semel at the company headquarters for a while, and Simon went to visit the crew of "pretty girl" and didn't leave until he got off work.

With the exception of the actor who no longer uses Richard Gere, "pretty girl" is basically the same.

The reason for abandoning Richard Gere is similar to Simon's previous neglect of Sharon Stone in instinct. As for Pierce Brosnan, although James Bond was the most impressive person in the original time and space, his tall and handsome appearance and British gentleman style fully fit the role of Edward Lewis, a well-off Wall Street businessman.

The evening cocktail party was held in the mansion in palisade.

After leaving North America for a few months, it is necessary to get in touch with you again.

This kind of thing should have been prepared by Janet. Janet is in Australia, and Simon wants to give it to Catherine.

However, in recent months, Katherine helped Simon to look after the construction of domay point manor. When Simon fainted, she flew to Melbourne for the first time. In addition to all kinds of things in the past, this kind of public intimacy even bothered to make fun of the tabloids. However, Katherine, who is very thin skinned, always hides her ears and steals her bell.

When Simon returned to Los Angeles, Katherine, who used to stay at Janet's villa on the east side of Cape Dumay, flew to New York for the reason of preparing her next film. This time, she obviously didn't plan to cooperate with danielis entertainment, and she looked like she was drawing a clear line.

In the end, the preparations for the reception were handed over to Jennifer.

The female assistant is also cheeky. She takes it as an official business. Even the guest list is drawn up with Amy's assistant Vanessa. As a result, the original small-scale cocktail party turned into a lively business cocktail party.