Made in Hollywood

The Internet Big Bang era is approaching. Duke is very clear that those things in the past will be dug up quickly, and now there is no need to avoid it. He grabbed the beer can, drank a few mouthfuls with his head up, and put down the beer can. Tally Portman had handed a piece of roasted corn to him, and her bright brown eyes were full of curiosity, exactly what a gossip girl of this age should have.

After taking a bite of roasted corn, Duke recalled briefly, and slowly said, "It was in the tenth grade. I just transferred from a boarding school to Santa Monica Mountain Middle School because I have been practicing rugby. Successfully passed the assessment and entered the school football team."

"I've read it in the gossip newspaper." Natalie blinked and said, "They said you were the quarterback of the school football team in high school and college."

"I entered the football team and met a very beautiful girl. She was a member of the cheerleading team." Duke shrugged and gestured. "Blond, long legs, beautiful and sexy, I have been pursuing her. , But like most people, she was biased against transfer students until a game in California..."

"Don't stop." Natalie urged with her hands on her knees, "Go on."

"In that game, the mountain middle school was still five points behind at the last moment, ↗, it must be touchdown." Duke stretched his legs to make himself sit more comfortably, "When the second attack was close to midfield, time was running out. Yes, the three-attack will either come back with a touchdown or lose the game, and then I sent the first 60-yard line in the history of the Valley Middle School!"

"Turning defeat into victory!"

Duke did not take Natalie’s words and continued, “We had a crazy celebration at a party that night. I went from a disgusted transfer student to the most popular person at the party.”

"Did you confess to that blonde girl?"

Hearing Natalie's words, Duke nodded. "Yes, I kissed her at the party and she didn't refuse."

"Anything else?" Natalie was curious.

Duke smiled, "That night, I had a relationship with her in the dressing room of the football team, my first time and her first time."

"Sure enough," Natalie murmured. Then he asked, "Then why did you break up?"

"Do you think she loves me?"

Upon hearing Duke's words, Natalie shook her head directly, "I don't think she loves you, it's just because you have become a man in the school."

At this point, she suddenly understood something, "You can't generalize, not all girls are like this!"

"What about you, Nat?" Duke suddenly raised his head. Staring at her closely, "Why do you know that I have thoughts about you, but you are constantly approaching me?"

"I...I..." Natalie didn't expect Duke to ask that. After hesitating for a while, she said, "I'm just an ordinary girl, neither beautiful. Nor sexy, nor cute. I am I don’t think I can attract you. I think we have many common topics and can be good friends."

"Do you really think so?" Duke turned his head.

"Aren't we good at being friends?"

Even if she is smart enough and precocious, Natalie is still just a sixteen-year-old girl, "We are all Jewish..."

Duke stood up, "Friends need to be trusted."

Finished. He shut up, Natalie was silent, trust is easy to say, how hard is it to build?

Throughout the whole night, she couldn't remember how many truths she had said. I couldn't tell how many of Duke's words were false. The two, like most people in this circle, could not treat each other with sincerity.

"I'm going to New Zealand tomorrow." Duke stood up. "Goodbye, Nat."

"Goodbye, Duke."

With a light sigh, Duke walked forward slowly, getting further and further away from the place illuminated by the bonfire, and finally disappeared completely into the darkness.

Natalie Portman... He shook his head slightly. Since he decided to put everything down as early as his boyhood, why bother?

As she said herself, she is not beautiful, not sexy, and her figure is at best mid-level in Hollywood.

Putting Natalie Portman aside for the time being, Duke went straight back to his room, preparing to leave Fiji early tomorrow morning for New Zealand.

Compared to the huge investments in the next few years, what does Natalie Portman count?

The crew continued to stay in Fiji to revel, Duke and Zach Schneider rushed to New Zealand and Los Angeles separately. Needless to say, Duke was naturally for the preparatory work of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and Zach Schneider escorted the film. Back to Warner Studios, at the same time, I joined Mike Dawson and Industrial Light & Magic's computer special effects team to prepare for the post work of the film.

Headed by art director Hannah Serena, many members of the Duke team have been working in New Zealand with Charles Rowan for more than half a year. Although the various production work of the film has not yet started, but at Duke almost every week Under the circumstances that everyone will come to communicate, the design aspect is preliminary completed.

Since the film shows an illusory world that has never appeared before, everything must be redesigned and manufactured, instead of relying on lease to solve it, clothing, modeling, scenery, props, buildings, carriages, daily necessities, etc., all Everything is brand new, it has never appeared before.

Middle-earth is not that simple to build. It requires a lot of time and effort from the director to all the staff.

The design completed in the past six months was only the first draft. Duke kept communicating with relevant personnel and commenting on various design drafts. After their revisions were completed, they would be sent to Los Angeles as soon as possible and handed over to him for review.

Fortunately, most of the people here are long-term partners, and it is easier to understand Duke's ideas.

For example, the design of Hobbiton was fully recognized by Duke, and Charles Rowan also found a suitable outsourcing company, and then contracted out the project, choosing to build a Habitat that is conducive to shooting at the right time. Bitun.

There are also location locations. During the short time he stayed here, Duke went to several places newly provided by Charles and found a suitable location for shooting.

The other is the preparations of the Weta Studio. They have designed various versions of the Orcs and Strong Orcs. Although Duke rejected a lot of them, some of them have been approved by him, as well as motion capture. With the improvement and experimentation of technology, Weta Studio has also made a lot of progress. It is not a problem at all for shooting in the studio.

After staying in New Zealand for a week, Duke took a flight back to Los Angeles, where there is also a lot of work waiting for him.

The first thing is that the negotiations between Tina Fei and Warner Bros. have had preliminary results. After several consultations in a week, the two sides basically reached an agreement. Warner Bros. exchanged its own equivalent shares for 30% of Duke's hands. The shares of Duke Studio became the second largest shareholder of Duke Studio outside of Duke.

After multiple reviews by lawyers and accountants, Duke and Warner Bros. signed this exchange agreement very low-key.

With the completion of the redemption, the Duke Studio is no longer completely empty shell in Duke's hands. Duke has become Warner Bros. with a share of 7.5% by virtue of the continuous increase of shares and the shares acquired by the redemption. Is the largest individual shareholder and serves as one of the board members of Warner Bros.

Of course, Duke does not have time to perform this role, and only appoints a representative most of the time.

After the large-amount redemption is completed, the interests of the two parties can be said to be more closely tied together. The profit and loss of Warner Bros. and the Duke Studio will directly affect the income of both parties.

In this way, Warner Bros. is bound to participate in the investment of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Although this is not very consistent with Duke's original intention, it can also reduce his financial pressure. After all, he has put out a huge amount of more than 300 million US dollars. Making a trilogy at once, even though he has made a lot of money in recent years, he still feels tight.

The interests of the two parties are closely tied together, and much of the remaining cooperation appears to be natural.

Three days later, the Harpy Potter Studio was formally established at Warner Studios. The Duke Studio and Warner Bros. each accounted for 40% and 60% of the shares. However, after the shares were exchanged for the shares, the actual shares were The calculation becomes more complicated.

The promotion of the Harry Potter series has also been officially put on the agenda. There is no need for Duke to participate too much in this respect. The professionals of Warner Bros. are more experienced and more suitable than him. All he needs to do is to cooperate. Warner's plan is to use his role as a super director to set the stage for the Harry Potter series when needed.

The great director itself is an asset, otherwise the Duke’s studio deserves such attention from Warner Bros.

Duke also understood that he and Warner Bros. became a community of interests, and his eyes naturally turned to some of the copyrighted works of Warner Bros., but these are not in a hurry. After all, there is a long "Lord of the Rings" trilogy waiting. he.

Of course, before "The Lord of the Rings", "The Matrix" cannot be ignored. Zach Schneider, Mike Dawson and the special effects staff of Industrial Light and Magic have already waited for him at the Duke's studio. This series will soon be transferred to more Important post-production.

Since the film will use a lot of computer special effects, and the special effects are extremely time-consuming, Duke deliberately prepared nearly half a year of post-production time for the film. In this regard, there is actually no room for speculation, otherwise the only way to wait for the film is failure.

It was only now that Duke realized that he was busier than before.

The post-production of "The Matrix" has just begun, and Thanksgiving is approaching, and the weekend before Thanksgiving, a film that created the highest investment in history will be launched in the North American market across the board-Duke accounts for a quarter of the investment quota "Titanic" is about to be released! (To be continued...)

ps: Ask for various tickets~~today's three shifts~