~： Seven hundred and nine - far water near thirsty

"With Peter Jackson, a native New Zealander, the production crew communicated very smoothly, whether it was with residents near the set or with various local agencies."

Just one day in September, the Greenberg Manor was unusually lively. Just after 8:00 in the morning, the first visitor was waiting in the living room. The first thing to do is to return to the "Lord of the Rings" producer John Gray in Los Angeles. The first thing is to come to the manor and report to Wayne on the progress of the work.

"The huge and complicated setting work of the crew has been fully supported by the New Zealand government. The local government obviously knows how much revenue such a Hollywood film project, which does not lack attention, can bring to the filming location once it is successful.

Just about two weeks ago, the New Zealand government signed an agreement with Peter Jackson, and if the crew needed it after the official start of filming, they could dispatch the local army to assist the crew in shooting large-scale war scenes..."

Without any greetings or nonsense, John Gray immediately began to report the preparation progress of the crew the moment he saw Wayne.

The two of them are quite familiar with each other. After all, the former worked as Wayne's producer and had in-depth cooperation with him, so he knew exactly how to communicate with each other.

"Peter's assistants are inspecting local model companies in New Zealand, Australia and North America. What he means is that he hopes to select qualified handsome men and women from the professional team to play the unimportant ones in the film. spirit."

"A model..."

"What's the matter? Do you have any other ideas?" Halfway through, John Gray heard Wayne's muttering, stopped to look at him and asked, "Peter's plan, I think it's very good, but if you have other I plan to call Peter now and ask him to stop the work of those assistants."

"No, it's good to do so."

Waving his hand, Wayne motioned for the other party to continue speaking, he didn't have other ideas. He understood the purpose of Peter Jackson's doing this. For the elves in the film who had few shots, the idea of ​​directly selecting people from the modeling agency was completely correct.

The reason is very simple, to play those characters similar to the background board, you don't need the so-called acting skills at all, as long as you are beautiful, it is enough. Just listening to the other party mentioning the modeling company, he immediately thought of the "secret" heaven group in his memory.

Shaking his head slightly, John Gray didn't think much about it, he recalled a little and continued: "Because the trilogy has to be planned in advance, there are some highlights, such as the Battle of Helm's Hollow, the Moria Mine, and Mina. The defense of Stiris, etc., basically needs to be completely set for shooting, so even if the preparatory work of the crew is still smooth, the progress of these work will not be too fast..."

In fact, Wayne doesn't really want to know the progress of these work at all, because he knows better than anyone that Peter Jackson has done a very good job, and he doesn't need to point fingers at all.

But the rules are the rules. As the actual investor and nominal producer of the film, you must understand what you need to know, and it is even more impossible to fully delegate power to Peter Jackson. Precisely the existence of John Gray is the existence that restricts the director of The Lord of the Rings on the surface.

Listening to the various progress of the preparatory work of the crew, Wayne suddenly remembered some rumors from his previous life. According to legend, Peter Jackson's most promising Arwen actor is not the actress with long face and dark hair, but Uma Thurman.

Legend has it that Uma Thurman's audition was very good, but she suddenly became pregnant on the eve of the filming. In the end, the big fat New Zealander had to use Liv Tyler.

Thinking of this, Wayne shuddered violently, at least in terms of his aesthetics, Uma Thurman didn't seem to be much better. The next large-scale audition for "The Lord of the Rings" will start soon, and if he can, he hopes to pick a more beautiful and more elf-like actress.

"There is a guest room upstairs. Do you want to take a rest first? After lunch, let's go to Warner Bros."

After the brief work report, Wayne looked at John Gray's dark circles, knowing that the other party should have come directly to the manor after getting off the plane.

"Well, I don't feel like this body is my own anymore." John Gray was also polite, covering his mouth and yawning, politely nodded with Nina sitting beside him, and followed Hela to the Go upstairs. Before going upstairs, he didn't forget to turn his head and say, "Wayne, remember to wake me up at lunch..."

With a wave of his hand, Wayne turned to look at Nina and asked, "What time does Avi Adela arrive?"

"I think it should be soon."

Looking up at the clock by the fireplace in the living room, the assistant shrugged and said, "The appointment with him is at ten o'clock in the morning."

Avi-Adela was very punctual, and before ten o'clock in the morning, he drove his car into the Greenberg Manor. Then things went smoothly, far beyond what he had imagined.

After briefly reading his plans for superheroes, Wayne basically did not raise many questions, shook hands with him happily, and made an appointment to sign an employment agreement after the completion of the "X-Men" related work. By then, Avi - Adela will serve as Greenberg Studios, the executive director of the shell film company.

The conversation between the two took less than half an hour. When Avi Adela got into the car and left the manor, he still felt a little confused. Obviously, for the conversation between the two parties today, he had made a lot of preparations. Work is useless.

"Once the plan starts, our financial pressure will be great."

Looking at the car leaving the manor, Nina put down the fashion magazine in her hand, sat opposite her boss, and reminded with a serious face: "Before the end of this year, Greenberg Studio will start "Quick Hunt", "Tomb Raider", "King Kong" and other projects, followed by "Resident Evil", "A Dog's Mission"..."

Speaking of this, she paused for a while, stared at Wayne's eyes and continued: "Don't look at the studio's account with more than 100 million, but if you want to start so many projects, this money is a drop in the bucket. Don't forget. Now, boss, the follow-up investment in "The Lord of the Rings", and Blue Sky Studio, which will ask for money at some point, that's not counting..."

"!"

Hearing Miss Assistant settle the account, Wayne frowned and waved, interrupting the other party's next words.

Grabbing the cigarette on the coffee table and lighting one, he raised one hand and rubbed the sides of his forehead, and said with some headache: "Don't worry about the money, these projects will be co-produced with Warner Bros. Financing is possible.”

Financing is the most common method used by Hollywood film companies. Almost every major production in the eyes of the public is inseparable from the shadow of financing. Especially for large film companies, they are best at using other people's money to create benefits for themselves and to amortize risks to a certain extent.

And in Wayne's heart, what he is looking forward to this year is that his work income and investment income will be able to fill the funding gap in a short period of time.

The current global box office of "X-Men" is steadily advancing towards 400 million US dollars, and this is far from the box office end of "X-Men". The producer contract he signed with 20th Century Fox, the later share is 20% of the global box office of "X-Men", which is undoubtedly a lot of money.

And before the film goes down, the basic salary of the producer of "X-Men" will be close to 7 million US dollars. The first two tranches of $13 million had already been paid by Twentieth Century Fox at the beginning of the filming and at the time of its release.

There is also the box office share of "The Flash". From the film's release in mid-May to the present, the number of theaters still showing in North America has fallen to less than 800. According to the current situation, Warner Bros. will be released before the end of the year at the latest. Let the video be completely downloaded, and start a more profitable offline copyright operation as soon as possible.

Four weeks before the release of "The Flash", the North American box office had reached 250 million US dollars. However, due to the properties of the film and the release of other major productions in the future, the box office of this film declined rapidly.

However, with time, the total North American box office is now as high as 290 million US dollars, firmly maintaining the top spot in the North American annual box office list in 1998. Compared with "X-Men", the effect of "The Flash" in overseas screenings is much better, and the combined global box office has exceeded 525 million US dollars.

Undoubtedly, this film will also create a sky-high income for him this year.

The rest are "Charlie's Angels" and "The Matrix". The two films are also different. The former is independently invested and produced by Greenberg Studio. Basically, after deducting the distribution agency fee of Warner Bros., all the proceeds belong to Wayne. people.

The latter was co-produced with Warner Bros. However, because of the fans accumulated in the first two films of "The Matrix" and the sales results of movies that are completely out of the rules of R-rated films, it can be said that the earning ability is even more than that of "Charlie's Angels".

"Charlie's Angels" has already passed its hottest screening time by now, with a cumulative North American box office of 145 million US dollars and a global box office of 264 million US dollars. It's just that the market potential of this film is still there. There are also theaters in dozens of countries and regions overseas, and the final box office numbers should increase.

As for "The Matrix", it has only been released for two weekends, and the North American box office has reached 130 million US dollars. At the same time, before this weekend, Warner Bros. will send the film overseas to start a global screening tour.

There is no doubt that "Charlie's Angels" and the third part of "The Matrix" can bring him a lot of cash flow. Coupled with the late box office share of "X-Men" and "The Flash", the projects launched by Greenberg Studio are completely affordable.

It's just that there is a helpless problem here, that is, the time difference, which is also the reason why Nina will take the initiative to issue a warning to him.

According to the rules of the Hollywood film company, the time for the film company to pay off the post-production share is within six months of the official release of the film! Don't think that this time is very generous, because most studios, including Warner Bros., will not settle all the shares until the maximum payment deadline.

Many people are aware of the fact that the film industry makes money, but objective factors such as large investment, high risk, and slow repayment in the film industry are invisibly placed there.

Not to mention the revenue of "The Matrix" and "Charlie's Angels", even if it is the box office share of "The Flash" and "X-Men", when Wayne gets it, I am afraid the day lily will be cold.

That is to say, to prepare a movie, you don't need to put all the investment directly into it. Of course, there is a time difference. But for the projects to be launched one after another, the money lying on the top of Greenberg's studio is still under a lot of pressure.

Originally, after Nina's precise plan, the money could be used to start multiple projects in batches, plus Warner Bros. to share the pressure. As long as there are no accidents that require a lot of money in the middle, it won't last until Wayne gets the movie share. What's the problem.

However, once Avi Adela's plan is launched, things will be difficult to say. The projects that Greenberg Studios are planning to launch today are not small investments in themselves. If you temporarily start a superhero movie with a larger investment in the middle, it will undoubtedly challenge your own capital chain.

"I want to remind you, boss."

Nina, Sergey, Wayne, Naomi Watts and others have had a friendship for nearly ten years, especially Nina and Wayne, who have long been entangled and inseparable common interests . Wayne is taking risks in investing, which is exactly the same as Nina is taking risks, so she reminds her boss as much as possible.

"According to our plan, the projects invested by Greenberg Studio can already be compared with the output of some medium-sized film companies. Once there is a problem in the middle, it is not a certain project that will be affected, and it is likely to cause unpredictable results. as a result of."

With the tacit understanding between the two, some words need not be said too clearly. Both of them know that once the tight funding chain breaks, it will not affect the advancement of one of the projects, but all the projects being produced.

More serious consequences are yet to come. If several sequel plans of Greenberg Studios go bankrupt, it will also affect Wayne's overall plans for Warner Bros. and even Time Warner.

"As long as Avi Adela takes over Greenberg Studios, he will definitely start his plans impatiently, boss, you must suppress his plans, at least to "X-Men" and "The Flash" The day it is credited to the studio account. Otherwise, you really have to think about financing the production project. UU Reading ”

Nodding silently, Wayne was smoking a cigarette. The upcoming projects of Greenberg Studio, and even the amazing superhero that Avi Adela wants to make, have a considerable success rate in his heart, and he is definitely not willing to raise external financing unless it is a last resort.

Not to mention external financing, he is not even willing to let Warner Bros. get involved in the production of the amazing superheroes in his hands.

"You have to keep an eye on all the project expenses of the studio, Nina."

Up to now, Wayne can only choose to continue, he only hopes that there will be no accidents in the middle. "Find a lawyer as soon as possible, and before the studio's first project starts, you can get 1% of the studio's shares."

"Is it the one that can be freely transferred?"

The moment she heard these words, Nina was obviously stunned, but she responded quickly, shrugging and teasing her boss: "If it can be freely transferred, I will sell it as soon as possible, and then take the money to travel around. World, stay away from these **** jobs."

"What are you thinking, Nina!"

He stretched out a finger and pointed at the assistant in the air. Wayne said angrily, "Only the one with the right to share dividends, are you satisfied?"

Only common interests can bring about more attentive work efficiency. Nina fully understands the weight of Greenberg's studio, even if it is only one percent, but its value will increase over time.

"Don't worry, boss." The assistant lady whistled, habitually reached out and pushed the glasses on her face, and said with a smile, "I won't easily lose my hope of becoming a billionaire."

"f**k, then keep an eye on everything in the studio!"