Chapter 444: Willful Creation
It was a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, just as the incident of fake students was becoming a hot topic.
The official social accounts of Disney, Warner Pictures, and Melon Studios announced the work of Little Gilbert's next project. The project name is tentatively titled "False", which simply means false.
In fact, little Gilbert posted three hand-drawn drawings on his social account before, asking fans to guess which one?
One is a design drawing similar to an armored vehicle, which makes people think that Gilbert Jr. is going to make a war movie.
But in fact, it is a design draft of the Batmobile, which is different from the tanks in previous Batman movies, so fans are unlikely to recognize it.
Warner Pictures is very anxious. In order to reassure Warner Pictures, Gilbert Jr. has reached a cooperation with Lamborghini. Lamborghini will manufacture prototype cars based on his design draft and provide filming in the future.
When Lamborghini's designers and engineers saw the design draft for the first time, they all thought that Gilbert was just fanciful. According to the design on the draft paper, the car could not be driven on the road at all.
But Lamborghini attaches great importance to this cooperation. Although it is difficult to achieve, it still has a long time, so Lamborghini decided to use all the technologies it has at the bottom of the box.
Of course, fans who want to see this Batmobile will probably have to wait.
Another manuscript is very interesting. It seems to be a strange picture formed after a fungus sprouted and spread. It makes people shudder to see it.
This left movie fans a little confused. Many fans thought they knew little Gilbert well, after all, they had watched his movies for more than ten years.
But in the end, fans found that they didn't understand little Gilbert at all.
Also, these manuscripts of Little Gilbert fully demonstrate the qualities of a Riddler, leaving the audience unable to guess at all.
The third manuscript is even more puzzling. It is actually a hand-drawn manuscript of U.S. dollars. Some fans speculated that little Gilbert plans to film a story about robbers robbing a bank?
Not to mention, although I didn’t guess it right, the story types are basically within this range.
It’s just that no one thought that this was actually a subject of counterfeit banknotes. After all, too little information was revealed.
Little Gilbert did not reveal any more information at that time and has remained silent until now. For this 'original' story, little Gilbert needed a better way of hyping it up.
Unfortunately, just this year, the Federal Reserve issued a new version of the U.S. dollar bill to replace the 1998 version of the U.S. dollar bill, which gave little Gilbert room for speculation.
Some true and false news began to appear on the Internet. For example, the TMZ website reported that in May of this year, Fobler cracked a counterfeit currency manufacturing case.
The perpetrator was arrested for robbing discolored ink in Canada, and his face was photographed by surveillance cameras. The police then followed the clues and captured the counterfeit banknote gang in one fell swoop.
The website is paired with some photos that are true or false so that people can’t tell clearly, and it becomes a piece of news.
Similar counterfeit banknote cases have also been reported on several other websites. Some are true, but they are old cases, and some are made-up stories with added fuel and jealousy.
When these similar reports continue to appear, netizens will naturally be attracted, become interested, and then pay attention to similar things.
All these reports came step by step, and finally led netizens and movie fans to Little Gilbert's new movie.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t care. Little Gilbert still has a navy, and he can let the navy hype these topics.
When most people on the Internet are talking about this matter, based on the human psychology of conformity and gregariousness, other netizens who are not interested in this topic will also participate.
It has been more than ten years since the Internet was born in North America. The methods of online publicity have been constantly updated, and little Gilbert is one of the leaders.
The publicity method used this time is not new. "Blair Witch" used similar methods a few years ago, using the Internet to report multiple incidents of witches and ghosts harming people.
Then attract traffic to "Blair Witch" to gain box office.
It can be said that the audience went to see "Blair Witch" not at all because of how good the movie really was. In terms of quality, Gilbert Jr.'s early horror film "Dead Man" is at least ten notches better than "The Blair Witch Project."
The reason why audiences go to see this movie is purely out of curiosity. Driven by curiosity, the audience entered the cinema.
So in "Blair Witch 2", the same technique won't work again.
The audience knows that you are promoting it but they are no longer interested and don’t want to watch it. So the director of "The Blair Witch Project" has disappeared since then, and only the film company has made a lot of money.
The movie "False" also used the same promotional technique, using the suspicion of the counterfeit banknote case to arouse the audience's curiosity and thus pay attention to the movie.
The difference is that the quality of the script of "False" is much better than that of "Blair Witch", and the cast is much stronger.
While the outside world was still paying attention and hyping up the film, Gilbert Jr. also started preparatory preparations, which mainly involved choosing the right actors and scenes.
The story has been moved from Asia to North America, and the filming will be bolder.
The two male protagonists are named Charlie Decker and Ido Dash, corresponding to the roles of Wu Fusheng and Li Wen in the Hong Kong version.
Tom Hanks is more honest and suitable for playing the role of Ido Dash, so that the final plot twist will be interesting enough. And Tom Cruise's performance as Charlie Decker is no less impressive. His performance in "Borrowed Man" made people realize that it turns out that Tom Cruise's charm as a bad guy is also unstoppable.
In addition, there are a lot of gunfight scenes in the film.
Gilbert Jr. hopes that as soon as the audience sees Tom Cruise, they will know that this movie does not lack elements of an action movie.
Charlize Theron plays the painter Mary Caesar, and the fake Mary Caesar. The name is inspired by an American female painter active in the late 19th century, which fits the character's positioning.
The three leading actors have been decided, but there are many supporting roles in the film that are worthy of attention. The release of these roles has also caused competition among major actors in Hollywood.
Tom Cruise recommended veteran Hollywood actor Dustin Hoffman to play the role of Crahan Ross, Charlie Decker's main assistant and butler.
The two have collaborated on "Rain Man", and many people say that Tom Cruise has a weird temper and is more difficult to deal with. But Dustin Hoffman admires Tom Cruise very much, and the relationship between the two is not bad.
Maybe it's because Dustin Hoffman himself has a weird temper.
Gilbert Jr. accepted Tom Cruise's suggestion and immediately extended an invitation to Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman readily agreed, and he agreed without even looking at the pay offered by the crew.
Dustin Hoffman is now at this age, and the number of films he takes is slowly decreasing.
In other words, it is about to pass.
Although Dustin Hoffman is old, he is not old at heart, and he does not want to become obsolete so early. So it's a pretty good opportunity to work with a big director like Gilbert Jr., and the salary doesn't matter anymore.
The role of female police officer Julia Yarrow also caused a lot of competition, and various Hollywood starlets who auditioned almost broke their heads.
But for this kind of main role, little Gilbert has the final say.
Vera Farmiga finally stood out and was selected by Gilbert Jr. The reason for choosing her is simple, mainly because she looks familiar, has good acting skills, and has beautiful blue eyes.
As for Officer Mark, who doesn’t appear much in the film, let Matt Damon reluctantly make a cameo appearance!
Little Gilbert did not choose any celebrities for the remaining roles. After auditions, the casting director provided a list of names to Little Gilbert, who then made the decision and finally passed.
After the roles were decided, the US$140 million investment from Warner Pictures and Disney had already been deposited into the accounts of third-party insurance companies.
This is an original crime film about counterfeit money. For such a film, the film company is willing to invest US$140 million, which is really quite willing.
Robert Iger bluntly stated at a high-level meeting that if it were not Gilbert Jr.'s project, any director who proposed this project would be kicked out of the company.
Only a few directors such as Little Gilbert can make film companies pay for his willful creations.
In fact, Gilbert Jr. has proven this year that he is not original without reason. As of mid-September, the global box office of "Pirates of the Caribbean" has reached the level of 750 million US dollars.
This is also an original movie, but it has created a super high box office and brought in huge peripheral income.
Therefore, Disney and Warner believe that Gilbert Jr. is a mature commercial film director.
He is the kind of director who combines commercialism and balance very well, and he will not make a film like "The Wire".
Not to mention, as far as little Gilbert is concerned, he actually likes the movie "The Wire". Especially the style of gunfight scenes influenced many later action movies.
But the film was too sluggish, and although critics praised it, it didn't perform well at the box office.
Of course, the movie "Wushuang" will not follow the path of "The Wire". The superstar cast, amazing action scenes and twists are the selling points of this movie.
Moreover, only little Gilbert has the ability to bring Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks into acting in a movie.
By the way, Oscar winner Charlize Theron, Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman, and Hollywood A-lister Matt Damon are also added to the lineup.
This is one of the reasons why "Wushuang" requires an investment of US$140 million. The combined salaries of the three leading actors and the director take up most of the production funds, plus the salaries of the remaining cast and crew.
There are also costs for scene construction, prop production, etc.
Fortunately, the film does not require any brain-burning special effects scenes, otherwise the production cost would have been 200 million.
$200 million to make a crime thriller? Not to mention little Gilbert, even if James Cameron, a director who spends a lot of money, comes, he will probably murmur.
After the cast was assembled, in mid-September, Melon Studio held a grand press conference to announce the film's title and theme.
(End of chapter)