Chapter 487

A movie theater in downtown Beverly, Los Angeles.

At about 10 o'clock in the night, Michael Eisner and Michael owitz left a VIP Hall with their families.

The car has been waiting on the street at the back door of the cinema.

Two Hollywood tycoons listen to the excited comments of their wives and children. They get into a car together. When the car starts, they look at each other with a look.

What the two families have just watched is "Wonder Woman", which is being painted on a large scale today.

Unlike his wife and children, who only had the pleasure of watching an excellent movie, both of them were worried.

Three years ago, Batman: the moment of war, relying on the hot action design and advanced CG special effects, opened up the situation of DC movie universe at one stroke. This time, wonder woman, compared with the previous two big films Batman and flash, is obviously a step further.

Ordinary audiences often can't understand the technical details of a film. Michael Eisner and Michael owitz are naturally different.

In this movie, the action design is still wonderful, and it seems to be full of a large number of real scenes. However, the proportion of CG special effects is obviously higher than that of previous DC superhero movies, such as the truth Lasso, one of the important weapons of wonder woman. Many scenes are completely generated by CG.

At the end of the film, the decisive battle between wonder woman and Ares, the God of war, and the use of large-scale CG images are even more amazing.

There have been a lot of big production in Hollywood. However, in the past few times, the ending has basically returned to rationality.

Jeffrey carsenberg, head of Disney's film business, published a memo two years ago, calling for Hollywood to return to low budget movies. Michael Eisner originally agreed with this view.

Even the DC movie universe blockbuster series, which has sprung up in recent years, is just a special case.

The high budget action movies represented by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have failed repeatedly in recent years.

On the contrary, even the series of blockbusters in the past few years, such as ghost, sixth sense, pretty girl, bodyguard and kid in charge, are all low-cost films, and few of them have a budget of more than $30 million.

However, after watching wonder woman in person tonight, Michael Eisner found his faith wavered again.

Blockbuster movies with big production and big budget may really be the future of Hollywood.

Michael Eisner was worried at this time because of Disney's weak foundation in the production of blockbuster movies, or, more accurately, the huge gap between Disney and Denise in the production of blockbuster movies.

Through the accumulation of several DC films, daenerys entertainment has formed a very strong film technology team, which includes the film action design to CG scene production and other aspects.

Especially CG technology. Just after watching wonder woman, Michael Eisner thinks that the accumulation of Denise special effects in CG technology may have exceeded that of other special effects teams in the same period for three to five years. Lucas industrial light and magic studio, which created the Star Wars series, has been far away from Denise special effects.

Although Denise special effects has always maintained an attitude of cooperation with foreign countries, Denise special effects is responsible for most of the special effects in Disney's summer season sci-fi family comedy "honey, I've made my child big".

However, it can be imagined that if Disney wants to compete with Denise entertainment on a larger scale of special effects movies, and then wants to rely on each other's technical resources, it is impossible.

In addition to danielis special effects, it takes at least three years for industrial light magic and other special effects companies to catch up with danielis special effects because of the lack of professional software and technical background.

Three years from now, Denise's special effects won't stay the same.

Therefore, the most convenient way for Hollywood studios to produce the top CG special effects scenes is to cooperate with danielis entertainment.

However. Any studio executive with a little foresight can realize that this kind of cooperation is full of the threat of being stuck by danielis entertainment at any time.

If you want to get rid of this threat, you either don't set foot in the field of special effects movies, or you can only start a new business.

Luxury cars shuttle through the streets of Los Angeles late at night. Michael Eisner is thinking about the breakthrough of the studio in the field of special effects movies. Michael owitz's inner worry is deeper than him.

The budget for the production of "Wonder Woman" this time is as high as 80 million US dollars. However, the salaries of several core creators of the film, including the director, screenwriter, leading actor and heroine, and several core supporting roles, that is, the "online expenses" of a film, add up to less than 10 million US dollars.It can be said that nearly 90% of the film's production budget has been invested in the shooting and post production of wonder woman.

After CAA creatively proposed the project packaging mechanism, the "online cost" of Hollywood movies in the 1980s often reached 50% or even higher than that of a movie.

Now, DC movie universe projects such as wonder woman may have their own superhero IP blessing, so they don't need to invite top stars. However, once other blockbuster projects also show this trend, it is likely to form a subversive impact on the traditional salary system of Hollywood stars.

If a blockbuster with special effects as its selling point can sell well without big stars, probably no studio will be willing to invite stars to bear the demands of big stars and even the high profit share in addition to the basic salary.

When this trend is formed, the current first-line stars, if they want not to be gradually marginalized, can only take the initiative to lower their prices.

Michael owitz can't help but think of the movie Forrest Gump, which danielis entertainment has just finalized with two CAA filmmakers, Robert zemigis and Tom Hanks.

Because it needs to use a lot of special effects, the budget of Forrest Gump will reach about $50 million, which is undoubtedly a blockbuster. At the same time, due to the high budget of film production, neither zemigs nor Hanks can ask for too much salary.

Danielis entertainment also offered a plan to reduce the salary and commission. However, with a production budget of US $50 million and even half of the production cost, Forrest Gump needs us $150 million to recover the cost through the local box office.

Such a feature film about a fool's rampage in the modern history of the United States, let alone 150 million, even 50 million US dollars at the box office, makes people worry about whether they can get it.

Give up?

This is also a way.

Ezemighis and Hanks have enough confidence to give up the project. They are not short of an appointment.

However, considering that this is Simon westero's own screenplay, both of them have some scruples.

It's not that they are worried about westlow's anger when they refuse the project, but that once they give up and the project will be a great success in the future, Hollywood is likely to have two more competitors.

Hanks, in particular, who is approaching middle age, doesn't want another Hollywood male of the same type to compete with him.

This is exemplified by the obvious "surplus" of front-line female stars in Hollywood in recent years.

Simon westero's birth has really made a large number of Hollywood newcomers popular.

As for female stars, in just a few years, a large number of female stars of different generations, such as Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, Valerie Gallino, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Demi Moore, have risen rapidly and been promoted to the front line relying on a series of blockbusters.

Just released "Wonder Woman", it is obvious that another famik Jason will be released.

However, Hollywood can give this large number of first-line actress opportunities, in fact, not so much.

As the number increases, the relative value naturally decreases.

After the success of "pretty girl", it is reasonable to say that Julia Roberts should be able to raise a high price of $5 million for her role in a movie. However, in last year's "Captain Hawk", Julia Roberts, who plays Tinkerbell, actually got only $2 million.

Two million dollars is not much, but if Julia Roberts doesn't play, then there may be Nicole Kidman, Valerie Gallino, or Meg Ryan who also wants to try.

It can be imagined that if Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, who initially cooperated with Simon westero, could firmly "monopolize" the box office project of danielis entertainment, there would not be so many "latecomers".

This is the situation Tom Hanks is facing at this time.

Simon westero likes to use different female stars in different projects. However, in terms of male stars, danelis entertainment seems to be quite specialized.

In recent years, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Keanu Reeves and others have almost become the reserved male stars of danielis entertainment. In addition, owitz also heard that vestero is deliberately cultivating Coppola's nephew, Nicholas Cage, who will obviously become Denise's next in line entertainment in the future.

However, from what Michael owitz knew about the young man, he knew very well that if De Niro and Hanks and others were too demanding in some projects, westero would not hesitate to replace them.

Denise entertainment has done this more than once.

Therefore, after several contacts, the relatively conservative Robert zemigs finally decided to accept a $6 million one-time director's salary from danielis entertainment, which is comparable to the price of zemigs.Tom Hanks, on the other hand, chose a base salary plus share contract, with a base salary of $3 million plus 5% of the North American box office share.

Last year's "Captain Hawk", Sony gave Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams a total of 40% of the omni channel net profit share, of which Spielberg 20%, Hoffman and Williams each 10%.

Because of the huge cost of "Captain Hawk" and the low box office, Spielberg's 40% net profit sharing scheme is actually a pile of waste paper.

Although the public often hear that a certain star gets tens of millions of dollars for the share contract of a certain movie, in fact, Hollywood stars are not as willing to accept the share scheme as the outside world thinks.

Within the circle, people prefer to call the follow-up sharing scheme "arrears sharing", because this mode is often used by studios when they want to lower the project budget and reduce risks. Every year, only four or five hundred films are registered in Hollywood theaters, and only ten or twenty films are sold at the box office.

Therefore, Denise Entertainment's direct box office share model is also very kind.

Even if Forrest Gump failed miserably at the box office and only recovered $10 million or $20 million at the North American box office, Hanks could still extract a share from it.

Hanks' salary now ranges from $8 million to $10 million due to several previous blockbusters such as "flying over the future" and "few good people".

Before Forrest Gump, Hanks got $8 million in a one-time deal for "sleepless in Seattle", which is about to start shooting in the second half of the year.

This time, "Forrest Gump" is a project that westero personally participated in and led. Michael owitz knows that danilisi entertainment will never get stuck in the budget. Even if it costs 60 or 70 million dollars and fails at the box office in the future, danilisi entertainment can afford it.

However, Denise entertainment is still very careful to control the budget of Forrest Gump.

As for Hanks' compensation plan, even if it is a "share in arrears", there is still no Omni channel profit sharing plan.

In sum, if the North American box office of Forrest Gump can reach $100 million, danelis entertainment can ensure that it can make a profit through follow-up operations. Hanks' 5% share of the local box office, together with $3 million of basic film remuneration, can only reach his equivalent of $8 million in "sleepless in Seattle".

All in all, Denise entertainment, on the whole, is suppressing the unrestrained rise of Hollywood superstars' film pay.

Michael owitz has clearly found this phenomenon, and many Hollywood stars have clearly felt this trend, but there is nothing they can do about it.

Unless, danielis entertainment in a row hit a few big falls, from then on.

Only then can Hollywood stars regain the initiative and gain the power in Hollywood as they have for many years.

It's just, is that possible?

Judging from the development of danielis entertainment in recent years, this Hollywood big Mac, which has merged MCA and evolved into a comprehensive media group, has no possibility of decline in the short term even if it fails in the film.