The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood!

Chapter 619

In the car on the way back, Helen read through the script, which looked more like a rough draft, and became lost in thought. She had a much better grasp of the written word than Matthew, and after reviewing the script and hearing his account of the conversation with Christopher Nolan, she began to form her own judgment.

"What do you think?" Matthew asked.

Helen shook her head slightly. "The idea seems wonderful, but it's actually similar to what the Wachowski brothers did in the two 'Matrix' sequels."

She gestured at the script. "This is a toxic project."

"Toxic?" Matthew asked.

Helen reminded him, "Have you forgotten? You once told me that overly complex and incomprehensible plots, philosophical musings, and deliberately inserted depth are poison for commercial films, and that we never take on projects like that."

Matthew couldn't help but pause. He had, in fact, said something very similar during a past discussion with Helen: the Hollywood blockbusters that truly took the world by storm were, without a doubt, the ones that were most accessible to a broad audience.

In other words, the kind of productions critics would label as lowbrow.

For a moment, he was at a loss.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, films that were complex and difficult to understand failed to become hits...As he mulled this over, Matthew suddenly recalled something: of the Christopher Nolan films he had seen, from the Batman trilogy to his later works, none of them had been complex or difficult to understand, not even

"Inception," which was easy enough to follow. He wasn't familiar with the few independent films Nolan had directed, but his later commercial blockbusters seemed to align perfectly with what Hollywood always demanded from its commercial films.

He seemed to recall reading a quote on some resource site back when he downloaded "Inception," stating that Nolan's films were fundamentally simple and dealt with standard Hollywood themes, but were excessively overinterpreted by his rabid fans with an even more frenzied intensity.

Considering some of the fans he had seen and encountered since arriving in Hollywood, many ardent supporters, like that Phyllis Beretta, approached the celebrities they admired with a complete lack of rationality.

From a normal person's point of view, what was sane about a woman in her twenties obsessively chasing her favorite star across the globe?

Of course, he would keep such thoughts to himself.

The industry acknowledged that classic films like "The Godfather," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "The Matrix" were all overinterpreted by their fans. These fans not only refused to hear a single negative word about the movies but also portrayed the original intentions of the directors, screenwriters, and producers as being a hundred times more complex than they actually were.

He had also followed Christopher Nolan's films. After "The Dark Knight" production team contacted him last year, he had taken the time to watch "Batman Begins" and "The Prestige" and read fan reviews on IMDb. There was no doubt in his mind that Nolan and his work were prone to large-scale overinterpretation.

For now, Nolan's fans were keeping a low profile, but that would all change by the time "The Dark Knight" came out.

What was impressive was that no other director's fanbase had ever been as fanatical as Nolan's.

"It's just a script," Matthew said with a shrug. "Helen, have you seen any of Christopher Nolan's recent movies?"

Helen replied, "I've only seen 'Memento.' After that, I completely lost interest, which is one of the reasons I advised you against taking on the role of the Joker."

Matthew prompted, "Is 'The Dark Knight' hard to understand?"

Helen answered, "It's accessible. Nothing like the genre or style of 'Memento.'"

"I've seen 'Batman Begins' and 'The Prestige,'" Matthew said slowly.

"Both are just as accessible, and Nolan is a completely different director from the Wachowskis."

In his opinion, Nolan himself hadn't tried to be intentionally cryptic in his films since he started making commercial movies. It was just that too many fans overanalyzed them, making what they perceived as "Nolan films" obscure and incomprehensible.

Those fans definitely put far more thought into the movie than Nolan himself ever did.

"As a commercial director, Nolan isn't trying to be deliberately obscure, so the films he makes are ultimately accessible—in other words, understandable."

Matthew added, "In fact, even for someone with my limited artistic sensibilities, I don't find any of Christopher Nolan's commercial films to be obscure. One of the strengths of his movies is that they aren't bound by overly rigid logic, so the various plot twists are usually well-presented and explained, making them quite easy to follow."

He said, "Helen, you only need to watch a few of his commercial films to see that all his work is straightforward."

"I'll watch some of his films later."

Matthew nodded. "Nolan is great at wrapping a conventional story in a brilliant package, plus his work has a certain guarantee of quality... that's why his commercial films get such good word-of-mouth."

In fact, in the eyes of professional critics, Nolan's situation was similar to his own—neither of them was particularly beloved by that crowd.

Although Nolan was completely different from Michael Bay, and any comparison seemed inappropriate, Matthew had seen most of his commercial films and believed they shared one key trait with Bay's work: accessibility, the essential ingredient for any blockbuster.

For example, "Interstellar" is a science fiction film packed with scientific theories and technical details, but at its core, it's simply about love—a theme that has long been a Hollywood staple.

It's a commercial film compelling enough for the majority of the audience to buy a ticket, and that's all that matters.

Helen handed the script back to Matthew and asked, "So, are you thinking about taking on this movie?"

Matthew nodded. "The production budget is over 150 million dollars. Knowing Warner Bros., they wouldn't risk such a massive investment and give Christopher Nolan free rein to shoot an art-house film."

"That makes sense." Helen had dealt extensively with the Warner Bros. leadership and knew he was right.

"There's another benefit to taking this film," Matthew continued. "It allows us to maintain our partnership with Warner Bros. We can't tie our future entirely to Disney, like Tom Cruise has with Paramount Pictures."

Helen offered a rare smile. "Your thinking is becoming more and more thorough."

Matthew smiled back. "Having competition between them is the best way to maximize our interests."

Unlike in the old days, most of Hollywood's top stars didn't work exclusively for one studio. The best strategy was to work with several.

Besides, collaborating with a director who many fans had deified after the release of "The Dark Knight," and who possessed considerable box-office appeal himself, was a smart move for a star of his caliber.

***

Back at the Angel Agency, Matthew received some good news: Disney Pictures had paid its share for the post-production of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." He immediately asked his accountant to contact the "Twilight" actors and transfer the funds to their third-party escrow account as soon as possible to reassure the entire cast.

As an investor in the middle of a film shoot, he knew that money spoke louder than promises.

After all, if you don't have money, how can you make a movie?

Perhaps because Sofia Coppola and Sean Daniels were no longer worried about the final twenty million dollars, or perhaps simply because this part of the shoot was less complex, the "Twilight" crew had an exceptionally smooth time in the studio, wrapping up all the interior scenes in just ten days.

In early March, Sofia and Sean took the entire crew to a small town near Portland to resume filming the exterior scenes.

Matthew didn't go. Sean was a serious and responsible producer, and his presence on set was enough. Besides, Matthew had to stay in Los Angeles to handle the final preparations for "The Fast and the Furious 4."

Weapons training, driving practice, fight choreography, rehearsals—it all had to be done in advance. Justin Lin wasn't an improvisational director; most of the complex scenes needed to be rehearsed to some extent beforehand.

Rehearsals could lead to formulaic results, but that was never an issue for commercial films. A franchise like "The Fast and the Furious" was practically built on the assembly line of a successful formula to begin with.