Chapter 256 (1/2)

Santa Monica.

In a screening room of danielis entertainment headquarters, when another ”Batman” sample film was shown on the screen, the assistant came forward and whispered to remind Terry Semel that it was already five o'clock in the afternoon.

Looking back on the experience of watching the film for more than three hours, Semel was filled with a strong shock.

Today is May 5th, Friday.

Simon's accident coma happened in February. As a representative of Warner, Semel flew to Australia to visit him. At that time, the situation was special. He didn't take time to watch Batman. Today, he saw the sample film for the first time.

The post editing of ”Batman” was synchronized with the shooting. It took Simon only a week to complete the first version of the film, six and a half hours to rough cut the sample film after he returned to Los Angeles.

Terry Semel arrived in the afternoon. He only planned to spend an hour to have a general look at the effect of the sample film, but he stayed in the screening room for a whole afternoon. He didn't even know when Simon, who was watching the sample film with him at first, would leave.

Although it's time to leave work, Terry Semel still has an impulse to watch all the samples in the remaining three hours.

How could a movie be made like this?!

This is an idea that Semel repeated countless times during the process of watching the sample film.

During the preparation stage of Batman, Semel expressed his concern when he heard that Simon would use live action as much as possible.

Live action shooting can really increase the audience's sense of substitution, but at the same time, it is easy to make the whole film mediocre. Because in essence, ”Batman” should be a science fiction film, and soft science fiction, this type of film should pursue a sense of surrealism.

Too close to reality, and the creator fails to fill in enough exciting superhero elements in the film, it will easily lead the audience to a psychological gap of ”this is not the superhero world in their imagination”.

If so, the film is doomed to failure.

As a result, in many unsuccessful preparations over the years, the directors who intend to take over the Batman project are basically inclined to set up scenes and create a Gotham City in the studio.

Now, Terry Semel has no worries at all.

It's just that most of the shots in the sample film have not been carefully toned, and they are no less amazing than the original ”Lola Run”, which is confirmed by Terry Semel. Simon's ”Lola Run” has become a teaching sample of many film schools, but in Semel's view, many of the scenes in Batman sample even surpass ”Lola Run”.

Simon's exquisite use of lighting, color, composition and other elements makes the shots taken from the real city street scenes look like oil paintings carefully drawn by the top painters, some of which are even enough to be printed and hung on the wall as art works.

What's more, the overall cold and heavy dark tone style is enough to give the audience a surrealistic psychological hint, making people feel that this is not only their city, but also Gotham in the cartoon.

Of course, if it's just the amazing style of the lens, it's not enough to shock Semel.

Although the young man's control over the technical details of the film has reached the Oscar level, it is not impossible for other films to imitate if they are willing to spend money to set up a master backstage team.

What really shocked Semel was the content, especially the action scenes in the sample film.

Among the traditional Hollywood action movies, the high-end ones are Bruce Lee's Kung Fu, and the performance of action stars with profound knowledge, such as shange Winton, on the screen is also commendable, but most of them are ordinary fists that lack aesthetic feeling.

Because of the lack of highlights, the most popular action movies in Hollywood these years are action movies of gun fight by Stallone and others, with naked muscle men carrying machine guns and ignoring the enemy's bullets.

Terry Semel has actually seen some Oriental kung fu movies, but he also thinks that the action design of those movies is too complicated and lack of practicality.

Simon's action scenes in Batman make Semel feel strongly that he seems to have seen the future of Hollywood action movies.

Fighting, there is no old-fashioned street drunkard fighting, Batman boxing to the meat but not simple strength, the sense of quantity makes people blood boiling, Catwoman's light and sharp and the extreme display of women's body advantage also makes people blood gushing.

Chasing cars, there is no reason for the impact of the explosion, but facing the big screen crash rolling vehicles than directly blow up a pile of cars even shocking.

The gunfight, without the headless rush of bullets, the dangerous duel between the death shooter and Batman. In the slow motion, the pressure of the CG synthetic bullet makes Semel hold his breath. It turns out that a bullet can also become the protagonist of the lens at a certain moment.

In addition to these mainstream action scenes, Batman's wing flying, the use of bat darts and other props, and the cat girl's Leaping between city roofs by using gymnastics skills are enough to become a textbook for Hollywood commercial films in the future.Terry Semel can't wait to see the final film. Simon has achieved perfection in these details. As the best screenwriter in Hollywood, Semel doesn't think the plot of the film will be inferior to these details.

Even Semel has a feeling in his heart that this pioneering superhero movie will also get a pioneering box office figure.

However, this feeling is not good.

Remembering that DC has sold the copyright of Batman and wonder woman to Denise entertainment, and Warner didn't object to the transfer of Superman's copyright, Semel has a strong regret. He now firmly believes that Warner must have made a series of irreparable mistakes in the copyright of the three superheroes.

After all, although there are time limits in those licensing contracts, in fact, if the interests involved are too large, the copyright holders can not let go anyway.

Just like the original ”Superman” copyright, although ”Superman 4” failed at the box office, according to Semel's knowledge, Simon still spent $6 million to buy back the ”Superman” copyright with only five years left from the Sargent family.

Moreover, although the original contract signed by DC and British producer Alexander Salkind will expire in 1992. However, according to the automatic renewal clause in the agreement, as long as the copyright of Superman has not been suspended for a long time, after 1992, if Sargent still intends to make a sequel, the license period will be automatically extended.