Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 228 Role Selection
Leonardo DiCaprio spent three days reading the novel "Inception" over and over again.

From the beginning, I was confused. What does this mean? Can dreams be stolen and implanted?

I slowly fell into deep thought, and the more I looked at it, the more I found its creativity amazing.

In the end, I couldn't help but clap my hands in admiration. The nested "dream-making" mode and the precise and rigorous time design were both extremely brilliant.

Especially the 4 layers of dreams, the time difference of each layer is 12 times, and the setting of 20 times after using sedatives is extremely rigorous, more like an extremely precise instrument.

Exquisite and rigorous!
New concepts, new ideas, new perspectives, new creativity!

If you miss a movie like this, you may regret it for the rest of your life.

Leonardo DiCaprio has a strong feeling that if he acts in this movie, it will definitely become another of his masterpieces.

He quickly found the studio manager Rick John and couldn't help but danced with joy and said:
"Rick, I've thought it through. I'll promise Columbia that we don't have to split the profits. I want to be the leading actor in this movie. You don't know how brilliant the idea of ​​this novel is..."

Rick John couldn't help but be stunned for a moment, opened his mouth, then sighed, and finally couldn't help but stand up, put his hands on Leo, who was constantly expressing his excitement with body language, and said:

"Leo, don't get excited. Calm down. I mean, you have to be mentally prepared. We may lose this role."

"what?"

Leo slapped Rick John's hand away and couldn't help saying, "Rick, I told you I don't want any box office dividends. I just want the leading actor in this movie. Didn't you hear me clearly?"

He thought Rick Yorn was unwilling to give up his share of the box office profits.

Rick John turned around and took out several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the Hollywood Reporter.

He handed the newspaper to Little Leo and said, "Leo, I told you to be mentally prepared. Take a look at the news in these newspapers first."

Little Li grabbed the newspaper and flipped through it quickly. The more he read, the wider his eyes widened. In the end, he threw the newspaper to the ground and roared:
"Bullshit! It's only been a few days? Why? How can the casting of a movie be decided so easily? Especially for such a big production! Are you sure they didn't make the decision long ago and team up to trick me?"

Rick John sighed and pressed Leo's shoulder again.

"Leo, calm down. You know very well that this is impossible. Columbia just sent us an invitation. We have no loss. We didn't even go through the audition process. No matter how you look at it, they are not playing tricks on us."

He bent down to pick up the newspaper, pointed at the photo of Depp on it, and said:

"According to the inside information I received, this weird guy... is very decisive. After receiving the invitation, his agency wanted to discuss box office dividends, but this guy threatened to leave and forced the agency to give in..."

The more Leo listened, the worse his expression became. He stared at Rick John with a bad look, "What do you mean by this? Are you mocking me for not having the courage and decisiveness that guy has?"
damn it!
"Rick, let's talk to Columbia. Do you think it's possible..."

Rick John thought about it, then shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Leo. If it was any other actor, with your fame and influence, Columbia would have happily agreed, but the other party is Depp."

Rick Yorn did not directly say that Depp has now become a member of the "20 million club", with a similar status to Leo, and his artistic achievements are even more overwhelming, but he said euphemistically:
"Depp has worked with director Cao Yang on two films and won two Oscars. They have a very good relationship. Columbia is unlikely to replace Depp for you."

"Shit!"

Leo waved his hands vigorously, and then his little mouth seemed to be covered with honey, and he kept uttering greetings starting with F, scolding Depp for being unsportsmanlike and Columbia for being unprofessional.

Mr. Han had already booked a flight and was planning to return home after the Oscars.

However, due to the project establishment of "Inception", Cao Yang gave China Film a share, which made President Han very excited. He refunded his plane ticket and stayed to discuss matters related to the film.

Cao Yang originally wanted to reserve three important roles for the Chinese. However, this decision was opposed not only by Columbia but also by President Han himself.

With a budget of 13.2 billion RMB, it is a mega-production not only in China but also in Hollywood. President Han has become conservative and dares not to use too many Chinese actors for fear of affecting the box office.

Since even President Han had given in, Cao Yang no longer insisted and decided to leave two important roles and a few roles with smaller parts for Chinese people. Since it was a co-production, they had to find a few more people from China to participate.

Seeing that Cao Yang had "compromised", Colombia decided to stop while it was ahead and agreed.

The four-member team of protagonists, in addition to the protagonist, also includes the "dream builder" Adrian, the "sentinelist" Arthur and the "pretender" Eames, and these three characters have the most important roles.

After careful consideration, Cao Yang decided to keep the role of "dream builder" Adrian, which is a female role and there are many candidates available in China.

In this "Inception", Cao Yang wrote the character of Saito, who used to live a simple life, into a Chinese tycoon. This character has a lot of scenes, second only to the four-member team of protagonists.

This role must be retained and found in China.

After the Oscars, Cao Yang stayed in the US for another ten days, during which he finished the final editing of Juno. He will not be in charge of the rest of the film, but may help promote it when it is released if he has time.

At the same time, the auditions of several main actors in "Inception" were also completed.

After auditioning, Cao Yang chose Mark Ruffalo, who plays "The Hulk", to play the role of "The Sentinel".

This guy performed well in "Despicable Milk" and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He is doing well now and has always been grateful to Cao Yang.

He seemed very excited to be able to work with Cao Yang again.

For the role of the "pretender" Eames, Cao Yang chose Tom Hardy, who also worked with Cao Yang in "Mean Milk".

Cao Yang remembered that he was the one who played this role in the original work and his performance was pretty good.

Another character with some screen time is the "target" Fisher. Cao Yang originally wanted to audition, but unexpectedly, Leo called and directly said that he wanted to guest-star in this role.

Leo made this decision after a lot of ideological struggle.

Since the protagonist has no hope, Leo can only think of this solution as he wants to participate in this movie and make friends with Cao Yang.

In particular, he wanted to make friends with Cao Yang, which was what he had always wanted to do. Otherwise, he would not have rescued Cao Yang's "female companion" Dong Xuan at the Oscars dinner.

While Columbia was happy about Leo's desire to make a cameo appearance, it still had some concerns.

However, when Leo's studio manager Rick Yorn went to Columbia and signed a contract for a symbolic salary of one million US dollars, Columbia's concerns were all dispelled.

Of course, although it was just a cameo and the pay was only symbolic, but Leo's status was there after all, and there was no way to fool around with any treatment he received during the filming.

Colombia will not fool around with such trivial matters.

During the filming, Leo's treatment will be the same as Depp's. This is all written in the contract, which details all the benefits including food, clothing, housing, transportation, etc.

After these main roles have been finalized, the remaining less important roles, except for a few reserved for domestic roles, will be left to the casting director and Columbia to decide.

In addition to the actors, the crew members are almost all the same people from District 9.

In addition to some scenes in "Inception" that had to use CG, there were many places where Cao Yang wanted to use real-life shooting.

For example, the classic fighting scene in the hotel, that is the rotating corridor that feels like weightlessness.

After discussing with technical personnel, Cao Yang decided to build a metal corridor that can rotate 360 ​​degrees, driven by a hydraulic system, to complete a series of fighting actions.

There were also a series of snow mountain scenes, such as the explosion of the snow mountain fortress, and the real scenes were built in Canada.

The internal structure of the fortress was built in a studio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Real explosives were used in the blasting scenes, combined with miniature models to enhance the visual impact.

The folding of the streets in Paris was shot on location combined with constructed street sets, and the folding special effects were synthesized in post-production, but physical models were used for destruction shots such as building collapse.

There are also trains rushing into the streets, weightless cabins, etc., all of which were shot using real scenes.

In fact, building many real scenes is more cost-effective and more realistic than using CG. The disadvantage is that it is more troublesome and may produce many uncontrollable factors, which is not as worry-free and labor-saving as CG.

Even if everything goes well, these preliminary preparations will take more than four months. Cao Yang asked Cheng Jianye to follow up on these in detail. He can use this time to shoot "Black Swan".

He also showed the script of "Black Swan" to the president of the Venice Film Festival, Marco Polo, who praised it highly and assured him that as long as the film was made, he would take care of everything.

Cao Yang will not stop filming seriously just because of Lao Ma's guarantee. This is related to his reputation and he must not be careless.

The movie "Black Swan" is indeed very suitable for the Venice Film Festival.

In the process of pursuing perfection, the heroine gradually suffers a mental breakdown, and the film explores in depth the dark side of human nature, such as obsession, self-identity, and dual personality.

A movie like this could easily win awards in itself.

In addition, Cao Yang felt that it was time to support Dong Xuan and it would be nice to give her a prestigious award, such as the Venice Film Festival Best Actress.

Of course, the reason why Cao Yang did this was not because of Dong Xuan's twin ponytails, nor because Dong Xuan liked to wear the goddess dragon costume at night, nor because Dong Xuan had recently learned a lot of new postures...knowledge.

It’s just because Dong Xuan studied dance and is more suitable for the role.

(End of this chapter)