Made in Hollywood

The bright sun was shining in the garden. Sitting at the small table under the palm tree, Tom Hanks closed the script in his hand and set his eyes on Eno Martin, who was opposite him, although according to CAA regulations, the other party was only his. One of the co-management agents, but in Hanks' mind, only Eno Martin can be called his agent.

Ino, what do you think of this audition invitation?

There is conflict and friction between Duke Rosenberg and CAA, which is no secret in Hollywood circles.

Worried I have an idea? Eno Martin laughed, Tom, I have never met Duke Rosenberg, nor had any indirect contact, let alone a conflict of interest, and there is no conflict between me and him. , it is not the entire CAA that is at odds with Duke Rosenberg, but the interest groups represented by Martin Bob.

In fact, Tom Hanks also knows that, like all big companies, CAA is far from monolithic, especially the competition caused by the departure of Michael Ovitz, which has intensified the contradictions within the company. ? Martin is Martin? Bob's biggest competitor, but now they can only watch the other party in charge of the power of CAA.

Tom, a successful director needs a good actor, and a good actor needs a successful director. Eno Martin didn't seem to object, Now that you have academic performance awards, there's no harm in leaning toward business. Duke Rosenberg has proven that he is one of the best commercial directors in Hollywood, and working with him is more likely to be successful.

Martin Bob won't make things difficult for you?

After all, the two have worked together for many years and have friendship with each other. Tom Hanks is still a little worried. He once hinted that he should try not to cooperate with Duke Rosenberg.

Tom, these are not problems for you and me. Eno Martin shook his head gently, You are the Oscar winner, the latest North American box office has exceeded 300 million US dollars, CAA is just a service tool for you. Don't forget, there are a lot of people who support Martin Bob, but there are also a lot of people who support me within CAA.

Tom Hanks thought for a while, Accept this audition invitation. Ino, I want you to help me get a big contract, 1+2 or 2+1!

As a professional, Eno Martin naturally understood what Hanks meant, nodded, got up and left.

Whether it's a $10 million base salary plus a 20 percent revenue share, or a $20 million salary plus a 10 percent revenue share, Hollywood is a super contract.

The news that Tom Hanks accepted the audition invitation spread to Ireland as soon as possible. Although he was a little surprised that Tom Hanks agreed so easily, after thinking about the other party's status in Hollywood, Duke generally understood that for Hank For a star like St. Andrews, it is impossible for CAA to control everything about him like the information he saw on the Internet.

It can be said that the CAA information he has seen on the Internet is not reliable at all. According to those descriptions, CAA is simply the behind-the-scenes controller of Hollywood, who can easily manipulate people such as Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Stevie. The future and destiny of people like Wen Spielberg, just throwing out a project, they will bring their own mental retardation, and they can kill the six major Hollywood companies in minutes.

Actually?

Anyone with a clear mind will understand that this is impossible at all, otherwise Michael Ovitz, who is known as the emperor of CAA, would not have thrown away the business he had worked so hard to create, and tried his best to get into Walt Disney. .

It was passed to Duke's ears together with the intentional pay that Tom Hanks' agent called out, a 2+1 super contract.

Generally speaking, Duke did not participate in the investment. No matter how high Tom Hanks' salary was, it would not affect his interests, but the troubles of the producers.

However, the film's production budget was only $80 million. Hanks' $20 million salary plus Duke's own $10 million base salary were all included in the production cost, as well as other cast and crew costs. and expenses, how much film budget can you give him as a director in the end?

You must know that it is very, very troublesome that the production cost is not enough to increase the budget. Is it possible that the film crew will have no money in the future and ask him, the director, to cut the remuneration and pay for it out of his own pocket?

Hollywood has a famous saying about directors—never use your own money to make a directed movie—and while it doesn’t apply to someone as peculiar as Duke, it fits the current situation.

Not to mention how the co-producer reacted, Duke would definitely not agree to the contract of intent that Tom Hanks called out.

It's one thing to invite Tom Hanks to audition, and it's another thing entirely to have an indirect conflict of interest with him.

Fortunately, this is only an intentional contract, and the two sides still have room for negotiation. The specific negotiations will have to wait for Tom Hanks' audition. If the other party refuses to make concessions, Duke can only say sorry.

You propose to invite Tom Hanks to audition.

Standing in the open space on the set, Sofia Coppola's monotone nasal voice was full of sarcasm, but she is worried that the other party's high salary will squeeze your shooting expenses. Duke, are you staying with Scarlett? The time together is too long, and the IQ is deteriorating?

I thought Hanks' agent would call for a low-paying, high-divided contract. Duke got used to Sophia's tone and shook his head, Then it would be Warner Bros., Walt Disney, and Twentieth Century that would be the ones that would be the headache. Fox has nothing to do with us.

You continue to have a headache. Sophia turned away, I still have work to do.

Professionals such as Sofia Coppola are responsible for the detailed preparatory work. Duke is more concerned with coordinating the overall situation. The crew has been in Dublin for a few days and chose a large studio in the suburbs as the shooting location.

It is said to be a studio here. In fact, except for a few slightly dilapidated studios, most of them are wasteland. After all, Ireland is not a regular location for Hollywood’s location shooting, and very few crews come here to shoot.

However, this used to be empty and uninhabited studio is now extremely busy, not only the occupancy of the Saving Private Ryan crew, but also a Hollywood crew, which also chose the main shooting location here.

On the first day Duke came to the set, he figured out the composition of the crew. I don't know if it was lucky or unfortunate. The other party was a project packaged by CAA for Paramount Pictures - Mel Gibson's Brave Heart!

I heard that there is also his old acquaintance Sean Connery in the crew...

But looking back, Duke is not surprised. He has some memory of this famous film. It seems that most of the scenes were shot in Ireland. If you count the time, Braveheart should at least make preliminary preparations.

It should be that he came in a hurry with a large group of people, and bumped into the Braveheart crew who had been here long ago.

Of course, Duke has no plans to change the filming location. Changing the location will inevitably result in a lot of expenses, and he has no reason or need to avoid CAA's packaging project. In the previous two competitions, he was the winner.

If you want to hide, it should be the other party hiding from him!

This is just Duke's idea. Braveheart will definitely not change the location. After all, many medieval scenes have been built not far from here.

The shooting venues of the two sides are separated by a certain distance. As long as they do not intend to deliberately provoke conflicts, the possibility of conflict is extremely small.

Besides, Saving Private Ryan had an extremely tight schedule, and Duke didn't have the luxury of dealing with the CAA folks.

Standing here and watching for a while, the set designer Hannah Serena is leading people to step on the set not far away, preparing to use a drainage channel that passes through the set to set up a town destroyed by the war. Such a set workload Great, they are at the priority level of preparatory work.

According to Serena's plan, when the film started, it was difficult to complete the small town used to film the ending battle, and the filming had to be relatively back.

The set team had a lot of work to do besides this. After Duke showed a few beaches on the west coast of Ireland, they had to make one of them as similar to Omaha Beach as possible, so that the crew could shoot the film. Start the landing battle.

In the following days, actors from the United States and the United Kingdom arrived on the set one after another to participate in the first audition of the crew. Duke did not participate in the first audition, and the small roles were completely handed over to the casting director. There are still two auditions to attend, and it will be a few days before Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, whom he named by name, arrive.

In addition to coordinating the preparatory work for the review, Duke also hung up the phone with Lieutenant Colonel Renho of the Pentagon, hoping to get the support of the Marine Corps. There have been two pleasant cooperation between the two sides, and the crew will pay due remuneration. , The Pentagon quickly agreed, not only will it send active-duty officers to train actors, but also send several amphibious combat experts to guide the crew to shoot the beach landing battle.

This is not a sci-fi film or other types of military action films, but a war film with a distinctly realistic nature, and the participation of the military is very necessary.

This is also an important reason why Duke chose to shoot in Ireland. The Irish government promised to send about 800 soldiers to participate in the filming.

The tax incentives and other policies proposed by the Irish government are not as attractive to Duke. The main actors can reflect the military temperament through a certain period of military training, but such a number of extras cannot. The cost, and the sheer number of blasting scenes at the time, may cause some extras to cause a series of problems due to stage fright.

Using professional soldiers as extras is actually the best choice.

People who went to look for Tiger tanks also came to Ireland, but did not find a suitable Tiger tank. Some of the few surviving ones are treasures of military museums. It is too difficult to borrow them.

According to Duke, the executive producer went directly to Russia and bought three old Soviet T34 tanks at extremely low prices from the bureaucrats who wanted to sell the entire country.