A movie theater in downtown Beverly, Los Angeles.

At around ten o'clock in the evening, Michael Eisner and Michael Orwitz each took their families to leave a VIP room in the theater.

The car is already waiting on the street at the back door of the cinema.

The two Hollywood bosses listened to the excited discussions of their wives and children beside them, and got into a car together. When the car started, they looked at each other with a little face.

What the two families just watched was "Wonder Woman" which was being painted on a large scale today.

Unlike the wife and children who were more than just the pleasure of watching an excellent movie, both Michaels were a little worried at this time.

Three years ago, "Batman: The Moment of War" relied on its hot action design and advanced CG special effects to open up the DC movie universe. This time, "Wonder Woman" is obviously one step further than the previous two "Batman" movies and "The Flash".

Ordinary audiences often find it difficult to understand the technical background contained in a film, and Michael Eisner and Michael Orwitz are naturally different.

In this "Wonder Woman", the action design is still wonderful, and it seems to be filled with a large number of real-life scenes, but the use of CG special effects is significantly higher than that of several previous DC superhero movies, such as the Mantra Lasso, one of the important weapons of Wonder Woman in the film. Many shots are completely generated by CG.

At the end of the film, the decisive battle between Wonder Woman and the God of War Ares, and the use of large-scale CG images are even more amazing.

There have been many trends of big-time movie production in Hollywood, but in the past few times, the endings have basically returned to rationality.

Jeffrey Carsonberg, the head of Disney's film business, published a memorandum two years ago calling on Hollywood to return to low-budget movies. Michael Eisner originally agreed with this view.

Even the DC Cinema Universe Blockbuster series that has emerged in recent years is more of an exception.

High-budget action blockbusters represented by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have failed repeatedly in recent years.

On the contrary, even in addition to Daenerys Entertainment and DC Cinema Universe Project, a series of blockbusters in previous years, such as "The Love of Man and Ghost", "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural Love", "The Pretty Beauty", "Body Bodyguard", "The Little Imperial", etc., are all medium and low-cost production films, and few of them have a production budget of more than US$30 million.

However, after watching this Wonder Woman in person tonight, Michael Eisner found that his belief in insisting was shaken again.

The big-budget film at the bombshell level may really be the future of Hollywood.

What Michael Eisner was worried about at this time was because of Disney's weak background in the production of blockbuster movies, or, more accurately, was the huge gap between Disney and Daenerys in the production of blockbuster movies.

Through the accumulation of several DC movie universe films, Daenerys Entertainment has formed a very powerful film technology team, which includes movie action design to CG scene production and other aspects.

Especially CG technology, I just watched "Wonder Woman". Michael Eisner feels that the accumulation of Daenerys special effects in CG technology may have exceeded that of other film special effects teams during the same period for three to five years. Lucas Industrial Light and Magic Studio, which created the "Star Wars" series, has been far behind by Daenerys special effects.

Although Daenerys special effects have always maintained an attitude of cooperation with the outside world, the Disney sci-fi family comedy "Dear, I've Make Your Child Bigger" in this summer, most of the special effects are handled by Daenerys special effects.

However, it is conceivable that it would be impossible for Disney to compete with Daenerys Entertainment on a larger-scale special effects movie, and then rely on the other party's technical resources.

In addition to Daenerys special effects, whether it is Industrial Light and Magic or some other more secondary special effects companies, it will take at least three years to catch up with Daenerys special effects due to the lack of professional software and lack of technical background.

Three years later, Daenerys special effects will definitely not stay the same.

Therefore, the most convenient way for Hollywood studios to create the top CG special effects scenes is to cooperate with Daenerys Entertainment.

However, any studio executive with a slightly forward-looking vision can realize that this kind of cooperation is full of threats that may be stuck by Daenerys Entertainment at any time.

If you want to get rid of this threat, you either don’t get involved in the field of special effects films or you can only start a new job.

As luxury cars shuttled through the streets of Los Angeles late at night, Michael Eisner pondered the studio's breakthrough in the field of special effects films, but Michael Orwitz's inner concerns were deeper than him.

This time, the production budget of "Wonder Woman" is as high as 80 million US dollars, but the salary of several core creators of the film, including director, screenwriter, male and female protagonists and several core supporting roles, is less than 10 million US dollars in total.

It can be said that Daenerys Entertainment invested nearly 90% of the film's production budget into the filming and post-production of "Wonder Woman".

After CAA creatively proposed the project packaging mechanism, the "online fee" of Hollywood movies often reached 50% or even higher in the entire 1980s.

Now, DC movie universe projects such as "Wonder Woman" may also have the support of their own superhero IP, so there is no need to invite top stars. However, once other blockbuster projects also show this trend, it is likely to have a subversive impact on the traditional salary system of Hollywood stars.

If a bombshell with special effects as the selling point can be sold well without big stars, there is probably no studio that is willing to invite celebrities to endure the various requirements of big stars and even the high profit sharing included in addition to basic salary.

When this trend is formed, today's top stars can only take the initiative to reduce their value if they want not to be gradually marginalized.

Michael Orwitz couldn't help but think of the "Forrest Gump" that Daenerys Entertainment had just recently finalized with two CAA filmmakers Robert Zemegis and Tom Hanks.

Because a large number of special effects are needed, the budget for Forrest Gump will reach about $50 million, which is undoubtedly a bombshell level. At the same time, because of the high budget required for film production, neither Zemegis nor Hanks can demand too high salary.

Daenerys Entertainment also offered a plan to reduce salary and commissions, but with a production budget of $50 million, plus the promotional and promotional expenses of half the production cost, "Forrest Gump" will probably need $150 million to recover the cost through the local box office.

Such a drama about a "fool" 'rassing' in modern American history, let alone 150 million, even a box office of 50 million US dollars, makes people worry about whether they can get it.

Give up on your own initiative?

This is also a way.

With Zemegis and Hanks' current status, they are indeed confident enough to give up this project, and neither of them lacks film appointments.

However, considering that this was a video written by Simon Westero himself, both of them were a little worried.

It’s not that they are worried that Westeros will be angry with rejecting the project, but that once they give up and the project will be successful again in the future, then there are two more competitors in Hollywood.

Especially Hanks, the male star who is approaching middle-aged, does not want another male star of the same type in Hollywood to compete with him.

This is an example of this, the first-line actresses who have obviously "oversupply" in Hollywood in recent years.

Simon Westeros's emergence has really made a large number of Hollywood newcomers famous.

In terms of actresses, in just a few years, a large number of actresses such as Sandra Brock, Meg Ryan, Valerie Gollino, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, etc., have quickly risen and advanced to the front line with a series of blockbuster movies.

The newly released "Wonder Woman" will obviously release another Famick Jensen.

However, there are actually not so many opportunities that Hollywood can give to this large number of first-tier actresses.

As the number increases, the relative value will naturally decrease.

After becoming famous with "Pretty Beauty", it is said that Julia Roberts could be able to make a high price of $5 million in a movie. However, in "Captain Hawke", Julia Roberts, who played Tinkobaire, actually only got $2 million.

$2 million is not much, but if Julia Roberts doesn't play, then maybe Nicole Kidman, Valerie Gollino, or Meg Ryan might want to try it out too.

It can be imagined that if Sandra Brock and Nicole Kidman, who originally collaborated with Simon Westeros, could firmly "monopolize" Daenerys Entertainment's top-notch projects, then there wouldn't be so many "latecomers" at all.

This is the situation that Tom Hanks faces at this time.

Simon Westeros prefers to enable different actresses on different projects, but in terms of male stars, Daenerys Entertainment seems to be quite specialized.

Not to mention the male protagonists of the DC Cinema Universe Project, in recent years, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Keanu Reeves and others have almost become the retained male stars under Daenerys Entertainment. In addition, Orwitz also found out that Westeros is deliberately cultivating Coppola's nephew Nicholas Cage, and the other party will obviously become the direct descendant of Daenerys Entertainment in the future.

However, based on Michael Orwitz's understanding of that young man, he knew very well that if De Niro and Hanks and others had too high requirements on some projects, Westeros would not hesitate to substitute people.

Daenerys Entertainment has done this more than once.

Therefore, after several contacts, the relatively conservative Robert Zemegis finally decided to accept a one-time director's salary of $6 million from Daenerys Entertainment, which is comparable to Zemegis's value, which is neither high nor low.

Tom Hanks chose a contract with a basic salary plus a share, with a base salary of $3 million, plus a 5% North American box office share.

In last year's Captain Hawke, Sony gave Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams a total of 40% of the omnichannel net profit share, of which Spielberg 20%, Hoffman and Williams each 10%.

Because of the huge cost of "Captain Hawk" and the lukewarm box office, Spielberg and others' total net profit sharing plan is actually equivalent to a pile of waste paper.

Although the public often hears that a certain star gets huge salary of tens of millions of dollars because of a certain film's share contract, in fact, Hollywood stars are not as willing to accept the share plan as the outside world imagines.

Within the circle, people prefer to call the subsequent share plan "payment share", because this model is often used by studios when they hope to lower project budgets and reduce risks. Hollywood only logs in theaters every year, and only a dozen or twenty movies sold at the box office.

Therefore, Daenerys Entertainment's model of directly giving a box office share is actually very kind.

Even if "Forrest Gump" failed miserably at the box office and only recovered 10 or 20 million US dollars in North America, Hanks was still able to extract the share from it.

Because of previous blockbuster projects such as "Flying Over the Future" and "The Good People" and other blockbuster projects, Hanks's salary is now 8 million to 10 million US dollars.

Hanks received a one-time pay of $8 million for the filming of "Forrest Gump", which will be filmed in the second half of the year.

This time, because Westeros personally participated in the screenwriter and led the project, Michael Orwitz knew that Daenerys Entertainment would never block this movie on the budget. Even if it really cost $60 to 70 million, the box office failed in the future, Daenerys Entertainment could fully bear it.

However, Daenerys Entertainment still carefully controls the budget of Forrest Gump.

For Hanks' salary plan, even if it is a "payment sharing", there is still no omni-channel profit sharing plan.

In short, if the North American box office of Forrest Gump can reach $100 million, Daenerys Entertainment can ensure profitability through subsequent operations. Hanks' 5% local box office share, including the basic pay of $3 million, can only reach the equivalent of $8 million in "Sleeping in Seattle".

In short, Daenerys Entertainment, overall, is suppressing the uncontrollable increase in the first-tier Hollywood superstar pay.

Michael Orwitz has clearly discovered this phenomenon, and many Hollywood stars have clearly felt this trend, but they are a little helpless about it.

Unless Daenerys Entertainment has suffered several major falls in a row and will never recover from now on.

Only then can Hollywood stars regain the initiative and gain power in Hollywood as they did in many years.

But, is this possible?
Chapter completed!