Just when Matthew was paying attention to the progress of the preparations of his two crews and the latest situation of the Hollywood screenwriters' strike, a news suddenly broke out like an overwhelming spread, and in just a few days, it spread all over the United States - the former Oscar nominee for Best Actor Heath Ledger has passed away!

The New York Times reported that Heath Ledger's body was found by the housekeeper and the masseur who went to serve him, who knocked on the door and found no one answering, and then the housekeeper and masseur opened the bedroom door and saw Heath Ledger lying naked on the bed, unconscious, and shaking him without responding......

A few days later, the police released the autopsy results, which determined that Heath Ledger had died from an overdose of six drugs, including sleeping pills and prescription drugs.

Originally, this kind of news was reported by some media, but the wind soon went in the wrong direction, first Warner's media began to promote that Heath Ledger was deeply trapped in the role of a clown and couldn't extricate himself, resulting in depression and suicide, and then more Internet media followed up, and then expanded to almost all media.

The media was willing to report like this, and the public liked to see it, so the Joker, orchestrated by Warner Bros., became Heath Ledger's screen hit, and no one paid attention to Heath Ledger except for people in the Hollywood industry, who had just finished making a film called "The Magical Fantasy Show", which would not be released until 2009.

The shock of death is powerful, especially when a well-known star dedicated his life to the performing arts, instantly attracting the attention of the United States and the world.

It is not difficult to see from the "Harry Potter" series that the management of Warner Bros., despite all its shortcomings, is indeed strong in terms of publicity and promotion.

The Joker is destined to become one of the most classic characters in film history.

Matthew saw these reports and sighed for a few minutes, maybe if he accepted the invitation of Christopher Nolan and Charles Rowan to play the role of the Joker, Heath Ledger would have a different fate, right?

But it all stopped at maybe, he didn't know Heath Ledger, he had never dealt with anything, and it was impossible to risk losing dozens of pounds in a short period of time to bring health risks......

He was considered by the crew to be one of the Joker candidates, probably the only place he had a connection with Heath Ledger.

Of course, in terms of acting alone, Heath Ledger may be much better than him.

Thinking about the high-definition pirated version of "The Dark Knight" that he once downloaded and watched on the other side of the Pacific, he was really shocked by this movie, he was in a bad situation at that time, he begged for salary many times but could not get it, and the existence of the clown even made him believe that chaos was the answer to everything.

Fortunately, at that time, he was still in the initial stage of daring to think and do.

Public opinion of Heath Ledger's Joker's acting skills can never rule out the influence of his death, a person plays such an exaggerated and crazy role, dedicates strange and chaotic acting skills, and then dies half a year later, people will continue to dig into his performance, and the sporadic connection between the character he created and his death will eventually be inseparable from each other again.

In fact, in the highest level of acting in the circle, few people can judge objectively, like if he has to tell whether Al Pacino's performance in "Hot Afternoon" is better, or Robert De Niro's acting skills in "Raging Bull" are better?

How can this be differentiated?

It is undeniable that the passing of Heath Ledger has indeed brought irreproducible and unique attributes to the performance of the role of the Joker, which makes people even more nostalgic. But objectively speaking, this version of the clown is indeed worth remembering, and it is indeed a model of villain performance.

Anyway, he has watched so many superhero movies, and he has not seen a film with a more brilliant villain than the Joker.

Perhaps because of the relationship with the role of the Joker, Matthew deliberately paid attention to some news about Heath Ledger.

His death has far exceeded his own influence, as long as "The Dark Knight" released in July can be successful, this will inevitably become a textbook publicity case in Hollywood, and it may be used as a reference by other crews or companies in the future.

It's hard for Matthew not to think about "Fast and Furious 7" and Paul Walker, and he plans to find an opportunity to specifically remind Paul Walker that it's better to stay away from drag racing outside of the movie.

How did Paul Walker crash at that time? Matthew thought about the entertainment gossip he had seen for a long time, but he only remembered that it seemed to be related to the Porsche 911, and he didn't know how specific it was.

Maybe you can make some fuss about the actor's contract, the crew is negotiating with Paul Walker's agent, planning to sign a multi-film contract with him at once, and add several clauses to the negotiation, such as Paul Walker, as one of the leading actors, for future film shooting, must not engage in dangerous driving.

Probably it will work.

Matthew will remind Paul Walker to the best of his ability, but he will definitely not tell Paul Walker like a fool what his future holds, not to mention other possible chain reactions, at least it will make people think of idiots and neurosis.

In the midst of the uproar, Matthew also got a good news, the screenwriters' strike that lasted for many days is finally over, and the writers of the two crews of "Fast and Furious 4" and "Twilight" can also come back to work with the team again.

In any case, the crew does not have a full-time screenwriter, which is quite inconvenient at times.

In early February, in a simultaneous vote held by the Eastern and Western Writers' Unions, members voted overwhelmingly 3,775 in favor to end the protracted tug-of-war for strikes.

The Writers' Guild signed a temporary three-year contract with the Producers Alliance, which stipulates that the screenwriters' annual revenue from new media will increase from 3 percent to 3.5 percent, and that from now on, a certain percentage of previous productions will also be taken online.

The screenwriter's commission is a flat subsidy capped at $1,200 for the first two years, and then a proportional share of the distributor's total profits each year.

It was a compromise agreement, and what the Writers Guild ultimately managed was still far from what it had originally achieved.

With the signing of the agreement, the Oscars, which may have been aborted before, have also returned to normal, but Matthew does not plan to attend, there are more important things to consider.

Paramount Pictures and Stephen Sommers, for their part, have hired writers to rewrite the script for "Special Forces," and they seem to be in good faith and are beginning to try to reach out to Helen Herman to discuss his pay.

In terms of salary, Matthew's request is $20 million plus a later share, and the specific share ratio can be discussed slowly.

In addition to Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. people also came over.

"Hello, Charles. ”

In the new office of Burbank Thirteen Film Studios, Matthew welcomed Charles Rowan, a famous Warner Bros. producer, "long time no see." ”

Charles Rowan greeted Matthew with a smile and said, "The last time we saw each other was at the premiere of "I Am Legend". He exclaimed, "'I Am Legend' is doing well at the box office, and Warner Bros. is thinking about making a sequel." ”

Matthew couldn't help but laugh, "You didn't come to me for the sequel, did you? If I remember correctly, you were in charge of superhero movies at Warner Bros. ”

If Warner Bros. really plans to launch a sequel to "I Am Legend", he will not find it strange, in the environment of Hollywood sequel movies rampant, Warner Bros. will definitely not let go of a blockbuster film like "I Am Legend" easily.

Since its release in mid-December last year, "I Am Legend" has been screened in North American theaters for 12 weeks, with a total of $335.41 million at the North American box office, and just exceeded $700 million worldwide, making it undoubtedly one of Hollywood's most successful commercial films of 2007.

Although the actor Robert Neville died on the theatrical release, it is not impossible to shoot a sequel, and with Warner Bros. ability, it is not difficult to make a prequel at all.

But unlike what he thought, Charles Rowan shook his head directly, "I have nothing to do with "I Am Legend", and I will not be in charge of this business, I came to you to invite you to play the leading role in Director Nolan's new project on behalf of Warner Bros. and director Christopher Nolan. ”

Without waiting for Matthew to speak, he added, "Director Nolan is busy in the post-production of The Dark Knight in Chicago, and he specially commissioned me to come to you and hand you his script. ”

"Oh?" Matthew was interested, "Director Christopher Nolan wants to ask me to star in his new film?"

"Yes, Director Nolan is very sincere. Charles Rowan opened the briefcase he was carrying, took out one of the scripts that looked less than a hundred pages thick, pushed it in front of Matthew, and said, "Director Nolan has been looking for the right actor, and then he watched several of your major films in succession and made sure you are the actor he was looking for." ”

Matthew picked up the script, smiled, and said, "I would also like to work with a director with a strong style like Christopher Nolan." ”

Charles Rowan saw Matthew flipping through the script and said simply, "This script is just a first draft, and Christopher only wrote it in general terms, and it was very rough." ”

Matthew can see this, and the scenes and scenes in the script are a bit messy.

"In Christopher's vision, it would be a very special stealing film. Charles Rowan briefly introduced the genre and theme of the future film, "A team of commercial spies led by a male protagonist uses dreams to invade unsuspecting people and steal his ideas in order to profit." ”

Hearing this, coupled with the script he was reading, Matthew had a sense of familiarity.

However, he didn't say much, and until he finished reading the script, he didn't make it clear.

Charles Rowan didn't say much, was about to say goodbye, and said before leaving, "I'll stay here with the script, if you're interested, we can talk about it in detail later." ”