Chapter 479 Two-way Cooperation
As the most expensive movie in Hollywood history before "Titanic", "Waterworld", which combines big investment with action superstars, is a huge movie with an estimated production cost of nearly 200 million and an additional 200 million in publicity and promotion costs.
However, the gap between the investment and output of this film was so huge that it caught the attention of the world, and made Universal Pictures, which had placed high hopes on it, want to jump into the sea of losses: according to the revenue-sharing system, the box office must reach at least three times the production cost to make a profit, but the final box office performance of this film did not even reach 100 million...
In a place as overly realistic as Hollywood, this cost and this result will become a nightmare that everyone will avoid no matter how good the quality of your work is.
Although there is a director in Hong Kong who, in pursuit of artistic effects, repeatedly delayed the filming schedule and exceeded the budget, and finally produced a work that swept the awards season... However, no matter how huge the investment in Hong Kong films is, it is still not comparable to the level of Hollywood.
And that director who was very popular with the award but not liked by investors also successfully created the "beautiful story" of "the director received the award on stage while the investor received an IV in the hospital"...
With this phenomenon in mind, it is understandable that Universal Pictures would have such thoughts - of course, as the male lead of "Waterworld", Kevin Costner also fell from being an action star on par with Schwarzenegger in just a few months, and directly fell from "as long as investors hear his name, they will give money without reading the script" to "as long as investors hear his name, they will not give money regardless of whether they read the script or not"...
As a fan of science fiction films, Su Yun has undoubtedly watched "Waterworld": To judge whether this movie is a bad movie, you have to look at it from the corresponding perspective.
If we compare the production cost and box office figures, "Waterworld" is definitely a big bad movie that has become a Hollywood nightmare, and it can easily rank among the top three in the world's film loss list; but if we look at the plot and production concept, it has to be regarded as a forward-thinking, waste punk-style movie with an environmental core, and the quality can even be considered quite good.
So in Su Yun's view, the movie "Waterworld" is not a epic failure, but a "failed" movie that was released in the wrong era.
After all, in this era when the world is desperately developing its economy, not everyone knows how to talk about the basic factors and impacts of global warming. The four words "environmental awareness" are often like talking to a cow.
Artificial Intelligence, a film directed by Su Yun and released in Hollywood, is also a metaphor for environmental issues, but it does not put it on the surface. Instead, it uses the struggle between humans and robots as the main subject, secretly leading to the importance of environmental protection and the harm caused by environmental damage. Therefore, in Kubrick's view, Artificial Intelligence is one of the rare films in which he has tried his best to strike a balance between business and art.
And more importantly, there is a very important selling point in "Artificial Intelligence": the little actress "Mary Sue", who was still a human cub at the time and was so beautiful that she was said to be able to cross racial boundaries.
Those tearful eyes gazing at the mother, longing for maternal love, have brought tears to countless people's eyes.
Coincidentally, there is also a young actor in "Waterworld", but the overly realistic environment creates a monotonous and boring visual effect. Among the dusty characters, no matter how good-looking the actor is, he does not look pleasing to the eye. Instead, it makes people feel uncomfortable both physically and psychologically.
After all, "Waterworld" is a post-apocalyptic wasteland-style film in which the sea level rises after the poles melt, floods submerge all the land, and human civilization regresses seriously. Stories in the apocalypse are always mixed with a little warm cruelty; while "Artificial Intelligence" is a future science fiction style in which human civilization is still alive before the sea level completely submerges the land.
Su Yun explained her ideas to Kevin Costner and the Universal staff who came with her based on the script and a large number of related documents: "The story that a movie wants to express can be complicated or not, but the most important thing is how to mobilize the audience's emotions..."
Faced with Su Yun's "box office magic medicine", and the fact that Su Yun's words were obviously meant to increase the box office, the Universal employees who came with her nodded continuously: As expected of Mary Sue, who was able to make a name for herself in Hollywood, this kind of attention and emphasis on box office performance is in line with the qualities that a businessman should have.
Kevin Costner, on the other hand, frowned slightly as he listened: "Of course I understand what you mean, but the script and production of this movie should be first-rate - especially since I specially spent a lot of money to invite you to participate in it."
"There are many movies in the history of movies that have big investments and high costs but are box office failures." Su Yun was talking about this, and he remembered the big sham movie that almost caused Zhao's family to change hands...
Shaking his head to get rid of the distracting thoughts, Su Yun added: "Using a large investment to fight for a large return is close to a gamble in itself, and when we choose to do this, we need to be extremely alert and carefully observe all factors that may affect the final result."
"You mean..." Kevin Costner's brows furrowed even deeper.
"Yes, Hollywood now has no shortage of movies with grand visuals or exciting plots. If you want to occupy a seat at such a big table, you have to have something unique that others don't have..."
Just like her "Grave Robbery Passion" series, it started out by following the then-hot tomb-robbing craze, and fortunately it was accepted by people at the fastest speed. However, from beginning to end, the pure and unique oriental style is the fundamental reason that attracts people to continue watching.
Even after the entire series came out, the amazing plot line was overshadowed by this "uniqueness".
"That's why I specifically invited you to participate in the post-production special effects of this movie." Kevin Costner emphasized again after hearing this.
"I am very grateful that you think so highly of me, but I have to say that when everyone is pursuing the same thing, this thing will become widespread and its value will drop rapidly." Su Yun shook her head, "Just like "The Queen of Egypt" back then, everyone was chasing after epic blockbusters, so everyone rushed to spend a lot of money to make such films, and in the end, the audience was fed up with this endless stream of similar tastes and became fed up with them, and they could no longer eat this kind of 'taste'."
Although the investment in "The Queen of Egypt" was tens of millions of dollars at the time - but that was still the 1960s!
There is no doubt that, with a simple conversion of monetary purchasing power, "The Queen" is currently the biggest loss-maker in the history of world cinema.
If Waterworld didn’t have this variable, it would probably have followed in the footsteps of The Princess Diaries and become the runner-up in a few years…
Su Yun spent a long time talking about everything from film production to economics, and at least he managed to slightly change the original ideas of these people.
Back then, she had no power to reverse the outcome, but now that she has the advantage of a relatively cooperative production team, she should be able to do her utmost to change the fate of a good work that was born at the wrong time.
With the cooperation of the production team, Su Yun first proposed to fix some culture-related bugs: I don’t know whether Hollywood’s oriental culture-related content is always being messed up, or if they never intended to do it carefully. The part of the storyboard with the "New Continent" map printed on it has glaring errors in the Chinese characters.
As for why it is Chinese characters? Because the longitude and latitude of the map of the "new continent" points to Mount Everest.
After discussing and revising some of the bugs and awkward parts of the plot using the thinking of later generations, the entire script seemed to be much smoother - this was not because the scriptwriter's level was not high enough, but because of the limitations of the vision of the times.
Only Su Yun, who has personally witnessed and experienced the crisis situations reported in various news media, can more accurately see the details that will happen outside of this era.
Of course, in order to reward the production team for paying a large sum of money to Su Yun and her studio, Su Yun also drafted several shots that were expected to be added to the film while helping to revise the script.
The sea can present many breathtaking scenes, and these extremely shocking scenes can just neutralize the gloomy tone of the whole movie.
Whether it is the starry sky connecting the sea, or the dazzling afterglow of the sunset... these phenomena seem to make people feel the charm and power of nature from the bottom of their hearts. Combined with the desolate and miserable struggle for survival in the vast ocean, the feeling of endless loneliness and home inevitably jumps out.
However, compared to the appearance of the "beautiful scenery" on the sea surface, there are even more "survivals" of human relics under the sea.
The beauty of nature remains unchanged throughout the ages, but human traces have sunk deep into the ocean floor, becoming illusory legends... This is an indescribable sadness.
Kevin Costner and the film production team were very satisfied with these drafts. After several rounds of negotiations, they officially signed a cooperation agreement, allowing Su Yun to come here regularly during the subsequent production period to continue the subsequent cooperation matters.
As for this long production process, everyone was busy with their own things - the production team of "Waterworld" was busy shooting movie materials; while Su Yun returned to Hong Kong and then went north to China to start the long-awaited "Kyushu Past" series.