Chapter 730

Things like wrapping up also started to become commonplace because the number of times increased.

However, the wrap-up of *Storm Calmer No. 1* still had a different feeling for Lu Yan He.

It was also three days after he returned home from wrapping up that he suddenly realized he was still subconsciously staying in *Storm Calmer No. 1*.

Is it not out of the play?

It shouldn't be.

After Lu Yan He stayed at home for two days, he immediately packed his things and went to the *Jump Up* editorial department.

He felt he needed to stay in a place with many people now.

Can't indulge in this state alone.

*Jump Up* is also busy now.

Because, *Jump Up* is preparing to do a supplement now.

After the twelve issues per year plus summer and winter special issues, now, *Jump Up* is preparing for quarterly supplements.

The reason for this is that with the development of the past few years, *Jump Up* has more and more signed authors, and many famous authors also took the initiative to come and ask about publishing articles.

In this one-and-only commercial literary magazine at present, there are more and more good manuscripts, and the original publishing has already been unable to carry so many manuscripts.

However, the four quarterly supplements have clear tendencies.

These four quarterly supplements mainly publish novels suitable for adaptation into "Jump Up Theater" works.

Therefore, at this point in time, the *Jump Up* editorial department not only has to start doing this year's inventory activities, but also has to prepare for the winter special issue and next year's first supplement in addition to daily editorial work.

The task volume increased sharply.

After Lu Yan He went over, he originally wanted to rest, but was caught by Chen Siqi and asked him to work part-time as a planner and interviewer for the winter special issue.

The interview theme of this winter special issue is for various authors to talk about the books they read and the movies they watched that are related to winter and left a deep impression on them.

No choice, Lu Yan He took this task. Of course, having such a thing to do can also let him get out of the influence of *Storm Calmer No. 1* as soon as possible.

Every interview, one will hear some interesting views. Especially when the interviewees are authors, their reading volume and movie-watching volume are generally in the higher category among the crowd, often having their own unique aesthetics and insights.

Lu Yan He heard many interesting views in his exchanges with different people.

It took about five days, Lu Yan He interviewed a total of eight authors, organized them into a manuscript, and handed it to Xu Zijun.

Xu Zijun now has an office by herself.

Lu Yan He always felt that she was the one who changed the most among his high school classmates.

This change is not only a change in appearance, but also an internal change.

It's not to say that Xu Zijun was a very inferior person in high school, but the state she presents now makes people completely unable to see that she was born in an original family that needed a lot of effort to get rid of.

Many people with bad growth environments, they may be able to change their living conditions and quality through their own efforts, but they often behave "too strong" and cannot make themselves "soft" and "relaxed." Because they need armor.

What surprised Lu Yan He was Xu Zijun's state, over the years, more and more gentle and firm, not aggressive at all, or leaving reactive "extremism" in her personality because of so-called "original suffering."

Beside him, the only one who can walk to this position from a truly poor environment through her own struggle and still be able to have such a life state and personality is Xu Zijun.

Xu Zijun smiled and took the paper manuscript sent by Lu Yan He, saying: "I'll read the manuscript tonight, there is still a lot of contact work to do during the day, can't calm down."

"Okay." Lu Yan He nodded.

He visited Xu Zijun's office curiously.

The office is about fifteen square meters, as the office of the current text director of *Jump Up*, it is not big.

However, Xu Zijun organized it in an orderly manner, not making people feel that it is crowded and cramped at all.

Lu Yan He turned and asked: "Does Li Pengfei come often?"

Xu Zijun nodded: "Always come a dozen times a year."

She also showed a helpless smile.

"Before you said that you could build a documentary filming team to film his experience of exploring in the wild, he thought for a long time after going back and really intended to do so," Xu Zijun said. "He might really want to take this as his lifelong career."

Lu Yan He asked: "Do you mind? Do you support it?"

"I don't have the qualifications to mind and not support it," Xu Zijun said in a very gentle tone.

Lu Yan He subconsciously thought that Xu Zijun was talking about her family background not matching Li Pengfei's in all aspects, so she put herself in such a low posture to say such words.

As a result, in the next second, Xu Zijun said again: "He has never opposed what I want to do."

So that's how it is.

Lu Yan He breathed a sigh of relief instantly.

"When I was in high school, including later in college, one thing I talked to him a lot about was what he wanted to do in the future," Lu Yan He said. "What he told me the most was that he didn't know what he wanted to do at all, he felt that he had neither anything he loved nor anything he was particularly interested in, he always joked that he was a born rich second generation destined to mix and wait for death."

Xu Zijun smiled.

"He is always like this, putting his position very low."

"So, I saw him doing this thing, doing it for so many years, and still wanting to continue doing it, although I will worry that this thing of wild exploration will be dangerous, I am still quite happy."

"Hmm." Xu Zijun nodded, "It is indeed rare to be able to find what you want to do, especially for him."

Lu Yan He and she smiled at each other.

"Then—"

"I never thought about breaking up with him," Xu Zijun suddenly said.

The words Lu Yan He wanted to say were blocked in his throat instead.

Xu Zijun said: "The words I said to him were just to stimulate him."

Lu Yan He showed surprise.

"He is different from you," Xu Zijun said helplessly, "If I don't stimulate him, he might never think about these things, in his life, there is almost nothing he needs to worry about, but I can't not care."

Lu Yan He nodded, indicating he understood.

"You stimulated very timely."

"I thought you would stand up for your friend," Xu Zijun smiled.

"For him, or for you?" Lu Yan He said, "Although I admit that I am a person who helps relatives rather than reason, but in the case where both sides are relatives, I generally choose to stay out of it and not intervene."

Xu Zijun froze for a long time, smiled helplessly but gently.

Lu Yan He stayed at *Jump Up* for a week.

He finally walked out of the influence of *Storm Calmer No. 1*.

Subsequently, he had to plunge into various jobs again.

He first followed up on the recent progress of the movie *Flypaper*.

After *Flypaper* negotiated Arne Bogut with a salary of 2 million USD, the fifth main actor was decided.

Up to now, the total salary of the actors has reached 4.3 million USD.

Plus Lu Yan He's base salary of 500,000 USD as a screenwriter, the expenditure on personnel expenses has already reached nearly 5 million USD.

According to Linghe's budget control for *Flypaper*, next, the production team represented by the director, as well as the remaining other actors, the budget space is actually not much.

This also means that they actually have no budget space to invite people with a salary exceeding one million USD.

Unless Linghe is willing to adjust the budget.

However, Lu Yan He didn't dare to do so.

The original work of *Flypaper* was not released in theaters in North America at that time, not even on a small scale, it was only screened at the Sundance Film Festival and got more than 5,000 USD.

After it was released overseas, it got a box office of nearly 4 million USD worldwide.

To be precise, this is actually not a movie with a very successful original box office. Its fame was opened up slowly later, as a genre film, relying on the word-of-mouth of movie fans, and then opened its fame on various lists and rating websites.

Therefore, what Lu Yan He determined is that this story is a good story, if the movie can be shot normally, it is definitely a good movie, the only uncertainty is whether it can make the audience pay for it in the market.

Lu Yan He doesn't want to gamble, there is no need to gamble.

His philosophy is still to use this movie to prove his "success" and prove that Yan Liang can sell well.

Then if the cost of the movie exceeds 20 million USD, even if the movie finally sells more than 20 million USD at the box office in the United States, in the market's evaluation system, it is also unsuccessful.

But if the cost of the movie is controlled within 10 million USD, and it sells more than 15 million USD in the United States, plus the overseas box office performance is good, it is a blessing for Yan Liang.

Compared to the absolute box office number, everyone still looks at the rate of return.

After all, even in the present of parallel time and space, the word-of-mouth rotten *Captain America 4* global box office also sold more than 400 million, *Snow White* was released for a week, global box office also broke 100 million, but no one will say they are successful. Except for some die-hard fans who don't look at the facts.

Lu Yan He is trying his best to control the cost of *Flypaper* at around 10 million, and the highest cannot exceed 15 million USD.

He is not sure what kind of box office results *Flypaper* can get in North America. To be safe, that is to make the most pessimistic plan.

Of course, he believes that the movie *Flypaper* will definitely perform well.

This movie will definitely be screened on a large scale in North America, and with the joining of so many famous actors, it is not a concept with the original *Flypaper*. When the original *Flypaper* movie came out, only the male lead had some fame, and others belonged to small roles. This movie slowly spread its influence later.

Therefore, according to the theme of this movie, the cast, and the current market performance of North American movies, after consulting some professional box office analysts, Lu Yan He believes that it is not very difficult for this movie to get a box office between 30 million and 50 million USD under normal performance.

This is also the reason why Lu Yan He insists that the production budget of this movie cannot exceed 15 million USD. Otherwise, even if *Flypaper* makes a profit from the box office outside North America, for the North American film market, Yan Liang is still not good.

Then Lu Yan He filmed this movie in vain.

As for the director of this movie.

The difficulty of filming this movie is not great, as long as it is a director who understands genre films and has good rhythm, Lu Yan He feels that according to the storyboard he gave, it won't be bad no matter what.

The director is being found by Mukan Zorge.

Lu Yan He told Mukan Zorge all his thoughts and styles about this movie.

A black humor, not deliberately funny, but the characters are all a bit of a "dog-eat-dog" crime story in a closed room.

The positioning is already very clear, Lu Yan He feels that the director should not be difficult to find.

Sure enough, Mukan Zorge quickly found him three directors, sent him the resume, and said that they can communicate via video online at any time.

Lu Yan He feels that seeing the director, those who can meet in person should still meet in person.

Whether the aura between people is right or not cannot be sensitively felt by video calls.

Therefore, Lu Yan He flew to the United States, met Mukan Zorge in New York, and then met the three directors one by one.

The three directors have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Fortunately, for Lu Yan He, it is not difficult to make a choice.

Looking at a person's shortcomings is to see if his shortcomings exceed the bottom line and if they affect the development of this project.

Looking at a person's advantages is to see what his advantages can bring to this project and if they fit the "selling point" of the project itself.

Mukan Zorge asked for his opinion, and Lu Yan He said his choice without hesitation.

"Marshall Reynolds, whom I met yesterday," Lu Yan He said. "He filmed the low-budget *Hide and Seek* before, the style is basically consistent with *Flypaper*, and although *Hide and Seek* was not released in theaters, it has a high evaluation on your Rotten Tomatoes website. If he directs *Flypaper*, his past experience of directing *Hide and Seek* can convert many *Hide and Seek* audiences to watch *Flypaper*."

"Didn't Carlo, who I met on the first day, also direct *Friendly Fire*, which has a similar style to *Flypaper*?" Mukan said. "And the evaluation is also good, his directing experience is also richer, besides *Friendly Fire*, he also filmed two other movies, and the performance is quite stable."

Lu Yan He said: "But this is also the reason why his priority sequence is behind Marshall here. Carlo's salary quote is 500,000 higher than Marshall's, and he has already filmed several movies, and has a fixed impression in the hearts of many movie fans. This impression is a very mediocre director, without particularly outstanding performance, but Marshall has only filmed one movie, although the experience is not so rich, for *Flypaper*, this is not a film that needs very rich directing experience, it is a closed-room structure, and the scheduling is not that big."

Mukan Zorge nodded.

"Okay then."

"What is your opinion?" Lu Yan He asked.

Mukan Zorge said: "I don't like Marshall very much, he is very talented, I like *Hide and Seek* very much, but he is a bit strange."

"Are you saying that he always interrupts us to talk about his own understanding and thoughts on *Flypaper*?" Lu Yan He asked.

"Yes," Mukan Zorge nodded, "I feel he is a person who is difficult to communicate with."

"As a director, especially the difficulty of communication at the content creation level, I actually don't think this is a bad thing," Lu Yan He said. "Mukan, you know me as an actor, well, an actor who is fully qualified to fight against the director in the eyes of many of you, and the director should obey me, why do I always listen to the director on set? Even if I don't understand his instructions, I don't understand his thoughts."

Mukan Zorge said: "You are a very professional actor."

"It has nothing to do with my professionalism," Lu Yan He shook his head. "It's because I will definitely fully understand him before choosing to cooperate with this director, understand and make a decision, then I know he won't film anything too bad, he must have his outstanding points. Under this premise, if I fight against him and use my thoughts to influence his thoughts, it will often make the final presentation not extreme enough because there are too many opinions. One person's thoughts must be more coherent and more unified than the thoughts combined by two people."

Mukan Zorge was thoughtful.

"Therefore, I admit that film is the director's art, so I will definitely choose a director and unconditionally believe in him, help him complete his work, his art," Lu Yan He said. "He is difficult to communicate with, he pays special attention to himself, this actually also shows that he actually has very clear thoughts on the *Flypaper* script, and has the desire to create, this is a particularly rare thing."

Mukan Zorge looked at Lu Yan He in disbelief.

"If I can't find an investor for filming in the future, I will come to you. If film companies like Parameter and A19 all have the same thoughts as you, that would be great."

"Haha, this is just my thought as an actor. If I were an investor, maybe after the perspective changed, my standards would also change, everyone is afraid of losing money."

Mukan Zorge said: "Then for the movie *Get Out*, how do you want to do it?"

"You have the final say," Lu Yan He said with a smile. "Said, this is the script for you, I am just a screenwriter."

Mukan Zorge looked at Lu Yan He unexpectedly again.

Such a script, Lu Yan He actually really wants to give it to him?

Giving it is of course not for free.

However, Lu Yan He actually really doesn't participate in production? Doesn't try to control the production of this movie?

Lu Yan He smiled.

"How to film, you have the final say, but you know the particularity of this movie, try not to choose actors with high popularity," Lu Yan He said.

The topicality of this movie determines that it is actually a film that does not rely on stars to grab attention to some extent.

On the contrary, the attributes of star actors themselves (especially these stars in Europe and America, who will more or less be involved with some sensitive topics) will instead affect the positive fermentation of this movie in the field of social issues.

"In addition, how much budget this movie needs in the end, you have to reserve at least 50% of the investment amount for me."

This movie, originally relied on a production cost of 4.5 million USD, made 250 million USD worldwide, and the rate of return ranked first that year.

Of course, now that Mukan Zorge is filming it, and it is Lu Yan He's script, the salary of the two of them may be more than 4.5 million USD.

Lu Yan He just wants to give Mukan Zorge full production power, but doesn't intend to be a philanthropist.

These words sounded like another meaning in Mukan Zorge's ears.

Lu Yan He not only doesn't come to seize power from him, but also wants to support him in filming this movie with real money?!

Mukan Zorge hugged Lu Yan He directly on the street and hugged him hard.

I don't know who took it and posted it online.

Many people are confused: Are they going to cooperate again?

There are also some groups: Why are they so ambiguous? Came out?

Of course, these are just some fun after tea and dinner.

Lu Yan He doesn't intend to arrange Asian faces in *Get Out*.

It's still because this movie is special, its theme has nothing to do with Asians.

After settling the director of *Flypaper*, Lu Yan He went to see executives of several film companies.

They are all his old acquaintances.

As a result, everyone is very concerned about the project *Flypaper* in his hand.

Everyone seems to be particularly optimistic about this project.

A good script, several famous actors participating, such a combination makes everyone optimistic about the prospects of this movie, so they all want to take North American distribution, or even global distribution.

However, Lu Yan He doesn't intend to give the distribution rights of *Flypaper* outside North America to American companies this time.

Although Linghe doesn't have its own distribution channels all over the world now, it has familiar and cooperative film merchants.

Using *Flypaper* to further consolidate the cooperative relationship can also negotiate better screening conditions one by one.

Especially *Flypaper* itself is a film with a relatively international cast.

Zebby Doyle of Parameter was a bit shocked when he heard that Lu Yan He only intended to release the distribution rights of *Flypaper* in North America.

Lu Yan He said: "*Flypaper* might have an average cast in your North America, the only one worth paying attention to is Arne Bogut. However, in Asia, it absolutely belongs to an all-star cast and is a highly anticipated movie. You didn't believe in the box office appeal of Yan Liang starring in *Speed* before, this time, I can't say for sure about the North American box office, at least I can let you see how much box office *Flypaper* can sell in Asia."

Zebby Doyle: "..."

Lu Yan He is quite vengeful.

Is it vengeful?

Lu Yan He smiled.

"Wait and see."

Recommend the old book *I Became a Scandal Heroine Overnight* with entertainment theme (End of chapter)