When Lin Yuquan was reading the script, everyone's eyes in the chat fell on him from time to time, except for Lin Yuquan, everyone here was an actor, as an actor, he naturally longed for a good script from the bottom of his heart.

After learning that Lin Yuquan was reading the script "Black Swan", it was written by the screenwriter of last year's Venice Golden Lion Award film "Wrestler". After Hayman's adaptation, which will be directed by "Wrestler" director Darren Aronofsky, everyone is of course curious about the situation in "Black Swan".

Especially Liu Yifei and Wang Luodan, if it weren't for the fact that there were other people there, the two would have rushed to Lin Yuquan's side and read the script of "Black Swan" with him.

However, although I didn't see the script of "Black Swan" for the first time, this did not prevent everyone from searching for more information about "Black Swan" through the Internet, such as the starring role of the film was finalized as early as 2000. Portman starring, for example, the film is now being turned around by Universal Pictures and is favored by several studios in the free market.

"Do you think Director Lin will invest in "Black Swan", this movie seems to look very good." Gao Yuanyuan said with a smile.

"The script may be good, but after all, it is an art film, and the return on investment of art films has never been high. Starring Portman, with these two, the investment in the film must not be low, which is not a good thing for art films. Xu Zheng shook his head and said.

"That's right, this point can be seen from Universal Pictures' choice to turn over "Black Swan", and it is estimated that it is difficult for "Black Swan" to achieve profitability." Huang Bo laughed.

"It's a lively discussion. But that's right. The script for "Black Swan" is quite excellent. But whether the final investment is made depends on evaluating the possibility of the film being profitable. Lin Yuquan's gaze moved away from the laptop screen, and after sweeping around everyone, he finally landed on Zhou Xun, and said with a smile: "Zhou Xun, do you mind playing the villain supporting actress and the lily bed. Play? ”

"You mean to let me star in Black Swan?" Zhou Xun was naturally not stupid, and immediately guessed Lin Yuquan's thoughts.

"Yes, if you finally decide to invest in "Black Swan", I am ready to let you and Zhang Ziyi participate in the film audition. Competing for the role of female number two Lily, as I said earlier, this is a slightly villain character, and in the movie will be with Natalie. The heroine Nina played by Portman has unacceptable emotions in the world, and then this role needs to be able to dance, I remember that you learned dance before, depending on your own wishes, the salary will not be too high, but because the ballet involved in it is a top-level professional level, it is estimated that you will suffer a lot during the shooting. Lin Yuquan had a smile in his eyes. In fact, if it weren't for the dark and negative image of the character, he would prefer to be played by Shi Shi. After all, Shi Shi's ballet skills have nothing to say.

The eyes of the others also fell on Zhou Xun, and there was an indescribable envy in their eyes, although the role itself was not too good, but this was directed by the director of the Venice Golden Lion Award. Portman's movie in which he played the opposite role can be regarded as a good opportunity to appear in any case, and in the face of the opportunity, the so-called salary and hard work are nothing.

"If the script and the characters themselves move me, I'm certainly fine, and I'm happy to take on the challenge." Zhou Xun smiled brightly.

"Okay, but I can't show you the script for the time being, after I decide to invest in "Black Swan", I will send the script to you and Zhang Ziyi, and then you will decide whether to participate in the audition, anyway, as a director, I think Lily's role is very outstanding, and there should be a lot of hope to compete for the Best Supporting Actress award in next year's awards season." The corners of Lin Yuquan's mouth turned up slightly temptingly.

And after hearing his words, Zhou Xun's eyes naturally flashed with brilliance, and the others felt more and more envious.

"You don't need to be envious, Summit Entertainment makes so many films every year, as long as the timing is right, opportunities will come to you at any time." Lin Yuquan smiled, and then said with hatred: "Also, please, you are all leaders in the Chinese film industry, if you are full of envy for appearing in Hollywood movies, wouldn't it seem that Chinese movies are a head shorter in front of Hollywood movies?" This is not good, you have to have confidence in Chinese films and our domestic films, sooner or later, Hollywood actors will be eager to replace you in domestic movies. ”

Due to the urgency of time, after determining the need to talk to Darren Aronofsky about the investment in "Black Swan", Lin Yuquan immediately called Darren Aronofsky, considering that he had not yet decided to invest in the film, so he did not choose to meet at Summit Entertainment, but chose to meet at a café in Beverly Hills, and the time was the next morning.

"Sorry, I'm late." When he came to Dalen Aronofsky, Lin Yuquan said with a smile.

"No, it's me who came early, Lin you are very punctual." Darren Aronofsky hurriedly got up.

"Let's sit down and talk!" Lin Yuquan smiled slightly and motioned for Darren Aronofsky to sit down, asked the waiter to order coffee, and continued: "I remember Director Aronofsky, you said before that you are preparing a remake of "Robocop" for MGM Pictures, and it has been so long, has the script not been written?" When is the film ready to start? ”

"The script has been written, but we still have to wait for the approval of the filming above." Darren Aronofsky said with a smile, but there was a hint of helplessness in his eyes, as early as 2007, MGM announced the remake of the classic sci-fi action film "Robocop", and finalized him as the director last year, the film was originally scheduled to be released next year in 2010, but due to the global economic crisis and its own financial crisis, the remake plan of "Robocop" was postponed indefinitely, not only "Robocop", the latest film of the "007" series and the "Hobbit" series were also postponed indefinitely.

"In this way, will it conflict with the filming date of "Black Swan"?" Lin Yuquan continued to ask.

"No, I've already planned for that." Darren Aronofsky smiled and took a sip of his coffee. Try to calm your tone as much as possible: "Lin." In your opinion. Are there any problems with the script of "Black Swan"? ”

"There are definitely imperfections, and no movie can be truly perfect, but when I read the script, I pay more attention to the good places." Lin Yuquan smiled slightly: "Very clever dual personalities play with each other, just the right amount of suspense and thriller elements implanted, ambiguous and serious sexual topics, full of charming ballet, on the whole." "Black Swan" is definitely a wonderful and excellent art film, and years of painstaking polishing are definitely worth it. ”

"Thank you, Nalin, are you interested in investing?" Darren Aronofsky tried to control the tension in his heart.

"It's definitely false to say that there is no interest, and I'm sure a lot of people in many companies want to make a film like this." Speaking of this, Lin Yuquan paused and looked at Darren Aronofsky casually: "But sometimes, if it is not a good movie, it will definitely get investment, and other factors must also be considered, such as the production cost, directed by Aronofsky." For the movie "Black Swan", what is the investment budget in your mind? ”

"$30 million." Darren Aronofsky said in a trembling voice. His eyes were firmly fixed on Lin Yuquan's face, and he couldn't help but be nervous, he was noticed with the success of "Wrestler", but the investment budget for the film was not as easy as he expected.

Speaking of which, finding film investment has always been a pain in his heart, and the $60,000 investment in "The Code of Death" was raised by him through crowdfunding through difficulty, and due to the shortage of funds, he could only try to save money during the filming process; "Requiem for a Dream" suffered a withdrawal just two weeks after filming started, and half of the $4 million investment was suddenly withdrawn, so I could only find other investors while shooting; The original investment budget for "The Fountain of Love" was actually $75 million. Pete and Kate. Blanchett starred in two superstars, but the two leading actors chose to give up acting one after another, and when the film started filming in 2004, not only did the investment budget drop to $35 million, but the actor had to find Hugh, who was still relatively cheap at the time. Jackman and Rachel. Vichy.

And I originally thought that with the bumper harvest of "Wrestler" in the awards, with a production cost of $6 million and a box office success of $40 million, with Natalie. Portman, a popular actor, joined, and he was able to easily handle the $30 million investment budget of "Black Swan", who knew that Universal Pictures finally chose to give up and turn "Black Swan" around.

For him, this is undoubtedly a heavy blow, and it also makes him return to the old days when he was afraid that he would not be able to attract film investment.

30 million US dollars, Lin Yuquan shook his head slightly, well, he finally knows why Universal Pictures chose to give up, together with the publicity and public relations expenses of the Olympic bid, the total cost of the film is at least 45 million US dollars, what does this mean, it means that relying on the box office recovery cost alone, "Black Swan" will win at least 90 million US dollars at the North American box office, or a lot more global box office.

Obviously, according to the usual situation, this is absolutely impossible, not to mention that "Black Swan" is only likely to make a difference in next year's awards season, in this world, there are many movies with heavyweight awards but no good box office, such as "The Last Dictatorship", which made Forrester Whitaker the Oscar, grossed $17.6 million in North America and $48.36 million worldwide. Wear. Lewis's "Blood is Coming", which was once again crowned Oscar-winner, grossed $40.22 million in North America and $76.18 million worldwide. Pan was once again crowned the Oscar-winning winner of "Mikel", with a North American box office of $31.84 million and a global box office of $54.58 million, which is still the result of a great bonus to winning the Oscars.

Of course, it's not an art film without box office hits, such as "Brokeback Mountain", such as "Shakespeare's Love History", such as "Life is Beautiful", such as "The English Patient", but this probability is almost as low as winning the jackpot in the lottery ticket.

Therefore, let's ask, how can Universal Pictures, which must be cautious and cautious in film investment at this stage, invest.

To invest or not to invest? Lin Yuquan's fingers tapped rhythmically on the table, if "Black Swan" was really produced with an investment budget of 30 million US dollars, then a little careless, no. If the box office miracle hadn't happened. The film's losses were above $20 million at any time. For any studio, this is not a word count that can be ignored.

He naturally hopes to invest in shooting a lot of excellent films, but if a film company wants to survive for a long time, it has to consider commercial returns, considering the particularity of some films, sometimes it can actually lower the expectation of commercial returns of films, and even tolerate losses, but the losses must be controlled within a certain range. For example, he invested in the two literary films "Ocean Paradise" and "Piano of Steel", while hoping to make a good movie, he will lose less if he can lose less, and go in the direction of profit if he can make a profit.

What does a loss of more than $20 million mean, which means that such a loss is enough to shoot 6 "Ocean Paradise" or 11 "Piano of Steel", he does not think that Hollywood movies must be more advanced than Chinese films, from the perspective of inner emotion, if a Hollywood film loses too much, he is willing to use this loss to invest in shooting more high-quality Chinese films.

And when Lin Yuquan's fingers hit the tabletop, every knock he made was a knock on Darren Aronofsky's heart. Thinking of his friend Nolan's encounter, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but become bitter. The two began to shoot their own feature films in the same year, the same lack of funds, the same attention at the Sundance Film Festival, but then the two had completely different encounters, after "Following", with the filming of "Fragments of Memory", "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night", "Batman: The Mystery of the Shadow", "Deadly Magic", "Batman: The Dark Knight", the other party has become a world-famous director, with countless fans, and the limelight is second only to Kung Fu Lin in the new generation of directors, also easily got an investment budget of $200 million from Warner Bros. to shoot "Inception", which had been brewing for eight years, and received the full support of Warner Bros. executives.

Under his nervous gaze, Lin Yuquan stopped tapping on the table, and finally spoke, compared to the previous relaxed and casual, this time Lin Yuquan's expression was only solemn.

"Would you like to hear my thoughts on the movie Black Swan?"

"Of course." Darren Aronofsky nodded.

"Okay, an investment budget of $30 million is impossible, the risk of an art film is too high, the maximum budget I can accept is $20 million, this is one, and second, considering that if it is produced by our Summit Entertainment, in order to arrange the film to be released in China in the future, three places in the script must be adjusted, one is to rehearse the classic ballet "Swan Lake" The reason for the rehearsal needs to be changed to the tour of the troupe in China, and the second is the role of Lily, the second female, I hope it will be played by Chinese actresses, my consideration is Zhang Ziyi and Zhou Xun, they can't, and then consider other Chinese actresses, the third is the stage performance of "Swan Lake" at the end of the film, the shooting scene should be selected in China, if director Aronofsky can agree to my conditions, I will immediately convene the management of Summit Entertainment to discuss and make a decision, as for the filming of the film, rest assured, I absolutely believe in your control of the movie, Summit Entertainment will not have any interference except for the finances. ”

After saying this, Lin Yuquan looked at Darren Aronofsky fixedly, waiting for his reply, if the other party did not agree, then he could only choose to give up "Black Swan", although the film is good, but he must also have his own interests to consider.

"Okay, Lin, I agree to your conditions." Darren Aronofsky didn't hesitate too much, the $20 million investment budget was already the highest in the film company he approached, and Lin Yuquan's three demands did not affect the artistic expression he wanted.

"It was a wise decision, and I'm sure our cooperation will be very pleasant." Lin Yuquan smiled slightly.

"That's what I'm hoping for." After almost confirming that he would be able to get the investment, Darren Aronofsky smiled again. (To be continued.) )

PS: I finally finished writing the inserted "Black Swan" part, and the next chapter will return to the box office journey of "Immediate Rescue", haha! ps: Wow, 2.5 million words, give yourself a thumbs up, I've been writing very slowly lately, but you don't have to worry, I'm sure I won't be a eunuch, mainly because I've been too busy lately, and for the role of Lily in "Black Swan", do you have any good suggestions, is it Zhou Xun or Zhang Ziyi, or some other actor? Everyone is welcome to discuss and make up their minds.