Made in Hollywood

"After the performance of "Annie Frank's Diary", a special celebration party was held."

Some words are only suitable to be said among Jewish people, especially Duke’s position after the Mel Gibson incident was very clear, so Natalie did not have much scruples when she said, “Many Jewish celebrities living in New York are At the party, I was the Mrs. Leah that I saw at the party. Although she only had a few conversations, her personality charm is very admirable."

"Thank you!" Duke nodded.

When talking on the phone, he also heard his mother mention that a large number of Jewish celebrities from New York attended the closing performance of "Anne Frank's Diary". When the performance ended, the crew had to continue because the atmosphere in the theater was too warm. The curtain call on stage four times lasted for more than 40 minutes.

For this situation, Duke is not surprised at all. Who made this "Anne Frank Diary" whose actual influence is much greater than "Schindler's List", and sometimes Jews can't use ordinary people's thinking. To measure, especially those who have experienced the war years, whether they have delusions of persecution or whether they like to group together, these people can always show great enthusiasm and support for certain people or things. .

Maybe it was her starring in "Annie Ver∏, Ranke Diary", Natalie Portman won the favor of some people.

After all, there are too few actresses like her. There are no fewer people or things around her than other Hollywood actresses, but the mainstream media hardly report negative news about her. If you just say that her public relations team is very strong, it would be too great. Stronger...

When the topic of Duke and Natalie came to an end for a while, George Lucas suddenly asked, "I heard that you are going to adapt Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy?"

"Already in preparation."

As time went by, the news gradually spread among some people with higher status in the industry. Duke did not deny the need, "Many of my team are currently in New Zealand."

Lucas nodded, "No wonder you refused to be the director of Star Wars because you chose a more difficult project."

Duke smiled, but didn't say anything, George Lucas himself publicly admitted. The world structure of Star Wars is largely borrowed from the Lord of the Rings.

Natalie, who was at the same table, was a little surprised. She did not expect that the director sitting next to him would have rejected Star Wars. In her perception, how many directors in this world could reject the position of Star Wars director?

Even she herself pretends to be innocent and cute, and to show her precocity appropriately. She struggled to get Lucas' approval. When she received the invitation from Amirada, she suffered frequent insomnia for a whole week. Not nervous, but excited, because she knew that Padmé Amidala was enough to make her realize a large part of her ambitions and desires, and she would become a female star envied by Hollywood and the world!

She looked at Duke and combined with the reports she had seen in the media in the past, she determined that this is a director with a very determined goal and mind.

After saying a few words about their respective movies, Duke looked at the time. Take the lead and leave the restaurant. There are other work to do in the afternoon.

"I won't interrupt your work." Naomi Watts is also preparing to leave. "Goodbye, Duke. I will come to see you if I have time."

"I'm always welcome."

Watching Naomi Watts get on the battery car and go away, Duke turned and walked into the studio. Penny Kelly, who had just flown here from Los Angeles, and Doug Walter, the head of the distribution department of Warner Bros., were already waiting. In the next office.

The two sides greeted briefly, and Penny Kelly pointed out the window. "The person just now was Naomi Watts?"

"Yes." Duke nodded and sat in the chair opposite her. "She's on vacation, stop by."

"She's in the limelight right now, the topic is..."

"and many more!"

Hear here. Duke directly interrupted the public relations, "Pani, this is not a niche movie, but a summer science fiction movie."

"Duke, I don't mean anything else." Pani Kellys said quite innocently. "That kind of propaganda can only be used once in a while, and if you use it too much, it will have no effect."

"So, that was the first and last time."

Duke knows very well that the propaganda methods similar to those used by him and Catherine Zeta Jones in "Chicago" can only be used once. If you do it a second time, you are asking for trouble yourself, and fools can see that there is a problem.

The most important thing is that he is going to return to the summer vacation, making science fiction action movies, not the niche genre like musicals.

Doug Walter sat next to him and saw that the discussion between Duke and Penny Kelly was temporarily over, and then he said, "Duke, can you tell me the exact time for the completion of the film now?"

Because of the actor's training progress, Duke has not determined the real completion time of the film, which also made Warner Bros.'s publicity work a little behind.

Duke thought about the training situation of Keanu Reeves, combined with the plan made from the most difficult point of view, after thinking for a while, said, "The beginning of April next year will not exceed the end of April at the latest."

"That's just in time for the summer vacation." Doug Walter opened his briefcase, pulled out his work log, and looked at it for a while. "The third weekend of May, judging from the current release lists of major companies, this weekend is still There is no heavyweight film, "The Matrix" will be released on a large scale in North America on May 15. What do you think?"

"You are professionals." Duke didn't have any comments on this. "The specific screening plan is still up to you."

"Then pre-publicity can also begin."

Although Warner Bros. and Duke Studios held a press conference for the project and released a lot of news in conjunction with the audition, there was no large-scale systematic publicity. Now the film’s release date is basically set, and the entire publicity plan can be officially launched.

And Warner was well prepared. Sarah, a female reporter from the Los Angeles Times, followed Doug Walter and Penny Kelly to the Fox Studios.

Faced with Sarah’s reporter microphone, Duke also cooperated in accepting the interview. Since the film is still far away from completion, Duke talked about some brief introductions about the film.

"About this film, I started with an assumption that everything and every part of each person's body is created by the electronic world. What we see, smell, hear... …"

He picked up the coffee cup and took a sip in front of the camera. "Even what I tasted may be fake. It's just a signal forcibly applied to us by some forces that manipulate the world."

"If you find this out." Duke looked at the female reporter and asked, "What would you do?"

"Of course it is to expose the truth to everyone." The female reporter Sarah said very much.

"What if other people don't believe it? They only believe what they see and hear. Even if some people find out, they will choose not to believe it. Change often means pain."

The current Duke has completely become the prophet in The Matrix, and he said with a stern look, "Throughout history, since the birth of human civilization, people have been working tirelessly to find the deep meaning of life, and they have been amazing The discovery. So, in this story, I just want to focus on a small group of people who raised doubts and got shocking answers. I want their discovery to be the beginning of the story, not the end. I am interested It’s how they respond."

Sarah quietly rolled her eyes as she remembered in the notebook. The director on the other side was obviously out of the initial stage of attracting audiences with simple explosions and visual stimulation. After playing with humanistic care and black singing and dancing, she was ready to engage in mysticism. .

But she understood her purpose here, temporarily suppressed these thoughts, and asked, "It is said that all the actors in the film will go through hard training for three to four months?"

"All major actors must have a certain foundation of Kung Fu."

Now is not the future. The topic of kung fu is not very attractive in North America. Duke just mentioned by the way, and then turned to the actors, "This is a difficult problem for the actors. Around the sky, and these actors may still be shooting other films at the same time, how should I tell them? But the final result surprised me, because all the actors are willing to make sacrifices and agree to complete all the hard training. Thank you for your hard work and sacrifice, and be proud of their efforts."

Several other routine questions were asked, and this part of the interview with Duke came to an end.

This is not the first time the two interviewed and accepted interviews. Putting away their work attitude, Sarah casually asked, "When did you believe in mysticism?"

"Believe in mysticism?" Duke shook his head at her, "just borrowed."

Just like kung fu, as long as it is good for the film, he doesn't care where he comes from or where he comes from.

After the assistant cleaned up, Sarah left the office and went to the studio to interview the protagonists. When the office became four people again, Duke suddenly remembered the other side.

"Doug, do you understand the Internet?" he asked.

"Know a little bit." Doug Walter looked at Duke strangely. "Affected by your film, I specially studied computer networks."

"Don't you think our propaganda position can spread to the computer network?" Duke added, "The film is closely related to the computer and the network, and most of the users of the network are teenagers. This person is also the main audience of science fiction films. group."

"Duke, actually..." Doug Walter laughed, "We have teamed up with Yahoo, and we are already formulating related propaganda strategies."

Duke nodded. Although he didn't pay much attention to it, how could media companies fail to see some of the convenience of the Internet?

He turned to the other side, "Pani, is my personal website finished? I think it's time for it to work." (To be continued...)