Six Hundred and Ninety-Six-What’s so Special About It?
The much-anticipated "X-Men" has officially begun, and the screening room of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood fell into silence. Different from other major projects in the summer season, this film has attracted the most attention from the industry this year, even more than the blockbuster "The Flash" that opened the summer season.
Everyone knows that with the good reputation Wayne has accumulated in recent years, even if "The Flash" is a piece of shit, there will still be no shortage of fans who love shit to pay for it.
In this context, it may be difficult to let "The Flash" directly fail. Even if the film is really unsightly, at most it will affect DC's subsequent chapters and cause some loss of audience reputation. After all, Wayne has been really bad in recent years. It was so successful that he had the capital to make trial and error.
But "X-Men" is different. The premiere hosted by 20th Century Fox basically invited all the guests who could come to the stage. While expressing his ambition for "X-Men", he also expressed his unparalleled love for Wayne. trust.
To everyone's surprise, not only did Sony Columbia's new CEO attend the premiere in a low-key manner, but executives from Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Disney, and even Warner Brothers attended the premiere in person. There are no screening rooms, and some executives of medium-sized Hollywood movie companies are no exception.
It seems that people have tacitly raised a magnifying glass to this superhero movie outside the DC system. In fact, Townsend Rothman, who is sitting in the first row of the screening room, knows very well that the purpose of those familiar faces in the industry is simply that they feel that the DC superhero model cannot be copied, and they want to see if they can copy "X-Men".
"Mutation is the key to our evolution..."
After Twentieth Century Fox's traditional opening animation ended, the big screen went dark, but the narration sounded in the quiet auditorium.
"It allowed us to evolve from single-celled organisms to the dominant species on this planet. This process is very long, usually taking millions of years. But every few hundred thousand years, evolution will make a sudden leap..."
The narration ended, and the perspective on the big screen began to shuttle among abstract cells, finally stopping at a title made of steel: X-Men.
The film officially enters its theme. Heavy rain accompanies the dark night. The first panoramic view that appears in front of the audience is this concentration camp. It is precisely at the scene where the story officially begins that a familiar line of letters appears in the upper right corner of the big screen:
Screenwriter and producer: Wayne Greenberg.
"X-Men: 1", written by Wayne Greenberg!
As a commercial film aimed at commercial profit, the original intention of doing this is understandable. After all, in the minds of most movie fans, as long as this name appears in the title of the movie, it basically means that this is a movie that is destined not to disappoint movie fans. Movie.
To put it bluntly, everything is for the sake of movie marketing. Under this premise, the actual producer of the crew, Avi Adela, and the director, Bryan Singer, all have to be lined up behind Wayne.
The reason is simple. Whether or not the name "Wayne Greenberg" is attached can affect the movie's box office figures in the tens of millions. Since 20th Century Fox paid him a large salary, it was impossible to let go of such an effective marketing method.
The first few minutes of the film are not very attractive. The various information constantly revealed makes the audience waiting patiently until Wolverine appears. Uncle Wolf seems to have a unique charm, especially the scene where he cuts off the shotgun in the hand of the bar owner with a wave of his hand, which for the first time aroused the admiration in the screening room.
"Seriously, Wayne."
The screening on the big screen continued. Townsend Rothman, who was sitting in the first row, turned to look around him, automatically ignoring the black beauty clinging to the young man, and whispered: "I'm already a little bit tired now." Sorry, Wayne."
"Huh? What do you regret?"
Turning his head with some differences, Wayne had seen the finished movie more than once, so like the CEO of Twentieth Century Fox, he also didn't pay too much attention to the story on the big screen.
Shaking his head slightly, Townsend-Rosman deliberately lowered his voice and muttered: "I have a strong feeling that one day, 20th Century Fox will regret that it did not choose your first plan, and regretted that it chose to be more eager for quick success. plan of......"
There was silence between the two again. For Wayne, it actually didn't matter what 20th Century Fox chose, even if the first plan he gave was more conducive to the construction of the "X-Men" universe, no matter what 20th Century Fox chose. No matter how he makes it, he will be paid so much.
Also, he understands better than anyone in his heart that in the "X-Men" project, even if 20th Century Fox doesn't look for itself, it will be very difficult for the film to fail. This is a film that even if it is not made, New ideas, but still a movie that does not lack attention.
Originally, according to Wayne's idea, he really wanted to change the trend of "X-Men". It had nothing to do with anything else, just because during his graduation, Townsend-Rossman gave "Happy Death Day" a chance and also gave himself a chance. A valuable opportunity to showcase yourself to Hollywood.
From God's perspective, according to the timeline of "X-Men", he sorted out the order of appearance of each mutant in detail, and explained the stories behind these mutants.
I want to gradually improve the entire X-Men universe by introducing more characters one by one. Perhaps the disadvantages of this are too obvious. After all, the heroes in "X-Men" are completely incomparable to DC in terms of popularity, so the box office risk of the opening film is destined to be extremely high.
Even a layman can imagine that the story behind a single mutant is definitely not as eye-catching as several appearing together. But this is fine now, at least in the "X-Men" series, it has returned to the turning point he is most familiar with.
"Do you feel anything special?"
In the middle of the fourth row behind Wayne and other core creators, Nick Crowley, the distribution executive from Paramount Pictures, frowned and looked at Paul next to him.
A tacit understanding between Sony Columbia and Paramount Pictures made the two people become familiar with each other, especially Paul's behavior of digging holes into the CEO, which is regarded as normal behavior by many executives in the industry. Disgusted, and received a lot of praise in private.
"Did not see it......"
Hearing the confusion from Paramount's distribution director, Paul leaned on his chair, shook his head, and said softly: "That's what's weird."
As he spoke, he raised a hand covertly and pointed at the audience in front, back, left, and even half of the auditorium behind him.
The results are self-evident. Yes, the strange thing is that this "X-Men" has nothing to do with Wayne's own style in terms of color, camerawork, story rhythm, and editing habits. , but the audience in the movie theater were all very fascinated.
Nick Crowley shook his head, glanced around the entire screening room, and hummed. "A commercial film that is so normal that it can't be any more normal."
Paul complained helplessly: "Perhaps, making superheroes as a normal commercial film, without trying to imitate Wayne's style, and letting darkness and depression go to hell, is the way to success?"
No one can answer this question for him. After all, "X-Men" has only been released less than half of the time. Not to mention the follow-up plot arrangements, even if it can gain a high reputation from fans at the premiere, it is still nothing. Value reference data.
We are all veterans of the Hollywood distribution industry, and we really know what a premiere is all about.
Regardless of the current screening hall with thousands of people, more than 80% are occupied by ordinary movie fans, but no one can tell what proportion of these ordinary movie fans are paid by 20th Century Fox.
This is just a common practice for Hollywood movie premieres. In order to make the premiere scene more beautiful, film companies that are more confident in the film may only arrange some "shills" among ordinary audiences. A more common practice is actually A large number of professional "movie fans" are employed to enhance the movie-watching atmosphere of the premiere.
Don't underestimate these professional "movie fans". In Hollywood, a place full of commercial properties, they have already formed a complete industrial chain.
"Agency companies" of all sizes in Los Angeles not only provide "party atmosphere groups" for big names in the industry and deeply customize "party guests", but also organize "professional movie fans" to watch movies and "professional audiences" to participate in TV programs, etc. Waiting for business.
Therefore, some "special agencies" in the industry not only have a large number of beautiful and handsome models in their hands, but their profit scope can be said to cover all aspects of the film and television industry.
"Huh..."
Heaving a long sigh of relief, Ron Meyer, a senior executive of Universal Pictures and current CEO, looked quite ugly. He wore a baseball cap that covered most of his face and stared at the big screen.
Now within Universal Pictures, Ron Meyer's personal reputation has declined sharply. The main reason is that he made several wrong choices in the company's big projects.
Fortunately, he has been in business for many years and has allowed himself to overcome difficulties time and time again. In contrast, directors or producers of failed projects have become perfect targets for taking the blame, such as Bill Becker, the director of "The Incredible Hulk" .
"At least it looks average now. The special effects may be passable, but they can't be said to be realistic and gorgeous. The story is not strong, the background score is mediocre, and the shit-like emotional scenes are inexplicable. Halfway through the film, there is no What kind of shot can catch people’s attention..."
Hearing the noise from Ron Meyer, his secretary Brand Shawn turned his head and complained to his boss about the shortcomings of the film in a low voice.
"Shut the f**k up!"
Staring hard at his secretary, Ron Meyer felt that either his own IQ was insulted, or that his secretary Brand's IQ was worrying.
If you look at it with a critical eye, the secretary's comments are all correct, but movie fans are never film critics who want to deliberately criticize, and their perspective on the film is never that extreme.
"Script, script?"
Ron Meyer turned his attention to the big screen again and cooed softly.
As a professional who has worked in the industry for many years, he certainly understands the differences between "X-Men" and other superheroes. The most obvious point is that there is no absolute protagonist in this "X-Men", so the film chooses to describe the characters in multiple lines from the beginning, and then focus on displaying all the characters later.
Having watched most of the film, Ron Meyer has summarized a lot of things. The story line is arranged quite cleverly. Although it is forced to be arranged this way because there are too many characters, it is also clear and not cluttered.
You must know that this is not a "literary film" that conveys the director's emotions. The current arrangement is completely sufficient in the commercial field.
In terms of special effects, they are definitely not as immersive as "The Flash", and they don't have the special effects performance of "The Flash" that wants to overflow the big screen. However, the special effects show off the abilities of the mutants very appropriately, especially the outstanding shapeshifter.
Another thing I have to admit is that whether it is Wolverine, Transformer, or Storm, the actor's temperament is very consistent with the role he plays, and each character leaves a deep impression on the audience.
Suddenly, Ron Meyer completely lost his desire to watch the movie, turned his gaze to the first row of the theater in the dark, and murmured to himself:
"Choose actors who fit the character's temperament, choose an obedient and capable director, and then let these people shoot strictly according to the designed script, and control the post-production work of the film. Wayne, you are indeed a genius in the production industry... ....”
Everyone knows that Wayne has been busy with work related to "The Flash", and he still has to find time to care about the third part of "The Matrix" and Hollywood's first truly successful all-female commercial film "Charlie's Angels" ", it is definitely impossible to have any energy left to focus on "X-Men".
But even so, the finished film of "X-Men" still does not disappoint. Just like Ron Meyer said, choose an obedient and capable director, personally control the audition of the main actors, and arrange a producer who can't dictate to the crew. This is the final result. .
The reason is very simple. It is basically a template for Hollywood producers to produce projects. But so far, the CEO of Universal Pictures only looks at producers who can take over everything and then let it go, and still guarantee a success rate. I have been to two, one is Jerry Bruckheimer, who is making Disney in civil strife and can still ensure revenue, and the other is Wayne Greenberg!
"This is not a Greenbergian superhero movie."
For the much-anticipated premiere of "X-Men", 20th Century Fox naturally did not forget to invite film critics, but compared to the large number of invitations in previous years, the "directing funds" budget they gave this year was not large. As a local film critic in Los Angeles, Todd McKenzie is naturally on this invitation list.
"Yes, except for the script, there is almost no trace of Wayne."
Kenneth Turan, another local Los Angeles film critic, nodded when he heard his companion's emotion and responded softly.
Looking at the film that was about to end, Todd McKenzie said with a smile: "'X-Men' is actually different from all superheroes. It is too special. It might not be a smart choice to do this."
This superhero is special because of the background in which its characters appear, and even the social background in which the entire comic appears.
In the early 1960s, in order to support the increasingly fierce minority equal rights movement in North America, Marvel Comics produced "X-Men" under the leadership of Stan Lee, the father of Marvel superheroes. Its stories, characters, etc. are all metaphors for the plight of ethnic minorities.
In this very special social context, the first superhero team "X-Men" with obvious minority characteristics was born.
Since then, this "special comic", which is independent from other Marvel Comics systems, has developed in North America for decades. During this period, "X-Men" has gone through many film, television, animation and other adaptations. However, before 20th Century Fox produced the "X-Men" movie, those adaptations were only minor ones, far from what they are now. Most major productions have cards.
"It could have developed into the most special universe. Tsk, tsk, tsk, what a pity..."
No matter what others thought, Wayne glanced at Townsend Roseman beside him at this time and shook his head helplessly in his heart.
In fact, strictly speaking, the first real movie universe in Hollywood is Universal Pictures' Monster Universe. Some people gave Universal Pictures' monsters names such as Dark Universe many years ago. .
From the 1920s to the 1950s, the entire series of Universal Monster Movie Universe was conceptualized and known. Starting with the silent film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", Universal Pictures continued to create its own monster series due to its box office success.
For example, "Phantom of the Opera", "The Man Who Laughs", "Dracula", "Frankenstein", "The Invisible Man", "The Werewolf of London" and other classic images of the "Monster Universe" were born very Early, you know, it was the 1930s.
Universal Pictures' monster series had a brilliant beginning, and its follow-up development was also very wise. From the previous work, "Bride of Frankenstein", "Daughter of Dracula" and other interconnected sequels were born. A series of operations. , making Universal Pictures’ monster series of movies an inescapable banner for Hollywood after the 1930s.
In the years since, Universal Pictures has never given up on the development of monsters, developing them in a way that is related to each other. "The Hand of Mino Yin", "The Tomb of Mino Yin", "Return of the Invisible Man", "Son of Dracula", "The Soul of Frankenstein" and so on.
"First Evolution"
What’s rare about this brilliant monster movie series is that it is connected to each other, and new characters and stories are constantly derived from each world view.
If it were just like this, it wouldn't be considered a novel "universe concept", because although these movies are related, there are still no multiple series intertwined to form a unified world view.
There is always no shortage of smart people in this world. As early as the mid-1940s, the group of visionary executives at Universal Pictures once again made a decision. Launched the first movie "Frankenstein vs. the Werewolf" in which the characters intersect and the world view is initially unified!
From today's perspective, does it feel like "Batman v Superman"? That's right, there is no shortage of people with forward-thinking vision in this world.
The success of "Frankenstein vs. the Werewolf" allowed Universal Pictures executives to continue to work hard to plan a unified world view and continue to stuff various monsters into it. Later, they launched "Frankenstein House", "Zombie" "Monster House", "Two Idiots vs. Frankenstein", a series of movies with multiple monsters intertwined, and achieved rare good results.
However, with the development of time, the social trends in North America are slowly changing. The advent of the Cold War, space war and other events have caused Universal Pictures to abandon the monster series with a huge foundation, turn around and start changing the runway, and will All eyes are on the science fiction series.
Movies have never existed alone. Behind every blockbuster movie, there is actually a close connection with social trends. It can be said that Universal Pictures' monster series was simply forced to cut in half by the development of social forms. .
In fact, it was not until the turn of the century that Universal Pictures restarted the monster series on a large scale, although the reputation of films such as "Van Helsing" was not satisfactory.
Unlike the aborted "Monster Universe" and "Dark Universe", if it weren't for the emergence of Wayne, Hollywood's de facto first successful movie universe would undoubtedly be the "X-Men" universe.
At the beginning, 20th Century Fox did not plan "X-Men" on such a big scale. Even the "X-Men" trilogy followed tradition and only produced the next one after one was released and performed well.
But this kind of crossing the river by feeling for the stones has also created the first movie universe with relationships in the same world and more and more heroes appearing. And because of the preconception effect of decades of comics, the "X-Men" universe did not become a clutter in the eyes of movie fans as soon as it came out.
Over the years in Hollywood, it’s not like no one has thought about shooting something similar to a movie universe, but there has always been a problem in the industry.
Films with one central character are the norm, and the director has a lot of leeway. But two, three, four or even more becomes the problem of the century. How should the roles be divided? Since every hero is important, how to balance their importance? A pot of thick soup with everything thrown into it will definitely not taste good.
But "X-Men" doesn't need to consider this issue at all because of its own advantages. The impression that comics have formed on audiences over decades is there, so it is naturally much easier. Coupled with the birth process under a special social background, "X-Men" naturally formed characteristics that are different from other comic universes.
Even the "Justice League" series and the "Avengers" series do not have as much advantage as the "X-Men" in this regard. A random main character from the first two has a world-renowned influence, but it is precisely because he is too famous that when they are all mixed together, the director cannot make a reasonable trade-off.
Marvel, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is certainly the most successful, and understandably so. One of the great success factors is that the senior executives of Marvel Studios had already designed the subsequent development plan before the filming of the opening film "Iron Man".
With a unified shooting style, a unified world view, and then inserting characters step by step, this is the Marvel method. After all, the popularity accumulated one after another explodes at the right time, which is really terrifying.
"X-Men" is the opposite of Marvel, because it did not have such a long-term plan from the beginning, so the series has continued to develop for twenty years. It can be clearly discovered that from aspects of action design, special effects rendering, script creation, etc., It is constantly being adjusted as time progresses and social trends change.
There is a core that has kept "X-Men" popular for twenty years, and Wayne could have sworn that no one would be able to discover it today. Although the story, special effects, actions, etc. are all changing, "X-Men" has never changed in terms of its core themes of metaphors for ethnic minorities and confrontation and acceptance of mainstream society.
And this is actually what Wayne feels regretful in his heart. "X-Men" is really too special. Apart from this series, it is difficult to find an IP with the same background and the same theme.