In July, "Charlie's Angels 2" was released on July 5th in a highly anticipated manner. As the most popular female action movie in recent years, "Charlie's Angels 2" received more than 71 million US dollars in the first week. At the same time, films such as "Poems in the Wind" and "Mummy 2" continue to harvest box office in the North American film market. The upcoming sequels of "Man in Black" and "The Brave Game" that will be released in the next few weeks are also ready to go.

In the eyes of many people, in addition to the "Mummy" series, whether it is Paramount's animation "Poem in the Wind" or MGM's "Charlie's Angels", or Sony Pictures' "Man in Black" and "The Brave's Game" released by Sony Pictures, they should have been in the pocket of Fireflies. But at this time, these films are conquering cities for several other major film companies, and Fireflies' "The Matrix" and "The Brave Island" this year have begun to enter the final stage.

As a result, these factors have almost become the place where the media mocked Firefly for its business strategy, especially Paramount Animation Studio.

Although Firefly sold the hand-painted animation studio for a huge sum of $2.5 billion, judging by the commercial potential currently shown by "Poems", as long as Paramount Animation maintains such production level in the next few animated films, Viacom will not only recover all investment costs in the next decade, but also, with the collaboration between Paramount Animation and other companies in the Viacom system such as Nickelodeon and Blockbuster chain, Viacom can also create a 2D animation industry chain that is enough to compete with Firefly 3D animated films. This impact on Firefly is the most deadly.

Because before this, due to the difficulty in cultivating animated film teams and long investment cycles, the Hollywood animation film industry was almost monopolized by Disney under Firefly. Firefly can be said to have taken the initiative to cut a large piece of cake for Viacom, which was originally monopolized by itself.

So far, only a few people know the story of the Disney hand-drawn animation studio, and Fireflies have no way to refute it at this time.

Moreover, if it is just these criticisms and criticisms that criticize Fireflies, although it is annoying, it cannot cause any substantial harm to Fireflies. The public relations department estimates that the media will make a noise for a while. When the summer vacation passes, the people will no longer be interested in these things, and the topic will naturally cool down.

But immediately, after the box office of "The Matrix" in North America exceeded 200 million, the Wachowski brothers appeared on ABC TV's "David Late Night Show".

The brothers made their debut on this talk show mainly for the later promotion of "The Matrix". They hope that the box office of the film will last longer in the next few weeks. Although they have become famous, they are both the kind of people who like to keep a low profile. Frank Wells personally called the two and arranged this talk show.

However, in the interview, the Wachowski brothers accidentally talked about the news that the subsequent script of the film was rejected by the company and were rewriting the script. Fireflies did not show much sensitivity to this topic.

But perhaps the news about fireflies has always been easy to make headlines in recent times, and a large number of media people have focused on people and things related to fireflies recently. This news was naturally noticed by those who are interested.

After the interview, the Wachowski brothers just returned to Chicago where they lived for a long time. A paparazzi who had been squatting for a long time pestered the two brothers. After several days of entanglement, Andy Wachowski came out of the bar that day and had just drunk some wine. Finally, the paparazzi fooled and took it back to the bar again for a "exclusive interview".

Although he referred to the original novel published by Eric in advance, the brothers have always regarded the script of the trilogy as their own efforts. Since Eric completely rejected the script, the brothers have been quite depressed recently. Andy Wachowski was confused and complained to the excited paparazzi.

So, the next day, the Chicago Sun, the most influential Chicago newspaper, published a related article.

"…The Matrix is ​​undoubtedly the most outstanding science fiction film in recent years. Although it has changed from Eric Williams' original work, the director and screenwriter Wachowski brothers have added a large number of more philosophical elements to the film, which has further sublimated the theme based on Eric Williams' original work, greatly increasing the viewability and cultural connotation of the film."

"... However, according to the interview with Andy Wachowski, director of the Matrix director, our newspaper's special correspondent Bob Johns, we received an extremely regrettable news. The Wachowski brothers conceived a complete trilogy series from the beginning when they were originally written by Eric Williams, but after the first part was successful, the subsequent two scripts were completely rejected by Fireflies senior executives. Andy Wachowski revealed that Fireflies senior executives believed that the sequel script was too profound and did not meet the requirements of commercial films. Therefore, Fireflies not only rejected the request for the Wachowski brothers to film the two sequels together, but also asked the brothers to completely push the script back to remove the profound philosophical connotations and return to the essence of a popcorn-like commercial film."

"... As we all know, although Firefly suffered its first film performance since its founding, we have to admit that Firefly Group has achieved commercial achievements in its film business in recent years that are enough to make all other peers look up to. But at the same time, we have also seen that Firefly has done almost nothing in the field of art films outside of commercial films in recent years. We believe from beginning to end that while a movie pursues commercial profits, it also shoulders the obligation to convey certain spiritual connotations. Therefore, Firefly's behavior of pursuing business and giving up connotations is undoubtedly very undesirable."

"...If you don't talk about anything else, just take "The Matrix" as an example. In just over a month of release, this film was well received due to the perfect fusion of science fiction and philosophy in the film. It is expected that once the sequel of "The Matrix" completely abandons the distinctive personal characteristics of the Wachowsky brothers and returns to the essence of the Firefly Popcorn commercial film, then, after waiting for several years with great anticipation, what we welcome again will undoubtedly be extremely disappointing."

It is obvious that this report must have largely misinterpreted Andy Wachowski's words. Eric's original request was to ask the two brothers to rewrite a complete and smooth story, and did not make them give up their personal style.

On the day the Chicago Sun published this article, the agent of the Wachowski brothers publicly clarified the media, saying that Fireflies did not have the intention to adapt the Matrix into a pure popcorn movie. This interview was just the result of the paparazzi named Bob Johns verbally inducing the drunk Andy Wachowski.

However, the media and movie fans obviously do not believe the clarification of the Wachowski brothers' agents. Some people who think they are well aware of the internal rules of the industry have even judged that this is a statement that the Wachowski brothers had to make under the strong pressure of Fireflies.

Therefore, this article was quickly reproduced within just a few days, and its influence not only expanded.

In less than a week, almost all Americans who were a little concerned about entertainment information knew about this.

The real fan group of "The Matrix" was extremely angry. In the second week of the incident, a large number of fans began to gather at Burbank Firefly Headquarters and Prea Vista Firefly Cinema, holding slogans like "We Don't Want Popcorn Movies, We Want "The Matrix"" and asked the Firefly senior executives to give up the decision to let the Wachowski brothers modify the script and follow the original script for filming.

If it is just various media criticisms and ridicule, Fireflies can certainly ignore it, but the company has to treat the actions of movie fans carefully.

After all, the perfect film culture in the United States also means that the power of the fan group is far greater than that of other countries where the film industry has just developed. A slight mishandling of the Firefly Group's brand may damage it.

While deliberately organizing personnel to maintain the order of original fans every day to prevent more serious emergencies, Firefly senior executives also began to discuss countermeasures.

It is definitely not possible to shoot according to the original script of the Wachowski brothers, because Fireflies have been completely squeezed into a situation of two years of advancement and retreat. Once the original script that makes people misty is filmed, the quality of the film will definitely not meet the expectations of the fans. At that time, because of these things today, disappointed fans will definitely blame Fireflies for no reason. Moreover, Fireflies cannot make the original script of the Wachowski brothers public now. This not only violates industry rules, but also, fans who are in a fan mentality that their idols are good at everything often do not make professional judgments on the script.

But on the other hand, if the Wachowski brothers were asked to rewrite the script according to the original plan, not to mention the future film, if the film was offended by a large number of fans, this group of people would definitely be more harsh on the sequel. Even if the sequel has 8 points, it would be pulled to the 6-point bad movie line by picky fans.

In short, because of this unexpected media trend, for the "Matrix" project, Fireflies do whatever they do, as long as the sequel does not reach the level of amazing quality, the results they get in the future will be almost all wrong.

Perhaps other competitors also realized the situation of Fireflies in a dilemma, and they all made small moves with the idea of ​​not being able to ruin "The Matrix".

As time goes by, news topics related to the sequel to "The Matrix" not only have no intention of cooling down, but have become more popular.

There was even a website on the Internet asking for the original website, which was titled "We Don't Want Popcorn Movie, We Want "The Matrix". In just one week, it attracted more than 100,000 signatures.

After many public relations, Kasenberg also personally appeared on the ABC TV station's "Morning News" column to explain Firefly's intentions to movie fans, but it was useless.

Although there were other ways to deal with it, in the end, senior executives such as Katzenberg and Frank Wells could only send the matter to Eric in the Bahamas and let him decide for himself.

After the two-week night scene shooting, the related literary scene shooting was also quite smooth.

The time came on July 16th. Two days ago, the scenes of "Casino Royale" in the Bahamas had all ended, but due to the busy one and a half months of continuous work, coupled with the painful shooting of the two weekends and nights in the middle, the entire crew was exhausted.

Eric did not rush to let the crew go to the next filming location, but gave the entire crew three days off so that everyone could enjoy the sunny beaches of the Bahamas.

While filming the film, Eric certainly maintained his attention to a series of events in Los Angeles. He thought Carsonberg and others would handle the matter properly, but when his first assistant Kelly Haines personally arrived in the Bahamas with a stack of documents, Eric realized that things had developed to the brink of losing control.

On the sofa in Eric's living room, Kelly handed Eric one by one documents and explained: "The current situation is that we can hardly give movie fans a satisfactory explanation. According to the original script, once the quality of the film does not meet expectations in the future, the mistakes will definitely be blamed on us. If the Wachowski brothers rewrite the script, the movie may not be shot yet, and the movie may be boycotted by the fans, and we still have to memorize the mistakes."

Eric finished reading a lot of newspaper clipping information, risk assessment and other materials, and couldn't help but rub his forehead, saying, "It's really not a pleasurable at all. Now I can't even take pictures."

Kelly smiled bitterly and said, "Yes, if the project is put on hold and not filmed, it will still offend the movie fans, and it may be the most cruel one because they will feel that they are being neglected and despised."

"Okay, let me think about it," Eric rubbed his forehead and looked at Peter Rich sitting on the other side, saying: "You go find a place where you can hold video conferences. The Ocean Club Center should be there. Let Carsonberg and the others go online on time tonight, and everyone will discuss it."

Peter Rich nodded, hesitated again, and said, "Eric, video conferencing may be a bit difficult. There should be no video conferencing equipment here, so the telephone conference room is easier to arrange."

Eric also forgot that the development of the Internet has not yet reached the level of easily holding video conferences, not to mention that it is the Bahamas here, and waved his hand and said, "Then let's call the conference."
Chapter completed!