When Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks both cut off most of their salaries, Spielberg suddenly thought of a Chinese movie star - Jet Li.
Jet Li was originally one of the most expensive movie stars in Hong Kong movies and an absolute box office guarantee. However, when he came to Hollywood to develop, he failed several auditions. Finally, the director of "Lethal Weapon 4" Richard Donner found him. I would like to invite him to play one of the villain roles.
At first, Richard Donner offered a salary of US$1 million, which was far lower than Jet Li's net worth in Asia. However, Jet Li readily agreed in order to break through the barriers between Hong Kong movies and Hollywood movies.
But Richard Donner later went back on his word and changed his offer to US$700,000. Li Lianjie still agreed, but instead of accepting the offer, Richard Donner went even further and made a final offer of US$500,000. When everyone thought that Richard Donner was extremely excessive and that Jet Li would definitely not agree to him, Jet Li still agreed.
In the end, Jet Li participated in this movie with a net worth of US$500,000. The US$500,000 even included a considerable part of his legal fees in the United States. This was a huge difference from his salary in Hong Kong, but Jet Li It is not about how much money a movie makes, but to truly break the barriers of Hollywood. He sacrificed a considerable part of his salary, but his goal was also achieved through this act of sacrificing his salary.
In the past, Richard Donner's shameless behavior comparable to that of Harvey Weinstein was despised throughout Hollywood, but this also reflected from one side the difficulties and obstacles for non-Hollywood actors to enter the Hollywood circle. .
However, Spielberg did not expect that this situation would soon change.
Even though Hollywood has not yet seen a large amount of capital from China, it has to be said that Hollywood's top-tier actors are already willing to lower their salaries in order to develop and break through higher-level barriers, like Jet Li.
It seems that Li Mu has become the top boss that the entire Hollywood is chasing after. In front of Li Mu, the entire Hollywood has become the bottom.
The gap between these two levels is so huge that these two Hollywood top-tier actors want to open up this relationship at all costs. If Li Mu is given a little more time, Li Mu may turn the entire Hollywood into his own future. garden…
Since Hollywood itself is the playground of world capital, Spielberg did not regard Li Mu as an intruder in Hollywood. Instead, in his heart, Li Mu became his biggest opportunity.
Before Li Mu appeared, the major Hollywood companies and the major capital behind the scenes had already heated up the competition. At this time, no matter who wanted to snatch any piece of cake from the competitors, they would be attacked by countless people. Shuffling the cards is even more difficult.
But in this case, there is only one possibility to shuffle the cards: powerful external intervention!
Li Mu is currently the most powerful external force in Hollywood!
Spielberg is well aware of Li Mu's influence. If nothing else, as long as he joins forces with Makino Imaging to promote the Mu Film Ticketing System to the entire North America, Hollywood's theater channels will be overtaken by the Mu Film Ticketing System. With firm control, if Li Mu combines the influence of YY, it will be a big killer in the film market. What's more, Li Mu not only has resources, but also money!
What is Hollywood doing? Isn’t it just money and resources? Li Mu currently has a net worth of tens of billions of dollars, not counting the market value of Taobao, Alipay and Taobao Logistics. Spielberg firmly believes that Li Mu will become the world's richest man in a few years. In front of the world's richest man, Not only will Hollywood not resist, but he will take the initiative to take off all his clothes and climb into the other person’s bed!
…
Li Mu only learned the exciting news from Spielberg the next day.
What excites him the most is not that these two people cut their own salaries and saved themselves at least 30 million US dollars in budget, but that these two actors he likes very much decided to participate in "Flying Tigers"!
At Li Mu's stage, tens of millions of dollars are really nothing. Even if these two people quote him directly according to the market price, as long as they are willing to act, he will not be stingy with funds. What he is most worried about is what happens if these two people Anyone is unwilling to appear or there is a schedule conflict.
Because in Li Mu's mind, he could not find any actor more suitable for the two roles in "Flying Tigers" than these two people.
Li Mu has watched all the movies played by Tom Hanks. What he admires the most about this old man is that he does whatever he plays. It is not inappropriate to say that he is the best actor in the United States, such as "Captain Sully" The prototype of the movie, Captain Sullenberger, who created the Miracle on the Hudson River, named Tom Hanks to play him, and Li Mu had also seen that movie, and it felt like he had just watched it. Like a documentary.
Apart from him, Li Mu really couldn't find another suitable candidate. At first glance, it seemed that the image and temperament of bald Bruce Willis matched well with Chennault, but deep down Li Mu always felt that Bruce Willis, the Uncle, he is not suitable for playing roles that are too deep. He is suitable for acting in action movies and purely commercial movies. Compared with Tom Hanks, a double Oscar winner, his acting skills are not in the same dimension at all.
Moreover, as the third male lead, that is, the role of a young American pilot, there is indeed no one more suitable than Leonardo. At the moment, Leonardo’s looks are not yet off the line, and he is born with the temperament of a rebellious youth. It has been vividly demonstrated in "Cat and Mouse". When he comes to play this role, he not only has the perfect temperament and passable acting skills, but also has online looks. He is definitely the best candidate, bar none.
Now, the two best actors in Li Mu's mind are already in place.
Not only the two of them, but also Anne Hathaway has already been cast, and a total of three of the five key starring roles have been confirmed.
In the script of "Flying Tigers", there are two starring roles with many roles, one is the role of a Chinese ace pilot, and the other is the role of a local rural girl in Southwest China. As for the latter, Li Mu is very inclined to continue to let Du Wei play this role. It's not that he cares about Du Wei in his heart, but Du Wei's acting skills are indeed very good, much better than those sent by the academy.
Many academic actors' acting skills are so poor that it's difficult to watch them directly, but many non-academic actors are able to perform without showing any trace of their acting skills. Moreover, she not only has good looks, but also has a tender and tender temperament. It's really suitable to play the most beautiful village girl or something.
And Li Mu can be sure that Du Wei will never refuse his invitation. As a result, four of the five key starring actors have been confirmed.
As for the role of China's ace pilot, Li Mu suddenly fell into a dilemma.
Although Zhang Kexuan's acting skills are passable, they are just passable. He is OK for acting in idol dramas, but he cannot handle such a big production at all.
In fact, there are many good actors in China, but all Li Mu can think of are older ones, such as Li Xuejian, Bao Guoan, Tang Guoqiang, Chen Daoming, Ge You, Fan Wei, etc., but they are all too old. , if there is demand for other older roles in the play, these veteran actors can be invited in, but for such an important role as the second male lead, forget it.
Li Mu searched for actors in China who were under thirty years old and had good acting skills. After thinking for a long time, he couldn't think of a suitable one.
This is not to blame Li Mu. In this era, domestic films are already in decline. The few films that do well are almost all supported by a group of veteran actors. There are not many young actors who are really outstanding and have good acting skills. Not much more.
Li Mu also knows very well that if he wants to find the most suitable actor for this role, he should look for it from the Hong Kong film industry, because among the younger generation of actors, the current acting skills and professionalism of young actors in Hong Kong are indeed much higher than those in China. Even if I bring over Mr. Guan Xi, both his acting skills and appearance can be held up.
However, Li Mu really doesn’t want to use Hong Kong actors in such a movie. It’s not that he has any discrimination or differential treatment against Hong Kong actors. It’s just that he feels that for such an international movie, the language variety must be controlled to At least, since it is a story about Chinese and Americans fighting side by side, the core languages can only be Mandarin and English. The Japanese invaders use a small amount and just enough Japanese. This is the best result.
Therefore, all Chinese actors must be mainland actors who speak standard Mandarin, because truly good movies cannot be recorded in post-production and must be recorded strictly at the same time.
Moreover, Li Mu has an indescribable obsession in his heart. For a movie that depicts the Chinese people's arduous war of resistance, he subconsciously hopes that all Chinese actors will be mainland actors. Only in this way will it be more pure.
However, this generation of young Chinese actors really didn't live up to expectations. Li Mu racked his brains and couldn't think of a few who really had acting skills.
Huang Bo's acting skills are good, but his appearance is a bit apologetic. If he were to play this role, the audience would definitely think that the beautiful American nurse played by Anne Hathaway must be a blind bitch;
Deng Chao's acting skills are acceptable, but in his previous life, Li Mu saw him act in too many bad movies, and he was overly entertained, so he was really unwilling to give him such an important role;
Who should be used
Li Mu thought hard to no avail, but soon he decided to put the problem aside and asked Wang Yuanlang to go to the hotel to bring Spielberg to his home, ready to talk to him about the formation of the team and the launch of the film. Four of the five core actors are already in place, and it’s time to officially start!
As for who will play the second male lead, Li Mu suddenly thought of a solution - after the production team, main lineup, investment scale, and story outline of "Flying Tigers" are announced, it will definitely be popular all over the world, especially It has brought great repercussions in China and the United States, and the people who have the greatest repercussions must be the Chinese people. When the time comes, we will take advantage of the big news of "Flying Tigers" to conduct a nationwide casting!
(End of chapter)