Chapter 216: From stand-in to formal

"James, what is the situation with the Black Pearl and the Dauntless warship now?"

"The Black Pearl has been refitted, and the shipyard has already started making the Dauntless, but they said it will take at least 2 months."

The Black Pearl was the ghost ship of the male lead and the villain in *Pirates of the Caribbean*, and the Dauntless warship was the warship of the British Royal Navy in *Pirates of the Caribbean*. Both of these warships had to be filmed in reality, so naturally, they had to be built one-to-one; otherwise, the effect couldn't be filmed. Moreover, these ships would be used in the filming of the first three parts, so there would be no loss.

These ships didn't need their crew to specifically design anything. The Dauntless was directly imitated after the British warship "Victory" in history. Once told to the shipyard, they had no problem copying it. The Black Pearl was rented ready-made, built in Finland in 1948, an antique two-masted ship imitating the 17th-century "Lady Washington," and just needed to be refitted.

Wu Yuchen calculated. When he returned to the country, he had already instructed people to place an order at the shipyard, which meant it would take at least a month to be delivered. However, the impact wasn't big; they could film the scenes without ships first.

Yesterday, Johnny Depp showed a grotesque Captain Jack in front of him. Wu Yuchen was actually quite satisfied, but he still pointed out some areas that needed improvement on the spot, gave them to him, and told him to go back and brew them again, and come back for another audition in three days.

Although he had decided in his heart from the beginning that it was Depp who would play this role, Wu Yuchen wouldn't make a decision immediately. He still had to pretend to audition others, boil him, create competitive pressure for him, and then strive for better conditions.

It wasn't that he wanted to suppress Depp's salary too low; it was mainly to sign various violation clauses in his contract, such as not taking drugs, not drinking excessively, etc. These all had to be agreed upon in advance, which would save a lot of trouble for the subsequent filming.

The person Wu Yuchen had to interview today was the female lead, Elizabeth. Now Wu Yuchen was a big director in name and reality. These girls of appropriate age all threw their resumes to the *Pirates of the Caribbean* crew, but in the end, only 5 were screened for Wu Yuchen to choose from.

What made Wu Yuchen slightly surprised was that he didn't see the name of the original actress, Keira Knightley, on the list at all. He didn't show any emotion and decided to look at these 5 candidates first.

And this goddess had an unknown quirk: kleptomania. In 2001, Winona Ryder was caught and arrested on the spot for stealing 5,500 USD worth of clothing at a department store on Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.

Kirsten Dunst, who was the female lead in *Spider-Man* later, was also a super child star, starting to film advertisements at the age of 3, and had cooperated with many big Hollywood stars like Tang Mu Hanks and Tang Mu Cruise. She could wear period costumes, but her temperament didn't fit; she was of the soft type.

The fourth one to come in was Hollywood's popular literary goddess, Winona Ryder. Her temperament could be salty or sweet, fresh or soft or rebellious, and she was recognized by America as having a charming classical temperament. Her pure appearance revealed a bit of disobedient stubbornness, and her acting skills were also much stronger than the previous few. In terms of image and acting skills, she was really quite suitable.

Wu Yuchen smiled and shook his head: "I want a female actress who is wholehearted and can follow the crew all the way."

Wu Yuchen directly drew an X for her in his heart. First of all, she didn't have the temperament of a classical beauty. Being able to enter this final round was, first, because of her fame, and second, because of her relationship with Spielberg.

Natalie Portman left disappointed. Although Wu Yuchen and the 140-million-USD investment *Pirates of the Caribbean* were very tempting, it was impossible for her to give up *Star Wars Prequel* for this. Not to mention the contract signed with the Star Wars crew, just the influence of the two sides couldn't be compared.

This was the one who acted in *The Mask of Zorro* and *Entrapment*, and now married an old actor Douglas who was 25 years older than her.

Winona didn't steal things because she had no money. How much were these little things worth?

To tell the truth, among these 5 people, there was no shortage of famous actresses.

Wu Yuchen didn't want to find a female lead, and when the movie was hot, she would be exposed to such a scandal.

"Wu, those few English roses who are famous are not very suitable. Catherine Zeta-Jones is already 30 years old and is pregnant."

Star Wars was the favorite of the American public, and the pirate theme? That was a box office poison theme, full of risks and unknowns. Even if it was directed by Wu Yuchen, who had consecutive victories, it couldn't significantly change the outside world's view.

After finishing the interview with these 5 actresses, Wu Yuchen rubbed his eyebrows and asked James beside him: "Why isn't there a single English rose on the final list? Elizabeth is an English classical beauty."

Anne Hathaway. When she walked in, Wu Yuchen couldn't help but feel his eyes light up. This girl was beautiful, had long legs, and skin as white as light. She was truly a big beauty who fit his aesthetics. It was just a pity that Anne Hathaway's own temperament was of the sweet type. He wouldn't let a female lead with an inconsistent temperament act just because his small head was hot.

Hollywood stars, in this circle, sometimes face huge pressure, and many have some quirks, and Winona was kleptomania, seeking excitement through this special way to release the pressure in her heart. Just from the time this incident broke out, Winona's image and reputation among the public were ruined, and her acting career also plummeted.

However, Wu Yuchen asked a question: "Miss Portman, I heard that *Star Wars Prequel 2* is also in preparation. How can you guarantee that our two sides' scenes won't conflict?"

Drew Barrymore, born in 1975, Wu Yuchen frowned when he saw her. She was Spielberg's goddaughter, became a popular child star at the age of 6 by acting in *E. T. *, and then became a notorious bad girl after puberty. She had become popular again in the past two years.

And this fifth one, it seemed, was really quite suitable. Natalie Portman, who debuted as a little girl in *Léon: The Professional*, had a stubborn temperament, and period costume styling was also not a problem. She played the Queen in *Star Wars Prequel 1* last year.

However, Wu Yuchen crossed her out for the first time. Not to mention she was already 28, she and Depp were old lovers, having developed feelings because of *Edward Scissorhands*. Don't let the two of them make any moths when they enter the crew.

Speaking of which, Anne Hathaway was also the one with the least fame and qualifications among the 5 people interviewed this time. The script of *The Princess Diaries*, which made her explode in popularity in the future, had already been intercepted by him. I don't know if this girl can still become popular?

Natalie Portman thought for a while and said: "I will try my best to coordinate my schedule with Mr. Lucas."

"Kate Winslet is now a bit resistant to commercial big productions, and her figure is hard to describe..."

The female lead of *Titanic*, Rose turned into a meat shield. Kate Winslet's figure management had always been a problem.

"Rachel Weisz is already the female lead of *The Mummy* series. Coming to be our female lead again will make the audience feel confused."

"Kate Beckinsale is filming *Zhenzhugang*..."

Hearing *Zhenzhugang*, Wu Yuchen frowned. This was the biggest production Disney was conducting this year, the epic blockbuster that claimed to benchmark *Titanic*. It was also the enemy of his *Pirates of the Caribbean* next year!

Wu Yuchen waved his hand directly. He didn't want to toss around anymore and asked directly:

"Find me the actress who was the stand-in for Natalie Portman in *Star Wars Prequel 1*."

James thought for a while and said: "You mean the actress who played Sabé? I'll go contact her right away."

A moment later, he came back and said with some hesitation: "Wu, I have already contacted her agent. She will arrive tomorrow. But are you sure you want to find this girl? She is only 15 years old."

Hearing this, Wu Yuchen couldn't help but pat his forehead. He was really muddled, ignoring the factor of age. He was still wondering why Keira Knightley didn't come for an interview. Now he found that she might not have even signed up, because the crew required actresses over 16 years old when recruiting.

Wu Yuchen hurriedly took the remaining pile of submitted resumes and flipped through them one by one. If this fallback option of Keira Knightley was gone, he had to quickly look for a female lead candidate again!

Keira Knightley had an actor's dream since she was a child, and for this, she overcame dyslexia. The opportunity that changed her actor's fate wasn't because her family conditions were how good, but because she looked like Natalie Portman. After makeup, even the two mothers couldn't tell who was who. Therefore, 12-year-old Keira was able to join the big production *Star Wars Prequel* as a stand-in for the female lead and gained quite a lot of attention.

However, she didn't like Natalie Portman. It was very simple. No one wanted to be someone else's stand-in. When fans shouted Natalie Portman's name and came to find her for autographs and photos, heaven knew how unhappy she was in her heart!

Today, after receiving the agent's phone call, Keira was extremely excited. The active summons of big director Wu Yuchen made her directly buy the ticket of the day and cross the Atlantic for 12 hours to arrive in Los Angeles.

However, Keira didn't expect that the scene after she saw Wu Yuchen would be like this:

"Keira, how tall are you?"

"Director, 168, barefoot height!"

Just this one question, Wu Yuchen made an OK gesture: "Go sign the contract."

"What?" Keira was confused and didn't react.

"I said you got the role of Elizabeth. Go sign the contract. Salary 200,000, follow the crew all the way. Can you do it?"

Keira opened her mouth in shock: "I got the role?! But, I haven't done anything yet..."

Keira's agent reacted fast enough, pulling Keira to bow repeatedly to Wu Yuchen to thank him: "Thank you for Wu Dao's appreciation. Rest assured, all requirements can be met by Keira. She is a very hardworking girl!"

After a long while, Keira, who walked out of the room, still felt like she had a dream, pulling her agent to keep shouting "Oh my god!", "God!" and the like.

And in the room, Wu Yuchen also breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, this girl developed early. At 15, she had already grown up, and her height was no different from when she acted in his past life. As for her figure, Keira Knightley was originally an airport, and even if she was given another 15 years, she would still be an A-cup.

(15-year-old Keira)

It's best that Keira can act. The risk and uncertainty of the female lead are much smaller. Now let this girl enter the crew early and follow the teacher to learn noble lady etiquette. Like Hugh Jackman, for the fighting scenes in the movie, he had already practiced fencing for quite a while.

A few days later, when Depp came over to perform again, Wu Yuchen couldn't help but ask:

"Hey, Johnny, your teeth..."

Depp opened his mouth directly, pointing to the 4 shining gold teeth in his mouth:

"That's right, I just went to the dentist to inlay them. One is 14K gold, one is 18K gold, one is 22K gold, and one is platinum. Is it cool?"

For this move of Depp, Wu Yuchen had quite a bit of good impression. It seems this guy really took the role of Captain Jack to heart. Now the heat was about the same.

In the office, Depp's agent looked at the contract in his hand, with a salary of 8 million USD. He was very satisfied with this number. This was the highest salary Depp had ever received so far. Before, Depp's highest was only 5 million.

The reason why Wu Yuchen was willing to give more was naturally because the filming cycle of *Pirates of the Caribbean* this time was relatively long, which might last as long as half a year.

The agent looked at the violation clauses in the contract again and couldn't help but say to Wu Yuchen: "Wu Dao, Johnny has long been away from these things!"

Wu Yuchen didn't speak. James, the producer beside him, said: "This is our 140-million-USD big production. We must reduce the risk to the minimum. Forgive me for being blunt, Depp's criminal record, we must list these clauses."

As a young man who was unrestrained and unruly, Depp's taking drugs before was truly a common occurrence. The turning point happened in 1993. The brightest actor of the younger generation, Leonardo's idol, and Depp's good friend River Phoenix died of drug abuse in a private bar opened by Depp.

This caused a great impact on a few people in their small circle, such as Depp, Keanu Reeves, etc. Since then, it was rumored that Depp began to quit.

However, because he had such an inglorious past, when using him, he must be guarded against. The necessary violation clauses must be there.

Depp's agent didn't speak again, and then asked: "How is the boundary of this drinking clause calculated? If Depp needs to drink to find the state during the filming of the movie?"

Wu Yuchen smiled and said: "The right of interpretation is with me. When he needs to drink, I will lift the ban. Rest assured, this is a 140-million-USD big production. I won't deliberately target any actor. No one will go against their own future."

The agent nodded: "Depp will sign the contract and join the crew tomorrow. Wu Dao, you will film a work better than *The Sixth Sense*, right?"

Wu Yuchen smiled and said: " *Pirates of the Caribbean* will be the best pirate series movie!"

Depp, Keira, and Uncle Wolf, the three protagonists, all entered the training camp, mainly to practice sword skills. Keira also had noble lady etiquette classes, which didn't take long, two weeks.

And Wu Yuchen was busy with the preparation work of the crew every day, such as constantly telling the prop team about the various things he would use in the filming, and constantly telling the special effects team of Industrial Light & Magic about which scenes he wanted to use special effects for and what effect to achieve. These all required quite a bit of preparation work and must be explained in advance.

For this reason, he even declined the premiere of the big production *Gladiator* just released by DreamWorks and didn't go to attend. However, he also heard that the premiere of *Gladiator* was very successful, and film critics and media gave very high evaluations, and the audience's response was also very good. Wu Yuchen naturally knew that *Gladiator* would be a movie with both box office and reputation, and also called Spielberg and related personnel to congratulate them.

However, there were some things that even if he was busy, he had to make time to run.

417 Fifth Avenue, New York, Marvel Comics Headquarters.

An old man with silver hair but full of spirit was accompanying Wu Yuchen, introducing the heroes hanging on the wall one by one. He was none other than the father of Marvel, Stan Lee.

"The first time I had the idea of creating Spider-Man was because I saw a fly on the wall, so I thought to myself: how cool would it be if I could create a hero who could climb! At that moment, I thought of many names, such as Fly-Man, Mosquito-Man, etc., but my colleagues said they would all be killed by spiders. Then, Peter Parker was born!"

Wu Yuchen listened with relish, but in his heart, he was slandering: "It's a pity, the copyright of little Spider-Man was sold two years ago. This is the fattest piece of meat of Marvel!"

After Stan Lee finished speaking, he suddenly stopped and asked Wu Yuchen: "Wu, will you buy Marvel?"

Since a business team came to Marvel Company for business negotiations a month ago, their whole company knew that someone was interested in Marvel, and later it was rumored that the person who wanted to acquire Marvel was the current Hollywood first-line big director Wu Yuchen!

This immediately made the people inside Marvel feel restless. Since the *Blade* film adapted from Marvel superheroes was successful at the box office in 1998, Marvel had the idea of adapting its superheroes into films. It was just a pity that Marvel's strength was too poor. They were made bankrupt by the financial means of the previous boss and owed quite a lot of debt. They had no money to film movies themselves and had to sell their own superheroes everywhere to maintain the company's operation.

And now, if big director Wu Yuchen could become the new boss, then Marvel's film and television path would definitely usher in a leap-forward development. Not to mention other things, if Wu Yuchen was willing to direct it himself, then funds would not be a problem at all. Banks were willing to actively provide loans for them to film!

Therefore, many people inside Marvel Company were actually full of expectations for this acquisition case. Stan Lee's question now asked the aspirations of many people inside Marvel.

Wu Yuchen smiled: "I also hope to see these superheroes of Marvel appear on the big screen, but currently this decision-making power is not with me."

He wanted to buy, but he also had to have people willing to sell. This attitude of his was hoping that Marvel internally could also cooperate with his actions. Marvel didn't completely obey its own boss. Their board of directors had kicked the previous boss out of the game.

Looking at Wu Yuchen's back walking upstairs, Stan Lee sighed. He still remembered that a few years ago, he was also accompanying Michael Jackson to visit. He also wanted to buy Marvel and wanted to act as Spider-Man himself. It was just a pity that it ended up with nothing. I hope there will be a different result this time!

In the office, a middle-aged Jewish man in a suit smiled at Wu Yuchen:

"Wu, come and taste, authentic Blue Mountain coffee~"

"Thank you, Ike, the taste is great, just as great as the feeling Marvel gives me~"

Ike Perlmutter, the current largest shareholder of Marvel, felt a move in his heart upon hearing this, and then smiled and asked Wu Yuchen: "Wu, are you also a fan of Marvel?"

Wu Yuchen stirred the coffee in his hand and smiled: "Fan can't be talked about, it's just that I saw Marvel's comics during the filming, which made me a bit interested."

"Are you interested in Marvel's superhero adaptation films?"

Subsequently, he continued to say: "If you are willing to film superhero movies for Marvel, I can give you 5% of Marvel's shares for free. How about it?"

Wu Yuchen looked at this middle-aged Jewish man in front of him. He was quite smart, but it was a pity that 5% of the shares couldn't satisfy his appetite at all!

Now his big director Wu's salary for one movie was 20 million. How much was this 5% of Marvel's shares worth?

Wu Yuchen shook his head upon hearing this: "Mr. Ike, I am very sorry to tell you that I have no plans to film superhero movies within 5 years. And, what I like most is Spider-Man. It's just a pity that I heard it has already been sold by you."

Ike Perlmutter sighed upon hearing this. It seemed that the other party wouldn't work for him. 5% of the shares was already the biggest temptation he could give. Any more, he would feel a loss.

For the Spider-Man in Wu Yuchen's mouth, he shrugged and said: "No way, Marvel has to live."

Last year, in a helpless situation, Marvel found various film studios to sell their own superheroes. In the end, only Sony was interested. At that time, Marvel proposed to sell the copyrights of a series of characters such as Thor, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and Iron Man in a package to Sony Pictures for 25 million USD.

But in the end, Sony was only interested in Spider-Man and bought *Spider-Man* for 7 million USD. They didn't want the others at all. I really don't know whether to say this was the most correct decision Sony made or the most regretful decision.

This seemed very ridiculous more than ten years later. Everyone was already used to Marvel heroes having global box office exceeding 500 million USD and breaking through 1 billion USD, but in the present day, these copyrights were really not popular at all.

Hollywood's traditional view was that superhero movies would only work if big-name stars participated. The success of the film box office wasn't because of superheroes, but because of big-name stars. And except for super-popular heroes like Spider-Man, other heroes really had no value.

Wu Yuchen smiled and said: "Ike, 1.2 billion to acquire the equity in your hands, this price is already very fair. From the time you bought the shares, in just 1 year, you earned 20 million. It's a very cost-effective business." ===== CHAPTER 217 =====