As Ronan expected, the first draft of the screenplay written by the Nolan brothers, which is directly translated as "The Foundation", has a ninety percent main plot that is almost the same as the former "Inception".

Ronan remembers very well that "Inception" is just a translation of China Film, and the original English name of the film has nothing to do with the words Inception.

"Not bad. Ronan closed the script and said, "It's imaginative." ”

Christopher Nolan laughs, "It's a sci-fi genre, and after Deadly Magic and The Dark Knight, I wanted to try something new. ”

Ronan thought for a moment and said, "The concept is a sci-fi genre, but the film needs to be watched, and I think some action elements should be added." ”

Christopher Nolan has always been a commercial director, and that has never changed: "Jonathan and I think the same way. Originally, after I came up with the initial idea, Jonathan wanted to make it a completely action film, but I remember you saying that the old-fashioned traditional action movies are outdated, and the pure action genre is not suitable for my idea, and this film is going to show the dream and memory aspects, and the combination of science fiction and action is the most appropriate way. ”

Ronan agrees: "Dreams are a high concept, and the action element is good for making such a high concept easy to understand. ”

As an investor and producer, you must consider the market, and any large-investment commercial film that does not consider the box office and market is a brain-dead act.

Christopher Nolan thought Ronan had doubts, and hurriedly said: "I have been thinking about this subject for many years, and I have a relatively mature plan. Many years ago, I became interested in the subject of dreams, especially the relationship between the waking world and the dream life. ”

He glanced at Ronan and continued, "I have always found this to be a very interesting and contradictory point of view, that is, in dreams, whether it is fear, happiness, or idealization, it is actually an uncontrollable thing created by the human brain, mind, and ideology, and the imagination space generated by dreams is extraordinary. I've always thought about how to show this infinite energy on the big screen, from a very humanistic point of view, in the form of a large-scale sci-fi action movie. ”

Ronan nodded slowly, as if thinking.

Christopher Nolan added: "The core idea of the film is that the idea that a concept is created as a very resilient parasite that crawls over it forever somewhere in your brain. If someone can hack into your dream space and act recklessly in an extremely real way, even stealing an incredibly private concept, this kind of storytelling can be very fascinating. ”

Ronan patted the script lightly and said, "Chris, that's what attracted me the most about your script. It's entertaining, it's diverse, and anything can happen. ”

Christopher Nolan asked: "...... this project"

Ronan said: "I have confidence in you, you can submit the script directly to Shahai Entertainment, and they will negotiate with you as quickly as possible to advance the project." ”

While that trust is a good thing, Christopher Nolan feels there are things that have to be said up front: "Ronan, this project may require a very high investment. I made a preliminary estimate, about $150 million. Also, I wanted to have enough time to finish the film, because the things I wanted to express were questions that I had been thinking about since I was sixteen. ”

Ronan returned the script to Christopher Nolan and said, "These are not problems, I will ask Shahai Entertainment to list "Foundation" as a big project in the company's first category." ”

"Thank you. Christopher Nolan said sincerely: "Ronan, thank you for your continued support. ”

Ronan smiled: "You're welcome. Chris, be sure to bring a masterpiece. ”

Christopher Nolan vows: "Surely." ”

The former "Inception" may have some tricks, but it is also a classic in commercial films, and has achieved a bumper harvest at the box office and word of mouth.

This one, together with "The Dark Knight", also made Christopher Nolan a god among fans.

Even, as a director, Christopher Nolan is like a big-name star, with a huge number of crazy fans.

The IMDB scoring ranking battle between "The Dark Knight" and "The Godfather" and "The Shawshank Redemption" once changed the IMDB scoring rules.

These three factions of fans attacked each other, and a scuffle was arguably the biggest spectacle IMDB has ever seen.

When Ronan left, Christopher Nolan mentioned that after filming "The Dark Knight", Christian Bale accepted the invitation of Twentieth Century Fox to participate in the filming of "Terminator 4", which Twentieth Century Fox had already confirmed.

Twentieth Century Fox has made a lot of public announcements about this new project, which has a production budget of $200 million!

And that's not counting the cost of Twentieth Century Fox before retrieving the rights from Warner Bros.

According to the general investment in the promotion and distribution of large-scale commercial films in Hollywood, Twentieth Century Fox will invest $100 million or more in the future for the promotion and distribution of this film.

Ronan took practical action to allow Twentieth Century Fox to snatch back the filming rights of the "Terminator" series from Warner Bros.

Twentieth Century Fox attached great importance to this project and wanted to recreate the glory of "Terminator 2", so he contacted James Cameron and wanted to invite James Cameron to be a producer or screenwriter.

But James Cameron has a contract with Relativity Entertainment, and he has to continue to work hard for the filming and production of "Avatar" in the past two years, and his cooperation with Twentieth Century Fox has a shadow, so he did not hesitate to refuse the invitation of Twentieth Century Fox.

The production budget alone is as high as 200 million US dollars, and it is impossible for Twentieth Century Fox to ignore it.

Ronan also didn't know which senior executive of Twentieth Century Fox had come up with a clever trick to poach people who had cooperated with Relativity Entertainment and had great success to join the "Terminator 4" project.

Christian Bale is just one of the candidates to be poached by Twentieth Century Fox.

They approached the Nolan brothers, only to be rejected by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, and if nothing else, the two men had a lot of work on their schedules for the next few years.

Twentieth Century Fox ultimately chose Paul Haggis, who worked with Relativity Entertainment and made a name for himself as the writer, writer, and producer of "Crash" to serve as the writer and executive producer of "Terminator 4."

Both of Paul Haggis's previous screenwriting works have made great names, giving Twentieth Century Fox enough confidence.

The two works are "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby".

Twentieth Century Fox is currently looking for a director, and their preferred target is still a director who has had a successful collaboration with Relativity Entertainment, and the first choice is said to be Guillermo del Toro, and the negotiations between the two parties have progressed to the stage where they can sign at any time.

Guillermo del Toro is very interested in robotics projects.

It is also revealed that after completing Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro is also looking for new long-term collaborators, and has pitched his previous film projects with Ronan about robots and monsters to several companies.

Although there is no clear information from Twentieth Century Fox, Ronan deduces that since Twentieth Century Fox and Gilmer del Toro are both interested in cooperating, it is estimated that Twentieth Century Fox will invest in filming Guillermo del Toro's robots and monsters projects in the future.

This is highly likely.

Speaking of which, Ronan also admires a little that Twentieth Century Fox's treatment of relativistic entertainment is, to some extent, very similar to that of relativistic entertainment, which treats Walt Disney.

Twentieth Century Fox snatched one film project after another from Relativity Entertainment, and also tried to attract talents who had long-term cooperation with Relativity Entertainment.

This seems to be going down the path of relativistic entertainment, leaving relativistic entertainment with no way out.

Ronan has been on the sidelines, and there is no reason for Relativity Entertainment to stop people like Paul Haggis, Christian Bale, and Guillermo del Toro from working with Twentieth Century Fox, after all, these people have no long-term contracts with Relativity Entertainment, let alone non-compete clauses.

In every sense of the word, they have the freedom to work with any studio.

Ronan just asked Relativity Entertainment to accumulate more money, more resources, and let Robert Iger keep making relevant plans according to the changing situation, waiting for opportunities that may arise in the future.

Either don't move, or move or get a hit.

Twentieth Century Fox still looks strong, and there are a number of heavyweight films released this summer, the most notable of which is undoubtedly "X-Men 3: Last Stand", which is adapted from Marvel Comics.

It was also the finale of Twentieth Century Fox's "X-Men" trilogy, which was produced with a budget of $210 million and released on the weekend before Memorial Day, one of the best schedules in May.

Perhaps it is Marvel Entertainment's years of harassment that have affected Twentieth Century Fox, or perhaps it is the negative effects of the new Fantastic Four comics, in which Twentieth Century Fox made many irrational choices in this X-Men movie.

For example, the Phoenix Girl completely blackened and killed Professor X.

For example, Wolverine and Phoenix Girl got together, and the dead laser eyes were green.

For example, Wolverine finally killed the Phoenix Girl.

In short, the relationship is a mess, and it is handled badly, and the film's reputation is not ideal.

But the first two X-Men amassed a legion of fans, and this is not only a sequel, but also a gimmick for the finale of the trilogy, and the premiere attendance of "X-Men 3: Last Stand" is still very impressive.

In its first weekend in North America, X-Men 3: Last Stand grossed $102.75 million.

Counting Monday's Memorial Day holiday, the four-day box office was $122.86 million!