Heads Up Hollywood

The 53rd Cannes Film Festival will open on May 14 and end on May 25.

One day in advance, Tang En and the crew of "The Girl Who Moved the Soul" arrived in Nice, France, and will take a car to Cannes the next day.

When I got off the plane, I saw all kinds of reporters taking pictures everywhere, so Natalie pouted, "Hurry up and buy a plane, I hate this feeling."

Tang En said: "I have already placed an order with Gulfstream. They are doing interior renovations. It is estimated that... it will be ready for use in September."

"Ah? So fast?" Natalie blinked in surprise, "Isn't it expensive?"

"Gulfstream V is not expensive. It only costs 40 million US dollars including the renovation cost." Tang En held her little hand, ignoring the enthusiastic French reporter at all.

"Sure enough, he is a rich man, and 40 million US dollars is not expensive!" Natalie wrinkled her nose resentfully, suddenly thought of something, and said with a smile: "Isn't it the same plane as Jim Carrey?"

Tang En laughed loudly, "Yes, it's the same style!"

Jim Carrey's plane is the biggest joke in Hollywood.

The main reason is that Jim Carrey has a big brand. All the movies he starred in must have close-ups of the front of his private jet, which makes people laugh and cry.

Sam Mendes leaned over and lowered his voice, "Twain, I heard...the judges this year are very beneficial to us."

He just won the Oscar for Best Director two months ago. If he wins the Cannes Best Director Award for "The Girl Who Moved Soul", it will undoubtedly be a legend.

Tang En said calmly, "It's very favorable. Among the six judges, there is an American director, a British actor, and Luc Besson."

Sam Mendes nodded.

Tang En smiled.

He came to participate in this Cannes Film Festival in person, just to win the award, of course, the public relations with the judges are indispensable.

The American among the judges is the famous director Jonathan Demme, who has made classics such as "The Silence of the Lambs" and won the Oscar for Best Director in one fell swoop. However, "True Love" with an investment of 55 million US dollars failed disastrously at the box office, which directly brought his status in Hollywood to the bottom.

When "The Girl Who Moved the Soul" was established, Tang En Pictures intended to invite him to be the director, but he asked for the right to make decisions about actors and the right to modify the script, so he was rejected.

Now, Jonathan Demme has reached the point where he has no more films to shoot, and he has come to Europe to be a judge. If Tang En Pictures offered an olive branch for the second time, he would not refuse.

The British judge was Kristin Scott Thomas, who starred in "The English Patient" and was nominated for an Oscar. Such a Hollywood actress, as long as her IQ is normal and not too brain-dead, she will definitely vote for "The Girl Who Moved Soul".

Tang En is a powerful figure who dares to challenge Disney and Fox. Christine will definitely try to please him, not to mention Tang En's relationship with the British Gang has always been good.

Finally, there is Luc Besson.

Last year, Luc Besson launched the epic film "Joan of Arc" with an investment of 70 million US dollars. As a result, both the box office and word-of-mouth failed disastrously. Luc Besson packed up and went back to France.

Even Milla Jovovich, a very popular and promising actress, was given up by Hollywood because of her starring role in "Joan of Arc".

Luc Besson is a director of commercial films with a literary and artistic temperament. France is a small place and cannot accommodate him at all. Hollywood is his goal.

It is conceivable that he must be very unwilling to leave Hollywood!

The success of "The Fifth Element" back then was enough to prove his ability to make successful Hollywood commercial blockbusters.

Tang En's favorite thing is to send charcoal in the timely manner!

Tang En Pictures itself is too weak, and the cooperating directors are all young directors like Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan, and Sam Mendes.

If Luc Besson and Jonathan Demme can be recruited, it will not only be of great benefit to the Cannes Film Festival, but also to the future development of Twain Films.

The Cannes Film Festival has a total of five ordinary judges and one chairman. With these three people, it is basically done.

Why are the three major film festivals in Europe declining?

Why does the authority of the Oscars shock the world?

Apart from others, the selection mechanism can explain everything. There are 5,000 to 6,000 Oscar judges, and the selection mechanism adopts the same "ranking multiple selection system" as the US general election. It is not absolutely fair, but it can guarantee fairness to the maximum extent.

But what the hell are the three major film festivals in Europe? Several judges sat together and discussed nonsense. Human factors played a big role, and the role of public relations was very obvious.

Especially when filmmakers all over the world are fawning over Hollywood, basically Hollywood's participating films will not return empty-handed.

"Nat, I have an appointment with Mr. Luc Besson tonight, will you go with me?" Tang En asked softly.

Natalie shook her head, "Forget it, I'm tired."

Tang En was surprised, "Don't you have a good relationship?"

"That's great, but...if you meet to catch up and chat, I'll definitely go. If it's...work, it would be embarrassing for me to go." Natalie said lightly.

Tang En couldn't help but laugh.

This Natalie is really smart and smart.

...

Luc Besson's life is very difficult now. He was originally a literary director, a traditional French director.

But after filming "This Killer Is Not So Cold" and "The Fifth Element", he was unanimously criticized by the French critics, who believed that he was surrendering to Hollywood.

In the past, Luc Besson could use the box office to justify himself, but with the fiasco of "Joan of Arc", he lost even the last fig leaf, wearing a big hat of an international director, In France it is everywhere despised.

So as soon as he received Tang En's invitation, he rushed to Nice from Cannes and waited early.

Because of Dunn Walker's name, it's so hot!

Not only did he successfully direct the two super-grossing commercial blockbusters "Titanic" and "Star Wars Episode 1", in fact, French culture has always disdained this.

What caused a sensation in France was Tang En's actions on Nasdaq and the overwhelming publicity.

New Era Stock God!

Tang En directly became one of the top 100 richest people in the world within a few months after some operations in the stock market. This is enough to shock everyone.

Including Luc Besson, when they saw Twain, they had respect from the bottom of their hearts.

Not only his status in the film industry, but also the huge wealth behind him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Besson, to ask you out so late." Tang En warmly stood up and shook hands.

Luc Besson's English is very good, "You are too polite, Director Walker, your legendary story has been spread all over France!"

Tang En laughed loudly, "I'm afraid it's a scandal, right?"

Luc Besson immediately turned serious, "Why? You are now the idol of all young people in France! Our government is also actively promoting your patriotic behavior."

"ah?"

This surprised Dunn quite a bit.

Luc Besson paused, "You know, the tax rate in France is very high, higher than in the United States anyway. Many rich people have immigrated, and the country will take you as a model and ask everyone to be a patriot who actively pays taxes. "

Tang En broke out in sweat.

A patriot who is still actively paying taxes, he was deceived at the beginning, who wants to give his money to the country for nothing?

Fortunately, it was self-defeating, which actually fulfilled his reputation.

Not only in the United States, but also in Europe, which is a heavily taxed area, Tang En's "patriotic move" generally has a greater impact.

Tang En waved his hand. He was not interested in this topic, so he took the initiative to say, "I'm meeting you this time mainly because of movies. Do you have any plans recently?"

Luc Besson sighed, "You know, "Joan of Arc"... I am planning to start a film company, and I have already thought of the name, called Europa Films."

Tang En frowned, "Luke... Oh, I'm sorry, can I call you Luke? Oh, thank you. I want to tell you that starting a film company is not an easy task."

Luc Besson said with a smile: "It's not that complicated. I still have some contacts in France. Especially for French literary films, the investment is only a few hundred thousand dollars, which is not as capital as Hollywood."

Tang En was silent for a while, then smiled, "Why, are you still interested in going to Hollywood?"

Luc Besson reacted immediately.

Of course he wasn't stupid. He understood that Tang En's appointment to come out by himself before the opening of the Cannes Film Festival must have something to do with Tang En Pictures' participating film "The Girl Who Moved the Soul".

However, Tang En's negotiation method was very ingenious. Instead of talking about Cannes or "The Girl Who Moved the Soul", he directly talked about cooperation. This was an irresistible proposal.

Luc Besson, who has just experienced the major failure of "Joan of Arc", urgently needs a blockbuster to prove his strength.

But big investment is not easy, and Hollywood keeps him at arm's length.

"Is there a project suitable for me?" Luc Besson had already guessed Tang En's meaning, and his face couldn't help being a little excited.

Tang En smiled heartily, "I have a story in my hand that I want to make into a movie. I think you are the right director."

"Can you briefly talk about it?"

Tang En cleared his throat and said: "There is a couple who love and respect each other, but they both keep secrets deep in their hearts. They are both legendary killers in the hired world. They are well-trained and have superb killing skills. The key It’s because they’re also performing missions for two rival organizations.”

"Once, they received the latest mission at the same time - to assassinate each other. The pride and work ethic of the two made the assassination escalate. After going through a series of incidents, they all knew that they were targeted for assassination, and the beloved Convenience is the opponent this time."

"At the end, the couple must have worked together to resolve the crisis and defeated the killer sent by the organization. It's a happy ending of love and affection. The couple's surname is Smith, so the name of the movie is "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

The reason why Twain chose "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" to cooperate with Luc Besson was that on the one hand, action movies were Luc Besson's specialty, and on the other hand, Twain was very familiar with the story of this movie and could use it at his fingertips.

More importantly, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is a movie released by 20th Century Fox, so let's cut off the future first!