Made in Hollywood

The three most important roles in the film are the male protagonist Sam, the female protagonist Michaela, and the representative of the US military, Renlock. Duke has long let people release news, and the main characters will use newcomers and attract a large number of dreams. Famous young actors and actresses came to audition.

Just submitting resumes to the crew, the number of actors who wanted to audition for Sam and Mikaela exceeded 250.

All agents who think they can establish relationships with crew members almost jump up and down to find opportunities, even if they can't get Duke's favor, as long as they can participate in auditions, it is a kind of qualifications and even capital to hype themselves.

However, a considerable part of the candidates who passed the first audition for the three roles are from Nancy Josephson's ICM.

Duke doesn't mind this. Nancy is one of the core members of his team. As long as he is within a reasonable range, he is not a man who doesn't know how to adapt.

What's more, the quality of the actors Nancy Josephson sent to the crew to audition is basically the best choice.

It's just that when Duke opened the file bag and opened the audition actor profile, the first photo to appear in front of him was an unusually familiar face, Steven Spielberg's godson-Shia LaBeouf.

"This was introduced by Spielberg."" Tina Fei said timely.

Duke nodded, but in his heart he basically sentenced Shia LaBeouf to death. Unless he could not find a suitable candidate, he would definitely not be used.

People are always close to each other, if he is recommended by George Lucas, Duke will definitely give priority to him.

I looked at the profile of the male protagonists, and there are many familiar names, such as Chris Hemsworth, Andrew Garfield, Robert Pattinson, Chris Pine, and even Duke. Here comes the name of James Franco.

Actors born in the 70s are definitely not in Duke's consideration.

Close the profile of the heroes. Duke put it aside for the time being, and then took the part of the actresses. The requirements of the actresses are actually simpler. On the basis of ensuring the basic acting skills, the appearance should be beautiful and the figure should be hot enough.

After all, this is a popcorn movie for teenagers.

Looked roughly. More than half of the agency companies that the actress remarked behind were icm. Duke nodded when thinking of the names he had seen. Nancy Josephson had a pretty good eye.

Among them, he has many vaguely impressive names, such as Emma Stone, Blake Lively, Emma Roberts, Emma Watson, etc...

However, these people are not very satisfied with Duke. This is mainly due to the appearance. They are still a little bit behind the hot body. On the contrary, they are the two newcomers recommended by imc. In terms of appearance conditions. It seems pretty good.

One of them is called Amber Heard and the other is called Margot Robbie. They are both typical blonde girls.

Although I think these two names are a bit familiar, Duke can't remember what roles they played.

He made a note on the profiles of the two people, and then said to Tina Fei, "Let Anna focus on them in the next audition."

"Where is the actor?" Tina Fei asked.

After taking the actor's information, Duke thought for a while, and marked it under the names of Andrew Garfield and Robert Pattinson. Then I took the last data and looked at it, highlighting a male model named Channing Tatum.

Simply sorted out the information. Duke handed it to Tina Fei, "Give it to Anna. I may go to the Pentagon in a few days. You and her will be responsible for the second audition."

Duke wanted to go to the Pentagon to shoot on-site, but since 9/11, Hollywood hasn't had any crew on-site shooting from the Pentagon. This also requires coordination and communication between the two parties.

Tina Fei was about to leave, Duke thought of another thing, and said, "The candidate for Renlocks will be finalized as soon as possible, and the hero and heroine can take their time."

The hero and heroine do not need special training. But actors who play special forces officers must receive professional training from a team sent by the military together with other actors who play soldiers.

All major Hollywood productions that involve special themes will do so, and they have even formed a routine not to become.

For example, James Cameron’s crew, after deciding on a few main actors some time ago, the King of the World brought the actors and crew members to a Maori tribe in New Zealand to experience primitive jungle life.

Making movies has never been a simple matter, especially commercial productions.

Before going to the Pentagon, Duke participated in the priority audition for the role of Lenlocks, and then decided to play Channing Tatum. This actor's model origin, body and muscles are more in line with the image of a soldier, the biggest flaw It's the stiff face, but it's not a problem for a soldier character.

Throwing Channing Tatum and other actors to Colonel Daniel Fries and others for training, Duke flew to Washington, D.C., to meet the top figures in the Pentagon, in order to thoroughly finalize a series of matters concerning the shooting.

Duke is busy, and David Ellison, who snatched "This Man From Earth" from him, is also busy for the movie.

After spending 2 million US dollars to buy the copyright, David Ellison naturally wanted to push the film into the theater, and let the distribution department of his Sky Film Studio actively contact the theater to prepare the film for release as soon as possible.

Now that he has already spent US$2 million, David Ellison doesn’t care about spending another US$2 million to promote the film. If the film can sell tens of millions of dollars in the North American box office, the next time he sees Duke, There is also a reason for ridicule.

US$2 million is a lot to say, but in this era, wanting to use US$2 million to promote a film is like a pebble thrown into the ocean, and only a small amount of water splashes.

The advertisement for this film can only appear on the Internet, newspapers, TV and radio in some unimportant pages and time periods. It is difficult to attract the attention of the audience.

But David Ellison is not stupid. After an additional $1.5 million in publicity expenses, he controlled the expenditure. After all, this is a niche independent film.

Even the most optimistic estimate, David Ellison does not think that the North American box office of the film can exceed 30 million US dollars, his expectation is 10 million US dollars, this achievement is enough to make him ridicule in front of Duke.

After additional publicity investment, "This Man Comes From Earth" also caused some waves. In North America, niche films have a limited audience, but there is no shortage of fans. The off-season of each year is the most active time period for these fans.

However, "This Man From Earth" attracted attention in the publicity, but encountered quite a lot of trouble in the release.

Distribution is not a matter of setting up a department and recruiting experienced employees. There are inextricable connections between North American cinema companies and established Hollywood companies. The same conditions, the same scale of investment films, cinema chains The resources of the company will be given priority to those traditional old companies.

New companies like David Ellison have just begun to make distributions. Not only are the number of theaters given by theaters very small, but the locations are relatively remote.

If it weren't for him to make a way for money, "This Man From Earth" might be scheduled to be released next year by the North American Theater Alliance...

However, money can always play a lot in this country. Although the number of theaters is less and the location is more remote, "This Man from the Earth" finally can officially land in North America in late September with more than 120 theaters. market.

In David Ellison's view, this is not entirely a bad thing. Just treat the film as a starting point for screening. As long as the screening results and audience reputation are good enough, even for commercial gains, the theater company will expand. Screening scale.

But the film needs to be released, and there are still expensive expenses, such as copying. More than 130 copies cost the Sky Studios US$300,000.

The filming quality of this film is quite average. If it is projected with high-definition digital technology, it will be a disaster. You can only use traditional 35mm film to make copies.

Now the cost of digital technology has dropped drastically, while the price of film has been rising...

After investing nearly five million dollars, David Ellison finally waited for the film to be released. His expectations were really not high. As long as the single-library box office of "This Man Comes From Earth" was held in seven days a week. If it can exceed US$5,000, it will be able to gain a certain degree of attention and expand screening opportunities in this off-season of the film, thereby realizing the plan to exceed US$10 million in the North American box office.

However, there is always a wide gap between imagination and reality. In the eyes of niche film lovers, "This Man Comes From Earth" is indeed a good movie, but it is like "Shawshank's Redemption" that year. Re-screening under the eyes of sympathy and attention is the same as a box office failure. Not all good movies are suitable for screening in theaters, and not all good movies should get high box office for granted.

On the second day of "This Man From Earth" was released, David Ellison got a statistics.

"125 theaters, a total of 426 viewers, a single day box office of 2,556 US dollars..."

Seeing the numbers on the report, David Ellison already had a bad feeling, but there is still some hope. After all, it will be the first day of screenings on a small scale. Perhaps over time, word-of-mouth spread and the film's performance Will get better.

On imdb, the rating of this film was quite high, and in the following days, the imdb rating of "This Man From Earth" remained high, even when it was released for a full week, the rating was as high as 8.6.

At the same time, some fans also commented in the comment column, thinking that "This Man Comes From Earth" is a good movie, and it can be called a brilliant work...

But on the contrary, the film’s attendance and box office numbers are horribly low. (To be continued...)

ps: Ask for monthly and recommended tickets!