"The premiere of "The Matrix" in Los Angeles was well received, the audience responded strongly, and film critics gave positive reviews. ”

After the premiere, well-known film critic Peter Rogier told the Los Angeles Times reporter that "The Matrix" is the best film he has watched in recent years, and the film's philosophical reflection on the relationship between virtual and real is a complete sublimation of the original novel's idea, and innovative shooting techniques such as bullet time and 360-degree camera rotation special effects are even more eye-catching. ”

"The Wachowski brothers are an amazing couple of Hollywood newcomers, and Eric Williams has once again proven his eye for filmmaking. ”

After the well-received premiere, Firefly basically let go of its worries about the box office prospects of "The Matrix" and began to carry out small-scale screenings in major box office cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.

From the premiere on May 27 to the official release of the film on May 31, in just three days, the box office of "The Matrix" on 26 screens in major cities in North America has reached $680,000, and the box office of "The Matrix" on May 30 on 3,100 screens in North America has surpassed "Jurassic Park" three years ago, reaching $4.65 million.

After these two data came out, the media that were originally optimistic about "The Matrix" all closed their mouths, and the executives of several film companies were also secretly glad that they did not put their summer blockbuster films on the schedule against "The Matrix".

Even, even after "Titanic" jumped the ticket, Universal changed "The Mummy 2" to a week after "Brave Island" was secretly worried, for fear that "Brave Island" would be the same quality as "The Matrix", although "The Mummy 2" has the audience base of the previous work, and the reputation of the test screening is also very good, but the two strong films collide before and after, and it is inevitable that both will lose.

In the original time and space, from the beginning of production to the release of the film, Warner maintained a very unoptimistic attitude, and even put the release date of the film in the relatively cold Easter schedule, but even so, the first part of "The Matrix" still achieved a North American box office of $170 million at a moderate cost of $63 million, and completed another "Hurricane Warriors" starring Will Smith at a cost of $170 million, winning the box office champion of Time Warner's films released that year. Subsequently, with the super word-of-mouth accumulated in the first part, although the quality of the second part has seriously declined, the box office in the first week still reached $150 million.

The new version of "The Matrix", while maintaining the original main creative team and core plot, far exceeds the original year in terms of production level, publicity and schedule selection. The film may be limited by an R-rated viewing and will not be able to reach the box office miracle of "Jurassic Park" that year, but the results will far exceed the original and are almost certain.

Therefore, after the premiere, Eric flew to the Bahamas with confidence and began the production of "007: Casino Royale".

The Bahamas, like Canada, Australia and other countries, belong to the Commonwealth of Nations, and these countries basically have the Queen of England as the head of state, so most of them do not have a president, and the Bahamas retains a very old system of governors.

The Bahamas is home to more than 3,000 islands, but less than 30 have been developed.

Although many of the plot elements of the old version are retained, in general, the new version of Casino Royale is two completely different stories compared to the original version. In the new script, there are still not many scenes in Panama, but Eric has retained the plot of the terrorist attempt to attack the airport, and this plot is not planned to be filmed in Miami in the United States, but is determined to take place at Nassau International Airport, the capital of the Bahamas, plus some other changes, the crew filmed in the Bahamas for a month and a half.

In order to cooperate with the filming of the crew, the Bahamas specially set aside an island called Providence for the crew to take pictures, and the filming of other islands such as Nassau and Paradise Island also received the full support of the Bahamian government.

Eric arrived in the Bahamas on May 28, and the film's producer Barbara Brookley, star Pierce Brosnan, and a cast of main and supporting actors were all assembled on Paradise Island, where the crew was stationed.

The entire crew of hundreds of people, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every day without doing anything, and when Eric arrived in the Bahamas, he quickly got to work, before he had time to repair.

After all, he didn't direct a film for more than two years, and although he produced "Victoria's Secret Show of the Year" during this period, it had nothing to do with the movie. A few days before the start of filming on June 2, Eric basically re-entered the state of directing, fortunately, he has done things for two lifetimes, and all kinds of professional cognitions related to directors are deeply instinctive, and it is impossible to forget it in two years.

On June 2, Paradise Island Beach in the Bahamas, "Casino Royale" was officially launched.

In line with the principle of easy before difficult, the film first starts shooting when Bond meets the film's No. 3 Bond girl on the beach.

There are no specific lines in this scene, and it is relatively simple to shoot.

According to the order of priority, the No. 1 Bond Girl of this 007 is naturally Cate Blanchett, in order to let Kate have the intellectual temperament of some working girls, Eric currently arranges her to experience life in the British branch of Fireflies, and the No. 2 Bond Girl is the sister of Kate's character, played by Christina Aguilera, and the other identity of this role is also the backup angel of Charlie's Detective Agency.

Therefore, the woman in the Bahamas at this time is the No. 3 Bond Girl, Eric did not interfere in the selection of this role, but the final candidate of the casting team is very coincidental, Terry Hatchell, according to the original timeline, Terry Hatcher is also the Bond Girl of Part 18 007. Eric also saw this woman on the casting list of "Lust City" last year, and it is not difficult to guess that Terry Hatcher should be an artist under ICM, otherwise she would not have appeared in the list of protagonists of the two major productions in the Firefly system in a row.

Of course, Eric doesn't have time to care about these tangled game entanglements now, and Hollywood is an intricate chess game.

Standing behind the familiar monitor, Eric looked at the shooting slides around him, the actors who had finished their positions, and looked at his crew, and the familiar feeling came to his heart, and he was a little excited.

The assistant director waved his hand at Eric, indicating that when everything was ready, Eric finally raised the microphone in his hand and said to everyone: "OK, Casino Royale Act 1, Action!"

In the long-range shot, Terry Hatchell's female No. 3 Katerina is running on a white horse on the beach, followed by a group of excited children.

As the camera moves slowly, Caterina rides away, the camera freezes on the bright little faces of several children, and Eric gestures again: "Ka, Good, get ready for the next one." ”

After all, it was the first shot after Eric returned to take charge of the guide tube, Eric's voice fell, and everyone around temporarily stopped the guy in his hand and applauded softly.

Terry Hatcher, who was helped by the staff to jump off the horse, even came over, squeezed around Eric and pretended to look at the monitor, and said without words: "Eric, don't you need to take a few more spare?"

It's all about getting a good head, not to mention that this simple shot is more than a minute long with four cameras in different positions, and the post-editing only takes about 15 seconds, of course, no reshoots.

"There's no need for this shot," Eric shook his head with a smile, looked at the woman in front of him in a bikini with a hot body, and said, "There will definitely be a chance for NG, I hope you don't lose patience at that time." ”

"Of course not, how dare I lose patience in front of you, Eric," the woman gave Eric a very amorous look, got up and walked away.

Several staff members around pretended not to see the 'interaction' between the director and the actress, and they were busy, but Eric only shrugged his shoulders slightly. Similar to the character setting in the movie, Terry Hatcher is also married in reality, and Eric is not a human wife, and usually does not provoke this kind of woman.

While Pierce Brosnan was getting ready, Eric and his old partner in charge of photography, Nicle Frank, shot a few sets of empty shots of the beach and the sea for backup, and then began the next scene, where James Bond surfaced and saw Caterina for the first time.

To be honest, Daniel Craig's figure in the original version can only be described as 'strong', and there is not much beauty of a male body, but Pierce Brosnan is different, when he wears a suit, he is a living clothes rack, take off the suit, and deliberately exercise a bodybuilding body for the role of Bond, eight-pack abs, mermaid line, and long legs, which are enough to make a group of young women and girls scream directly at a glance.

In the shot, James Bond surfaced and slowly walked towards the shore, Caterina jumped off the horse, the two looked at each other, Pierce Brosnan showed an appreciative smile, but Caterina looked a little reserved, glanced at Bond a few times, and walked away with the horse's ass.

This is the second official shot, and Eric also doesn't want to call Ka, but looking at Pierce Brosnan's performance on the monitor, Eric still raised the microphone: "Ka, No-Good, Pierce, Terry, can you come over for a moment?"

The two quickly got together, and Pierce Brosnan also wiped the water stains with a large towel sent by a female assistant to the crew just now.

Eric held the script and gestured slightly, "That's right, Pierce, your eyes just now were too purposeful, as if you were looking for something, that's not right, I need your gaze to be more careless." And Terry, you have to show that you are not just curious, you should also have a sense of being attracted, ......" Eric said, gesturing to Pierce Brosnan with a serious expression, "Isn't it possible that such a wonderful male body is attractive to you?"

Pierce Brosnan's expression was slightly embarrassed, and Terry Hatcher nodded subconsciously and said, "Okay, Eric, I probably know what to do." ”

"Let's do it again, then," Eric said, gesturing for the two to begin their positions again.

In the original version, James Bond did deliberately find the door in order to track down the clues left by the bomber, but in this version of the script, the two met completely by chance.

Katerina's husband Alex is a gray trading middleman on the periphery of the Phantom Party, and Bond, who was sent by Mrs. M to the Bahamas for vacation and repair, met Alex's wife Catalina on the beach, and the two soon met unexpectedly at the Paradise Island casino, because Alex had a cold and rude attitude towards Caterina, and Bond had always taken pity on each other in order to punish each other, and won Alex's car Aston Martin at the poker table, and this Aston Martin also became a key prop for Bond to accidentally get involved in the whirlpool of the Spectre Party.

Speaking of which, the most obvious feature of this 007 is that from the script stage, Eric intends to let 007 start the stage of serious storytelling.

In the past, most of the 007 took the route of playing gimmicks and selling scenes, filming everywhere around the world, all kinds of aircraft and artillery bombarded wildly, as for the plot, although large-scale films inevitably have weak plots, but the 007 series rarely has a good story, if it was before the nineties, because of the general backwardness of film shooting technology, these gimmicks can also attract a large number of audiences to buy it, but with the development of film and television special effects step by step, even if it is a scene such as a collapse of the sky and an alien invasion, the audience will gradually become accustomed to it, and the 007 series continues to follow the original route, which can only gradually decline。

In the original time and space, although James Bond portrayed by Pierce Brosnan has received a lot of praise, but because of the several films he participated in, the story is full of holes and loopholes, not to mention the continuity of the plot of several films, even within a movie, there can be a variety of unrelated plots, so Pierce Brosnan participated in four Bond films in a row, and the box office is generally not too high.

It wasn't until Daniel Craig took over 007 that the series began to clumsily tell a slightly more reliable story, perhaps with a little more luck in it, starting with the first "Casino Royale", the four Bond films played by Daniel Craig had a total box office of almost twice as much as Pierce Brosnan's version, and Daniel Craig became the highest-paid Bond actor in history.

The first day of filming went very smoothly, because it coincided with the weekend, the crew chose to call it a day early, and in the evening they also held a small start-up party at the resort where Paradise Island was stationed.

On the second day of the official start of filming of "Casino Royale", the box office of "The Matrix" in the first three days of its North American weekend was also successfully released. (To be continued.) )