The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood!

Chapter 290

"It's been a long time, Orlando."

Matthew approached Orlando with a smile.

Orlando was in a particularly good mood upon seeing Matthew. "I owe you yet again," he said earnestly. "I don't know how I can ever thank you."

"A favor for what?" Matthew asked with a wide grin.

Orlando answered seriously, "I signed the contract for Kingdom of Heaven last month. Your call to director Ridley Scott was a huge help."

Matthew hadn't actually called Ridley, but seeing that Orlando was convinced he had, he decided not to deny it. He simply waved it off and said, "Think nothing of it. It was a small thing."

Orlando insisted, "Seriously, Matthew, if you ever need my help with anything, just say the word."

Matthew clapped him on the shoulder. "You know I will."

Rachel soon finished her conversation with Stephen Sommers, and she and Matthew made their way to the screening room.

He and Rachel left the VIP lounge, joining the stream of people filing into the theater. Their seats weren't together, but Matthew quickly found Edward Norton and convinced him to swap, allowing him to sit next to Rachel.The screening began just as the last of the film's cast and creators entered the hall, and Matthew and Rachel fell silent.

The screen lit up with the Universal Pictures logo, and the curtain was finally pulled back on the $160 million production.

The film plunged the audience into an age where darkness and evil took on human form, where ghosts and monsters roamed free. In this chilling yet captivating world, the valiant Van Helsing, a hero of righteousness, stands against the full pantheon of Universal's classic monsters: vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein.

On the silver screen, black clouds churned in a cold sky. Gusts of wind howled and lightning tore through the night as demons and deadly monsters descended upon the ancient land of Transylvania. The story was set in the late nineteenth century, in a mysterious Romanian town haunted by terrible creatures that ravaged the city and slaughtered its people.

Chief among these monsters was the vampire Dracula, the noble patriarch of the vampire lineage, who had plagued Transylvania for ages, draining the life from countless victims.

Also caught in the grip of Dracula's bloodthirsty clan was Frankenstein—a monster created by a scientist, stitched together from human muscle and metal.

The ancient land of Transylvania was also a killing ground for hot-tempered werewolves and Dracula's three beautiful and deadly vampire brides.

To eradicate these forces of evil, the Catholic Church dispatches the legendary monster hunter, Doctor Van Helsing, tasking him with the destruction of the vampires, Frankenstein, and the werewolves.

Along the way, Van Helsing rescues a fellow vampire huntress, Anna Valerious, who becomes both his partner in battle and his lover.

Much to Van Helsing's surprise, the people of Transylvania did not trust him.

To them, he was just another brutal monster, not the savior they had hoped for. Meanwhile, his enemies proved far more ruthless and terrifying than he could have ever imagined, and he narrowly escaped their fangs on more than one occasion.

But in Matthew's opinion, the film could just as easily be seen from Count Dracula's perspective.

It was the story of Dracula: killed by Van Helsing in life, hunted as a vampire after death. He had hidden himself away in a cold castle, intent on raising a family, only to be cursed with infertility. After finally finding a cure and fathering a brood of children, Van Helsing reappeared to slaughter them all, leaving none alive.

So, in essence, it was about poor Dracula, who, with nothing left to strive for, simply wanted to hide away in his old castle and raise a family. But in the end, things didn't turn out so well for him.

When the film concluded, Matthew found that the main plot was more or less as he remembered it. But after so many years, who could recall every detail of a movie like this?

The theater erupted in applause, and he rose with the rest of the audience to clap.

Honestly, the movie wasn't as bad as he'd expected. Matthew knew he was in no position to truly judge a film's potential or predict its reception; all he could go on was his own gut feeling.

The special effects in Van Helsing were top-tier for the era, and the production values were clearly high. However, the pacing felt a bit slow, lacking the brisk energy of the two Mummy films, which Sean Daniel had overseen in post-production. As a result, the movie felt a little bloated.

Matthew recalled another potential issue. The massive box-office success of the two Mummy films had given Stephen Sommers the clout not only to direct but also to serve as the lead producer on the Van Helsing project.

In other words, Stephen Sommers had near-total creative control over the film, including the right to the final cut.

In Hollywood, giving a director final cut wasn't always a good thing. And while there were certainly films that had failed because a producer meddled too much in post-production, there was a reason the producer-driven system had dominated Hollywood for so many years.

Most directors were artists at heart—imaginative, creative, and full of ideas. That very quality, however, could often be a liability for commercial films made within a studio assembly-line system.

More importantly, producers were generally more attuned to the film market than directors were, and naturally, they understood it better.

Having worked with Sean Daniel on three films—with Dawn of the Dead still lingering in fewer than a hundred theaters—Matthew knew the veteran producer's style well. Based on the tight, final cuts of the two Mummy movies and Dawn of the Dead, he was certain that if Sean Daniel had edited Van Helsing, it wouldn't have run a minute over 110.

That alone would have made the movie far more dynamic.

He just wasn't sure if audiences would go for the slightly sluggish pacing and the kitchen-sink approach of throwing every possible monster into one movie.

That wasn't something he could predict. He'd have to wait for the next day's box office results to find out.

Still, the film made one thing clear: Universal was trying to revive the stable of classic movie monsters that had once made the studio famous.

By investing $160 million to put three of their classic monsters on screen together—vampires, Frankenstein, and werewolves—Universal was clearly hoping these long-established fiends would make a killing at the box office.

The titular hero, Van Helsing, was never fully fleshed out in this first film. The cause of his amnesia, Matthew guessed, was obviously being saved as a hook for a sequel.

In fact, looking back, the film was full of unresolved plot points. Universal Pictures and Stephen Sommers were clearly setting the stage for a sequel.

But whether a Van Helsing sequel ever materialized would depend entirely on the market's reaction.

As long as the box office numbers were high enough, a sequel would get made, even if the word-of-mouth was terrible.

Still, Matthew couldn't shake a sense of unease, partly because of his memories of what was to come, and partly because he was reminded of another flop that had a similar premise.

Van Helsing wasn't the first adventure film to mix and match famous literary characters. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which had been released the previous year around the same time as Pirates of the Caribbean, was very similar in concept.

However, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had been a complete fiasco, and Sean Connery had retired from acting almost immediately afterward.

As the applause in the theater died down, Matthew followed the other guests toward the front row. He knew two of the people involved—Stephen Sommers and Orlando—and out of common courtesy, he wanted to congratulate them before he left.

"Stephen, brilliant film!"

Matthew walked up to Sommers and shook his hand. "The style is impressive."

Sommers, who seemed to be in high spirits, replied, "Thanks!"

He smiled. "We can work together on another project when

the opportunity arises."

Matthew nodded. "Just give me a call anytime."

After speaking with Sommers, Matthew found Orlando. "Excellent performance. I almost wish I'd stolen the part from you."

"Too late for regrets now." Orlando's face broke into a wide smile. "It's been two years. The movie is finally out in theaters."

The sheer amount of time spent on pre-production and post-production alone was a testament to how much effort Stephen Sommers and Universal Pictures had poured into the film.