Santa Monica.
In a screening room at Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters, when another "Batman" demo played on the screen and the assistant came up to whisper a reminder, Terry Semel realized that it was already five o'clock in the afternoon.
Reflecting on the previous three hours of watching the movie, Semel was filled with a strong shock.
Today is Friday, May 5th.
When Simon was in an accidental coma in February, Semel flew to Australia to visit him as a representative of Warner Bros. The situation was special and he was unable to take time to watch the footage of "Batman". Today was the first time he saw the sample film.
The post-editing and other work of "Batman" was synchronized with the shooting. It took Simon only one week after returning to Los Angeles to roughly complete the first six-and-a-half-hour rough cut of the film.
Terry Semel arrived in the afternoon. He originally only planned to spend an hour briefly browsing the dailies, but ended up staying in this screening room for a whole afternoon. He didn't even know when Simon, who had originally watched the dailies with him, left. No awareness.
Although it was already after get off work hours, Terry Semel still had the urge to watch all the remaining three hours of samples.
Movies can still be made like this? !
This was a thought Semel repeated countless times while watching the samples.
During the preparations for "Batman," Semel expressed his concerns when he heard that Simon would shoot in real locations as much as possible.
Real-life shooting can indeed increase the audience's sense of immersion, but at the same time it can easily make the entire movie mediocre. Because in essence, "Batman" should be a science fiction movie, and it is soft science fiction. This type of film should pursue a sense of surrealism.
It is too close to reality, and the creator failed to fill the film with enough rich and exciting superhero elements. As a result, it will easily cause the audience to have a psychological gap that "this is not the superhero world they imagined."
Once this happens, the film is doomed to fail.
Therefore, during Warner's many fruitless preparations over the years, directors interested in taking over the "Batman" project basically tended to shoot on location and create a Gotham City in the studio.
Now, Terry Semel has completely lost his original worries.
It's just that most of the sample shots have not been carefully graded, but they already appear to be as stunning as the original "Lola Run", so Terry Semel confirmed this. Simon's "La Lola Run" has become a teaching sample film in many film schools, but in Semel's opinion, many shots in the "Batman" sample film are even better than "La Lola Run".
Through his exquisite use of lighting, color, composition and other elements, Simon shoots shots based on real city street scenes like oil paintings carefully drawn by top painters. Some pictures are even enough to be printed and hung on the wall as art. Taste.
Moreover, the overall cold and rich dark tone style is enough to visually give the audience a surreal psychological suggestion, making people feel that this is the city they live in but at the same time it is Gotham City in the comics.
Of course, just the stunning style of the shot is not enough to shock Semel.
Although that young man's control over the technical details of the film reached Oscar level, it is not impossible for other films to imitate it, as long as they are willing to spend money to form a master-level behind-the-scenes team.
What really shocked Semel was the content, especially the action scenes in the demo.
Among traditional Hollywood action movies, the more high-end ones include Bruce Lee's kung fu movies. The performance of action stars with profound skills such as Jean-Claude Van Damme on the screen is also remarkable, but most of them are still about you and me. Ordinary fists and kicks that lack beauty.
Due to the lack of bright spots, the most popular in Hollywood in recent years have been gunfight action movies by Stallone and others, in which a naked muscular man carrying a machine gun ignores the enemy's hail of bullets and destroys everything along the way.
Terry Semel has actually watched some Eastern Kung Fu movies, but he also felt that the action designs in those movies were too complex and lacked practicality.
The action scenes in Simon's "Batman" made Semel strongly feel that he seemed to have seen the future of Hollywood action movies.
Fighting, there is no old-fashioned street drunkard fight, Batman's punches are hard to the flesh but the strong sense of strength is not simple, which makes people excited. Catwoman's lightness and sharpness and the ultimate display of the advantages of the female body also make people's blood rush.
In the car chase, there are no collisions and explosions for no reason, but the smashing and rolling vehicles facing the big screen are more shocking than directly blowing up a bunch of cars.
The gunfight, the mindless rush without the rain of bullets, the thrilling duel between Deadshot and Batman, and the pressure of the CG synthetic bullet whizzing in slow motion made Semel hold his breath. It turns out that a bullet can also become the protagonist of the shot at a certain moment.
In addition to these mainstream action scenes, details such as Batman's wingsuit flying, the use of batarangs and other props, and Catwoman's use of gymnastics skills to leap between city rooftops are all enough to become future Hollywood commercial movies in Semel's opinion. textbook.
Terry Semel can't wait to see the final film. Simon has perfected these details. As the best screenwriter in Hollywood, Semel does not think that the plot of the film will be better than the final film. These details are inferior.
Semel even had a vague feeling in his heart that this groundbreaking superhero movie would also achieve groundbreaking box office numbers.
However, this feeling is not a good one.
Remembering that DC had sold the rights to Batman and Wonder Woman to Daenerys Entertainment, and that Warner had not raised any objection to the transfer of Superman rights, Semel felt a strong sense of regret. He now firmly believes that Warner must have made a series of irreparable mistakes regarding the rights to these three superheroes.
After all, although those licensing contracts have time limits, in fact, if the interests involved are too great, the copyright holder cannot let go under any circumstances.
Just like the original "Superman" copyright, although "Superman 4" failed at the box office, as far as Semel knows, Simon still spent a lot of money to buy back the "Superman" copyright from the Salkind family with only 5 years remaining. A huge investment of US$6 million.
Moreover, although the contract originally signed between DC and British producer Alexander Salkind will expire in 1992. However, according to the automatic renewal clause in the agreement, as long as the copyright of "Superman" is not shelved for a long time, after 1992, if Salkind intends to produce a sequel, the authorization period will be automatically extended.
Now, the power of those terms rests with Daenerys Entertainment.
Obviously, as long as Daenerys Entertainment does not take the initiative to let go, Warner will not be able to get back the copyright of "Superman" in any case, and the same is true for the copyright of "Batman" and "Wonder Woman".
What a mistake.
After continuing to sit in the screening room for a few minutes, Semel stood up and walked to the door, asking the assistant next to him: "Is Simon still in the company?"
The assistant followed Semel out and replied, "Mr. Westeros left the company at three o'clock to go to the set of the "Pretty Woman" movie."
Terry Semel was a little confused: ""Pretty Woman"?"
The assistant explained: "Daenerys Entertainment has just started filming a project this week, a romance film. The competition for the leading actor in the film was very fierce some time ago, with Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, Daniel Day-Lewis and other male stars have tried to get this script, but the role finally fell on a second-tier British actor. It is said that Westeros personally decided on it, named Pierce Brosnan. The heroine is "Steel Magnolias" Julia Roberts in "Flower" seems to have been decided early on."
As Steve Ross's right-hand man, Terry Semel has been busy participating in the merger negotiations between Time Inc. and Warner Bros. in recent months, but has ignored a lot of news from Hollywood.
After some recollection, he could not find any information about Pierce Brosnan. Semel asked his assistant to compile a copy of his resume for him. He was also a little surprised. Unexpectedly, Harrison Ford started to compete for Daenerys Entertainment projects. , and we haven’t been able to reach an agreement yet.
Thinking about it carefully, I feel relieved.
The two major series "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" that started in the late 1970s have allowed Harrison Ford to continue to maintain his status as one of the few top-tier male stars in Hollywood.
However, the release of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at the end of the month also means that the two trump cards that Harrison Ford relies on will fall into silence for a long time. Ford's films other than "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in recent years have not done well at the box office. If he wants to maintain his status after the two major series are dormant, he must actively pursue some projects that are easy to sell well.
Terry Semel left the screening room with his assistant. Simon did not come back from the "Pretty Woman" set, but just asked the staff to hand over an invitation to tonight's cocktail party.
Back in Los Angeles, Simon only took a short break for a weekend before getting back to work.
First up are The Bodyguard and The Sixth Sense.
The post-production of both films has been basically completed. Simon did not completely let go of his attention on these two projects when he was in Melbourne. The final results of the films met his expectations. During this week, Simon personally adjusted some details of the two films, which will be officially submitted to the MPAA for rating next week.
The first TV trailer for "The Bodyguard" starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston has been officially aired. The schedule is June 2 and the number of opening screens will be 2,021.
"The Sixth Sense", which is scheduled to be released on June 30, has also begun to release promotional materials, but the final stage of the promotion strategy has not yet been finalized.
Simon requested that the plot of "The Sixth Sense" be kept strictly confidential during the production stage of the film.
Until now, except for a few core creators of the crew, many supporting actors do not even know the complete plot of "The Sixth Sense". However, after "The Sixth Sense" was completed, senior executives such as Amy and Rem generally felt that except for the final plot twist, the overall film seemed very ordinary and basically had no highlights.
If the screenwriter of this movie was not signed by Simon himself, and Robert De Niro also participated, and the company had no other choice, Amy would even suggest to Simon to adjust the schedule of "The Sixth Sense".
According to Amy, the sample footage of John Hughes' "Uncle Buck" was quite good, but the film would not be completed until mid-June, so the company had to schedule it at the end of the summer season like August 11.
In addition, John Hughes' second movie this year "Christmas Vacation" is also in the filming stage. This movie will start shooting after "Uncle Buck" is completed. The investor is Warner Bros. and is planned to be released in the Christmas season.
Simon originally collaborated with John Hughes on "Uncle Buck" for the purpose of "Home Alone," for which he also retained a first-option agreement on Hughes' script.
The script for "Christmas Vacation" was first sent to Daenerys Entertainment, and Simon naturally chose to give it up.
However, the post-production period of "Uncle Buck" is already halfway through. John Hughes's "Home Alone" script inspired by "Uncle Buck" in the original time and space has not even a shadow yet, and Macaulay Culkin has not appeared in "Uncle Buck". Uncle Buck".
Simon planned to wait until the end of the year. If John Hughes still didn't come up with the script for "Home Alone," he would have to 'make do with it' himself.
After watching sample films with Semel for a while at the company's headquarters in the afternoon, Simon rushed to visit the set of "Pretty Woman" and stayed until after get off work.
Except for not using Richard Gere as the male protagonist, "Pretty Woman" basically has the original cast.
The reasons for abandoning Richard Gere are similar to Simon's previous decision to completely ignore Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct". As for Pierce Brosnan, although he left the deepest impression on the audience in the original time and space as James Bond, Brosnan's tall, handsome appearance and British gentleman style completely fit the role of Edward Lewis, a handsome Wall Street businessman.
The evening cocktail party was held at the Palisade mansion.
After leaving North America for a few months, it is necessary to reconnect with everyone emotionally.
Janet should have been responsible for preparing this kind of thing. Janet was in Australia and Simon wanted to hand it over to Catherine.
However, in recent months, Catherine has helped Simon oversee the construction of the Dume Point Manor. She flew to Melbourne as soon as Simon fainted. Coupled with everything in the past, this public closeness has not even bothered to ridicule the tabloids. However, the thin-skinned Catherine always kept her ears to the ground.
Simon returned to Los Angeles, and Catherine, who was originally staying at Janet's villa on the east side of Point Dume, flew to New York on the pretext of preparing for her next movie. This time she obviously did not intend to cooperate with Daenerys Entertainment again. It looks like drawing a clear line.
Finally, the preparations for the reception were left to Jennifer.
The female assistant was equally shameless and took this matter seriously as official business. Even the guest list was drawn up with Amy's assistant Vanessa. So the originally scheduled small-scale cocktail party completely turned into a lively business reception.