Chapter 185 of the main text volume is the right to adapt the comics

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After consulting with Bill Rothes at the Death Star Mansion for a while, Murphy asked him to contact photographer Philip Raschel and others, and then find a relatively cheap special effects production company, and then left Century City and went to Burbank Miramax's branch, Harvey Weinstein had just come from New York today, and he was here to meet this big Jewish fat man.

"What, you've decided on a new project?" Harvey Weinstein asked in a joking tone.

"Harvey, remember the call I made to you some time ago?"

Sitting in a chair in front of his desk, Murphy looked at Harvey Weinstein across from him, "That comic, that comic is my goal!" ”

"You mean......" Harvey Weinstein immediately remembered, "DC is not good!" ”

Instead, he asked, "Murphy, why did you choose it?" The first three movie scripts are all written by you......"

Adaptations often mean a large royalty, and Harvey Weinstein certainly wants to trade the smallest expenses for the maximum profit.

"Because this comic boldly uses black and white to create, the brushstrokes are orderly in chaos, emphasizing the contrast of light and shadow, creating a unique black style, and also breaking the reader's appreciation inertia of favoring color comics."

With that, Murphy spread his hands and added, "It also has a unique black and white picture, strong cinematic scenes, and a traditional sculpting style that has had a significant impact on the comic book world across the United States!" ”

Of course, that wasn't enough to impress Harvey Weinstein, so Murphy added, "What's more, it has a huge loyal following throughout North America that are potential viewers for the future of the movie!" ”

Harvey Weinstein also has some knowledge of that comic, knowing that what Murphy said was true, but it wasn't that simple.

"Murphy, we're not talking about investment and returns, we're not talking about scripts and plans," he looked across from him, "Hollywood, you're not the first person to hit this comic book idea, and Miramax isn't the first company, but it's all rejected!" ”

Since the new project chose this comic, Murphy certainly had an understanding and nodded slightly.

"Planet Terror" brought Miramax a lot of money, and Harvey Weinstein now admires the young director across from him, and patiently says, "Even if we can get DC, what are we going to do with Frank Miller, a stubborn old guy?" ”

"I'm going to talk to Frank Miller," Murphy confident, "and now the CAA is very supportive of my idea, and as long as Miramax can support me, I'm confident that I'll be able to convince Frank Miller." ”

Harvey Weinstein slowly clasped his fingers on the armrest of the chair and thought for a moment before he slowly spoke, "Murphy, as long as you can convince Frank Miller, we can make contact with DC. However, if you invest, ......"

He spread his hands, "You know, I'm responsible to the head office, Walt Disney and the other shareholders, and I can't promise you anything until I see the script and the concrete proposal." ”

"I know." Murphy nodded.

If Harvey Weinstein had promised to invest tens of millions of dollars in the future, Murphy would have suspected that the guy would either have a problem with his head or an ulterior motive.

Murphy stood up, "I'll go first, Harvey." ”

"Okay," Harvey Weinstein stood up and sent him out of the office, "to get in touch." ”

Such a young director with a lot of prospects in the future naturally has to maintain close cooperation with him.

It's not easy to impress someone like Frank Miller, who has already made a name for himself, and a simple temptation of fame and fortune is not the best way to do it.

From mid-August to the end of August after "Planet Terror" ended, Murphy took a break for a while, but unlike the previous time, he didn't go on vacation, and basically hid in Los Angeles, in addition to fitness, visiting friends and relaxing, he was still thinking about new projects.

The successive commercial successes of the two films "Chainsaw" and "Terror Planet" undoubtedly gave him more capital and more investment, even tens of millions of dollars, so he set his sights on Frank Miller, the famous comic book master.

Frank Miller is an absolute god in the North American comic book world, having created influential works such as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, Daredevil: Reborn, Spartan 300 and ******.

He has profoundly changed the Batman comics, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the one who really brought the Dark Knight style to Batman.

Of course, Murphy doesn't have a fancy for the Batman series, he also knows that he doesn't have this ability at all now, and even if he wants to fight Batman's idea, DC and Warner won't bird him.

Murphy is interested in the work that established Frank Miller's status as a master in the comic book industry, and it is also a work full of rich black style, "Sin City"!

This manga is one of the few works that perfectly combines violence and aesthetics.

"Violence" and "aesthetics" were originally two words that were not related, but some comic works have skillfully integrated them to gradually form a well-known art form "violent aesthetics", which usually uses appropriate artistic means to intuitively render or euphemistically allude to violent processes and bloody scenes with formal symbolism, so as to convey a heart-stirring aesthetic experience and thought-provoking theme connotation while stimulating the senses.

Murphy has studied the comic and its adaptations, and the film Sin City breaks the mold and uses a flat, conceptual visual language to create a unique aesthetic of violence.

This film intuitively expresses a large number of violent processes and bloody scenes with extremely artistic visual design techniques, not only does it have a disgusting sense of vulgarity, but makes the naked violent scenes become melancholy and poignant, and the charm is profound, which is really an innovative masterpiece of violent aesthetic films.

After choosing the target and now, in addition to participating in some necessary activities, Murphy spent a lot of time watching and consulting extremely relevant materials of the "Sin City" comics, it can be said that this comic is born with the characteristics of a movie, the strong cinematic scenes and traditional carving style are very suitable for adaptation, and even without too many cuts, as long as the style effect of the comic book is realized, it can become a very charming movie.

This also further strengthened Murphy's determination to get the rights to adapt the comic.

Before the Saturn Awards, Murphy roughly thought of the way to adapt it, shooting according to the original comics, which is undoubtedly the least risky and the most supportive of Franco Miller.

Without Franco Miller's support, you can't get the rights to adapt Sin City, and nothing else is possible.

Even, this project is more like a transition from comic to film than an outright film adaptation.

The Sin City comic focuses on three interrelated stories: Sin City, Sniper, and Yellow Bastard.

All three stories take place in the same fictional city, Sin City. In this city, the bishops, senators, and policemen who are supposed to represent light and justice are the root causes of evil.

Darkness is the only scenery in the city, and violence becomes the only justice left in it, and in order to fit the plot and theme, the whole comic

The story is almost always arranged in the deep darkness of the night, using simple and rough flat images and contrasting conceptual colors as the visual language, trying to create a dark and terrifying urban atmosphere.

Among them, the flat scene style boldly omits irrelevant picture details, and even uses pure color blocks to reshape the visual image, making the violent theme simple and straightforward, and making the bloody plot subtle and deep.

The film adaptation will inevitably use this conceptual use of color, and the main black and white tones will be combined with contrasting local colors to create a materialistic, corrupt, and dark image of the city, which can completely activate this sin city shrouded in darkness and violence.

Although he hasn't made a specific plan yet, and he hasn't gotten the script, Murphy has thought a lot, especially the way the film was filmed.

There was no doubt that he had to abandon the traditional film camera and switch to the latest digital video camera, using the green screen as the main shooting background, and relying on post-CGI technology to realize the comic scenes.

What is the essence of the comic book Sin City? Undoubtedly, its unique graphics and offbeat anti-hero characters, in a world of color comics, Frank Miller adopts a black and white style, and then applies eye-catching colors to some of the more specific targets, which is quite fresh.

It is not impossible to achieve these effects by relying on traditional film cameras and special effects technology, but the cost is quite high, far exceeding the cost of using digital technology.

Despite the successive successes of "Saw Horror" and "Terror Planet" as capital, Murphy also knows that Hollywood manufacturers are realistic, and at his current level, it may be difficult to get more than 50 million dollars in investment, so digital cameras and digital special effects are the best options to achieve visual effects.

Visual effects are ubiquitous in films, from the earliest frame-by-frame shooting, makeup repair, to live-action model shooting and mechanical special effects, to motion capture technology and 3D mixing CGI........ film industry technology is changing with each passing day, and there are many large and small technologies contained in each category, such as motion capture technology, which is mechanical, acoustic, electromagnetic, optical, etc., and the final visual feeling conveyed to the audience is the result of the collaborative completion of a variety of technical categories, including the use of the most basic photographic lens.

So, as long as he can achieve the desired effect, Murphy doesn't care whether it's the traditional way or the latest digital technology.

Whether it is advocating traditional real-life models and mechanical special effects, or completely green screen and blue screen system; Whether it is traditional technology or the most advanced CG, it is ultimately in the service of making Zuò films.

Before all of that can happen, though, Murphy must first convince Frank Miller. (To be continued.) )