As early as the beginning of the century, because he heard that Sony Columbia Pictures wanted to purchase the movie adaptation rights of the Joe Special Forces Toys series, Duke won the copyright of the Transformers series for a considerable price from Hasbro, and waited for the time to make it into a series of movies.

The Transformers series relies heavily on G production, which is why Duke has waited for it so far. Now the G technology is more mature, and the production cost has been greatly reduced compared to before. The special effects that required $50 million to be solved at the beginning of the century are now more than $20 million is enough to handle.

Even so, Duke still planned a production budget of at least $200 million so that Optimus Prime and Megatron had more opportunities to show their faces, rather than when the Transformers appeared, the camera always flashed a few times and switched to humans.

Compared with "The Dark Knight", the style of "Transformers" is undoubtedly much lower, but in Duke's eyes, "Transformers" is much more important than "The Dark Knight". On the one hand, it is the relationship between commercial income, and on the other hand, it is the feelings hidden deep in the heart that have never been forgotten.

My childhood when I lived on the other side of the Pacific Ocean was the most popular era in "Transformers". How many people are unforgettable images in their hearts?

Even though this is destined to be just a pure popcorn movie, Duke still plans to go on stage in person.

This is still the story of a boy and his car. The main audience of the film determines the basic settings, but the script that has passed the review has undergone tremendous changes. First of all, the style of the film is no longer funny, and the human scenes are important, but they will not overestimate the main.

Duke has no humorous cells. He is not good at making funny things, and he will not make up some too vulgar things to put in the film. Although the script has some small humor, it will stop when it is clicked.

There is also the male and female protagonists, and his videos have no cent relationship with DreamWorks. They can’t have a good relationship with Spielberg, so of course they won’t go to the old Jewish godson. For the heroine, he has no feelings for actresses like Meghan Fox, so he will definitely not use it...

Just like the information Duke asked Nancy Josephson to prepare, after the crew was officially established, a large-scale audition will be held for these two characters.

Then there are the looks of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Since the screenwriter prepared the script in the first half of this year, Duke asked Tina Fei to inform Hasbro headquarters in Rhode Island that according to the copyright agreement signed by both parties, Transformers is directly related to Hasbro's personal interests, and they also know that if they want to take the influence of Transformers to a higher level, it is undoubtedly a very wise choice to use Duke, the director's hand.

Hasbro's people also used their greatest enthusiasm and fastest time to come up with the concept design drawings of Transformers in the video.

But when Hasbro's eo flew to Los Angeles and sent it to the Duke's studio in person, Duke directly rejected it.

"Bryan, I don't think it's very suitable."

In the reception room, Duke looked through the concept pictures and frowned, "They look too much like the characters in the animation."

"I think it's better to be a little bit like."

Sitting next to Duke. Hasbro CEO Brian Goldno has a completely different view, "When we design, we base ourselves on animated characters. We borrowed a lot of Japanese mecha styles..."

Looking at the square blocks in the concept picture, like a stout robot stacked with boxes, Duke shook his head, "The shape is so ugly, I can imagine that when they appear on the big screen, there will be no streamlined beauty."

“Stiffy beauty?”

Hearing this statement, Brian Goldno shook his head at a faster speed. "They are a group of robots that must comply with the principles of physics. If they are not strong enough, it is impossible to run, jump, and make some difficult moves."

"Brian, I think you overlooked a little."

This eO has not been in office for a long time. Duke knew this, so he said, "They are not robots, but highly intelligent machine life bodies. Any living organism will have its own streamlined beauty, rather than a pure machine shape with rough and stiff lines!"

In Duke's view, those ideas that always design Optimus Prime as thick and bulky are extremely wrong.

That was just a prototype design based on robots on the earth, and ignored the important point. In this science fiction world, Transformers are not robots!

Moreover, the difference between movies on the big screen and cartoons on the small screen is too big.

To a certain extent, what appears in the movie will be a group of advanced intelligent lives from alien galaxies, except that their bodies are made of metal, rather than bulky earth robots.

"But..." Brian Goldnow thought for a while and changed his tone, "If it is too different from the cartoon's image, will some fans not accept it?"

Duke didn't answer and asked instead, "Hasbro has also launched a new 3D Transformers cartoon in recent years. What is the response?"

Brian Goldno sighed, but didn't speak again.

Transformers cartoons in recent years have been scolded by fans without exception.

"Brian, I have adapted many works, and I roughly know what kind of image is more in line with the requirements of the big screen and the expectations of mainstream audiences."

After a brief pause, Duke told a fact, "The Dark Knight's box office and surrounding sales were very strong, but there were still a large number of Batman fans who didn't like it, and even said on the Internet that I ruined the image of Batman..."

Turning his head to look at Brian Goldno, Duke said, "No matter how we adapt Transformers, in the eyes of some fans, we will destroy their childhood memories. No matter how popular a movie is, it cannot be liked by everyone."

Things are very obvious. No matter how they adapt, this series will be considered by some people to ruin their childhood.

“There’s another point.”

Although the movie adaptation rights are in your hands and you can make the decision on what you want to do, Duke will not ignore Hasbro. If the film wants to be successful, the promotion of manufacturers is equally important, and it is completely unnecessary to have huge conflicts with Hasbro on this issue.

"Don't you think so? Only when the image of Transformers is different from that of a cartoon, fans will be more willing to buy new toys and peripheral products after the film is released."

Sitting and thinking for a few minutes, Brian Goldnow nodded slowly and said, "I will rush back to Rhode Island as soon as possible and let the design department..."

"No, I'll send a design team to Los Angeles."

This person who can take the position of Hasbro CEO is also a determined figure, "helping you and the crew to work."

The success of the "Transformers" series and Hasbro spared no effort to promote it, played a very important role.

Saw Brian Goldno and Duke returned to the office and hung up the phone to Warner Bros. The film requires too much funding budget, and Warner Bros. has launched a pre-sale and financing mechanism.

Movies, especially large commercial productions, are high-investment and high-risk industries, and financing is a basic part of it. How much investment is and how to allocate it can decisively affect a movie. The reason why Hollywood movies can continuously produce blockbuster blockbusters and succeed in the global market is closely related to the strong capital support behind it.

In the past, due to confidence in Duke and the less risky considerations, although Warner Bros. also raised funds from outside when investing in his videos, the amount was relatively small.

But the situation is different now. The huge amount of funds invested in "The Dark Knight" has not been recovered yet. It requires a lot of money to be invested in masterpieces such as Duke's "Transformers" and Zach Schneider's "Watchmen" and the new Harry Potter. Warner Bros. cannot take out too much liquidity, and raising shooting funds through various mechanisms has become the primary choice.

In addition to pre-sale video screening rights to overseas publishers in various regions around the world, Warner Bros. is also preparing to accept investment from some foundations.

Since 2004, investment institutions have initiated film funds and investing in film projects in a major Hollywood studio for a certain period has become a trend, which is also called 'platter investment'.

In this era, major Hollywood studios have long been accepted into larger media and entertainment groups, and the globalization trend of the Hollywood film industry is becoming increasingly obvious. "High concept" movies characterized by "big investment, big production, big marketing, big market" have become the mainstream in Hollywood.

MPAA has statistics. In 1975, the average production cost of American movies was $5 million, and by 1987, this figure reached $20 million. By 2007, the average production cost of large studios had risen to $70.8 million, and the average marketing cost reached $45.9 million, with a total cost exceeding $100 million.

With such a large investment scale, it is difficult for Hollywood studios to achieve large-scale production every year.

Although their parent company is strong, it is unwilling to invest too much money in the production of huge risks. Moreover, as a listed company, no one wants to have too many debt records on their company's financial statements, so introducing external investors has become an inevitable choice for Hollywood studios.

However, for a long time in the last century and 1900s, Hollywood did not feel too much financing pressure, because with the rise of new movie distribution channels such as videotapes, cable TV, satellite TV, and European local TV, Hollywood movies can raise most of the funds through pre-sale copyrights.

The tax preferential policies provided by some overseas governments to promote the development of the film industry have also provided many conveniences for Hollywood financing. Among them, one of the most especially German policies has become a loophole that has been exploited by many Hollywood companies. (To be continued)
Chapter completed!