When Sid's words were heard, there was a buzz of discussion in the conference room, some people were unaware, and some people vaguely heard their colleagues mention it, but they never took it seriously.

Sid smiled and waited deliberately for a moment before he spoke, "I know you have a lot of questions, but yes, we're going to be working on two projects at once this time - Pirates of the Caribbean and The Departed!"

Then Sid nodded to a group of assistants who were about to be next to him, and they immediately sent two project plans to everyone, and Sid immediately spoke, "What is being sent to you now is the basic information of these two films and the needs of the producer and crew." ”

"We've got people from the Fire Lion production department, as well as the two essential core personnel that Henry and I have recruited, and Manager Henry will be the general producer of Pirates of the Caribbean. ”

Then Sid looked at Henry, he nodded and stood up, "Pirates of the Caribbean is an adaptation of the fantasy pirate movie of the same name by Boss, with an estimated investment of more than $100 million, and it is a standard A-level production. ”

Hearing Henry's words, everyone in the conference room couldn't help but feel a commotion again, last year's "Spider-Man" has not yet been released, which is another A-level production of more than 100 million US dollars.

This Sid's generosity is really very comparable.

Or, how much money has the fire lion made in recent years, dare to burn like this?

"Pirate movies?" asked Justin Lin first, confused.

"Not bad. Sid smiled and nodded, "What, scared?"

"No! I have nothing to fear. Justin Linn paused for a moment and immediately shook his head, "I have faith in the boss." ”

"Slap on the back—" Sid smiled and pointed at Justin Lin, causing a burst of laughter in the conference room.

"I know that everyone, or the whole of Hollywood, has an inexplicable fear of pirate films. Sid's words made many people nod silently.

Since the epic failure of "Cut Throat Island" and "Future Water World" in 95, two big-budget films related to the sea in the same year, Hollywood has been talking about "water" for nearly a decade.

In fact, Sid doesn't blame them for being "timid" and afraid, these two epic failed movies are really too far-reaching, the more painful they are, the more real they are afraid.

Among them, "Future Water World" is an adventure story about the world after the earth warms, the glaciers melt, and the world is flooded by the ocean.

In order to shoot this movie, Universal Pictures spent $175 million, you must know that this was 175 million in the mid-90s, and at that time, the cost of 6 or 70 million was already a big production.

And the star of the movie, Kevin Costner, was also a first-class big name at the time, and he was an A-list star who could be compared to Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood at that time.

As early as the early 90s, he won the Oscar for Best Director with his self-directed and self-starred epic "Dances with Wolves".

And then he co-starred with Whitney Houston in "The Bodyguard", which has already become a generation of classics.

But it is such an A-level star, just because of starring in "Future Water World", he was pitted and couldn't afford to kneel, if Schwarzenegger and George Clooney, who were pitted by "Batman and Robin", still have a glimmer of life, then Kevin Costner is really "dead and buried".

Back then, the film was full of twists and turns, the crew spent $5 million to build a ruined city at sea, but before filming started, a storm blew all the sets to pieces.

There was no way, Universal had to continue to spend money to build another similar sea city, and before the movie started, it spent 10 million US dollars to go out.

Moreover, at that time, the green screen special effects were very rubbish, and the director wanted "realism", so most of the scenes were shot on the ocean.

But this sea is not your home, and ships sail quite frequently in modern society, so the cargo ships that come and go make the crew uneasy at all.

In the end, filming could only be carried out intermittently after a long negotiation, and during this period, the crew was paid a lot of money.

It is precisely for these reasons that the final production cost soared to nearly 200 million US dollars, which is definitely the world's largest work before "Titanic".

As for "Cut Throat Island", it is even more "legendary".

Its production company was the famous Carlock Pictures at the time, and the distribution company was MGM.

Although it didn't cost as much to produce as Future Waterworld, it also had a top-notch $98 million at the time.

And this is a really big-budget pirate movie, telling the story of a pirate adventure, when Carlock Pictures invested more than $100 million in the actual filming and promotion process to make it an epic masterpiece that surpassed "Terminator 2".

The result was a dumbfounding for everyone, as the super-title, which invested nearly $100 million, only recovered $10 million in the North American market.

Yes, you read that right, it's 10 million.

This shocking "tragedy" even attracted the attention of the Guinness Book of Records, and was recorded as the first rotten egg at the box office of the "Guinness World Records" at that time!

If "Future Water World" pits a large group of participating actors, then "Cut Throat Island" directly sent Cullock Films, which was in the limelight at the time, to the grave, and finally bought it cheaply without MGM.

Speaking of this, Sid couldn't help but stop and looked at Justin Lin with a smile, "Justin, you shouldn't be afraid of that boring 'curse', right?"

"Ahaha, of course not——!" Justin Lin immediately snorted and wanted to perfunctory.

"What 'curse'?" some people who didn't know hurriedly asked the people around them.

"Pirate films have buried the rising star Cullock Films, and now our Fire Lion is seen by many people as the new Cullock, so now that he is making pirate films, many people are beating the drum in their hearts. Sid explained directly.

His words made many people nod their heads with palpitations, pirate film + fire lion = next Carlock, whether intentionally or unintentionally, when the rumor of Sid's next movie being a pirate film came out, rumors of this "curse" began to spread in Hollywood circles.

Sid smiled slightly, "I started from scratch back then, but it wasn't because I was blessed by anything. Since no one in Hollywood dares to touch pirate movies now, isn't it time for us to break this boring 'curse'?"

Hearing Sid's words, everyone had to smile and nod their heads.

"Oh, yes. Sid added at the end, "We have settled privately with Disney over their infringement lawsuit at Disneyland over their water tour project with the same name as 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. They will do away with the Pirates of the Caribbean water attraction and replace it with the classic fairy tale Treasure Island. ”