In the early morning, Charles woke up and saw Kate Beckinsale still sound asleep beside him. He got out of bed without waking her.
Leaning on the sofa on the balcony, Charles read the newspaper while enjoying the Pacific Ocean breeze of the early morning.
"Charles," Kate Beckinsale slowly came to the balcony, a loose men's shirt casually draped over her, walking barefoot.
"Awake?" Charles put down the newspaper and pulled the Lady to sit on his lap, embracing her.
"Nice house!" Kate Beckinsale knew very well that Charles had made a fortune with "lost in translation."
"Thank you! How's filming in Prague?" Charles said, kissing the Lady for a while.
After the kiss, Kate Beckinsale smiled and shook her head, "We filmed in the mountains for a long time, and there were a lot of action scenes. Luckily, I trained for a long time before filming "underworld"!"
"Vivendi Universal, they're not having an easy time of it right now," Charles said, holding Kate Beckinsale and thinking about Universal Pictures' parent company, Vivendi.
After the Canadian liquor giant Seagram acquired Universal Pictures from Panasonic in 1999, it launched a series of mergers and acquisitions. The following year, it acquired PolyGram to form Universal Music. The tech stock crash, coupled with Seagram's high debt, led to further changes.
The French giant Vivendi then made a move, acquiring the entire Universal Entertainment to form the Vivendi Universal Entertainment Group.
Vivendi Universal's debt was also not low, and now, General Electric from the United States had extended an olive branch to them.
"I heard from the producer that Universal is interested in continuously developing old movie IPs like vampires and werewolves!"
"Heh, the success of the two 'Mummy' movies has given Universal a lot more confidence," Charles chuckled. There was no concept of a 'movie universe' yet, so Universal certainly didn't have plans for a Dark Universe of monsters.
"However, Universal's copyright library does have a lot of monsters: Dracula the vampire, Frankenstein's monster, werewolves, the Invisible Man, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, among others. There's no shortage of material," Charles said, envying them. Of course, he was envious. The foundation of a big company is that its film library contains countless subjects that can be adapted. Remaking old films is much simpler than creating originals.
"It still depends on how 'van helsing' performs at the box office!" Kate Beckinsale wasn't stupid. If the box office wasn't high, how could the film company be enthusiastic?
"Alright, I'm going to the company. You can rest well for a day or two," Charles said, feeling a bit emotional about Kate Beckinsale's career path. After "underworld," she would be typecast.
The failure of "pearl harbor" and "Serendipity" basically cut off her path in romance films. The currently filming "van helsing" would be her last major production.
As the Oscar got closer, many filmmakers gathered in Hollywood: actors, singers, directors, producers, Agents, media reporters, fashion brands, and so on.
In a conference room at Capet Pictures, Charles was discussing new script ideas with screenwriters:
"John and Jane are a mundane couple married for seven years, their life stagnant and without passion. Until one day, the organizations behind them each give them orders to kill the same target. They are assassins belonging to two different organizations, having hidden it from each other for seven years. Then they start to guess each other's identities, test each other, and then a fight breaks out;"
"Finally, they realize what's happening and team up to fight their organizations."
"That's the idea. I need it adapted into a complete script."
That's right, it's "mr. & mrs. smith." Charles remembered it after thinking of Brad Pitt from Plan B Entertainment.
Brad Pitt didn't have many high-grossing films, and "mr. & mrs. smith" happened to be a good box office performer.
The Writers Guild hadn't registered it, so the idea was his. Whether to film it or not was one thing, but once the script was out, it could be filmed at any time.
Moreover, if producers and directors with ideas discovered the script, they would also actively approach him to seek opportunities for collaborative film development.
In the evening, Evelyn called and asked Charles to come to her place for dinner.
After driving to Evelyn's villa in Bel Air, he found that Sofia Coppola and Scarlett Johansson were already there.
"Is there something important to discuss?" Charles asked at the dinner table.
"No, isn't the Academy Awards Ceremony about to be held? 'lost in translation' has several major award nominations. Let's see what needs to be prepared?" Evelyn was a bit excited, after all, the Oscar was still a sanctuary in many people's hearts.
"This is the first time for all of us to attend the Academy Awards Ceremony. Let's treat it as gaining experience, except for Sofia, she should have experience," Charles said with a smile.
Sofia looked at Charles, rolled her eyes, and said nonchalantly, "I used to go with my family. This time I'm nominated myself, it's different;"
"Also, Charles, you're becoming more and more like a businessman!"
"This time, our movie still has a certain influence. Sofia and Scarlett just came back after receiving awards from the UK. 'lost in translation' was a big winner at the BAFTA Awards!" Evelyn, of course, intended to use the Oscar to slowly push Sofia and Scarlett to higher positions.
"Let's eat. A nomination is good enough!" Although Sofia had previously directed a small film, "The Virgin Suicides," shot with a handheld camera.
"lost in translation" could be said to be Sofia's first proper feature film, and its current achievements reaching such a height were good.
As for Scarlett Johansson, she didn't get an academy award for best actress nomination, but "lost in translation" did increase her fame, though it wasn't enough.
After Sofia Coppola and Scarlett Johansson left, Charles stayed at his mother's place.
"How is that Zack Snyder?" Charles inquired.
"Remaking 'dawn of the dead,' Universal Pictures is the distributor. Zack is also interested in such bloody and violent films, chosen to direct his directorial debut!"
"What about you? It seems you spent all your money on buying a house this time. Does the company still have working capital?" Evelyn had a look as if she wanted to laugh.
Charles, however, said, "'the passion of the christ' is probably already filming, and 'brokeback mountain,' although still in preparation, will definitely be filmed this year. I just need to pay attention to 'saw' next!"
"With a budget of over a million dollars, 'saw' shouldn't take long to shoot. You need to confirm the distributor as soon as possible."
"I know. My idea is to release it on Halloween this year!"
"It's almost April. Is there enough time for the schedule?"
Charles thought for a moment and said, "It shouldn't be a big problem. 'saw' won't take much time to shoot, and there are quite a few independent distributors for horror films."