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If in the past, Li Xiaole would definitely doubt whether he could make a good movie of this level, but now, after the baptism of so many works, his mentality has become mature, and he has completely achieved confidence in treating actors and controlling the crew.

And he is no longer just a lone director, but has the powerful Apple behind him, Pirate TV, CNN and other companies as strong backing, whether it is from jishu or publicity channels, Li Xiaole has the full ability of Bava to control this big production.

Today, his Black Pearl is no longer the battered wooden boat, but a well-equipped steel ship, and under the pirate flag fluttering on the mast, stands Tom Cruise, Steve Jobs, Wagner, Stallone, George Cruise, and other top figures in various fields.

In the eyes of outsiders, this is the first time that Lianmei Black Pearl has completely independently produced, distributed and sold a movie, and the cost is so huge, if it fails, maybe everything he has accumulated will disappear, but he, the captain, is indeed unprecedentedly down-to-earth now, without the slightest panic, only the irrepressible excitement in his chest, and even after a day's work, he is still excited and sleepless all night, as if he was the expectation and desire on the eve of his childhood spring outing.

"Iron Man" is the first Hollywood A-level production in his directorial career, and the first independently produced film by United American Black Pearl, which is the moment when his long-cherished wish comes true for many years...... Li Xiaole was lying on the bed, and he seemed to be able to hear the wonderful "rustle" film turning sound in the camera... It feels like every minute, every second is so wonderful...... He was very intoxicated with this feeling.

While Li Xiaole enjoyed all this, Wagner, as a partner, felt a deep sense of crisis, she watched Iron Man's Jihua in detail, this movie not only rented Edward Air Force Base, the historic "Movie Road" in Penang, California and the Preavista platform as a filming location, but also Iron Man's complex prop design, as well as post-computer special effects synthesis, as well as Iron Man's action expression capture jishu, various military equipment rental, etc.

In terms of special effects, theoretically, the company's "Black Sail" studio has this ability, but because it will be released at the end of the year, Li Xiaole decided to distribute the computer special effects to 12 other special effects companies, including "Industrial Light and Magic", and the cost alone exceeded tens of millions of dollars.

In several preliminary discussions between her and Li Xiaole about "Iron Man", Wagner suggested trying to use computer animation in some large-scale scenes of military equipment, while avoiding close-ups as much as possible, and also reducing the proportion of various weapons and equipment, which would greatly reduce costs.

But in this matter, Li Xiaole is stubborn, he insists on shooting with real scenes, his reason is: "The physical military equipment will have a particularly textured picture quality, and it can shorten the shooting incident." ”

Using virtual photography jishu and post-compositing, with the current jishu level, the effect is far from Li Xiaole's standard, and Zuihou Wagner has no choice but to talk about cooperation with the US Department of Defense in person according to Li Xiaole's requirements.

Unlike in China, where it is almost impossible for private film companies to rent military equipment for filming, in the United States, as long as there is money, this is not a problem at all.

In the U.S. military, each department has its own agency for liaison with the film and television industries, all of which are based in an office building on Wilshire Avenue in Westwoods, and the Department of Defense agency is the most famous of them.

As the main representative of the American cultural industry, Hollywood movies are an important way to promote American culture, and they are also the best channel and means to maintain and enhance the image of American Shijie. However, the military is often annoyed to find that domestic public opinion news often smear the image of soldiers, similar to the "Iraqi prisoner abuse incident" and so on, which makes people very helpless.

As anti-Iraq war sentiment spread in the United States, the Pentagon began to actively seek cooperation with Hollywood in an attempt to reverse the image of the United States as a "bully" in Shijie, of which the Department of Defense is the most regulated agency.

In order to meet the needs of the film industry for weapons and equipment when filming films, the website of the intermediary agency of the Ministry of Defense even clearly marked the rental price of the weapons and equipment platform.

Li Xiaole quickly got a price table for renting equipment:

The price of renting an E-4B air command aircraft is 7. $20,000 per hour, which will serve as the "Air One" of the President of the United States in the event of a nuclear war;

The price of a B-1B long-range bomber is $50529 / hour; The rental price of an AH-64 attack gunship is $11,306 per hour; The rental price of one F-16C fighter is $10,181 / hour;

The rental price of one Global Hawk UAV is $8201 / hour. The training glider is the cheapest at $99 per hour, which also includes the pilot's use.

As long as you have the money, you can even rent the most advanced F22 bomber in the US Air Force, which is cheaper than the E-4B, only 6.50,000 US dollars per hour.

This price has declined to varying degrees due to the spread of the economic crisis in the United States itself, and it is almost the same as making special effects pictures, which is also the reason why a large number of US military equipment appeared in films such as "Transformers" and "Super Battleship".

In the previous original "Iron Man", in order to save money, the crew only used computers to make a few F-22s, which also greatly reduced the persuasiveness of the movie itself.

In Li Xiaole's mind, the name "Iron Man" should be associated with military equipment, the original movie Zuihou, the scene where the two Iron Man fought upside down in downtown Los Angeles, and as a result, they didn't even see a single soldier, which is really ridiculous.

In order to increase the logical persuasiveness, the crew even set the most exciting battle scene of this scene at night, when Li Xiaole saw this dimly lit scene in the cinema, he felt that the director was completely avoiding the cost, and filmed the climax of the duel between the two robots of good and evil into a brawl of street hooligans......

Big scenes are the most brilliant essence of superhero movies, and avoiding the most anticipated shots of the audience is simply a fucking crime!

Of course he can't sin! Li Xiaole wants real battle scenes, a terrifying villain, a battle scene like "Transformers" that is bright during the day and can see all the details, and a wonderful scene that beats the city of Los Angeles to the fullest.

In the end, Li Xiaole listed the equipment he wanted to rent, 6 F-22 Raptor fighters, 2 A-10 fighters, 6 F-16 fighters, 10 armored Humvees, the "Golden Knight" military parachute team, 2 M1A2 tanks, 2 M3A3 tanks, 2 self-propelled missile launchers, 2 armored vehicles, and the Baisha missile Shiyan field.

Seeing this list, Wagner, who is accustomed to seeing big scenes, was also shocked, and was a little skeptical that Li Xiaole was going to make a movie or organize a small war in Los Angeles?

She went through all the costs with great care, including cast and crew funds, filming costs, renting these huge amounts of military equipment, extras, rentals of public spaces in Los Angeles, post-production...... Taken together, a rough estimate shows that the pure production cost of "Iron Man" has exceeded $200 million...... This is already the same as "Titanic", "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", "Superman Returns", "X-Men 3", and "King Kong", which is the highest level of production of Hollywood global films......

As a small film company, and a first-time independent production, the cost seems staggering by any means......

Li ...... Can you think about it again, I think it's more reasonable to compress the production cost to about 100 million dollars. Wagner said in horror, she was beginning to wonder if Li Xiaole was starting to get a little mad because of her continued success......

Even if it is a production cost of 100 million US dollars, the total publicity cost will exceed 15000 US dollars, which is too huge, and this movie does not have the blessing of the social craze of the iPhone in "Life Remote Control...... It is by no means a simple matter to get a profit balance point of 200 million box office.

If it is 200 million, then with the cost of publicity, it will reach 300 million investment...... The global box office must reach 3.5 billion US dollars to not lose money, even Paramount's "Mission Impossible 3", which is also invested by giant companies, has not reached this figure, as the first film in the series, "Iron Man" is almost impossible to complete this task......

"If you want to make this movie well, you have to have a $200 million specification." Li Xiaole sat up straight, looked at Wagner and said, the investment in the original version of "Iron Man" is 1.5 billion, and his investment of 200 million is not excessive, and it can only be regarded as his minimum standard.

"Okay......" Wagner saw the resoluteness in Li Xiaole's eyes, and finally could only sigh, after all, he was the boss of Black Pearl Lianmei, and said helplessly:

"I'm going to find a way to find investment, and with the support of theaters, it's not impossible to get this investment amount."

After all, with a top production lineup such as Tom Cruise, Stallone and Li Xiaole, coupled with the appeal of the theme of "Iron Man" itself, it is not difficult to get some sponsored advertisements, and there will always be some speculative businessmen who are willing to invest.

"No~~ Wagner, we don't need to introduce any other investment this time, "Iron Man" will be fully invested by us." Li Xiaole stood up and said calmly with a face.