r18novel Chapter 96 Speeding Up the Progress
Chapter 96 Speeding Up the Progress
Chapter 96 Speeding Up the Progress (Seeking First Subscriptions!!!)
The North American film market did not have a good year in 2005.
The summer movie season that just passed was met with an extremely rare "box office slowdown", with total North American box office falling by nearly 10% year-on-year and movie attendance falling to its lowest point in nearly ten years.
Hollywood giants are finding themselves in a panic as they realize that traditional blockbuster films, which often cost hundreds of millions of dollars, are starting to falter. Audiences seem to prefer staying home and watching high-profit DVDs on newly available high-definition televisions.
At the same time, the power shifts within the giants have made the situation even more unpredictable.
Just last month, Robert Iger officially succeeded Michael Eisner as the new head of the Disney empire, and Hollywood and Wall Street are watching closely the new leader's big moves in IP integration.
Meanwhile, within 20th Century Fox, executives led by Elizabeth were furious about the investment failures of the summer blockbusters "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Basketball Duel," and were tightening the budgets of all their projects in development like a gallows.
Although Fox achieved profitability this year thanks to the strong appeal of the Star Wars series and the support of blockbusters such as Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Fantastic Four, it still needs to consider the market situation.
However, for "The Devil Wears Prada", this environment actually became an advantage.
Because it's cheap enough. To be precise, it's cheap enough to give you peace of mind.
Compared to those mega-productions that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, The Devil Wears Prada's budget can even be described as restrained.
There are no earth-shattering special effects shots, no spectacular scenes that require burning money to build, and no action stars with sky-high salaries.
It is a standard mid-budget urban film. In the eyes of Fox executives today, mid-budget projects have gradually changed from "optional" to "essential".
Risk is becoming the most expensive thing in Hollywood.
At the end of November, as the last shot on the monitor slowly faded out, a temporary caption appeared.
The room fell silent.
Tom leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh: "It's over."
Lin Ruiyang didn't say anything, but simply reached out and pressed the pause button.
The rough cut, lasting two hours and forty minutes, is now complete, nearly ten minutes shorter than initially estimated.
But both of them knew that this was far from the final version.
That afternoon, the rough cut was sent to Fox's internal screening room.
Those who attended the screening included not only Elizabeth's team, but also the distribution department, marketing department, and management responsible for planning next year's release schedule.
More than two hours later, the lights came back on.
Elizabeth sat in the front row, twirling a pen in her hand: "Too long."
Tom rolled his eyes, but Lin Ruiyang just nodded.
This is normal. It's just a rough cut. Otherwise, how would others feel that they have a presence if the final cut was completed in one go?
"The target duration is to keep it under two hours," the publishing manager added.
"Ideally, it should take a little over two hours."
"The Paris part was great."
The head of the marketing department flipped through his notes: "The fashion elements, clothing displays, and cityscapes are all very beautiful, but some scenes have overlapping functions."
"Audiences will love the characters of Meryl and Anne."
"In fact, I suspect that many viewers came specifically for them."
"Female audiences, especially white-collar workers, should really enjoy this movie."
"If the promotional direction is correct, the market potential will be significant."
The meeting lasted an hour, and the only consensus reached was to speed up the editing process.
The meeting ended close to evening.
In the corridor outside the screening room, people from the distribution and marketing departments left in twos and threes, still discussing the film lineup for next year's important release periods.
For these professional managers, "The Devil Wears Prada" is certainly important, but it is far from being important enough to overshadow the entire Fox film slate.
Lin Ruiyang and Tom returned to the editing room, where the even more tedious and brutal fine-cutting stage awaited them.
However, that very evening, Rogge brought another piece of news.
"They'd like you to go over there tomorrow afternoon."
"Matthew?"
Lin Ruiyang immediately realized what was happening.
"Yes, Matthew McConaughey." Roger's voice sounded particularly reassuring on the other end of the phone.
"Searchlight has finalized the contract text. His agent was already anxious, so he urged them to sign it as soon as possible so that the project could officially enter the legal process."
The following afternoon, at the Fox Searchlight Building.
As a sanctuary for independent films and Oscar-winning arthouse movies under 20th Century Fox, the artistic atmosphere here is far stronger than that of the headquarters building.
The corridor was lined with art posters of award-winning works from previous years, and Lin Ruiyang met Matthew McConaughey again in the main reception room.
"Oh, Lin, look at my face now. Don't you think I look more like a soul on the verge of a nervous breakdown?"
"Perfect, Matthew." Lin Ruiyang sat down next to him, looking at the aspiring Best Actor who was now fully prepared for the role.
His weight has completely stabilized, and compared to before, that sickly thinness has been replaced by a more restrained fatigue.
"The contract is on the table." Pete Rice's secretary pushed all the relevant documents across the conference table.
"The legal department spent a week clarifying all the additional terms. The remuneration, insurance, portrait rights, publicity cooperation obligations, and the cost of the nutritionist and medical monitoring that you specifically requested during filming will all be covered by Searchlight."
Matthew quickly picked up his pen, turned to the last page, and signed his name.
"So now," he put the pen back on the table, looked up at Lin Ruiyang, "you can't change anyone else."
"I never thought about changing."
In fact, Matthew's own determination played a large part in the fact that Dallas Buyers Club was able to move so quickly to this stage.
"Alright, everyone. Now that the contract is finalized, let's talk about the next step."
The projector lit up, and a series of photos and documents appeared on the screen.
Texas, streets in the 1980s, hospitals... and related visual records left by Ron Woodruff.
The person in charge of the project in its early stages stood next to the projector, using a laser pointer to circle several key locations on the screen.
"The location scouting team will fly to Texas next week to focus on three locations as required: the trailer park where Ron stayed, the El Paso gas station he frequented, and the checkpoint on the US-Mexico border."
Lin Ruiyang then stepped forward and began to explain the general filming plan: "The main filming locations are set in the Dallas and Austin areas of Texas."
We will use location shooting to recreate the industrial feel and oppressive atmosphere of the 1980s as much as possible. The budget is limited, so the art and costume departments need to be very careful, but medical monitoring and nutritional support must be in place.
Pete Rice nodded: "Searchlight will fully cooperate."
With Pitt's statement, it also signifies the official launch of "Dallas Buyers Club," an independent production machine poised to contend for an Oscar.
"You're back? How did things go with the searchlight?" Tom asked, rubbing his tired eyes as he looked up.
"The signing is complete. Now, it's time for us to start cutting our losses."
7
Lin Ruiyang took off his suit jacket and plopped down in front of the control panel: "Pull up the footage, let's start frame-by-frame extraction from the beginning."