The casting of "Sin City" went very smoothly, and before I knew it, the name "Lancelot Strello" was already famous, coupled with the endorsement of the Coen brothers, as well as the title of Frank Miller's original comics, and even many second- and third-tier actors sent information to their agents, expressing their desire to star.

Even Bruce Willis, the biggest name in the entire cast list, agreed to star on the spot after watching the three-minute opening of Reims's zuò, and also agreed to star at a friendly price, which is really good news.

What's even more gratifying is that Lance and Frank also reached a consensus on the adaptation of the script, and then Frank began to write the detailed biographies of each character, and Lance began to polish the dialogue of the script - as for the story framework of the script, Lance decided to follow the structure of the original comics, which were originally short and concise short stories, and adapted into the script almost without too many changes.

After the twists and turns of the rights acquisition, the preparatory work for "Sin City" can be said to be smooth, and it is not surprising that it will be ready to enter the studio in October. In the blink of an eye, the sin trilogy is really going to be realized, but it is precisely because of this that Lance cannot be taken lightly, whether it is the script or the characters, it must be meticulous and meticulous, cautious and cautious.

What's more, Lance's immediate priority now is not "Sin City", but the late-production zuò of "borrowing a knife to kill". Before the end of the summer, Lance and Aaron worked day and night to finish all the editing, and then the work was put into the production of the soundtrack and subtitles, and the pre-publicity was also launched.

Percy walked into Chaos Pictures' office with the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly in hand, and after a few months, the office had been completely renewed, with large windows facing to the east. The spacious, bright glass completely spreads the view of the low city of Los Angeles, and the sunlight pours in unhindered, illuminating the entire iron-gray office, surrounded by sea-blue sofas and lime tabletops, cool but with a chilling modernity, and the walls at both ends are depicted with murals of nebula explosions. The dark blue wall, the cream-yellow starlight, and the silver-white star cluster complement each other, and the grandeur of the moment of the chaos explosion is presented in a low-key but shocking way.

The spacious office is divided into two parts, two-thirds on the left hand side are twenty office cubicles, and the right-hand third is an open space, with a transparent whiteboard in the center, surrounded by a set of smoke-gray linen sofas, occasionally stacked with some black and white sofa piers scattered messily in the open space, and next to the pantry corner near the window.

There is some idleness in the formality, and there is some casualness in the solemnity. Tension and relaxation, the whole office space is pleasant. At this time, most of the twenty office cubicles were already full, and there were all kinds of messy texts on the tables, and in just a few months, the work of Chaos Pictures had gradually been on track.

Percy looked down through the "Entertainment Weekly" and greeted him with a slight restraint from the oncoming staff, but he didn't look up. Just politely tucked his chin, and his pace always remained calm and frequent. I walked straight to the left-hand side, and when I reached the end, I looked up and saw the dark blue wooden door in front of me, which blended seamlessly with the wall, but the small cluster of chaotic nebula above was particularly obvious, marking the location of the wooden door.

Raised his hand and knocked twice on the door panel. Then I heard Lance's deep voice come out, "Come in." Percy twisted the doorknob open, pushed it open and walked in, and Lance's figure immediately came into view.

At this time, Lance crossed his hands over his chest, his eyes locked on the desk. Seriously lost in thought. Percy walked over, the twenty-four poster templates on the table were neatly arranged, dazzling, it could be seen that Lance was picking out the movie posters for the first wave of publicity, Percy looked at the newspaper in his hand, "Do you need me to come back in later?" ”

Lance shook his head, "No. Lance quickly picked up four samples from the table, set them aside, and then looked up, "What's the matter?" ”

Percy immediately handed over the newspaper, "The first wave of media propaganda has come out, I'll come over and check with you to see if this is the effect." If so, then Paramount will follow this and issue an official press release. ”

Lance took over "Entertainment Weekly", and Percy had already turned to the inside page, with a catchy headline, "Tom Cruise has had one of the toughest performances since the film!" ”

Looking down the title, Lance scanned the content quickly, then nodded, "yes, that's the effect." The next pre-publicity revolves around this theme, remember, don't talk about the performance, talk about the filming process, wait for the first batch of reports to gradually ferment, after the second batch of posters are launched, and then let Tom start to be interviewed, in the interview process, you can start talking about the performance one after another, but don't talk too much, all the one qiē is still in the mode of commercial film promotion. ”

"But the core keyword is 'the hardest'." Percy points out the most important thing, which Lance answers in the affirmative.

When Paramount was planning the promotion of "Murder with a Knife", the first plan was "Tom Cruise gave the best performance of his career!" "The most wonderful" and "the hardest" are also compliments on Tom, but the focus of the meaning and implication is very different.

In fact, this is the propaganda strategy of the previous Paramount, in short, to focus all the focus on Tom, and then make people deeply aware of what sacrifices Tom made for this role, how much effort he put in, and what an incredible breakthrough he made, all of which were paving the way for Tom to hit the Oscars.

But in Lance's view, this strategy commits two taboos: the first is that the positioning of the film has wavered, between art films and commercial films, but it has not been touched twice, and it cannot please the box office and arouses critics' disgust; The second is the same as "Troy", prematurely raising the expectation value, in fact, this is also one of the regular Hollywood routines, constantly beating the side drum to say good, and then creating the opinion leader effect to guide public opinion, but the problem is to raise the expectation value to an incredible height in advance, and the result of direct guidance can only disappoint the audience, not to mention, the awards season has not yet begun, and there are still nearly five months before the Oscar nominations are announced.

When conceiving the "Kill by the Knife" promotional strategy, Lance's first thought was the "Batman Prequel: The Dark Knight" plan. As a commercial blockbuster, the first target of "The Dark Knight" is undoubtedly the box office, and all the publicity is bombarded with the goal of the box office, and after the release of the movie, it is surprisingly that the Joker played by Heath-Ledger has sparked a frenzy of praise.

Warner Bros. didn't anticipate this situation at the time, and after entering the awards season, Heath became a favorable candidate for Best Supporting Actor. The fact is that Heath's performance is indeed extraordinary and amazing, but "The Dark Knight" is a commercial film, and it is not unprecedented in film history to win the Oscar for his performance in a commercial film, the most famous is "Rocky", but the difficulty is beyond imagination. Later, Warner Bros. simply pushed the boat down the river and began to concentrate on canvassing for Hiss.

After the Oscar nominees were announced, Heath died young due to an overdose, which pushed his popularity to the extreme. Warner Bros. struck while the iron was hot and took the college's PR to the extreme, and before the Oscars, there was almost no suspense about the ownership of Best Supporting Actor.

Lance hopes that "borrowing a knife to kill" can be like this, setting the goal accurately in the early stage, closely focusing on commercial films, and all the goals are at the box office. After the movie is released, Lance believes that Tom's performance will definitely amaze countless people, especially the audience who walks into the cinema with the intention of watching a commercial movie.

What's more, in the early publicity, the core vocabulary of "the most difficult performance since the film" itself has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it is to create a breaking point, Tom has filmed works with super challenging difficulty such as "Mission Impossible", and "Killing with a Knife" is even more difficult than "Mission Impossible", which is definitely an eye-catching attraction for commercial films; On the one hand, it is to pave the way, the so-called hardship, not only physically, but also mentally - that is, the so-called acting breakthrough, after the movie is released, Paramount can gradually guide public opinion to the spiritual side, and then carry out the college public relations, all of which will be a matter of course.

Including the poster that Lance was choosing just now, he avoided the poster that could show Tom's full picture, he didn't want Tom's gray hair style to be the focus now, so he chose two very special posters, one is a large close-up of Tom's face, two-thirds of the face occupies three-quarters of the poster, and the part where the hairstyle is not visible, but it can clearly show that this is the core of the "Tom Cruise" starring starring, and the remaining quarter of the poster is very interesting, it is a block in the hazy night, But there are many details, including corpses, guns, and legal documents, etc., which is a poster that needs to be savored.

The other is Tom's back, holding a gun in both hands, in the midst of a fierce shootout, and the surrounding colorful night is all blurred, blurring Tom's image around it with great stylistic imagery. However, the shadow part of this poster needs to be adjusted to make the hair part blend in with the night as much as possible.

These two posters, plus a close-up photo of a taxi, show Lance sitting in the driver's seat with tense muscles, while Tom leans on the back of the seat on the other side of the back, looking at Lance's back with a haughty and defiant face; There is also a poster of Lance running for his life with a handbag, which is enough to constitute poster material for the premiere promotion.

The messages revealed by these posters are tight and intense, fully following the needs of commercial films to create explosive points.

"The pre-publicity is completely in accordance with commercial films, with the goal of box office." Percy concluded, "The Paramount guys are going to have a lot of fun. "The box office is their primary goal, how can they not be happy?" By the way, today's headlines ......" Percy's voice stopped talking. (To be continued.) )

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