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As early as the beginning of the century, because he heard that Sony Columbia Pictures wanted to buy the film adaptation rights of the Joe Special Forces toy series, Duke bought the film rights of the "Transformers" series from Hasbro at a large price, waiting for the time to make a series of movies. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

The "Transformers" series relies heavily on CG production, which is why Duke waited until now, today's CG technology is more mature, and the cost of production is greatly reduced compared to before, and the special effects that took $50 million to get at the beginning of the century are now more than $20 million is enough to get it.

Even so, Duke planned a minimum production budget of $200 million to give Optimus Prime and Megatron more opportunities to show their faces, rather than the Transformers who always switched to humans after a few flashes of camera when they appeared.

Compared with "The Dark Knight", "Transformers" is undoubtedly much lower in style, but in Duke's eyes, "Transformers" is much more important than "The Dark Knight", on the one hand, it is the relationship between commercial benefits, and on the other hand, it is the feelings hidden deep in the heart that have never been forgotten.

Childhood that once lived on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, it was the most popular era of "Transformers", Optimus Prime and Megatron are unforgettable images in many people's hearts?

Even if it's destined to be just a pure popcorn movie, Duke still intends to go into battle himself.

This is still the story of a boy and his car, and the main audience of the film has decided the basic setting, but the script that has passed the review has changed dramatically, first of all, the style of the film is no longer funny, and the human role is important, but it will not dominate.

Duke doesn't have a sense of humor. is not good at being funny, and he will not put something too vulgar into the film, although there is no shortage of little humor in the script, but it will stop at the point.

There are also the heroes and heroines, whose films have nothing to do with DreamWorks. His own friendship with Spielberg was not very good, and he certainly did not go to the godson of the old Jewish man; The words of the heroine, what does he say to Megan? Fox's type of actress is insensitive, and she will definitely not use ......

Like Duke Jean Nancy? According to the information prepared by Josephson, after the crew is officially established, a wide range of auditions will be held for these two roles.

And then there's the Optimus Prime and Megatron shapes.

Starting with the first half of this year, let the screenwriting team prepare the script. Duke just let Tina? Fei informed Hasbro's headquarters in Rhode Island that according to the copyright agreement signed by the two parties, "Transformers" was directly related to Hasbro's vital interests, and they also knew that if they wanted to make "Transformers" influence to a higher level. It was undoubtedly a wise choice to use Duke, the director.

The people of Hasbro also used the greatest enthusiasm and the fastest time to come up with the concept design of Transformers in the film.

It's just that when the CEO of Hasbro flew to Los Angeles and personally delivered it to the Duke's studio, he was directly vetoed by Duke.

"Brian, I don't think it's a good fit."

In the reception room, Duke looked at the concept drawings and frowned, "They look too much like the characters in the anime." ”

"I think it's good to be like a little bit."

Sit next to Duke. Hasbro's CEO Brian? Godnow has a completely different view, "We designed with animated characters as the basis for that. borrowed a lot of Japanese mecha style ......"

Looking at the square blocks in the concept art, like stout robots stacked on top of each other, Duke shook his head, "The shape is so ugly, I can imagine them when they appear on the big screen." There won't be any streamlined beauty. ”

"Streamlined beauty?"

Hear that, Brian? Godnow shook his head at an even faster pace. "They're a bunch of robots, and they have to conform to physics. If you are not strong enough, it is impossible to run, jump, and perform some difficult movements. ”

"Brian, I think you're overlooking."

The CEO has not been in office for long, and Duke knows this, so he says, "They are not robots, but highly intelligent machine lifeforms, and any living organism will have its own streamlined beauty, not a pure machine shape with rough and stiff lines!" ”

In Duke's opinion, the idea of designing Optimus Prime to be stout and bulky at every turn is extremely wrong.

That's just a prototype of a robot on Earth, ignoring the important point that in this sci-fi world, Transformers are not robots!

And the difference between a movie on the big screen and a cartoon on a small screen is too great.

To a certain extent, what appears in the movie will be a group of advanced intelligent beings from alien systems, but their bodies are made of metal, rather than clumsy and stout earth robots.

"But...... "Brian?" Godnow thought for a moment and changed his tone, "If the image is too different from the cartoon, will it cause some fans to not accept it?" ”

Duke didn't answer, but instead asked, "Hasbro has also released a new 3D Transformers cartoon in recent years, how has the response been?" ”

Brian? Godnow sighed, but didn't speak again.

In recent years, Transformers cartoons have been scolded by fans without exception.

"Brian, I've adapted a lot of works, and I have a rough idea of what kind of image is more in line with the requirements of the big screen and the expectations of mainstream audiences."

After a slight pause, Duke said a fact, "The Dark Knight was a big hit at the box office and around the periphery, and the market response was quite strong, but there are still a large number of Batman fans who don't like it, and even say on the Internet that I ruined Batman's image......"

Turned to look at Brian? Goldnow glanced at him, and Duke said, "No matter how we adapt "Transformers", in the eyes of some fans, we will ruin their childhood memories, and no matter how hot and popular a movie is, it will not please everyone." ”

It is very obvious that no matter how it is adapted, this series will be considered by some people to ruin their childhood.

"There's another point."

Although the film adaptation right is in his hands, it is completely up to him to decide what he wants, but Duke will not ignore Hasbro, if the film wants to be a big success, the promotion of the manufacturer is equally important, and it is completely unnecessary to have a huge contradiction with Hasbro on this issue.

"Don't you think so? Only when the Transformers image is different enough from the cartoon will fans be more willing to buy new toys and merchandise after the film is released. ”

Sit and think for a few minutes, Brian? Godnow nodded slowly and said, "I'll rush back to Rhode Island as soon as possible and let the design department ......."

"No, I'll send a design team to Los Angeles."

The man who can sit in the position of Hasbro's CEO is also a decisive figure, "fully assisting you and the crew." ”

In the past, the success of the "Transformers" series, Hasbro spared no effort to promote, and played a very important role.

Send Brian away? Godnow, Duke went back to the office and hung up the phone on the Warner Bros. side, the film needed too much money budget, and Warner Bros. had already launched the pre-sale and funding mechanism.

Film, especially commercial production, is a high-investment, high-risk industry, and financing is its basic part, how much investment, and how to distribute, can decisively affect a film, the reason why Hollywood movies can continue to produce blockbusters, success in the global market, and its strong capital support is inseparable.

In the past, out of confidence in Duke and consideration of less risk, Warner Bros. would also raise funds when investing in his films, but the amount was relatively small.

It's just that the situation is different now, and the huge amount of money invested in "The Dark Knight" has not been recovered, including Duke's "Transformers" and Zack? Blockbusters such as Schneider's "Watchmen" and the new Harry Potter require a lot of investment, and Warner Bros. can't come up with too much liquidity, so raising filming funds through various mechanisms has become the first choice.

In addition to pre-selling the rights to the film to overseas distributors in various parts of the world, Warner Bros. is also preparing to receive investment from a number of foundations.

Since 2004, it has become a major trend for investment institutions to launch film funds to invest in film projects of a major Hollywood studio for a certain period of time, which is also known as 'platter investment'.

In this era, Hollywood's major studios have long been absorbed into larger media and entertainment groups, and the globalization trend of the Hollywood film industry is becoming more and more obvious, and "high-concept" films characterized by "big investment, big production, big marketing, and big market" have become the mainstream of Hollywood.

According to MPAA statistics, in 1975, the average production cost of American films was $5 million, by 1987, this figure reached $20 million, and by 2007, the average production cost of large studios had climbed to 70.8 million, and the average marketing cost also reached $45.9 million, with a total cost of more than $100 million.

With such a large scale of investment, it is difficult for even a large Hollywood studio to achieve large-scale production with its own funds every year.

Although their parent company is strong, it is reluctant to invest too much money in risky film production, and as a public company, no one wants to have too many debt records on their corporate statements, so bringing in outside investors has become an inevitable choice for major Hollywood studios.

However, for a long time in the eighties and nineties of the last century, Hollywood did not feel much financing pressure, because with the rise of new film distribution channels such as videotape, cable television, satellite television, and European local television, Hollywood films were able to raise most of the funds through pre-sale rights.

The preferential tax policies provided by some overseas governments to promote the development of the film industry have also provided a lot of convenience for Hollywood's financing, especially one in Germany, which has become a loophole exploited by many Hollywood companies. (To be continued)

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