"Underworld" is a project that Eric personally finalized. Although the budget is only 20 million US dollars, it is considered a low-cost production now, but he has been following up personally. In addition to providing a lot of classic lens designs of "Underworld" based on memory, in order to ensure the film's gunfight and action style, Eric also recruited Baige Wu as the producer.
The film started shooting in September last year, and now it is more than half completed. Eric just watched the sample last week, although the heroine has been replaced by Natasha Henstridge, and the director is no longer Len Wiseman. , but under the double checks of Eric and Baige Wu, the quality of the new version of "Underworld" is definitely better than the original version.
In all fairness, according to the release plan of the new line, it is obviously safer to release this movie in the summer file, but after only a few seconds of hesitation, Eric made a decision.
If you want to promote 3D and IMAX movies, you can't do it without taking some risks.
"Although they are all night scenes, as long as you pay attention to the brightness problem during the conversion process, this film is really suitable for making a 3D movie," Eric said while thinking: "I will talk to Kenneth later, this matter I will be responsible for the matter personally. In addition, I remember that there is a "Return to the Cretaceous" at IMAX, which can also be used to fill the vacancy of the film source. I will see if there are other suitable films and choose another one. Sure enough."
After talking about these things, and having almost the same breakfast, Katzenberg left the restaurant first, Eric waited for Julia to finish his food slowly, and then said: "Didn't you make an appointment with the crew of "Never Compromise"?" Will you read the script, and I'll send you there?"
Julia also knew that it was impossible to pester a man all day long, so she came over and hugged Eric intimately, then took the initiative to say goodbye and leave.
After personally sending Julia to the car, Eric returned to the headquarters building.
In the morning, the company is going to hold an annual review of the film business. Eric came to the large conference room of the headquarters, and the group's top management has basically arrived.
Eric sat down at the conference table, and the secretary in the conference room began to distribute materials to everyone.
As the meeting materials were distributed one by one, whispering voices could not help but sounded in the conference room.
Eric opened the folder in front of him and looked at the brilliant box office list in his hand. Although everyone must have obtained relevant statistics before that, he still understood everyone's mood at this time.
Films such as "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" are still in release at the end of the year. Therefore, the box office ranking list on the data only counts until December 31 last year.
Scanning the box office ranking data in his hand again, Eric himself couldn't help feeling a little bit emotional.
In 1998, the top ten films in the domestic box office rankings in North America are roughly as follows:
1. "Charlie's Angels 3," $322 million, MGM.
2. "The Ring," $286 million, NL.
3. "Mission: Impossible 3," $266 million, MGM.
4. The Day After Tomorrow, $253 million, BV.
5. "The Matrix 2," $238 million, AB.
6. "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace," $218 million, FOX.
7. "Teddy," $212 million, NL.
8. "The Scorpion King," $193 million, Uni.
9. "Ace Powers 2," $186 million, FOX.
10. "The Truman Show," $125 million, Par.
It is not difficult to see from this list that although among the top ten films on the box office list, only Buwei Distribution Company (BV)'s "The Day After Tomorrow" and New Line Films (NL)'s "Midnight Killer" are directly from the Firefly Group. "Bell" and "Teddy Bear", but obviously, seven of the ten films are from Buwei (BV), New Line (NL), MGM (MGM), Fox (FOX) of the Firefly system Several major distribution labels, even "The Matrix 2" of Amberlin Films (AB), are inextricably linked with the Firefly system, and "The Scorpion King" and "The Truman The World" can only be ranked at the bottom of the list.
Eric understands that everyone in the conference room must be feeling a bit complicated at this time. After all, most of these films, as long as Eric is willing, should be directly produced by the Firefly Group at this time. In this case, the Firefly Group can even create MGM in the golden age of victory did not create miracles.
However, standing in Eric's personal position, he is very satisfied with this list.
After all, if all the films such as "Charlie's Angels 3" and "The Matrix 2" are left in Firefly, given the limited distribution capacity of Firefly Group, it is not to say whether these films can continue to realize their original box office potential, even if they do win. With a box office similar to what is in front of us, the Firefly Group will also become very dazzling on this list.
Now, this series of films are scattered under different labels. Although a discerning person can know which films are related to Firefly at a glance, it also gives a lot of people who are not willing to face the reality. A fig leaf .
Recently, there have been signs of targeting the Firefly system in Hollywood. It is conceivable that without this fig leaf, the situation will definitely be even more tense.
However, thinking about this year's release plan, Eric couldn't help but feel a little headache.
Compared with last year's relative silence, there are five blockbuster films that Firefly Group Bowei will release directly this year, namely "Public Enemy" in the Easter schedule, "Iron Man" and "Cars" in the summer file, and the end-of-year schedule It is not difficult to imagine that these five films definitely have the potential to squeeze into the top ten of the annual box office rankings.
Moreover, starting from next year, the Firefly Group's average blockbuster release scale next year will definitely be much larger. Counting MGM, Fox, and Columbia, the entire Firefly system is likely to have all the top ten box office rankings. Occupy, that kind of situation, although exciting, will also bring more pressure to the entire firefly system.
However, it is impossible for Eric to stop the pace of expansion just because of these considerations.
The meeting started quickly, but because of these things in his mind, Eric was a little absent-minded throughout the process.
The meeting was held all morning, and we had lunch with everyone at noon, and arrived at Firefly Studios in Playa Vista after two o'clock in the afternoon.
The post-production period of "Gravity" has been a long and intense production process. As long as he is in Los Angeles, Eric spends a large part of his time on this film every week.
Today, there happened to be a scene where the heroine needed to be dubbed again. Eric rushed to Firefly Studios, and Judy was already waiting in the post-production studio with her little assistant.
After the film was finished, although she had met a few times, Judy's attitude towards Eric was obviously struggling. She was a very independent woman and didn't want to be one of Eric's many lovers, but However, the charm emanating from this little man made Judy a little irresistible. Therefore, Judy's attitude towards Eric seems to be a bit distant.
Because it was only a few shots, the dubbing time was not long. After half an hour, Judy finished her work.
Seeing the woman packing up her things and planning to leave, Eric held back and said, "Why don't you come to my office for a while, you must have nothing to do this afternoon, right?"
Judy hesitated, but nodded.
The two left the center of gravity in the later stage together, and came to the administrative building where Eric's office is located. When they entered the office, Eric found that Judy looked nervous, and even pulled his little assistant in, and couldn't help being a little funny .
He took out his wallet from his pocket and looked through it, but found that there were no banknotes. Eric looked at Judy, stretched out his hand and said, "Give me your wallet."
Judy took a small step back subconsciously. Hearing that Eric just wanted his wallet, he couldn't help giving him a blank look: "You actually want my wallet, but you are Eric Williams."
Even so, Judy took out the wallet from her handbag and handed it to Eric.
Eric opened Judy's wallet, took out a one-dollar bill from it, and handed it to the little assistant behind Judy who was trying to pretend that he was not a light bulb: "Hey, go out and buy candy, don't stay here with me anymore with us."
Seeing his little assistant's head being sent out by Eric in a daze, Judy finally came to his senses, couldn't help but rolled his eyes at Eric fiercely, grabbed his wallet, and said, "You bastard! , I thought what were you going to do."
Eric walked to the coffee machine to make coffee for the two of them, and said with a smile, "Yeah, I'm absolutely sure what you think I'm going to do, so I asked your assistant to follow me in, right?"
Judy didn't answer Eric's words, but couldn't help but blushed slightly. Seeing that Eric was busy with his back to her, she relaxed a little, and tried to keep herself calm and walked to the sofa in the reception area of the office to sit down , lazily looking downstairs through the glass window behind the sofa, the view here is very good, you can see the studio area in front and the smart commercial LOFT in the digital field, think about it carefully, the view from his residence seems to be very good , especially the Shell Villa in the Sharp Point Manor, so I suddenly had some ideas of wanting to see it.
However, just as his thoughts were wandering, Judy heard a faint voice beside him: "It's great now, the two of us can finally be alone together."
Judy inexplicably felt that this sentence was very weird from the tone to the content, and even couldn't help but shuddered a little. Turning around and seeing Eric standing by the coffee table with a smirk on his face, he realized that Seeing that he was being tricked, he finally couldn't help it, raised his foot and kicked Eric's calf lightly.
Eric put the coffee on the coffee table with a smile, grabbed the woman's ankle nimbly, sat down on the sofa, put the woman's legs on his knees, and took off a black high-heeled shoe from her foot, He smiled and said, "You actually wore high heels today, did you wear them on purpose for me to see?"
The two calves were embraced by Eric, and Judy leaned slightly on the sofa, feeling a little weak from top to bottom. Hearing the man's words, he rolled his eyes lightly: "Eric, I suddenly realized that It turns out that you are such an arrogant guy."
"No, there's something wrong with your description. A man's self-confidence far exceeds his personal ability, and that's called arrogance. I think I've always been a very humble person."
Eric said, and took off Judy's other high-heeled shoes. Although the woman wore high-heeled shoes, it was still a pair of men's jeans. go in.
Feeling that the calf was directly grabbed by the man, Judy's body became more limp, and she didn't have the strength to break free at all. Perhaps she didn't have the thought of breaking free in her heart. She fumbled and grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest, a little 'abandoned herself' ’ He let the man do what he did, and whispered pretending to be dissatisfied: "Eric, you bastard."
"Don't, praise me later, I don't feel it now."
"Pooh!"
Opening her eyes in a daze, she found that the light in the room was a bit dim. Thinking of what happened in the afternoon, Judy secretly regretted it, it was really ridiculous, and besides, she let that little man get away with it so easily.
Moreover, the bedroom is next to the office. Hmph, this bad guy must have done bad things on weekdays.
Thinking that other women may have been lying on the bed below her, Judy still felt very uncomfortable even though she was not a clean freak.
So she curled up in the bed and turned around, and stretched out her small hands to grope around, and found that there was no one on the other side of the big bed, and even the bed sheets didn't have any residual warmth, which meant that the guy must have left long ago. I was left here alone, and I couldn't help but have some small grievances.
What is the situation now, maybe, I should stay away from that guy in the future, at least, at least, I must not let him always succeed so easily.
Thinking so chaotically in her heart, the bedroom door was pushed open, and Judy stiffened, but she did not pretend to be asleep. The light in the bedroom was turned on, and Judy turned around, leaning on the pillow with bright eyes and looking sideways at The man who walked in had a simple white shirt, straight trousers, and a sharp face.
Realizing that her feeling for the man in front of her was becoming more and more obvious, Judy suddenly felt a little panicked.
What's wrong with me
Eric came to the bed, noticed the woman's twinkling eyes, helped her brush off the long hair covering her cheeks, and said with a smile: "What's wrong?"
"No," Judy shook her head and said, "Now, what time is it?"
"It's six o'clock, and I've reserved a table at a restaurant in Venice Beach, and we're going to have dinner together."
Judy was a little hesitant: "Next door, isn't there a restaurant on the ship, if you eat outside, will people find out?"
"You can't eat on the boat all the time," Eric said with a smile: "Besides, it's okay to be discovered, everyone must think I'm your good buddy... Ah, take it easy, it hurts."
Begging for mercy to avoid the woman's little hand pinching his waist, Eric reached out and rubbed it, and said, "Okay, do you want me to help you get dressed?"
Judy shook her head immediately: "You go out first!"
Eric didn't force it, got up and walked out, saying: "You can take another shower, I'll wait for you outside."
Judy watched the bedroom door being closed, and was dazed for a while before getting up and getting dressed.