After perfectly solving Chuck and Richard's problem, Alex sends out an invitation to the two of them to play the role of Planet of the Apes.

"Boss! What is your film about? Should I be given some special care if I act? ”

Chuck seems to be interested in the role, but he is more concerned about whether he has a lot of roles.

Of course, Alex would not agree to his request, and said: "There is only one role, you two discuss who will play it, and I won't let you audition, after all, there are not many shots and lines." ”

Little Richard and Chuck discussed it, and finally decided to let Chuck play, Little Richard still has his own things to do, and he is really inseparable.

Alex gave them the role of a colleague who was riding a spaceship with the protagonist Taylor in the opening part, and in the original version, there were three men and one woman, three of whom were Caucasian, and there was no scene of a black actor appearing.

Now Alex still uses three men and one woman, but he plans to let Chuck play one of the male colleagues, which can be regarded as enriching the number of races of the actors and adding a little symbolism to the racial issue.

The heroes and heroines and some important supporting roles have been decided, the script has been written and handed over to Morris, and the rest depends on the preparation of the special effects team.

Yes, this film requires a lot of special effects makeup, especially the design and construction of spaceships, the makeup effects of ape actors, the special effects of spaceships flying in space, the special effects of wormholes through time and space, and so on.

"We had to make a sci-fi blockbuster that had never been done before! All the special effects had to be made so delicate that they could catch the eye. Let the audience can't take their eyes off it at the first glance! ”

In the DreamWorks conference room, Alex gathered in the film's crew and told them about what he wanted to achieve. Alex's standard is to be 21st-century computer stunts, but he also knows that it's hard to do so.

In order to make a sci-fi film that he can bear, he can only reduce some scenes, and especially emphasize that in the first 5 minutes, the highest level of special effects must be filmed. Only in this way can he achieve the science fiction movie in his mind, otherwise, he might as well not make this movie.

"But if you do. Most of our expenses. It's time to devote yourself to special effects makeup and special effects sets! Wouldn't it be a bit of a reversal of the cart in this way, after all, the focus of our film is to tell a philosophical story, and the market for science fiction films is not as big as that of epic films, and I am worried that the investment will not pay for itself. ”

Wait until Alex finishes speaking. Immediately, someone jumped out and questioned it. The other side is right. also spoke the hearts of most of the people present.

For such a person, Alex will not think that the other party is looking for trouble, after all, what he has done is still very unprecedented. A bottomless shooting plan that makes people feel bottomless. If it is changed to another film, maybe Alex will not dare to pack a large ticket, saying something like never losing money.

However, this ape series of movies had a huge impact in the sixties and seventies, and five movies and several TV series were made in a row. Alex was also very impressed by this series, and when he first watched the movie, he was quite shocked.

Now I have the opportunity to shoot by myself, of course, with the best actors, with the best special effects and film. After his revisions and adjustments, many unreasonable bugs and wrong directions of this film have been reversed. He believes that as long as the movie is made, it will definitely be more than a few grades higher than the original.

"Have you all seen the epic blockbuster Ben-Hur?" Alex didn't answer the other person's question directly, but asked a strange question.

"Ben Hur"? Of course, I've seen it, this is a movie shot by DreamWorks with an investment of 10 million.

As a DreamWorks employee, if you tell someone that you haven't seen a movie made by the company, it is like laughing off someone's big teeth. In particular, this film is not only the highest-invested DreamWorks one, but also the highest-grossing epic.

Everyone present nodded their heads, indicating that they had seen the movie.

Morris asked even more strangely: "It's strange that you ask this question, if anyone here hasn't seen Ben-Hur, I will definitely fire him!" ”

"So before the movie "Ben Hur" came out, did you think that epic films could have such a high box office?"

Ben Hur grossed $95 million in North America alone, and is estimated to be almost $200 million if you include the global box office. With such a high box office, how can it be an epic movie, and it is difficult to achieve even other mainstream genre movies.

This is also something that many people have not expected, when director William took the script and begged people to invest in filming, and as a result, DreamWorks and MGM had the idea of shooting. Faced with an investment of up to $15 million, many film companies are shy away and dare not spend so much money to take a chance.

Especially in this era, Hollywood movies are very sluggish, the film market has shrunk very much, and companies like DreamWorks are living more nourishingly, and there are not a few other film companies that have gone bankrupt and collapsed, and more are struggling to the death.

MGM wanted to make this movie because they were on the verge of bankruptcy, and even if they lost, it was just an extra debt, which was not a big deal. It's just that, in order to unify internal opinions, it was a step late and did not grab it.

As a result, with Alex's intervention, DreamWorks took a step ahead of the others and took "Ben-Hur" into its hands.

At this time, almost all people were not optimistic about Ben Hur, believing that the investment was too high and it was difficult to recover the cost. Even MGM executives breathed a sigh of relief, believing they had avoided a bad decision.

The final result not only shocked everyone's jaws, but also made MGM's senior management beat their chests and regret that they should not have given "Ben Hur" to DreamWorks in the first place. If they had gotten this movie, they might have come back to life and wouldn't have to go bankrupt and liquidated.

Today, MGM has entered the court supervision process and is in the process of bankruptcy procedures. Once these steps are completed. It can be listed for sale publicly, but I'm afraid only DreamWorks can swallow it.

Yes, MGM Films, which became famous in later generations, has sunset, and time is running out. During this period, they also came to DreamWorks and wanted to merge with DreamWorks, or even make an acquisition.

It's just that Morris thinks that MGM's stall is too big, there are too many people, and the debt is too heavy. DreamWorks only needs MGM's film source. Don't want too much of a burden. So the proposal to buy MGM was rejected.

As for the talents that come out of MGM, DreamWorks of course selectively absorbs them, and will not swallow them all at once, so as not to cause management chaos and indigestion.

The above is the chain reaction caused by a "Ben-Hur" movie. MGM lost it to become a piece of the past. The dream factory that got it is in full swing. Otherwise, they wouldn't have intervened after watching MGM go bankrupt.

At this time, in Hollywood, except for DreamWorks, there was no film company that could swallow MGM alone. Not to mention competing with DreamWorks.

In the conference room, the people at DreamWorks shook their heads after hearing Alex's words. None of them could have seen such an astonishing box office record before "Ben Hur" came out.

Alex immediately smiled and said: "But I think that "Planet of the Apes" can reach or even exceed the box office of "Ben-Hur"!" But to achieve such a box office, it is necessary to have high-level special effects! ”

As soon as these words came out, everyone was immediately shocked and couldn't sit still, but no one dared to stand up and say that it was impossible.

Everyone here knows who wrote the script of the movie Lu Dao, and they also know how much Lu Dao invested, but they just have some doubts about the allocation of funds, and they don't want to care about it anymore because the boss is so persistent in pursuing movie special effects.

In this way, Alex's request was implemented layer by layer, he didn't want the hooded ape in the 68 version of "Planet of the Apes", but wanted the vivid makeup effect in the 2001 version.

Just imagine, the big star Hepburn has a plastic orangutan mask on his head, isn't it too rigid and boring. How can it be better than through makeup effects, after all, in Alex's new script, apes have also undergone thousands of years of evolution, and there are already some signs of considering humans.

Yes, Alex wanted the same makeup as the 2001 version of Planet of the Apes, at least that was guaranteed.

He remembered that the appearance of the female ape-man inside looked more in line with human aesthetics, although it still looked like an orangutan, but after all, it was a beautiful orangutan.

As for the 68 version, the actors who play the ape-man all wear a hood, and they look more like ugly orangutans, but their expressions are dull, not like living creatures.

Another problem is the dwellings built by ape-men.

Of the two versions Alex has seen, the 68 version of the ape-man dwelling is like a refugee camp, or even worse than a refugee camp. Small and shabby, it's hard to believe that this could be an ape-man city that has taken the place of humans.

As for the ape-man gathering place in the 2001 version, it is simply a demon cave, and the director completely demonizes the ape-man, highlighting their terrifying side, which is more in line with Alex's requirements. If the 68 version had used the sets from the 2001 version, it would have made the movie much less philosophical.

Neither of these versions is what Alex wants, and he believes that since in the setting, the ape-man can replace humans as the master of the earth, and also inherit the essence of human civilization, then it must be expressed in the life of the ape-man society.

In order to achieve this effect, Alex decided to redesign an ape-man city, a city that combines the heritage of human civilization with the physiological needs of apes. It embodies the relationship between apes and humans, who are the successors of humans.

Alex personally gave a few sketches in mind, and then handed them over to the people below to prepare for the filming of the ape-man city needed.

In this way, not only did you have to find someone to design the city, but you also had to build an ape city, which was a lot of money.

"Alex, you don't really want to build an ape-man city, do you?" After Morris saw such a big stroke, he also began to be a little worried.

"Of course I do! You also know what "Ben Hur" can be successful for! It's because it's more grandiose and realistic than other epic films, and it can make people feel like they're there. In order to achieve such a purpose. We have to make everything as it really is. ”

There's a reason why Alex took "Ben Hur" as an example, in order to restore the life of ancient Rome in history, director William did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to create sets for various ancient cities, and even built several warships for the filming of naval battles.

As the CEO of DreamWorks, Morris certainly knows all the problems encountered when filming "Ben-Hur". Especially in the pursuit of realism, they have invested a lot of manpower and material resources in this regard, just take the naval battle in this film as an example.

When Ben-Hur was filmed, DreamWorks decided to create a realistic naval battle scene, and the producers found an expert who had dedicated his life to the art of ancient Roman shipbuilding.

However, when the engineers who took it to the shipyard saw the design drawings. Exclaimed: "It's too heavy!" It's going to sink for sure! ”

But. DreamWorks still insisted on building the big ship according to the drawings, and the launch was successful at first, but the passing ship stirred up the waves, and the big ship was actually pushed down by the waves. The most rear. They had no choice but to put the big boat into the pond to shoot. In order to stabilize the hull. The hull was also fastened with ropes from the bottom of the pool.

Although the big ship can finally sail on the "surface" against the background of the sky color, the color of the water in the pool becomes a tricky problem, because the dark brown water is very different from the sea.

DreamWorks hired a chemist to dye the pool blue. But. After the chemists put in a large bag of dye, instead of turning blue, the pool formed a solid crust on the surface of the water, and the crew spent a lot of money to chisel the crust away.

Eventually, the crew finally found the right dye, and the pool water was all dyed blue. While filming a battle scene, one of the extras fell into the water and was also dyed blue.

While filming the scenes inside the boat, the crew found that the huge 65mm camera had nowhere to go, so they had to get the boat out of the pond, cut it in half vertically, and shoot it in an Italian studio. However, studio space was limited, and the crew had to cut off the oars that were exposed overboard.

However, after a set of shots, the crew found that the oars suddenly became lighter, and the actors' paddling movements were very unnatural, so they sent someone to buy an elastic piston device, which is generally installed on the door, which can make the door close gently and automatically. This device was later installed between the oars and the hull, and the resistance it provided allowed the actors to find the feeling of paddling.

It can be said that in order to perfectly present "Ben Hur" to the audience, DreamWorks and director William had a very difficult filming job, and they almost interrupted filming several times due to various emergencies.

They persevered, and in the end they won the spotlight. Now Alex is asking Morris to treat "Planet of the Apes" the same way he treats "Ben-Hur".

Alex patiently explained: "This city set is not just used once and wasted, we have to make several movies here, maybe even use it to shoot a TV series or something." If I could, I would like to make it a sightseeing tourist attraction. ”

"Alright! Then do as you say! Morris thought about it for a moment and finally agreed.

"But in such a big city, there must be a lot of extras, otherwise it won't seem like a space swing?"

After one of the directors in the crew figured it out, he immediately realized that the extras in Ape City were also a problem, after all, it was not like other movies, just wear a suit and put on makeup.

According to Alex's imaginary ape-man makeup, each ape would have to take more than an hour, and if there were hundreds of extras, it would take hundreds or thousands of hours to put on makeup every day. It's scary to think about it, and the cost of makeup alone is probably a lot of money.

These are not just ordinary makeup artists can do it, and you have to find a special effects makeup artist to achieve the desired effect.

"Yes, I've asked the special effects makeup artists to prepare to recruit some experienced makeup artists to come in, and after training, they will start working!" Alex had been prepared, and he knew that it would be too demanding to do so, but for the sake of the quality of the movie, he couldn't lower his requirements.

In version 68, in order to save resources, the producers not only wore a rubber hood for the ape's makeup, but also only prepared three styles of clothes to distinguish orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. Here, the director wants to use this as a metaphor for whites, blacks, and yellows, as well as the three factions of friendliness, neutrality, and hostility.

For such an approach, the people of this era can barely accept it, but Alex from later generations, he can't accept such a simple special effects makeup at all. Since you want to pursue realism, let's give people the most realistic science fiction movies. He wants to show the real ape-man society in front of the audience.

After clarifying some key points to the crew, Alex let go and stopped interfering in the following work. There are many things that he doesn't have to do by himself now, and with Morris on his side, he doesn't even need to supervise.

As soon as the work was arranged here, a phone call came in from there, saying that the FBI agents were looking for Alex.

"The FBI director wants to see me?"

In the conference room, Alex looked at the two agents he had met last time and said with a surprised expression.

He thought that the agents arrived because they found the body of the crazy eight, or because it was related to the abnormal movement of the "Kowloon Society". But what I didn't expect was that Director Hoover wanted to talk to him personally, which was really strange. (To be continued......)