Hollywood starts with an agent

Chapter 523 is all B-movies.
The American Pie series and the Final Destination series left a deep impression on Aaron, especially Final Destination.
The idea came from Glenn Morgan and James Wong, the two creators of the X-Files series. Morgan is a writer and producer, while Wong is a writer and director.

Aaron thought to himself, "After the Scream series, Twilight Studios has another horror film series!"

After Dawn Steele left, Etherine Beckett went to her office. "Armageddon opened with $3600 million, generated a lot of buzz, and received better reviews than DreamWorks and Paramount's Deep Impact."

Aaron smiled. "Michael Bay is truly a lucky charm!"

"Deep Impact" grossed $1.4 million in North America, plus $2 million overseas, for a total of $3.4 million worldwide, making it an absolute blockbuster;

With a budget nearly double that of "Deep Impact," "The Great Cataclysm" is sure to be an even bigger hit.

"Warner Bros.' sequel, 'Lethal Weapon 4,' which premiered last week, has grossed $7000 million in its first 10 days."

"A low-budget comedy film from 20th Century Fox, 'There's Something About Mary,' has grossed $40 million in just 10 days!"

Aaron looked at the report, somewhat surprised. The reviews for "There's Something About Mary" were much better than those for "Lethal Weapon 4".
"Lethal Weapon 4" is a sequel blockbuster starring Mel Gibson, with a budget of $1.4 million, while "There's Something About Mary" is just a low-budget comedy starring Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz, with a budget of only $2300 million.
Ethelyn Beckett chimed in, "I predict that 20th Century Fox's 'There's Something About Mary' will definitely gross over $100 million in North America."

"Last year, Fox Searchlight released the British comedy film 'The Full Monty,' which was a huge success. This year, they released another one, 'There's Something About Mary!'"

Aaron nodded in agreement. No wonder Rupert Murdoch seemed to be in a good mood when they met in England.
20th Century Fox's performance this year is indeed quite impressive!

"It doesn't matter. Let's not even talk about Titanic. Which of Dawn's films this year—The Man in the Iron Mask, The Mummy, Notting Hill, and The Truman Show—wasn't it a blockbuster?"

"And now, we still have the ultimate weapon, 'Peerless Heavenly Tribulation'!"

However, the toilet humor comedy "There's Something About Mary," starring Cameron Diaz, was somewhat unexpected for Aaron.
Cameron Diaz's sex appeal and beauty in "The Mask" are undeniable; otherwise, Aaron wouldn't have had a relationship with her.

However, when Aaron saw Cameron Diaz again two years later, he had completely lost interest!
"By the way, although 'Lethal Weapon 4' didn't receive good reviews overall, Jett Lee, the Chinese-American martial arts actor who played the villain, received a lot of positive feedback."

"Let the companies below arrange for Jett Lee's films to be gradually released into theaters from the warehouse."

Etherine Beckett nodded. "Understood."

Aaron suddenly asked, "And what has Quentin Tarantino been busy with all this time?"

Are there any projects suitable for Jett Lee?

Athenae Beckett smiled. "Quentin Tarantino has several Twilight Studios projects under his belt, and he's serving as a producer."

"At the end of last year, Twilight Pictures released a thriller he wrote and directed, 'Jackie Brown,' which grossed $7000 million worldwide, not bad."

"Currently, the action thriller 'From Dusk Till Dawn 2,' which he is producing, is in production. In addition, he also produced a comedy film that was released by Universal earlier this year!"

Three years ago, Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney starred in "From Dusk Till Dawn," which was a low-budget cult film.
Since *Pulp Fiction*, Quentin Tarantino has been working with Twilight Pictures, as most of his films are B-movies. "Let's forget about it then," Aaron said. He had wanted Tarantino to work on a Jett Lee film, but since Tarantino already had projects, he decided to wait.

"Recently, HBO's urban women's drama series 'Sex and the City' has achieved good ratings and received high praise."

"There's a growing trend in films and television dramas with female themes. I'm planning to adapt the hit 1970s TV series 'Charlie's Angels' into a movie."

"Go and see if you can buy back the adapted version?"

Aaron spoke up again, but these kinds of TV series adaptation rights aren't so easy to buy;
"Charlie's Angels" aired on ABC, but it was produced by Columbia Television.

If it were other independent television companies or producers, of course it wouldn't be a big problem, but Columbia Pictures is one of the seven major Hollywood film studios, and it's unlikely they would sell their own television rights.

Just like "Friends" and "ER," the copyright belongs to Dawn Television Company. Other film companies can't buy the film adaptation rights. Dawn will naturally let its subsidiary, Universal Pictures, take charge of the development!
The Mission: Impossible movies released a couple of years ago are an example of this. When Cruise-Wagner Productions wanted to develop a Mission: Impossible movie, they had no choice but to work with Paramount.

After all, the Mission: Impossible series was developed by Paramount Television.

Dawn Steele nodded. "Okay, I'll give it a try."

Aaron thought for a moment, "If all else fails, Universal can collaborate with Columbia Pictures and develop it together."

Sony is losing money hand over fist, and has collaborated with many other major film companies on projects in the past two years. I believe they won't refuse to work with Universal on the "Charlie's Angels" project!

"I don't think Columbia would refuse to cooperate with us. Sony wanted to work with us to develop movies before."

Dawn Steele was now even more confident.

"In addition, the sequel projects, such as *Jurassic Park 3* and *Men in Black 2*, also need to begin preparations as soon as possible."

"Jurassic Park 2 and Men in Black, both released last year, were commercially successful!"

Jurassic Park 3 was made possible because author Michael Crichton stopped writing novels and director Steven Spielberg didn't want to continue working on it.
As for Men in Black 2, although there are comics to refer to, director Barry Sonnenfeld is busy with other projects.

Currently, Barry Sonnenfeld is filming Warner Bros.' sci-fi comedy blockbuster, Wild West.
Will Smith is the lead actor in Wild West. He turned down another Warner Bros. film, The Matrix, in order to choose this one.

Unfortunately, Wild West had a budget of $1 million and was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, while The Matrix only had a budget of $6300 million and was directed by the relatively unknown Wachowski brothers.

Will Smith would naturally choose Wild Wild Bunch, which is the more likely to win, so Warner Bros. brought in Keanu Reeves to star in The Matrix!
In addition to these sequel blockbusters, Dawn Universal is also preparing new projects such as The Lord of the Rings series, Spider-Man, and X-Men.

(End of this chapter)