Chapter 26 Finalization
"Many years later, we should remember such a person, who opened a new era of cinema and created many box office miracles and excellent works, his name is Lin Han!" - Empire Magazine's 2022 "Superhero Movie Era"
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In the days that followed, Lynham stayed in Hollywood, discussing ideas for "Batman" with Tim Burton and working on a contract.
In addition, Tim Burton has also begun to contact relevant actors and initially discuss cooperation intentions, which is a two-way choice.
Tim Burton is famous, but Hollywood has no shortage of actors with personality, and they don't take on films all the time, but also depends on factors such as schedule, salary and script.
For the choice of actors, Lin Han also gave his own Jianyì, Batman's candidate, and he took a fancy to Christian Bale.
When it comes to Christian Bale, many people are familiar with the famous Dark Knight trilogy directed by Nolan in Lin Han's previous life, starring Christian Bale.
This time, Lin Han wanted to see what kind of wonderful reaction Christian Bale would have when he worked with Tim Burton, a famous Hollywood director.
Christian Bale, a famous child star in Hollywood, starred in many movies since he was a child, and became famous at the age of 13 starring in Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun", and since then his acting career has been continuous, and at the same time, Christian Bale is also an actor who likes to try breakthrough roles.
As for the choice of the heroine, Lin Han also gave his own proposal, that is, Anne Hathaway, whose amazing appearance and slender figure are enough to play the heroine of "Batman".
As for acting, the immature Anne Hathaway was nominated for Best Performance at the Young Artist Awards in 1999 and starred in "The Princess Diaries" in 2000.
Regarding the Batman screen CP recommended by Lin Han, Tim Burton thought about it for a while and thought it was not a big problem, so he nodded and agreed.
The key to the success or failure of a movie, the actor is important, but the director's personal talent obviously occupies a heavier proportion, therefore, Lin Han paid Tim Burton $5 million!
occupies nearly one-tenth of the total investment, and Tim Burton is personally satisfied with this, he is not the kind of ordinary Hollywood commercial director who drills money, and the remuneration is worthy of his identity.
Since the remuneration is mentioned, Lin Han also made a budget table for "Batman" and Tim Burton, mainly estimating the approximate expenses of the film shooting, and calculating the break-even point.
Generally speaking, there are six major expenses for a Hollywood movie.
The first item is to publicize marketing expenses.
In contemporary Hollywood, the distribution of mainstream films has shifted to a broad and dense model, often rolling out on thousands of screens at the same time, but the time for a film to be released is usually only six weeks.
In order to cooperate with this model, publishers have to carry out violent advertisements to "rush" audiences to the cinema in a short period of time, including advertising channels such as TV commercials, newspapers and magazines, billboards and the Internet.
After weighing up with Tim Burton, the two reached an agreement to set the promotional and marketing expenses for "Batman" at $10 million, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the total budget.
The market competition is fierce, advertising investment must be willing, there is a give-and-take, Lin Han's 56 million US dollars is not blowing in the wind, and naturally he hopes to get enough returns.
The second item is the production fee.
This is another major expense of films, which is usually divided into offline costs (mainly the remuneration paid to technical personnel and the logistics, equipment and maintenance costs required to produce the film) and online costs (mainly refers to the remuneration paid to the film's management and creative staff, including producers, screenwriters, directors and actors).
In the movie "Batman", props are the top priority, plus the scenes involved are very large, and a lot of actors are needed, so, after negotiation, the production cost of "Batman" was set at 27 million US dollars, accounting for nearly three-fifths of the total budget.
In this fee, Tim Burton's salary is $5 million, the starring Christian Bale's salary is $5 million, and Anne Hathaway's salary is $1 million.
As for Lin Han, the screenwriter, according to Hollywood standards, there is also a screenwriter fee of $1 million, but this is only the cost listed on the schedule, and Lin Han will not take it, because it is his money, and this money will be used as compensation funds for the film when needed.
The third item is union fees.
This is a special expenditure in the budget, also known as the union dividend, which refers to the fees that the film company needs to pay to the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, and the International Association of Theatre and Dance Workers every time the film is reused and the income is obtained from it.
Some people may not understand why these unions are paid, but it should be noted here that these various types of unions do not take money and do not work, and their savings play a role.
For example, when a screenwriter receives much less than expected and industry standards for his script, the screenwriter can turn to the screenwriters' union for help, so that the screenwriters' union can get a fair remuneration for himself, and the role of other unions is similar.
This union fee is not much, only $2 million, you can understand it as insurance costs, such as after the release of "Batman", legitimate rights and interests were violated, these unions have to help people to solve it.
Fourth, DVD distribution costs.
What needs to be noted here is that the revenue channels of Hollywood movies are not only box office, but also the income channels are diverse, and the most important income comes from DVD revenue, which is related to the habits of the American people.
Contemporary Hollywood has developed a set of "expanded window distribution" model, that is, movies are distributed in sequence along different theaters, audio-visual and television, new media and overseas markets, so that the top windows can enjoy a certain period of exclusivity.
For example, a Hollywood movie will first be released in theaters for two to three months, and after the film screening period is over, the studio will release the film's audio-visual products in the form of DVDs, Blu-ray discs, etc., from which the revenue will be no less than or even more than the box office of the movie.
In this piece, the DVD release cost of "Batman" is set at $5 million, which is quite heavy.
Fifth, issuance costs.
This fee is a fee paid to the distributor, for example, the largest film giant in the North American market is Galaxy Pictures, which has thousands of theaters and theaters, this is the channel, if you want to maximize the benefit of the movie, you must pay the distribution fee to Galaxy Pictures.
The cost of this piece is as high as 10 million US dollars.
The sixth item, other fractional costs, which are mainly working capital, can be supplemented in the event of a shortfall in the above costs, with a budget of $2 million.
After this series of budgets was completed, Lin Han was also tired enough, and sighed that it was really not easy to make a movie, but at the same time, Lin Han also learned a lot of things, which he couldn't touch as a golden supporting actor in his previous life.
After the filming of "Batman", Lin Han threw all kinds of things in contact with Galaxy Pictures to Tim Burton, ready to be a hands-off shopkeeper.
Therefore, after paying the first $10 million start-up capital, Lin Han is finished, at most if there is any problem with the script, Tim Burton will discuss with him, and Lin Han will give the rest to the Hollywood ghost director as he himself said.
However, before returning to China, Lin Han went to the Beverly Hills Hotel again and made an appointment with Edward, a blonde young man he had met at the Sundance International Film Festival.
Edward is the investment manager of Galaxy Pictures, and Lin Han came to him because "Saw Horror" came out and needed a distributor.
Edward happily went to the appointment, and at the same café, Lin Han and Edward had a "friendly and intense" discussion about the box office share of "Chainsaw".
Originally, Edward was going to take 80% of the box office revenue in one bite, which can be described as a lion's big mouth, Lin Han naturally refused, jokes, but he knows how popular "Saw" is in the end, even if "Chainsaw" only has a box office revenue of $55 million in the North American market like in his previous life, and 1% is hundreds of thousands of dollars, he will not let go lightly!
Yang Yi watched Lin Han and Edward come and go like a quarrel After "discussing", the two shook hands amicably, and finally signed an agreement, both of them were a little stunned.
In the end, Lin Han won a 40% box office share for his newly established Williams Film Studio, and as an investor, Lin Han could get 40% of the final box office revenue of the film.
This battle can be described as thrilling, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is snatched from the tiger's mouth.
If Edward relied on Galaxy Pictures to suppress Lin Han with huge resources, Lin Han would also give up some interests, after all, if people don't show your movies, where will you get any income? But fortunately, in the end, it was Lin Han who won.
The North American schedule of "Chainsaw" is set for June 1, and as for other countries and regions such as Huaxia, Lin Han needs to do it himself.
However, as a result, "Saw Horror" also increased its promotional and marketing expenses by $4 million, and the original cost of $1 million brought the total cost to $5 million.
In his previous life, Lin Han remembered that "Saw Horror" was only a small-scale screening at the beginning, and finally it was expanded based on word of mouth.
However, this time, Lin Han does not plan to take this route, but advertises to let "Chainsaw" enter the audience's sight in advance, attract more people to the theater to watch, and create greater box office benefits.
On April 1, Lin Han, who was a little tired from working hard in the United States, took Yang Yi and others on a flight back to China, this time, Lin Han gained a lot, not only completed the filming of "Chainsaw", but also invested in the movie "Batman", and the future is bright.
However, Lin Han suddenly discovered a problem, that is, he was about to become a poor egg, thinking that he still had a mansion, a luxury car, a bodyguard, an agent, an assistant, etc. to support, Lin Han felt that he had to make some money.