Millennium director

John stared at Wu Yuan silently.

If someone else told him that he was optimistic about the Iron Man project, John would definitely spit on his face.

It was a large-scale production with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. The leading actor found a fringe actor, and the supporting roles were all unknown actors. It was also a science fiction special effects film that was extremely difficult to shoot.

From top to bottom, this movie has the appearance of losing money, just like Marvel's final madness before its collapse.

No one in the industry wants to get involved with this movie, for fear that the blood of Marvel's explosion will be spilled on them.

But the person who is optimistic about this project is Wu Yuan, so John has to pay attention to it.

Wu Yuan's vision has indeed never failed.

Children's fairy tales such as Night at the Museum can be treasured by him. What else can Wu Yuan not do?

Daniel, Marvel may not be able to accept our funding cooperation.

John considered it and said: Paramount, which is responsible for the distribution of Iron Man, is said to have also undertaken part of the investment in this movie, about 30%.

If Marvel has no money, it should give priority to Paramount for money and will not introduce new production companies.

Whether in the United States or China, raising funds for filmmaking is never a one-step process.

Because even the director and producer themselves cannot be sure how much the final production cost will be before the film is finished.

The budget is just a minimum guarantee. It is completely normal for the director to go over the budget while filming, and then continue to ask for money from the producer.

So even if Iron Man has entered the advanced stage of preparation, it is not too late for Light Age to enter the game.

Even after the film is finished and there is not enough money during the post-production period, it is normal to bring in new investors.

If Wu Yuan remembers correctly, Iron Man went through several capital increases. The initial budget was US$90 million. However, midway through the filming, we ran out of money and an additional US$30 million was added.

Then when the filming was completed and post-production was completed, the special effects production was more difficult than expected and cost more, adding another 20 million U.S. dollars. In the end, the film cost 140 million U.S. dollars to be completely produced.

When this movie was first planned, there were only two production companies: Marvel and Paramount. By the time it was released, five companies were involved.

The other three companies are all small independent film companies in Hollywood. They joined during the filming of the film. Each of them paid 10 to 20 million US dollars.

Obviously Paramount is unwilling to add more money, and Marvel itself has no money, and all the mortgages it can mortgage are almost full, so it can only bring in small companies.

[Light Times] Isn’t it better than these small companies?

At least Wu Yuan was happy to give money, and the balance in his company account was sufficient.

Just listen to me. Wu Yuan said with confidence: Let's contact Marvel first. They are not short of money now, and they will be short of money sooner or later when filming.

“It’s amazing that such a sci-fi special effects blockbuster can be filmed without exceeding the budget.”

When I was filming Pirates of the Caribbean 2, the budget kept rising. Jerry increased the capital at least three times before the film was completed.

Marvel wants to spend 90 million to 100 million to complete this movie?

impossible!

The global box office of Iron Man exceeded US$580 million, and the production cost was less than US$150 million. It was quite profitable to invest in this movie.

Okay. John sighed: I will contact Marvel. What is the maximum investment we can accept?

Fifty million, US dollars. Wu Yuan said with certainty.

This is really a big investment. It is the one with the highest budget among the films currently invested by [Light Times].

John shook his head: I know.

And one more thing.

The copyright of the IP Night at the Museum is in our hands. Fox is very anxious and wants to start the Night at the Museum 2 project as soon as possible.

This time Fox wants to do something big. The scene will be bigger, the investment will be bigger, and the cost budget will be US$120 million.

Fox is very optimistic about this IP and feels that the box office of the second part will be better and it is worth investing more money.

WTF?! Wu Yuan said a rare curse word.

The production cost of Night at the Museum 1 was less than $20 million.

Is it worth spending $120 million on a movie that takes place entirely in a small museum and doesn’t have many special effects scenes?

Iron Man is full of airplanes, missiles and mechas, but the final cost was only US$140 million!

“Is Disney crazy?”

Or are they laundering money for some Jewish consortium recently?

Wu Yuan had an incomprehensible expression on his face and complained unceremoniously: Unless it is money laundering, I would never have imagined that the production cost of the sequel to Night at the Museum could be ten times higher!

This is just a low-cost family comedy movie, not a super special effects blockbuster!

Tell Fox that the cost budget for the second part can only be 30 million US dollars at most, not even a dime more.

If they insist on making this crazy decision, then maybe we should find another partner for this sequel.

Universal is good, and so is Paramount.

John's lips curled up, Daniel, you are thinking the same thing as me. I can't understand Fox's thoughts. Some of Fox's top executives do have some brain problems.

The trend of advocating blockbusters started in Hollywood.

I just didn't expect that Fox would want to turn a small-budget family comedy like Night at the Museum into a blockbuster. This is ridiculous.

The company's project arrangements this year are in two directions. Wu Yuan slumped back, leaned on the boss's chair, and said lazily: The company independently produced the two movies Weakness and Never Ending.

Invest in Iron Man and Night at the Museum 2.

These four movies will be released one after another this year and next year. By 2009, the production of the Twilight series will begin.

Wu Yuan counted on his fingers.

Weakness can have a box office of 250 million US dollars, No Ending is a little less, with a box office of 150 million US dollars, and Iron Man and Night at the Museum 2 can have a combined box office of 1 billion US dollars.

By producing by itself and splitting investment accounts, [Light Times] can earn a net profit of almost US$400 million from these four movies.

Coupled with the US$200 million in liquidity currently on the company's account, Wu Yuan could collect US$600 million in North America before 2009, which is almost less than 4 billion yuan.

This is a huge sum of money!

It is also the development fund prepared by Wu Yuan for Light and Shadow Times’ streaming media platform in Asia.

He is not as rich as the three Internet giants, spending billions of yuan a year.

But in 2009, Alibaba was still busy building its own Taobao mall, Baidu was still fighting with Sogou, and Penguin was preparing for a 3Q war with 360.

The Big Three all have too much to take care of themselves.

At this time, Wu Yuan relies on his first-mover advantage and the 4 billion yuan base, coupled with his own forward-looking vision, there is still hope for becoming a small Netflix in Asia.

By the time the three giants have solved their opponents, begun to expand their Internet business groups, and extended their hands to online video platforms, Guangying Qvod has already developed.

John, you have a heavy burden on your shoulders! Standing up, Wu Yuan patted John's shoulder earnestly: The next two years will be very critical for the company.

When you're done with this, I'll give you a generous red envelope to reward you.

Wow! John beamed: Then I'll have to look forward to it.

Wu Yuan nodded and said with a smile: This will be a number that will satisfy you very much.

After arranging the next work at [Light Era], Wu Yuan once again became the shopkeeper and got busy with other things.

He first went to Disney to watch the finished film of Pirates of the Caribbean 3. After making sure that Disney did not cut it randomly and still maintained the excellent editing level of a big company, he went to New Line again.

The Ace Agent series co-operated by Light Times and New Line has been progressing normally.

Because John's main focus is still on the movies produced by the company itself, most of the cooperation projects such as Night at the Museum and Kingsman are left to the partner companies to take the main responsibility.

The script of Kingsman is written by two well-known Hollywood screenwriters found by New Line. Robert Towne, who has written scripts for the Mission: Impossible series, and Jeff Nathanson, the screenwriter of Rush Hour 2 Completed.

Based on the general outline and outline of the story given by Wu Yuan, they spent less than half a year writing a version of the script that satisfied New Line President Elad.

Wu Yuan also saw this version of the script at New Line.

The overall plot is 70% similar to his impression of Kingsman 1, but because the male protagonist was already decided to be Cheng Long, the character's background was significantly modified.

Originally Kingsman 1 was full of British characteristics, focusing on the image and characteristics of a gentleman agent.

But Cheng Long, as an Asian, obviously cannot fit into the image of a British gentleman. He has always been known for his funny kung fu, and it is impossible for him to play a gentleman.

Therefore, in this regard, major changes have been made to the script. The second male protagonist will assume the main gentleman role in the entire film, and in the early stage of the film, a role similar to a guide will be introduced to teach the two how to be a Gentleman's agent.

Apart from this, most of the other plots are the same as Wu Yuan remembers, especially the classic scene at the end of the movie - Fireworks in the head is completely retained.

Wu Yuan was really unsure about this series.

Wu Yuan doesn't know if this series can achieve as good a reputation and box office as the original film, with Cheng Long as the actor and the script being significantly changed.

It can only be said that the probability of success is high, but there is indeed a risk of failure.

New Line is very optimistic about this. After all, after the great success of Rush Hour 3, Cheng Long himself has very high box office appeal in North America!

It's just that Wu Yuan really doesn't want to direct this movie himself.

He wants to make his own North American commercial blockbuster next year!