Meiyu: I don’t care about the cost when making movies

Chapter 119 Two Choices
Sitting on the comfortable leather seat, Wayne closed his eyes and called out the system interface.

After silently calculating in his mind for a moment, and confirming that there would be no break in the financial chain, Wayne closed the system panel again, and then thought about the director of "Mean Girls".

In fact, the situation is the same as that of "Taken", even more serious.

Tina Fey, the screenwriter of the original "Mean Girls", is now the chief writer of the famous comedy variety show "Saturday Night Live" and is relatively well-known.

When Mike contacted her and asked her to write a script, Tina Fey immediately agreed upon hearing that the remuneration was a full $40.

Given the opportunity to go a step further, enter Hollywood, and get such a high salary, she would be a fool to refuse.

The $20 currently spent on the "Mean Girls" project is her upfront remuneration.

But it’s not easy to find directors. The director of the original “Mean Girls”, Mark S. Waters, is still just a newcomer. Apart from a self-written and directed ultra-low-budget movie “House of Yes”, There is not even a work in the true sense yet.

Such a person is not a genius like James Wan or Nolan. How dare he use it? He can only hire someone else.

However, there are many directors in Hollywood who can make comedies, more than ten times more than directors who can make action films, and there may not be many good ones.Well-known comedy directors are even rarer than well-known action film directors.

The only famous ones at this time point are Joe Roth, who directed "The Devil's Boot Camp" and will soon direct "American Honey", the Weitz brothers, the directors of "Ugly Country", the "Austin Powers" series and "Austin Powers". Jay Roach, the director of "Meet the Father-in-Law" and seven or eight others.

It's just that Jay Roach, like Joe Silver, insists on asking for a high share of the box office.

Others, such as Joe Roth and the Weitz brothers, either already have projects being filmed, or they will start filming immediately after receiving other projects. None of them have schedules, which is very helpless.

But to be honest, Wayne wouldn't feel at ease even if he came to them.

Because "Mean Girls" is not an ordinary campus comedy, but a campus comedy with five girls as the main perspective.

In the past, these well-known comedy directors made basically all comedies with a male perspective. Not to mention, the protagonist's character was basically either a coward or a bitch.Even if they did take "Mean Girls", the film might not be able to meet his requirements.

In desperation, he could only continue to expand the screening scope, and after delineating a few more candidates, he left it to Mike to contact their agent to confirm the schedule, but the result has not been decided yet.

On the other hand, the original director of "The Notebook", Nick Cassavetes, is not only well-known now, but his schedule is also just right.

It's just that the original author of "The Notebook", Nicholas Sparks, the "King of Pure Love Novels" and "Tear Jerker" in the American novel world, asked for too high a price.

A film and television adaptation rights actually directly asked for 500 million plus 5% of the box office share. If there is no box office share, it will be 1000 million US dollars.

This made Wayne's blood pressure rise immediately.

Are you kidding? "The Notebook" is not like "The Bourne Supremacy" and "A Song of Ice and Fire" that can be adapted into a series of movies or TV series, so we can only make one, okay?

Moreover, although this movie in the previous life had a high reputation, the box office was only 1.18 million. A film and television adaptation rights cost 1000 million. Who can bear it?
But when he thought about the announced production cost of US$2900 million in the previous life of "The Notebook", he knew that Nicholas Sparks probably didn't reduce the price much in the end.

Otherwise, how could a small-budget romance film shot by a group of second- and third-tier actors and directors cost such a high production budget, which is about seven or eight million yuan at most.

Fortunately, the final box office of this movie reached 1.18 million U.S. dollars. Even after deducting the publicity and distribution expenses, the producer was able to make a small profit from the box office.In addition, the sales of romance films with good reputations in the disc market are usually not bad, so the producers can still make a lot of money.

Thinking of this, he finally agreed to Nicholas Sparks' offer.

It's just that he has no money now, so he can only let Serra support the other party through bargaining.

"Jingle bell—"

Wayne's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ringing of his cell phone.

Wayne picked up the phone and looked at Mike before answering the phone.

"Hey, Wayne, there's good news!" Before Wayne could say anything, Mike on the other end of the phone said eagerly.

Judging from his increasingly hoarse voice, he probably made a lot of phone calls about Wayne during this period.

"I have received responses from the agents of Alexander Payne and Nancy Meyers. Both of them have schedules, so who are you going to choose?" Mike asked.

Alexander Payne and Nancy Meyers were two of the directors he selected after expanding his screening.

Among them, Alexander Payne has only made his debut four years ago, but he is already well-known. Not only is he a good director, he is also a very good screenwriter.

In his previous life, Alexander Payne won two Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, two American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards for Best Screenplay, and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.

At present, he can almost be regarded as a second-tier director and first-tier screenwriter.

It's just that he's not particularly good at comedies, and the movies he makes tend to focus too much on artistry and not enough commerciality, so he didn't make it into the first round of screening.

It is worth mentioning that Alexander Payne's wife is the Korean actress Sandra Oh, who is well-known in Hollywood, but is extremely ugly in the eyes of most Asians.

Sandra Oh was able to obtain so many resources basically because of the help of Alexander Payne.

Although Nancy Meyers may be slightly inferior to Alexander Payne in terms of screenwriting skills, her directing skills are more than one step ahead of Alexander Payne.

For example, "Eavesdropping on Women's Hearts", which ranked fourth at the global box office this year with US$3.74 million, is a work for which she served as producer and director.

At the same time, her next work, "Love Is Compromise", which was released in 03 and is also a producer, director, and screenwriter, also achieved a global box office of US$2.65 million, a hit both at the box office and in word-of-mouth.

Even Wayne had an idea for this movie.

It's just that she is better at filming emotional scenes between men and women, but I don't know about the emotional scenes between girls.

(End of this chapter)