Chapter 916

In 2008, Robert Downey Jr.'s salary for starring in "Iron Man" was only 500,000 USD, while his salary for "Avengers: Endgame" consisted of a 20 million USD base salary and an 8% global box office share, ultimately reaching approximately 75 million USD.

The most unique component of the salary "Godless 2" gave Lu Yan He was the 10% share of all the film's revenue in the Chinese market—

Such a profit-sharing condition could be said to be tailor-made for Lu Yan He.

Apart from Lu Yan He, there was no second foreign actor who had obtained such customized contract terms in a Hollywood film.

In addition to this, he could also enjoy a 5% share of the film's box office revenue in other regions.

Beyond this portion, there were the usual, basic dividends that protagonists of blockbusters would have, such as DVD income, revenue from peripheral products developed based on the character's image, and so on.

Of course, one must never underestimate this part of the income. Under Hollywood's well-developed IP industrial chain, for example, the main cast of "Harry Potter," even though they hadn't acted in any new films of the series for so many years, still earned millions of dollars from this film IP every year; this came from dividends from film copyright operations and other derivative income.

Just like the income the two "Mist" films brought Lu Yan He every year, which currently still amounted to millions of dollars annually—this came from the film's screenings, DVD and other channel broadcast income, and dividends from dolls, figurines, and commercial uses developed based on Lu Yan He's image in the film.

Generally speaking, one must reach a certain level of actor, an actor with true commercial value, to be able to initiate negotiations for these non-base salaries.

Up to now, Lu Yan He had basically obtained the highest salary a foreign actor could get in Hollywood.

Darren Wilson said to Lu Yan He, "The box office of 'Godless' in China has already exceeded 1.7 billion RMB, over 200 million USD in box office, making it the highest-grossing overseas film in China in the last five years. Coupled with the high price of 'Godless' on Chinese streaming platforms, that is why I was able to negotiate a 10% total revenue share for the sequel in the Chinese market."

And Darren Wilson could get a 20% commission from Lu Yan He's income—

This was the market price for an agent of Darren Wilson's level, and of course, it was also the figure agreed upon in the previous agency contract between Darren Wilson and Lu Yan He.

As Lu Yan He achieved further success in Hollywood, the commission percentage that Darren Wilson could take in the future would inevitably have to be lowered.

In fact, this time Darren Wilson had also come to communicate this matter with Lu Yan He.

He himself took the initiative to suggest whether they should adjust the commission percentage directly at this time and calculate the earnings of "Godless 2" according to the new commission percentage.

Lu Yan He smiled.

He certainly understood that Darren Wilson actually still wanted to take the 20% commission.

If that were not the case, Darren Wilson should have negotiated the new commission percentage with him first before going to talk to Green Valley about his participation conditions in "Godless 2."

Of course, Lu Yan He actually did not mind such intentions from Darren Wilson.

Without Darren, he himself wouldn't even have known that he could negotiate such a customized agreement with Green Valley.

Without Darren, he might not have been able to get a 5% share of the global box office revenue starting from "Godless 2."

And Darren Wilson actually still had a big cake of "Mist 3" left, waiting for the new commission percentage to be settled before going to help him negotiate with D19.

With the case of "Godless 2," Darren could obviously further raise the price based on D19's previous offer, helping Lu Yan He fight for higher rights and interests.

The income of top stars is indeed high.

Examples like Tang Mu Cruise for "Top Gun: Maverick," Sandra Bullock for "Gravity," and Bruce Willis for "The Sixth Sense" all show how they earned over 100 million USD from a single film.

But in fact—

To some extent, such figures are not his personal achievements, but the results operated by top agents as if they were operating a project. Of course, Bruce Willis relied on his own high-stakes gamble, which is a bit different.

Lu Yan He fully recognized the role of Darren Wilson as an agent.

It is often said that when a star reaches the top, it doesn't matter who you use as an agent.

But in fact, that is not the case at all.

An excellent, knowledgeable, and capable agent can correctly grasp your value in the market and can help increase your income significantly.

From Lu Yan He's income in Hollywood, Darren Wilson and his agency would take 20%, and Chen Ziyan and Wang Biao would each take a percentage of the commission as well.

Of course, despite this, his income was still very high.

He had occupied the top three of the Forbes celebrity rich list for several consecutive years.

The income figures given by this list were actually estimates. Lu Yan He's actual income was actually far higher than the numbers on this list. After all, this list did not include his income from the Jump Up Group and Shi Huo Company; it was just a simple calculation of his annual income from starring and screenwriting works, still a speculative estimate.

In the past, when Lu Yan He first made the list, it would even cause some "wealth-hating" public opinion in the country.

Now, because he was on it so often and was there every year, everyone seemed to be used to it—

And, because the achievements he made were good enough, not at all weaker than other stars on the list, many people had a sentiment of "Since those European and American actors can get such high incomes, why can't Lu Yan He?"

It's just that although those who used to "hate wealth" no longer "hated wealth," they began to constantly question why, with such a high income, it was rare to see him donate money to charity or do public welfare?

Most of the public welfare that Lu Yan He had done with Chen Ziyan over the years was undisclosed and anonymous.

The main reason was that the numbers were relatively large, and once disclosed, it would become a tool for them to "morally kidnap" other artists.

Therefore, Lu Yan He simply ignored it.

He did what he should do.

Regarding these things, one can really only say that doing what one feels is right is enough.

It is impossible to satisfy everyone.

After finishing the promotional tour for the release of "Godless" in July, Lu Yan He could rest for two weeks, and then he would enter the promotional period for "Cloud 3" in August.

When he originally took on "Cloud 3," it was entirely aimed at the global box office.

Because for Lu Yan He, his biggest weakness at the time was not having a screen image that was very familiar globally.

For the most popular "Home Alone," he was the screenwriter, and it did not appear before the public with his image.

And beyond that, it was actually "The Mist."

And the weakness of "The Mist" lay in its genre, which made a large portion of the audience who did not watch thriller and horror films unaware of it.

The cameo in the film "Hurricane 2" at the time let Hollywood see the huge influence and appeal Lu Yan He possessed.

Because whether it was box office data analysis or other aspects, it showed that a very important proportion of the Asian audience in "Hurricane 2" came for Lu Yan He.

"Cloud 3" was the script that came looking for him after "Hurricane 2" was released. At that time, Hollywood wanted to replicate Lu Yan He's "Asian group appeal" as an Asian actor for a major commercial production.

Now, "Cloud 3" had clearly gotten a great bargain.

Lu Yan He's appeal was far from being limited to the Asian group.

Lu Yan He did not treat "Cloud 3" coldly because his status in Hollywood had further improved.

Darren Wilson said that "Cloud 3" was very likely the last time Lu Yan He would appear in such a major production as a supporting actor.

Many actors are very famous, but it wouldn't seem strange for them to appear as supporting actors in major productions. However, for top actors, unless you are making a cameo, and a very clear cameo, such as Sandra Bullock in "Bullet Train," otherwise, once you play a supporting role, it will be seen as a decline in status or commercial value.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Tang Mu Cruise... among these superstars, who would go to someone else's film to play a supporting role? It doesn't exist. In any film, they are the absolute core protagonists, and besides, after becoming famous, they almost never make cameos.

The "Cloud" series is a top Hollywood IP.

The first film had a global box office of 820 million USD, and the second had 650 million USD.

It is also the most lucrative film series for the film company Polage nowadays.

In "Cloud 3," Lu Yan He played a character who appeared for only about ten minutes.

Because "Cloud" was also a fantasy blockbuster, Lu Yan He was initially a bit worried that its genre would clash with "Godless," and that people who had just seen "Godless" would feel that his character in "Cloud" was somewhat similar.

The character looks of Lu Yan He in "Cloud 3" and "Godless" were very different; just visually, there was a significant difference.

The head of publicity at Polage hoped that Lu Yan He could participate in all the promotional tours for this film.

This was far beyond the tasks stipulated in the contract.

Darren Wilson firmly demanded that it only be executed according to the contract, and if there was a need to exceed what was agreed upon in the contract, it would need to be negotiated separately.

He was determined not to let capitalism fleece any wool from Lu Yan He.

Chen Ziyan, however, sighed and said, "Actually, it would be better if these two films could be released with a period of time in between, stretching the time a bit, instead of releasing them all at once."

Although it is said that concentrated explosions also have the benefits of concentrated explosions.

But for Lu Yan He at the current stage, it was of course better to space out the release times.

Lu Yan He himself didn't really care. He still had films like "The Boat," "The Former Father," and "Men in Black" coming up, plus the annual "Friends," so he already had a lot of inventory. Lu Yan He really intended to slow down his pace, preferring to write more scripts, or produce and supervise some films, and have less exposure in front of the camera.

Too much is as bad as too little; prosperity leads to decline.

Even the world's number one film superstar, Leonardo DiCaprio, was intentionally maintaining his exposure so it wouldn't be too frequent.

Otherwise, people would always get tired of it.

Unexpectedly, just as Lu Yan He made this determination, Liu Bige brought some news.

Borai had feedback on the idea for "Moon Legion" that Liu Bige had previously proposed.

Liu Bige wanted to establish a planet with Chinese history and culture as the background in the "Moon Legion" he was directing, using this as the main worldview background for the film. This was possible, but the requirement was that Liu Bige could persuade Lu Yan He to invite Lu Yan He to appear in this "Moon Legion" as a representative character of this planet and star in this film together with the protagonist group.

Therefore, Liu Bige found Lu Yan He.

Lu Yan He was speechless.

This speechlessness was of course not directed at Liu Bige, but at Borai.

Borai was completely playing a scheme in the open.

—Don't you want to present your culture in the film "Moon Legion"? That's fine, let Lu Yan He, this box office superstar, come over as a guarantee to help "Moon Legion" go further at the box office.

Liu Bige asked, "What do you think? If you are not willing to act, I will directly reject them. Whatever they want to do then, it's up to them. If it really doesn't work, they can find another director to direct it."