Chapter 332
Chapter 332: Unbelievable #
In the shot, the girl hung on Sam like a koala and kissed him passionately. They slowly fell onto the sofa next to them. After more than four hours, Eric, who was staring at the screen behind the monitor, finally shouted, “Good, this shot is done!” Everyone present, including the two lead actors who had just gotten up from the sofa, breathed a sigh of relief.
Although the scene in the script was only a few lines and less than a page long, it took four hours to shoot. Anyone would feel impatient, but Eric, who was supposed to be the most likely to erupt, did not show any signs of impatience. Of course, the others present did not dare to show any signs of impatience either. They repeated the scene over and over again.
Eric looked at his watch and said, “That’s enough for today. It’s already very late, and we don’t need to clean up here for now. Let’s go back and rest as soon as possible.” Before anyone could cheer for the director’s thoughtfulness, Eric added, “No one is allowed to be late tomorrow.”
There was a chorus of groans, but no one dared to complain. After all, they had all been paid enough overtime, and Eric still had more work to do than they did.
After everyone left, Eric and the assistant director checked the footage they had shot and put it in a safe box. It took more than half an hour. The filming in Manhattan had been going on for almost a month. Because Eric had a ready-made movie as a reference, he was always faster than other Hollywood directors.
After just one month, the filming of “Ghost” was already 20% complete, and maybe it would only take another ten days of filming before it could be wrapped up. There were also occasional updates from Los Angeles that the production of the movie’s special effects was going smoothly. Eric even watched some of the effects through a video call.
However, filming “Basic Instinct” in San Francisco was not going as smoothly. It was not because of the lead actors, whose performances were excellent, but because of other issues. As everyone knew, San Francisco was a city with a high concentration of the LGBT community. A controversial scene about homosexuality in “Basic Instinct” was reported by the paparazzi with exaggerated headlines, causing protests from the LGBT community in San Francisco. Some radical activists even tried to obstruct the filming of the movie.
Jeffrey had to contact the San Francisco police department for help. For the past few days, the filming of “Basic Instinct” had been under the protection of more than 50 police officers. As a result, the production team had to pay a substantial sponsorship fee to the relevant San Francisco police department.
And the firefly’s first movie, “Silence of the Lambs,” set to be released during the summer, has already wrapped up production for over a week. It’s said that the crew had to split into three to finish the film as soon as possible. By the end of May, all post-production work will be completed, but due to the rush, the original cost of less than 20 million has increased to 25 million. Eric has not yet seen a sample of the film, but he believes that with Jonathan Demme directing the original version and no changes to the two main actors, the film should not differ too much from the previous version.
According to the plan, the film will have its first reviews and previews for critics in early June, with an official release date set for June 8th. However, Robert Shaye only arranged for 1,500 premiere cinemas for the film. Although Eric knows that this is because Robert Shay is allocating resources for his own personally directed film, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” Eric doesn’t say much. It’s already good enough to be able to premiere during the summer season. After all, “Silence of the Lambs” is an R-rated bloody horror film, and according to Hollywood tradition, this type of film is either released during the Easter season or at the end of the summer season. Being able to squeeze into the popular summer season is already very lucky. As for the 1,500 cinemas for a horror film, it’s not considered a small number.
In addition to the movie business, Eric gradually realizes that he has more and more things to take care of. Not only does he have to worry about Firefly’s operations, but also Pixar, the Digital Domain, and even Cisco occasionally require his personal attention. Although his focus has always been on Firefly, Eric has not reduced his attention to these companies. With ample financial support, “Toy Story” has already completed over half of its production. It may not make it in time for the Christmas season, but it will definitely be able to make it to the summer season next year. This new version of “Toy Story” is much more refined than the previous one, with added details and a total length that is now a more standard 90 minutes, rather than the previous 81 minutes. Eric believes that the appearance of “Toy Story” will definitely surprise the Hollywood film industry.
As for the Digital Domain, Eric has entrusted it to Stan Winston with confidence. He has only arranged for a financial director to supervise the finances of the Digital Domain, and does not interfere much in other aspects.
After its release in February, Cisco’s stock price has been soaring. Although it slowed down for a bit more than a month, after the release of Cisco’s first-quarter profit report, the stock price rose again. The $70 million investment from Eric has now grown to a value of over $200 million, and there is no sign of stopping. Many investment institutions have begun to regret transferring their original share subscription shares to Firefly Investment Company.
While paying attention to these matters, Eric gradually noticed that people around him had become somewhat strange in recent days. They occasionally looked at him with strange eyes, as if planning something. This feeling was subtle, and he couldn’t tell if it was just his imagination.
For example, today, members of the crew found excuses to take leave one by one, hoping that Eric could end today’s shooting an hour early, saying that they had something to do. If it were one or two people, it would be okay, but since everyone was acting this way, Eric would have a problem with his intelligence if he couldn’t sense that something was wrong.
Due to the unanimous and firm demands of the crowd, Eric had to compromise. Anyway, he had been tired for so many days, and the film was almost finished. He just planned to go along with public opinion.
However, when they finished work, Eric caught up with the photographer, Nick, who wanted to leave: “Nick, tell me, what happened?”
Nick looked at Eric strangely, as if reminding him, and felt a bit unbelievable. Facing Eric’s questioning, Nick looked around and saw many people looking in their direction. He quickly shook his head and said, “Eric, I can’t say. I’ll be killed.”
“If you don’t say it, I’ll kill you right now,” Eric threatened.
The photographer Mr. Nick raised his neck, looking like he was resigned to his fate. After all, he knew Eric couldn’t really do anything to him.
Eric punched Nick in the chest and said, “Okay, get out of here. I hope you don’t cause any trouble for me.”
“I definitely won’t, definitely,” Nick said with a smile, nodding his head. After walking a few steps away and confirming that Eric couldn’t hear him, Nick couldn’t help but sigh: “Unbelievable, really unbelievable. He can forget about something like this. No wonder he’s a workaholic.”