Dominating Hollywood: Starting with Scarlett

Chapter 284 Director selection

Tang De is now looking through information in preparation for selecting the next film director.

The next superhero movie will be about David, a World War II soldier in the Superhero Universe.

The main tone of this film is slightly heavy and serious, and it also reflects on the Cold War era.

It's not an easy movie to make.

Within the company, Greta is more focused on women's themes. She is good at incorporating women's equality awareness into movies and character creation, and war themes are not suitable for her.

Not to mention James Wan, he is not good at this kind of black film with calm self-mockery, but focuses more on creating suspense and reversal of the story.

To put it bluntly, Tang De needs to find a director with a unique artistic style who can make a simple thing sound complex and profound.

If he hadn't been in charge of shooting a more difficult black hero movie, he would really like to try this type of movie.

Fortunately, he quickly thought of "Watchmen", which has the same temperament.

Zack Snyder, this director and this movie seem to complement each other very well.

Tang De contacted the director directly and met him a few days later.

I have to say that Zack Snyder is one of the more handsome directors in Hollywood. Even if he were to become an actor, there would be no sense of incongruity at all.

Of course, there is still some gap compared to Tang De.

He also seemed a little surprised when he saw Tang De: "Tang, I didn't expect you to want me to direct a new movie."

"That's right. How about it, are you interested?" Norton's Eye is very attractive to directors in the industry.

Because everyone knows that the founder of this company is a famous Hollywood director, and Norton's Eye is also famous for not restricting the director's creative freedom.

James Wan and Greta, two originally unknown minor actors, became big directors with box office revenue of over 1 billion in just a few years at this company. It is simply astonishing.

Many people doubt whether there is a training mechanism within the company, or whether Tang De has some unique skills to train these two people.

However, because they have never worked at Norton's Eye, these rumors are limited to circulation.

In fact, Tang De has never stopped supporting new directors in recent years.

He knew very well that good directors were the guarantee for film companies to keep up with the trend of the times, so he set up a foundation to help young directors shoot their first commercial work in their lives.

For this reason, he specifically asked Carl to be in charge of this matter to avoid any mistakes.

Zack Snyder had also heard these rumors, so he had always had a good impression of the Eye of Norton. Now that he had met Tang De in person, he felt that he was valued.

"Dark style, calm and self-deprecating... It reminds me of Watchmen, but aren't you afraid that I will lose money by shooting this way?" After talking about the style of the movie, Zack Snyder suddenly asked the doubts in his heart.

Although "Watchmen" is considered a masterpiece and a milestone in superhero themes, it also lost a lot of money.

With a production cost of 1.3 million US dollars, the final global box office was 1.8 million, which can be said to have almost wiped out the money of Warner, Paramount, and Legendary Pictures.

Although there are editing issues here, it is undeniable that the audience has maintained a very calm attitude towards this dark style of movie, and would rather buy the disc than go to the cinema to watch it.

After hearing this, Tang De smiled and said, "Of course I am afraid, so I deliberately chose a very interesting era."

"He will inherit two eras, the World War II era and the Cold War era. The audience needs hot action scenes, so the big scenes of the World War II era can satisfy them. If they need calm and self-deprecating reflection, then the Cold War era can satisfy them."

Tang De explained his conception to Zack Snyder: "Of course, I will not interfere with your creation. The only request I have for you is that the scale can be a little bigger, especially the war scenes. Don't make it small." Zack Snyder nodded: "I will consider it, so when will this movie be shot?"

"You can start after you finish the one you are working on."

Zack Snyder is currently in charge of the filming of "Man of Steel", which successfully washed away the previous shame of loss at the box office and became the peak of the Superman series of movies. It also allowed Zack Snyder to receive the subsequent "Justice League" movie directing.

"Okay, let me think about it. Actually, I've been a bit busy lately."

Zack Snyder is not a very prolific director, and he is very cautious about accepting movies.

However, he was indeed very interested in the story proposed by Tang De.

He likes to explore the ideas and motivations behind superhero characters, and with the Cold War theme, he feels that his creative desire is constantly gushing out of his mind.

So it didn't take long for Don De to receive confirmation from Zack Snyder.

Now that he has found a suitable director, the next thing Tang De has to do is very simple, just provide a budget.

After careful calculation by the producers, the budget for this film was given as $100 million.

To make a profit, the global box office must reach at least 300 million US dollars.

As long as Zack Snyder doesn't suddenly get sick and turn the movie into garbage, the pressure to make a profit is actually not that great.

Because the audience's demand for superhero movies is really huge now, theaters have entered the era of superhero blockbusters.

This trend did not gradually subside until ten years later.

After finishing this matter, Tang De also established a new project, which is the personal movie of the first black hero, Virus.

As previously agreed, Will Smith will play the role.

Although he had to undergo intensive weight loss training for this, Tang De didn't want to use special effects because of his condition after being imprisoned.

This is also Will Smith's own idea. Although this is a superhero movie, the performance cannot be superficial.

The budget of this movie is higher than that of Zack Snyder's, at $200 million, which is on the same level as the Lucy sequel.

The board of directors still had doubts about such a film, because movies with black people as the protagonists are not mainstream in the current market, let alone in the superhero genre.

The skins of those heroes can be pieced together into different blocks of white, but there is absolutely no trace of black.

It’s not because there is a lack of such characters in comics, but because of a kind of underlying discrimination and tacit understanding.

The Hollywood upper class, which is controlled by white people, doesn't look down on these black guys. They think that letting them stand on the podium from time to time is a gift from the white masters, so how dare they ask for more?

But it’s not that the black community isn’t resisting. On the contrary, this kind of resistance is happening every day.

It's just that most people turn a blind eye to it.

However, contradictions will never be gradually resolved over time. Instead, they will gradually deepen until a conflict finally breaks out.

The black people's resistance soon emerged.

(End of this chapter)