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In the afternoon after the audition, the relevant personnel of Twentieth Century Fox gathered in a small conference room to discuss the film they had just watched in the morning, the film exceeded everyone's highest expectations, for these professional industry insiders, it may be difficult to judge whether the film will really be accepted by the market, but it is not too difficult to distinguish between bad films and well-made products.

Maybe it's because of the initial recognition of "Life and Death" in my heart, or maybe it's because of George Lucas, CEO Jeff Gianopoulos also appeared in this conference room.

"Camelot, tell me what you think."

As the secretary brought coffee to everyone, Townsend Rothman said, "You can see you have some ideas for this film." ”

"It's a very thrilling and not traditional action movie."

Roughly organized the language, Camelot Singer directly said his opinion, "The young director named Duke did a better job than I imagined, every detail of the film was polished by him to be glamorous, and it looks so perfect......"

As the most senior film selection expert at Twentieth Century Fox, Camelot Singer's attitude is very obvious.

"Townsend, what about you?"

Just as Camelot Singer was finished, CEO Jeff Gianopoulos asked Townsend Rothman, as the head of distribution, his opinion was important, "What kind of strategy do you think we should use to approach this film?" ”

"The vast majority of 'Life and Death' is excellent, and while there are flaws in the logic of the plot and some of the scenes, Duke Rosenberg uses a lot of short takes, and the super-fast pacing gives a sense of urgency that you would expect from a top-notch blockbuster."

Putting down the coffee cup, Townsend Rothman spoke at an unfast pace, "Generally speaking, a movie trailer must be a collection of the best shots, the best visuals, and the most exciting moments in a film, but Rosenberg's film is full of these shots, like rows of labels, each of which is adrenaline-pumping." ”

"It's an excellent action entertainment movie." He concluded by concluding it.

As a true professional, Townsend Rothman certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to look at commercial films with a literary and artistic eye.

"But we can't ignore the risk of having zài behind the film."

Ever since the discussion began, Tim Fisher has been observing that Twentieth Century Fox's signing of the film is an inevitable trend, and he can't change that, admitting that the film is thrilling enough and has a lot of selling points, but he doesn't want to see the film sell well.

First, this is a film that his competitors in the future CEO are strongly trying to introduce.

Second, people with a heart will definitely find that the script has been handed to him, if the film is successful, it means that there is a problem with his vision, and it will definitely cause some adverse effects.

"Despite the popularity of action movies in North America in recent years, we should not forget that audiences' tastes are fickle, and no one knows when they will get tired of the genre. There is also a lack of appealing star actors in this film, which is extremely unfavorable for publicity, which means that we have to spend more resources on publicity......"

None of the people who can become executives of the Big Six companies are stupid, and all the facts listed by Tim Fischer Roh are objective facts.

"Introduce films according to category B to formulate and distribute."

After discussions among the top executives, a consensus was reached, and CEO Jeff Gianopoulos made the final decision to "arrange the ratings, test screenings and screenings of the film as much as possible." ”

This is the safest way, and no one else disagrees.

After the preview session, Duke cut two trailers according to the request of Twentieth Century Fox, and the production of the film was basically over, but he did not take a holiday for himself, and continued to maintain close ties with the 'speed' studio, and the distribution company's promotion strategy for the film was also an indispensable condition for the success of the film.

The distribution company is the top layer of this circle, even with the support of Lucasfilm, a rookie director like him will not have any say in the negotiations, and Duke did not participate in the negotiations, so professional things will naturally be done by professionals.

In less than a week, Lucasfilm negotiated a distribution deal with Twentieth Century Fox.

Twentieth Century Fox will become the North American distributor of "Life and Death", taking 15 percent of the North American box office and 50 percent of the North American television and video rights revenue as distribution expenses, and will enjoy the right of first refusal to purchase overseas distribution rights.

At the same time, Twentieth Century Fox also set a schedule for the film's North American release.

Over the next two weeks, Twentieth Century Fox will hold fan and critic preview screenings, invest appropriate publicity funds to build momentum for the film, and promote "Life and Death" to North American theaters in mid-April, the traditional off-season, in 20 theaters.

The schedule was quickly delivered to Duke, who, despite his dissatisfaction with Twentieth Century Fox's conservative distribution strategy, knew that he had no capital to dispute it.

Twentieth Century Fox took the safest and most beneficial distribution method for distributors, and Duke also wanted the film to be opened in North America with 1,000 or even 3,000 theaters, but that was just an unrealistic delusion!

Not to mention the high publicity costs that will inevitably cost a large-scale release, the money for making copies alone is a huge amount of money.

Today, a 35-millimeter copy costs about $600, or $1.8 million if the film were released on 3,000 screens, and Twentieth Century Fox will not be generous when the market for the film is uncertain.

Hollywood's big corporations have all sorts of tricks, but they've never been charities.

Twentieth Century Fox can observe the market's reaction, and if the audience has a good reputation and the box office performance of a single theater is excellent, it is not difficult for them to print thousands of copies in a short period of time and quickly expand the scale of the screening.

In the end, the film was a big hit, and Twentieth Century Fox got a high commission; The film failed, and Twentieth Century Fox had little to lose.

This is the simplest rule in Hollywood, people who don't have capital, have to follow the rules.

Duke knew very well that Twentieth Century Fox would never invest too many resources until "Life and Death" showed enough potential in the market, and developed a detailed publicity strategy for the film, in addition to the fact that the film could indeed see a clear selling point, Lucasfilm must have played a lot of role in it.

Time gradually came to the end of February, the media still can't see the advertisements and news of "Life and Death", Duke's insomnia has a tendency to worsen, even if he knows that he should maintain a stable mind, even if his face never shows anxiety, but the dry climate of Los Angeles is very easy to make people irritable, but fortunately, it has rarely rained in recent days, and the cool air has brought rare comfort.

Despite the uncertain future, Duke has already started writing a second screenplay, which would also allow him to be a little distracted from thinking about the success or failure of "Life and Death" all day, because even if he thinks about it a lot, it won't do much now.

The second script is still an action movie, and it will be a story of soldiers full of explosions, gunfights, and betrayals.

On the last day of February, Duke threw away all his work and rushed to Los Angeles International Airport to say goodbye to the only friend he had made on the set.

"This is my dad, this is my mom......"

Before the gate, Sofia Coppola introduces Duke to her family, and although these famous people don't know him, Duke must know them.

Mr. and Mrs. Francis Coppola greeted Duke and moved away from the place a little, giving up the space to the young men, apparently they had misunderstood something.

"This is my cousin......"

Finally, Sophia brought him to a strange-looking man, and Duke quickly reached out and shook his hand, "Nice to meet you, Nicholas." ”

"I'm glad to meet you, too."

Now Nicholas can barely be considered second-line, and his temper is not as weird as his appearance.

"Nikolai, you may have a common topic."

With some time left on the plane, Sophia simply stood next to Duke and Cage, "Duke had just made a movie and signed a distribution contract with Twentieth Century Fox. ”

"Director?" Cage asked.

"Yes." Duke smiled a little modestly, "An action movie." ”

"Oh."

Cage immediately lost interest, and now he is a standard literary youth, obviously indifferent to action movies or anything.

The announcement to board the plane sounded on the radio, Sophia hugged her parents one by one, walked up to Duke again, tilted her head to look at him, "I wish your film a big hit, big director!" ”

"I wish you a speedy departure from the position of assistant." In the same tone, Duke said, "Maybe the next time I see you, you're already a top fashion designer." ”

"Of course!" Sofia Coppola is full of confidence.

Just as she turned around and was about to go in, Duke added, "If you are fired by Chanel, you can come back and continue to be my assistant!" ”

After saying that, he didn't give Sophia any chance to fight back, turned around and left.

After greeting the Coppola family and politely declining their invitation to dinner, Duke got into his Chevrolet and returned to his home in Santa Monica, parked his car in the garage, walked to the courtyard door, opened the mailbox, and took out a large stack of mail.

Entering the living room, Duke put his mother's mail on the newspaper shelf, opened a few of his own, and sat down on the couch.

One is a bank credit card statement, Duke just received the other $20,000 of the $120,000 director's remuneration some time ago, and paying off the credit card is not a problem, and the financial burden has been temporarily eased.

The other was an invitation from Twentieth Century Fox to attend a test screening in early March.