Back in Los Angeles, the first thing Eric had to deal with was the selection of the main characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In recent months, with the success of Iron Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe project has been in full swing. One of the most important tasks is to select new members of the Avengers.

Due to the fact that the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe was planned ten years ahead of schedule, many of the cosplayers that Eric could refer to were no longer suitable.

Of course, there are also some actors who are ready-made. For example, Thor, Eric identified Brad Pitt a few years ago. After the end of "The X-Files", Brad Pitt's development in the film industry did not go well, and the Firefly Group sent an invitation, and the other party quickly agreed, and signed a long-term contract for six films.

In addition, Hawkeye actor Jeremy Renner has also made his debut, Jeremy was born in 1971 and is 28 years old this year, which is also appropriate in terms of age. At Eric's behest, the role was also directly determined.

Others, Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow and even some of the more outstanding supporting actors, are still being selected.

Firefly Group's plan for the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe project is nine films, spanning from 1999 to 2004, a total of five years.

Among them, "Iron Man" and "Spider-Man", which have been launched, occupy two of the nine films respectively. "Captain America," "Thor," and eventually "The Avengers" occupy the other three spots. The remaining two films are "The Incredible Hulk".

In the past timeline, from 2003's "Hulk" to 2008's "The Incredible Hulk", it can only be described as a failure, and there are many reasons for this, such as the lack of the right director, the random replacement of actors, the creative conflict between the protagonist and the director, etc.

Moreover, due to the Hulk's special character setting, this comic book character is indeed more difficult to shoot than all other superheroes, but as one of Marvel's most popular superheroes, with Hulk's force enough to destroy the world, once filmed, Hulk will definitely be able to achieve unexpected success.

However, in Eric's view, although the two Hulk movies have ended in failure, the themes of both films are very much in line with the Hulk timeline, one is about the origin of the Hulk, and the other is about Bruce Banner's control of the Hulk.

The new Marvel Cinematic Universe will still use this timeline setting, in fact, it must also use this timeline. The original Hulk was very violent and completely irrational after his transformation, and Hulk in this state could not join the Avengers at all. So, Bruce Banner's self-control process must be completed with a sequel.

In contrast, "Captain America" only needs to tell one origin, and "Thor" also only needs one opening.

Therefore, according to the plan, not counting series such as "X-Men" that Marvel has already licensed, "Hulk" will become the third Avengers member to appear on the big screen after "Iron Man" and "Spider-Man".

In the former Avengers series, except for Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., other superhero characters did not have a particularly bright spot except for some passionate brotherhood.

This time, although "Iron Man" was also a success, Eric didn't want to hold up half of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by himself like Robert Downey Jr., and he wanted to see several other superhero characters perform better.

Therefore, due to the above reasons, coupled with the failure of the original version of "The Incredible Hulk", Eric also attaches great importance to this superhero movie.

In order to make the new version of "The Hulk" have a complete transformation, Eric directly excluded Eric Barker, Edward Norton and Mark Ruffalo, the former actors of the Hulk.

Eric Barker's version of the Hulk did not impress Eric much at all, Edward Norton's uncontrollable personality in reality made it difficult for him to honestly accept the setting given by Marvel, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe could not even have much say in the director, let alone use an actor like Norton who had extreme control over the script.

As for Mark Ruffalo, due to the success of the Avengers series, he is undoubtedly the most widely accepted Hulk actor by the audience.

However, the actor's portrayal of Hulk also has no bright spots, which can be seen from the actor's salary revealed in the Avengers series. As one of Marvel's most popular superheroes, Mark Ruffalo's salary as Hulk is even lower than Jeremy Renner's as Hawkeye.

There is no doubt that if Mark Ruffalo is used, the Firefly Group will definitely be able to save a lot of money, but suppressing actors' salaries has never been Eric's fundamental purpose.

Although the Firefly system has always emphasized cost control, in the final analysis, it only wants to control the obvious remuneration within a more fair and reasonable range. If Hulk's actor can single-handedly make a $1 billion box office, Eric will definitely not mind paying $20 million or more. On the contrary, if the Hulk movie fails at the box office, even if the protagonist is free or even upside down, Eric will not be willing.

Firefly Studios.

In recent days, Eric has basically been personally hosting the final round of auditions for the Avengers actors.

Today's auditions were for several candidates for Bruce Banner, and Katzenberg, who happened to be available, also rushed over. Counting Joss Wheddon, who has also become the core of the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, today's audition team can be described as 'unprecedentedly strong'.

Due to the success of "Iron Man" and the feeling of the importance that the Firefly Group attaches to the Avengers, eligible male stars in Hollywood have basically expressed interest in the Avengers series of characters.

However, Eric is not too interested in celebrities who are too famous. He didn't want a situation like in The Incredible Hulk where the audience saw the Hulk and their first reaction was Edward Norton instead of Bruce Banner.

Therefore, in the role selection process, the first criterion of the main creative team is whether the actor fits the role, and the requirements for the coffee position are not too high. This also led to the fact that when entering the final round of auditions, several Hollywood A-list male stars who were interested in Hulk were all swept away. Because of this incident, the Hollywood media, which has been paying close attention to the movements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been quite lively in recent days.

As the last auditioner was sent off at dusk, Eric leaned back in his chair a little tired.

There are actually not many actors participating in the audition today, only five people who have reached the final hurdle after layers of selection. But starting at 9 a.m., each of the five candidates auditioned for two hours, so it's been until now.

Although Eric treats everyone the same for each audition, after a day of auditions, Eric's personal inclination is still evident.

After taking a few sips of coffee from the secretary, Katzenberg, who was sitting next to Eric, did not immediately mention today's audition, but instead talked about another topic: "I met Richard Parsons at the cocktail party a few days ago, and he said that Warner Bros. might reboot the Batman franchise first. ”

Eric looked relaxed as he flipped through a document in front of him, looked at the eye-catching name of 'Christian Bale' on the name bar, and said with a smile on the corner of his mouth: "I thought it would be Superman, and now is not a good time to restart "Batman". ”

With the success of the opening of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warner, which has the big gold mine of DC, will naturally not be left behind. Eric originally wanted to secretly control the rhythm of Warner's development of the DC Cinematic Universe, and deliberately dug out Nolan for this purpose.

It's just that due to the change in Hollywood history, Warner neither got "The Lord of the Rings" nor developed "Harry Potter". Then, in order to prevent its own film business from declining, it is inevitable to develop DC in advance.

"It's really not a good time, and the audience has certainly not forgotten the 'strong' impression that 'Batman & Robin' left on them," Katzenberg gloated, "Warner wanted to develop 'Superman,' but the production rights of 'Superman' were in the hands of Jon Peters." Now that "Iron Man" is a big success, Warner has just messed up the reputation of "Batman" two years ago, and Jan Peters is naturally waiting for the price to sell, Warner did not negotiate with him, and can only turn his attention to "Batman" again. ”

Jon Peters was the partner who ran Columbia Pictures for Sony with Peter Cooper a few years ago, but before that, Peter Cooper and Jon Peters had their own production companies, affiliated with Warner Bros., similar in nature to Bruckheimer's production company.

In order to poach these two people, Sony also became a big wrongdoer and paid a huge amount of breach of contract fees for the two. Later, it turned out that this injustice was not ordinary, of course, these are all digressions.

Whether it is DC or Marvel, before the 90s, the movie rights of superheroes were not so important, and there was no strict defense after more than ten years.

So, in the late '80s, while under the Warner Bros. umbrella, Jon Peters' production company acquired the rights to Superman's films, which he has always held.

In the nineties, with the success of the Warner Bros. Batman franchise, the value of superhero rights began to manifest itself. It's just that due to a series of reasons, of course, the main thing is the entanglement of interests, the "Superman" series of movies has not been launched in recent years.

Due to copyright reasons, it has not been resolved, and in my memory, after the live-action version of the Superman movie in the Christopher Reeve series in the seventies and eighties, it was not until 2006 that the rebooted "Superman Returns" was successfully released, when it was 20 years after the previous version of the Superman movie.

The outside world always talks about the 'ill-fatedness' of Marvel superheroes, but in fact, Clark Kent's fate is actually more bumpy.

Eric handed over Nolan's "Memory Fragments" project to Colombia at the end of last year, and the film has now been filmed, but because it wants to take the word-of-mouth route, Colombia plans to release "Memory Fragments" in the subsequent Easter schedule after the Sundance Film Festival early next year.

That said, even if Nolan wants to make a name for himself, he will need to wait until next year.

Moreover, there is only one "Memory Fragment", which is far from enough for Nolan to pick up the guide tube for the reboot of the "Batman" series. After all, the fledgling British director may not even be familiar with the Hollywood production process right now, and at least one or two more films will need to be trained before he can get his hands on big-budget films.

Although Eric would love to replicate the success of Nolan's "Batman" series, he will not help the seedlings.

After thinking about it for a while, Eric said to Katzenberg: "Can you find a way to coordinate and let Warner start the Superman series first, even if it's other superheroes, I have other arrangements for "Batman". ”

Katzenberg thought for a moment and said, "Actually, it's very simple to say, if you want to start "Superman", you just need to get Jon Peters. ”

Eric rubbed his fingertips over the actor profile in front of him and asked, "What is Jon Peters doing at the moment?"

Katzenberg said, "You should know about the Hurricane Warriors, right?"

Eric then remembered that the last time Bill Michanik mentioned to him, Jon Peters and Will Smith and Barry Sonenfeld were working on a retro sci-fi film "Hurricane Men", which completely mimicked the model of "Men in Black". Eric was quite apprehensive when he heard this, and then instructed Bill Michanik to push the box office dud of White Dove Wu's "Wind Whisperer" to Warner Bros.

Obviously, while there was no talk on Superman, that didn't stop Jon Peters from working with Warner.

smiled helplessly, because Joss Whedon was present, Eric didn't say much, just said: "You take the time to pay attention, if we can intervene in the best, on the surface we can't interfere too much over there." ”

Katzenberg nodded knowingly.

The power of the Firefly system in Hollywood is already large enough, and AOL-Time Warner obviously wants to get rid of the label of a member of the Firefly system. As a result, both sides instinctively kept a low profile about Firefly Investments unwittingly becoming the second-largest shareholder of AOL-Time Warner once again. Even, on the surface, the two sides give people a sense of antagonism.

Of course, AOL-Time Warner really wants to compete with the Firefly system, but the Firefly system only deliberately makes some gestures, and Eric never takes the scattered AOL-Time Warner Group too seriously.

After chatting a few words, Katzenberg gestured to the actor profile in front of Eric and asked, "So, Christian Bale or Jim Caviezer, which do you prefer?"

Christian Bale, needless to say, was once the leading actor of Nolan's version of the "Batman" trilogy. Jim Caviezer, who was once more well-known as John Rees in "Suspect Tracking", was later nicknamed the fourth uncle by domestic American drama fans.

Eric wants the new Hulk to be more like a polite college professor before he transforms, rather than the honest and honest of Mark Ruffalo or Edward Norton. Speaking of which, the image of Eric Barker in the first version is also very appropriate, but the other party's performance really didn't leave any impression.

Of the last five candidates, based on some information from memory and the specific results of the audition, Eric is more satisfied with Christian Bale and Jim Caviezel.