v2 Chapter 643： Machine life

As early as the beginning of the century, when I heard that Sony Columbia Pictures wanted to buy the film adaptation rights of the Joe Special Forces toy series, Duke won the film rights of the "Transformers" series from Hasbro at a high price. , To wait for the time to be made into a series of movies.

The "Transformers" series relies heavily on cg production, which is why Duke has waited until now. Today's cg technology is more mature, and the cost of production has been greatly reduced compared to before. At the beginning of the century, it took 50 million US dollars to get special effects. Now More than 20 million US dollars is enough.

Even so, Duke planned a minimum production budget of $200 million to allow Optimus Prime and Megatron to have more chances to show their faces, instead of when the Transformers appear on the scene, the camera will flash a few times. Switched to the human body.

Compared with the "Dark Knight", the style of "Transformers" is undoubtedly much lower, but in Duke's eyes, "Transformers" is much more important than "The Dark Knight". On the one hand, it is related to commercial revenue. On the other hand, there are feelings deeply hidden in my heart that I have never forgotten.

The childhood that used to live on the other side of the Pacific was the most popular era of "Transformers". How many unforgettable images of Optimus Prime and Megatron?

Even if this is destined to be only a ☆, a pure popcorn movie, Duke still plans to go to battle himself.

This is still the story of a boy and his car. The main audience of the film determines the basic settings, but the script that has passed the review has undergone tremendous changes. First of all, the style of the film is no longer amusing, and the human role is important. , But it will not overwhelm you.

Duke has no humorous cells, he is not good at funny, and he will not put out something too vulgar in the film. Although the script does not lack some small humor, it will stop there.

There are also the male and female protagonists. His films have nothing to do with DreamWorks, and his friendship with Spielberg is not very good. Of course, he will not go to the godson of the old Jewish man; for the heroine, he No feeling for actresses like Megan Fox. Definitely won't use...

Just like Duke asked Nancy Josephson to prepare materials, after the crew is formally established, a large-scale audition will be held for these two roles.

Then there are the looks of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Starting from letting the screenwriter prepare the script in the first half of this year, Duke asked Tina Fei to notify Hasbro’s headquarters in Rhode Island. According to the copyright agreement signed by both parties, "Transformers" is directly related to Hasbro. They also know very well that if they want to bring the influence of "Transformers" to a higher level, it is undoubtedly a very wise choice to rely on the director of Duke.

The people of Hasbro also use the greatest enthusiasm and the fastest time. I took out the conceptual design of Transformers in the film.

But when Hasbro’s CEO flew to Los Angeles and personally delivered it to the Duke’s studio, he was directly rejected by Duke.

"Brian, I don't think this is very appropriate."

In the reception room, Duke looked at the concept images, frowning tightly, "They look so much like the characters in the animation."

"I feel like a little bit."

Sitting next to Duke, Hasbro’s CEO Brian Goldnor had a completely different view. "We used animated characters as the basis when designing. We borrowed a lot of Japanese mecha styles..."

Looking at the square blocks in the concept map, like a sturdy robot stacked on boxes, Duke shook his head, "The shape is too ugly, I can imagine, when they appear on the big screen, there will be no streamline beauty."

"Streamlined beauty?"

Hearing this statement, Brian Goldnor shook his head faster, "They are a group of robots that must conform to the principles of physics. If they are not strong enough. It is impossible to run, jump, and make some difficult movements. "

"Brian, I think you overlooked a little."

The CEO has not been in office for a long time. Duke knew this, so he said, “They are not robots, but highly intelligent machine life forms. Any life form has its own streamline beauty. It's not a pure machine shape with rough and rigid lines!"

In Duke's view, the idea of ​​designing Optimus Prime to be thick and heavy is extremely wrong.

It was just using the robot on the earth as a prototype design, and ignored an important point. In this sci-fi world, Transformers are not robots!

Moreover, the difference between the movies on the big screen and the cartoons on the small screen is too big.

To a certain extent, what will appear in the movie will be a group of high-level intelligent beings from outside galaxies, but their bodies are made of metal, rather than bulky and thick earth robots.

"But..." Brian Goldnor thought for a while, changed his tone, "If there is too much difference with the cartoon image, will it cause some fans to not accept it?"

Duke did not answer, and instead asked, "Hasbro has also released a new 3d "Transformers" animation in recent years. How is the response?"

Brian Goldnor sighed, but did not speak again.

In recent years, the Transformers cartoons have been scolded by fans without exception.

"Brian, I have adapted a lot of works, and I know roughly what kind of image is more in line with the requirements of the big screen and the expectations of mainstream audiences."

After a short pause, Duke revealed the fact, "The dark knight is a big hit at the box office and the surroundings, and the market response is quite strong, but there are still a large number of Batman fans who don’t like it, and even said on the Internet that I destroyed Batman. image of……"

Turning his head and looking at Brian Goldnor, Duke added, "No matter how we adapt "Transformers", in the eyes of some fans, we will destroy their childhood memories. No matter how hot and popular a movie is , And can’t please everyone.”

The thing is very obvious, no matter how it is adapted, this series will be considered by some people to ruin their childhood.

"There is another point."

Although the right to adapt the movie is in your hands and you can decide what you want to do, Duke will not ignore Hasbro. If the movie wants to be a big success, the promotion of the manufacturer is equally important, and Hasbro has this problem. There is no need to create huge contradictions.

"Don't you think so? Only when the image of Transformers is sufficiently different from the cartoon, fans will be more willing to buy new toys and peripheral products after the film is released."

After sitting and thinking for a few minutes, Brian Godno nodded slowly and said, "I will rush back to Rhode Island as soon as possible and let the design department..."

"No, I will send a design team to Los Angeles."

This person who can sit on the seat of Hasbro’s CEO is also a decisive figure, “to assist you and the crew in your work.”

The success of the previous "Transformers" series, Hasbro spared no effort to promote, played a very important role.

Sending away Brian Goldnor, Duke returned to the office and hung up a phone call to Warner Bros. The budget for this film was too much. Warner Bros. has already launched a pre-sale and funding mechanism.

Film, especially commercial production, is a high-investment and high-risk industry, and financing is a basic part of it. How much investment and how to allocate it can decisively affect a movie. The reason why Hollywood movies can come from The continuous production of blockbuster films and the success in the global market are inseparable from the strong capital support behind it.

In the past, out of confidence in Duke and the consideration of less risk, when Warner Bros. invested in his films, although they would also raise foreign funds, the amount was relatively small.

It's just that the situation is different now. The huge amount of money invested in "The Dark Knight" has not been recovered, including Duke's "Transformers" and Zach Schneider's "Watchmen" and the new Harry Potter and other masterpieces need to invest a lot of money. It is impossible for Warner Bros. to provide excessive liquidity. Raising funds for filming through various mechanisms has become the primary choice.

In addition to pre-sales of film screening rights to overseas distributors in various regions of the world, Warner Bros. is also preparing to accept investment from some foundations.

Since 2004, the film fund initiated by investment institutions has become a major trend to invest in the film projects of a certain Hollywood studio for a certain period of time. This is also known as ‘complex investment’.

In this era, the major Hollywood studios have long been relegated to larger media and entertainment groups, and the globalization trend of the Hollywood film industry has become increasingly obvious, characterized by "large investment, large production, large marketing, and large market." "High-concept" movies became the mainstream of Hollywood.

mpaa has statistics. In 1975, the average production cost of American films was 5 million US dollars. By 1987, this figure reached 20 million US dollars. By 2007, the average production cost of large studios had risen to 70.8 million. The cost has reached 45.9 million US dollars, and the total cost has exceeded 100 million US dollars.

With such a large scale of investment, it is difficult to achieve large-scale production even with the annual own funds of the major Hollywood studios.

Although their parent company is strong, they are unwilling to invest too much money in risky film production. As a listed company, no one wants to have too many debt records on their company statements, so they introduce external investors to become The inevitable choice of Hollywood studios.

However, for a long period of time in the 1980s and 1990s, Hollywood did not feel too much pressure on financing, because with the rise of new film distribution channels such as video tape, cable TV, satellite TV, and European local TV, Hollywood Movies can raise most of the funds through pre-sales of copyrights.

The preferential tax policies provided by some overseas governments to promote the development of the film industry have also provided a lot of convenience for Hollywood financing. Among them, the German policy has become a loophole exploited by many Hollywood companies. (To be continued...)

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