v2 Chapter 602: The biggest winner

"The clown believes that everyone is evil and no trust can exist. He only needs to push people a little bit. Everyone will give up justice and become very selfish and ugly, so he betrays others and even kills his comrades. ."

Taking the coffee cup handed over by Scarlett, Duke said in detail, “In the setting of the script, the clown’s weapon of a push is the fear in people’s hearts. He believes that everyone loves himself. With your loved ones, as long as you threaten their lives, everyone will abandon their original bottom line and become a demon."

Duke finally said, "One of the pursuits of the clown is to break through everyone's bottom line."

Scarlett seemed to understand something, and asked curiously, "According to you, the Joker is the protagonist of The Dark Knight."

"The actual situation is similar."

In the previous movie, Heath Ledger's performance was excellent, but the setting of the clown was the key. It was this role that gave Heath Ledger the opportunity to explode in acting.

In "The Dark Knight", Christian Bale's performance cannot be said to be bad, but he was completely suppressed when he encountered such a god-defying character.

To a certain extent, the performance of this film is a bit out of balance.

However, ⊕⊥, this is Batman after all, even if it is dressed in a dark and realistic cop style, it is still an out-and-out Batman movie, and Mr. Bruce Wayne will naturally take the audience’s attention. .

With the formal establishment of the "Dark Knight" project, a series of preparatory work has begun.

First of all, the initial estimated production cost of the film is 150 million US dollars. Since Doug Walter chose to support Duke, he must have unreserved support, and Duke has never been a bottomless director like James Cameron. , Warner Bros. will also follow Duke's needs. Appropriate additional investment.

On the day of the press conference, the 50 million US dollars used for the initial start-up went to the third-party insurance company's account.

Although third-party guarantees will bring some trouble, Duke has been used to shooting and production under this system for so many years.

After the funds arrive. Duke first auditioned for two newly added important roles. Many well-known actors including Nicholas Cage and Heath Ledger participated in the audition for Harvey Dante and the Joker.

The audition only went on for one round, and Duke finalized Nicholas Cage, the former Oscar actor who has fallen toward the king of bad movies. Although the scripts and projects have been overwhelming in recent years, it has caused reputation and acting performance. It keeps falling, but the acting skills of the Oscar actor level are still there, as long as the state can maintain a normal level. It is not difficult to deal with a role like Harvey Dante.

The only thing that worries Duke a little is Nicholas Cage’s old problems. When he is in good shape, his acting skills can almost compete with Tom Hanks, and when he is in bad shape, he is even worse than Orlando Bloom.

And his state is always good and bad, and the performance in the same movie can also be different from heaven and earth.

But Duke has worked with many actors over the years. It can be said that he is very experienced. He has certain confidence in himself and Nicholas Cage, who is in desperate need of self-salvation.

In order to deal with the role of double-faced people. Nicholas Cage also proved his positive attitude after passing the audition. He signed up for a psychology tutoring class and decided to study split personality for his role.

Obviously, Nicholas Cage knew that this cooperation with Duke would be his rare opportunity to stand up.

Of course, Duke will not deny it either. Nicholas Cage can be selected from so many actors, on the one hand, his acting skills and image are still guaranteed; on the other hand, more importantly, it is because of Sophia Coppola.

This is Hollywood. Human relationships within the rules often play an important role. This is also an important reason why actors and directors from a family of acting are more likely to come forward.

Even if this is a business society. No one can deny the role of networking.

There are also many well-known actors competing for the role of clown.

Robin Williams, Ricky Halmi, Paul Bettany and Oscar actor Adrian Brody all participated in the audition, and they also showed good wishes to the crew in public, expressing their interest in playing the "Joker" interest.

Maybe it was preconceived, or maybe Heath Ledger's audition was really good. Duke gave up Adrian Brody, who would rather lower the pay to $500,000, and still chose Heath Ledger.

The big-nosed Jewish actor is pretty good in acting, but even if he has an Oscar actor, he is actually almost the same as Heath Ledger. He basically has no commercial appeal. Heath Ledger himself is not highly paid. With similar conditions, Duke could not find any reason to choose Adrian Brody.

It's just that Duke didn't expect that the film crew had just signed a formal actor contract with Heath Ledger, and the Australian actor specifically found him and made a request.

"Director Rosenberg..."

Seeing Heath Ledger sitting across the desk slightly shy, Duke interrupted him, "Duke, just call me Duke."

Heath Ledger was obviously an introvert. He forced a smile and said, "Duke, can I not join the crew first?"

"Why?" Duke couldn't help frowning.

"I think the clown is a very special character."

Speaking of the character to be created in front of the camera lens, Heath Ledger disappeared without a trace of his shyness, "I want to find a quiet and completely undisturbed environment, and take the time to study this character."

Hearing this, Duke couldn’t help taking a serious look at Heath Ledger. This was a young and handsome actor. His bright eyes were hidden behind by a few strands of falling blond hair, but it revealed a kind of actor’s true love. The kind of fanaticism of the role.

Since he planned to use Heath Ledger, Duke let people know him, no one would have thought that such a sunny actor has been addicted to drugs for several years.

Many people have been moved by clowns, and they comforted themselves that Heath Ledger had to take drugs because he played the clown too deeply, which led to the death of overdose, but the actual situation is not like this...

Shaking his head in his heart, Duke didn't say much, nodded and agreed to Heath Ledger's request.

In the information he made known, Heath Ledger was not only introverted, but also very sensitive. He hated being mentioned about his privacy. Duke knew very well that even if he wanted to remind him a few words, now is not the time.

After all, the two are just a simple business partnership.

In Hollywood, the relationship between actors and directors and between actors and actors is far more complicated than imagined.

Many things are never meant to be implemented just as they want.

Only people with a head in the water will naively think that if you want to be friends with a well-known actor, the other person will definitely become friends.

Yes, countless Hollywood actors want to work with Duke, but they may not want to be friends with him.

Having said that, with Duke's personality, even if the other party intends to befriend him, he will look at it several times with scrutiny.

Just like Nicholas Cage, if it weren't for Sophia Coppola, Duke would never take the initiative to pull him.

Asked to send Heath Ledger away, Duke left the Duke's studio and went to Warner Studios.

Similar to "Batman: Hour of War", the shooting of "The Dark Knight" is mainly divided into three parts. The first part is the setting of the studio of Warner Studios, and the second part is the renovation of the hangar of the Hughes Aircraft Factory. The third part is shooting location scenes in Chicago.

Currently, the crew’s preliminary inspection team has divided Duke into three parts. Anna Prinz is responsible for the scene construction of the Warner Studios and the Hughes Aircraft Factory, and John Schwarzman takes people to Chicago to inspect the location shooting area. , Duke and Prime Minister Charles Rowan and reviewed various preliminary work.

The preparatory time for this film is planned to be 100 days and the shooting time is 3 months. Same as the previous two films, Duke strives to catch up with the beginning of next year's summer vacation.

Scene building cannot be completed in a short period of time. Many different scenes can also be built while shooting. In contrast, the shapes of Batman, Joker, Harvey Dante and others must be determined as soon as possible.

Since they will continue to use actors from the previous series such as Gary Oldman, Michael Kane, Lawrence Fishburne and Anne Hathaway, their costume design is relatively quicker.

Joker and Batman are the key points, especially Batman. Many of his equipment will be updated. The film’s sponsor Lamborghini also needs to design a very cool Batmobile based on the Batmobile.

In addition, Batman’s suit must be redesigned and manufactured. Duke will limit Bruce Wayne’s abilities. He is just an ordinary person with great skill. If he wants to move faster, the bat suit can only be thinner and thinner. simplify.

The imax company also sent two huge imax cameras, and a technical team was also stationed on the crew. When John Schwarzman returns from Chicago, he will assist the crew to familiarize themselves with the equipment.

These imax cameras are several times that of ordinary cameras. How to use these cumbersome big guys to shoot the impactful shots in the film is also a problem that Duke needs to consider.

For iamx camera technology, Duke is an out-and-out novice.

However, he has always been a person who knows how to learn, and he also knows that imax production technology is the trend of future development. After finishing his busy work, he frequently consults the technical engineers of imax.

Throughout July, Duke was busy in the preliminary preparations for "The Dark Knight", but when the preparatory work took shape in early August, the North American summer vacation was over, and "Iron Man" became the North American film market for the 2006 summer vacation. The biggest winner. (To be continued...)

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