Chapter 213 Starring Lineup
The film cost $8 million to produce and earned its money back in the first week, which is a very good result.
But Quentin seemed very disappointed. Due to the very successful premiere of the movie, he expected Pulp Fiction to have a box office of more than 30 million in the first week and over 100 million in North America in three weeks. How come it was only 9.33 million?
The gap is too big.
However, this movie has a very good reputation, with almost all positive reviews in the media, and the media's overall rating reached 92 points.
Many film critics have used beautiful words to praise Quentin, rating him as the best director of the younger generation and saying that he will achieve great success in the film industry in the future.
The famous film critic Sean Thorpe used Quentin to belittle Link, saying that all of Link's films combined are not as good as Quentin's "Pulp Fiction", and that the film industry needs more "Pulp Fiction" instead of "Paranormal Activity" and "The Blair Witch Project".
Seeing many people praising "Pulp Fiction" and criticizing Link's movie, Quentin's mood gradually improved. He began to complain to Link that the audience was too rubbish, did not like to watch good movies, and only picked bad movies to watch.
Link did not argue with him. He has been busy preparing for his new movie "The Butterfly Effect" recently. The casting has been completed and the starring lineup includes Leonardo Dicaprio, Renée Zellweger, Mark Wahlberg, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore and others.
"The Butterfly Effect" tells the story of Evan who accidentally opened his diary after going to college and remembered a series of bad things he experienced in his youth, which destroyed his originally perfect life.
In order to make his life perfect without regrets, he traveled back to several major events in the past through his diary, trying to change everything that was bad.
But every time he went back to the past to change something, when he returned to reality he found that they brought unexpected consequences, which made his existing life more damaged, and his loved ones around him would always be hurt.
After traveling through time and space several times, Evan could not make things perfect no matter what he did. His mental world began to collapse, and he finally decided to travel through time and space into a fetus and strangle himself with the umbilical cord.
After the casting was completed, Link gathered several leading actors to study the script and understand the characters.
After a few classes, Link assigned homework to the four protagonists, asking each of them to write a character biography to clarify the context of the story and the experiences of each character. Only after understanding these can they understand the character and perform better during filming.
When Link was preparing "The Butterfly Effect", Tim Robbins came to visit the company, along with "The Shawshank Redemption" director and screenwriter Frank Darabont and producer Liz Groser.
The purpose of their visit to Link was to ask him if he was interested in taking over the Shawshank Redemption project.
"The Shawshank Redemption" is adapted from the work of the famous writer Stephen Edwin King. Director Frank Darabont bought the adaptation rights of the novel for $5,000 and planned to make it into a movie.
After the script was completed, it was submitted to Castle Rock Productions, where it was appreciated by producer Ms. Liz Groser, who lobbied the film company's top management to suggest investing in the film.
However, after reading the script, Robert Reiner, the boss of Castle Rock Pictures, thought it was good and decided to direct it himself.
Robert Reiner is a famous Hollywood director, his representative works include "The Righteous Man" and "When Harry Met Sally", etc. He plans to invite Tom Cruise to play the leading male role and Harry Fortson to play the second male role.
Later, considering that the production cost was too high, the film was abandoned and the project was returned to director Frank Darabont.
Initially, Castle Rock Pictures planned to invest $25 million to shoot this film. The initial funds have been in place, the casting has been completed, and the actors have joined the crew waiting for shooting.
It’s just that Castle Rock Pictures had very poor performance last year, producing a total of 18 films, including “Black and White,” “In the Lined,” “The Game,” “Battlegrounds,” and “The Hitman,” all of which had mediocre results.
In addition, supernatural movies were very popular last year, and Castle Rock Pictures invested more than 10 million to shoot 8 low-cost horror movies to follow the trend.
When the movie was released, more than 20 million was invested in publicity and marketing.
As a result, the box office performance of several movies was a mess.
What's worse is that last year, Richard Gere and Robert Downey Jr. got into trouble, which directly led to the abortion of two film projects. The early investments of "My Heart Belongs to You" and "The First Samurai" were wasted.
Castle Rock Pictures lost $125 million last year. Taking into account past deficits, the company's current fiscal deficit is as high as $280 million, which is basically the same as Castle Rock Pictures' market value.
If the company's financial situation continues to deteriorate, it may go bankrupt at any time.
For this reason, Castle Rock Pictures had to cut some film projects that had large investments and seemed unprofitable, including "The Shawshank Redemption".
The "Shawshank Redemption" project lacked investment and had to be temporarily shelved.
This is also why Tim Robbins brought people to Guess What Pictures.
After listening to Tim Robbins' introduction, Link sighed, isn't this a true example of the 'butterfly effect'?
"Link, you can take a look at this script. It's about hope, freedom, redemption, and friendship. It's really wonderful."
Tim Robbins introduced enthusiastically.
Link smiled, took the script and looked through it. It was similar to the movie he remembered, except for some parts of the plot.
If we follow this script and use the original crew, we should be able to produce the original version.
The original movie received very good reviews after its release, with scores above 90 on major movie websites. It was also considered by movie fans to be a masterpiece among movies, on par with "Forrest Gump", "Schindler's List", "Titanic" and so on.
However, the film did not perform well at the box office and it took more than ten years to recoup its costs. It also failed to win any Oscars or Golden Globe Awards, competing against Forrest Gump.
Investing in this kind of movie won't make much money and will also tie up the company's funds.
The only advantage is that it is quite classic and can enhance the reputation of Guess the Movie.
Link thought about it and decided to take on the project, but with one condition: he would serve as the producer and editor of the film and be deeply involved in the film's production.
Director Frank Darabont breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that this was his condition.
Link is a world-class director with strong film-making and editing skills. His willingness to serve as film producer and editor shows that he values this film project, which is also a good thing for the film.
During the chat, Link heard that producer Liz Groser had a falling out with Castle Rock Pictures because of this movie and has now resigned.
He took the initiative to invite Ms. Liz to join Guess Pictures and continue to be responsible for the production of "The Shawshank Redemption".
Liz Groser has been responsible for the production of many films and has rich experience. Guess What Pictures is currently short of staff, so Link would naturally not let go of such a skilled technician.
Ms. Liz Groser also gladly accepted the invitation.
Link called Daniel DeVito to introduce the three of them and their new film project, The Shawshank Redemption.
"The Shawshank Redemption" has also officially become a film under Guess Pictures.
In addition to "Shawshank", Link approached Daniel and Ms. Liz to discuss and asked them to review several other projects abandoned by Castle Rock Pictures to see if they were worth investing in.
Now Guess the Movie industry has money. If it invests in more movies every year and earns more box office revenue, then when the media releases its report card next year, Guess the Movie industry’s data will look better.
A good report card can expand the company's copyright library, increase the company's market value, and enhance investors' confidence in Guess the Movies.
Ms. Liz agreed.
(End of this chapter)
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