Chapter 368: All black from the inside out

On Monday morning, in the post-production room of the Warner Studios office building, the post-production of "Daytime Chase" has reached the final stage. Christopher Nolan finished the work at hand, rubbed his slightly painful forehead, and walked out slowly. After leaving the editing room, I came to the rest area on the same floor and took a cup of coffee from the coffee machine.
Just after a sip of coffee, Christopher Nolan saw Charles Rowan, the famous producer of Warner Bros.
"Hi, Charles." He offered to say hello.
Charles Rowan responded with a smile: "Hello, Director Nolan." He then asked, "Is your film almost finished?"
Christopher Nolan nodded: "There is only a little finishing work left. It won't delay the release next month."
The two of them were fine at this meeting and chatted in the lounge area.
The office building in the studio is a bit empty. Like the entire Hollywood area, the number of crews staying here decreases year by year.
A fluorescent lamp above his head suddenly made a sizzling sound, and the light flickered. Charles Rowan couldn't help sighing and said, "This studio is in disrepair."
Christopher Nolan took a sip of coffee and said: "It seems that Warner hasn't repaired the studio for a long time."
Charles Rowan said: "More than half of the studio has been developed into a tourist area, and the remaining part is also limited in utilization. At present, in addition to your crew, several crews from Ronan Anderson are stationed here to shoot. ."
Christopher Nolan said casually: "It's Ronan Anderson from Relativity Entertainment, I know him."
"It's him, a very thoughtful young man. In recent years, his company has developed well, and the performance in the second-tier companies can be seen." Charles Rowan is an executive of Warner Bros. He is kind to small companies. Natural superiority: "But it's almost reaching the bottleneck of development."
He seems to have a unique insight: "Many medium-sized companies in Hollywood are often developed based on one or two or more series of movies. It seems that the momentum is very good, but these series can’t last long, often in six or seven years. The end, once the series is over, the company will soon be in trouble."
Christopher Nolan thought for a while and asked: "DreamWorks or Relativity Entertainment, which one has a better future for development?"
"The two are not comparable." What Charles Ronan said is an almost unanimous view in the circle: "Don't look at the development of DreamWorks, but the resources that DreamWorks can mobilize are far from what Relativity Entertainment can compare. Don't say goodbye. Yes, in terms of extremely critical content production, DreamWorks has a multi-faceted project source, and all the projects of Relativity Entertainment are basically initiated by Ronan Anderson alone."
Christopher Nolan understood the meaning of these words: "Once Ronan Anderson is exhausted, will Relativity Entertainment be in trouble?"
"Chris, you are the director." Charles Rowan said with a smile: "You know better than me that everyone has a creative peak and then a trough. Ronan Anderson has contributed to so many projects in just a few years, you How long do you think his peak period can last? This is the crux of the problem."
He glanced at his watch: "I have something to do, I will talk another day."
"Okay." Christopher Nolan shook his hand goodbye.
Charles Rowan quickly left the rest area. Christopher Nolan finished his coffee and thought of the names of Ronan Anderson and Relativity Entertainment. He hurried to the newspaper rack and looked for it.
Today is Monday, and the first week of the box office of the movie "Underworld" should be out.
Christopher Nolan appreciates the dark style of the film very much, but he must also consider market acceptance in order to coordinate his thoughts and plans.
The box office is the most intuitive market response.
After taking a copy of the "Hollywood Reporter" that was just published this Monday, Christopher Nolan returned to his seat, flipped quickly, and found reports about "Underworld" and the North American box office rankings.
"Resident Evil," released in February, made a good start for Relativity Entertainment’s new film this year. The film’s global box office of more than 150 million U.S. dollars has greatly enhanced Relativity Entertainment’s position in the industry. The second film launched by Entertainment this year continues the company’s good development momentum."
""Underworld" began to be released on a large scale in North America last Friday. The opening scale of 2,950 theaters also guarantees that the film can meet the majority of North American audiences. The first day of the film's box office was 10.22 million US dollars. In April, it injected a shot of heartbeat into the dull movie market."
Seeing this, Christopher Nolan gradually relaxed, "Underworld" should be a success.
He went on to read this report.
"The film's performance on Saturday improved slightly, with a box office of 10.61 million U.S. dollars. In only two days, the North American box office has already matched the production cost."
"On Sunday, "Underworld" received another 8.29 million U.S. dollars, and its three-day box office in North America reached 29.09 million U.S. dollars, airborne the North American box office champion!"
Christopher Nolan picked up the coffee cup and drank the coffee in it. He remembered that the last time he chatted with Ronan, he had cryptically heard that the total investment in the production and distribution of "Underworld" was only about 30 million US dollars.
Such box office results mean another commercial success.
In other words, this type of movie has a certain audience.
Even if the shooting is characteristic enough, the dark wind is very likely to bring great success.
Christopher Nolan's thoughts became firmer and firmer, and his thoughts returned to the subject. After thinking for a while, he had no idea at all, then read the newspaper in his hand again.
Seeing some statistics about "Underworld" later, Christopher Nolan shook his head. Although "Underworld" won the market, it lost the word of mouth.
""Underworld" got a B+ in the theater survey; rotten tomatoes were marked as rotten, and their freshness was only 32%; the IMDB audience scored an average of 6.6 points..."
Christopher Nolan put down the "Hollywood Reporter". The commercial success of "Underworld" is certainly gratifying, but for a director, it needs not only commercial success, but also praise and praise. .
Otherwise, like Michael Bay, who he likes, even if he has won all the commercial achievements, he will still be described as a bad film director by countless people.
That's not what Christopher Nolan wanted.
Christopher Nolan thinks more about it. He wants business success, and he also wants to build a good reputation and reputation.
"Hi, Chris."
The familiar greeting sounded, Christopher Nolan quickly recovered, looked in the direction of the voice, and found that the person was Ronan.
"Hi, Ronan." He greeted Ronan: "Sit down. Why do you have time to come over."
Ronan pulled out his chair and sat across from Christopher Nolan, and said, "On the night of the premiere, when you left the theater, you told me that I was curious about the new film and got some inspiration. I just have time today. Come and ask. ."
He said bluntly: "I am a producer and movie company owner, and I can't let go of every opportunity."
Christopher Nolan smiled and said: "It's just a preliminary idea, not yet mature."
Ronan asked curiously, "Can you tell me something? Is it convenient?"
Christopher Nolan pondered for a while, thinking that the subject matter had nowhere to be found. What was entangled in his head was the style of the film. There was no need to worry about creative leakage. Moreover, the other party had already shot and released a dark style film.
"When I was shooting "White Night Chase", I was thinking about how to shoot the next movie." Christopher Nolan said slowly: "The shooting in Alaska at that time, the extreme daytime caused me a lot of trouble and made me miss the darkness very much. At that time, I wanted to shoot a noir or dark style movie."
Ronan nodded slightly, but didn't interrupt, just listen to Christopher Nolan to continue.
Christopher Nolan added: "At the premiere of "Underworld", after I watched the film, this idea became stronger. The black background of the film made me sure that the next film will be a pure darkness. Style movie."
"It turned out to be like this." Ronan did not expect that "Underworld" actually confirmed Christopher Nolan's idea: "Dark-style films, in fact, there will be room for market survival after they are filmed..."
As a producer, the first thing that comes to mind is naturally the commodity attributes of movies.
Christopher Nolan sees this situation more often. Producers are completely different from their directors. The first consideration is never the artistry or ideology of the film. After all, the producer is responsible to the investor, and the investor The reason for investing in movies is to pursue commercial profits.
"The box office sales of "Underworld" proves this." Christopher Nolan is very confident: "As long as the subject matter is selected, a dark style movie..."
He didn't say anything further, and then he was boasting.
Ronan understood what Christopher Nolan meant, and asked directly: "Chris, have you selected the subject? The dark style itself belongs to the niche type~EbookFREE.me~ If the subject matter selection is also biased towards the niche, the market The prospects are not so good."
"I know." Christopher Nolan appeared very cautious: "So, I have never thought about suitable themes. Many popular themes are not suitable for shooting into the dark style. If the unsuitable subjects are shot into the dark style, the film will be very good. It may fail."
Ronan held his chest with one hand, and squeezed his chin with the other, and said, "It's really not easy to find a theme suitable for dark style."
Christopher Nolan nodded in agreement: "I thought about it a lot, and finally rejected it."
"Dark style! A story that happened in the dark like "Underworld"." Ronan said to himself, his voice was not high, but Christopher Nolan could hear: "All black like Selena? Even his heart And emotions are black?"
His voice suddenly rose: "Chris, I thought of one."
"What?" Christopher Nolan asked.
"Batman!"