Leonardo and Tom Hanks' behavior of cutting their salaries by more than half reminded Spielberg of a Chinese movie star – Li Lianjie.
Li Lianjie was originally one of the most expensive movie stars in Hong Kong. He was an absolute guarantee of the box office. However, when he came to Hollywood, he failed several auditions. In the end, the director of "Lethal Weapon 4", Richard Tanner, found him and invited him to play one of the villains.
At first, Richard Tanner offered a salary of one million US dollars. This price was far lower than Li Lianjie's value in Asia. However, in order to break through the barrier between Hong Kong movies and Hollywood movies, Li Lianjie readily agreed.
However, Richard Tanner later went back on his word and asked for 700,000 US dollars. Li Lianjie still agreed. However, Richard Tanner did not stop there. Instead, he asked for a final offer of 500,000 US dollars. Everyone thought that Richard Tanner was too much, and that Li Lianjie would definitely not agree to it. However, Li Lianjie still agreed.
In the end, Li Lianjie participated in this movie with a salary of 500,000 US dollars. This 500,000 US dollars even included a considerable part of his lawyer's fees in the United States. This was a far cry from his salary in Hong Kong. However, Li Lianjie did not want to make a lot of money from a movie. He wanted to break through the barrier of Hollywood. He sacrificed a considerable part of his salary, but his goal was achieved by sacrificing his salary.
In the past, Richard Tanner's shameless behavior, which was comparable to Harvey Weinstein's, was despised by the entire Hollywood. However, this also reflected the difficulties and dangers of non-Hollywood actors trying to enter the Hollywood circle.
However, Spielberg did not expect this situation to change so quickly.
Even though Hollywood had not seen a large amount of capital from Hua Xia, it had to be said that Hollywood's A-list actors were willing to be like Li Lianjie. In order to develop and break through the barrier of a higher level, they were willing to lower their salary.
It seemed that Li Mu had really become an upper-class big shot that the entire Hollywood was chasing. In front of Li Mu, the entire Hollywood was at the bottom.
The gap between these two levels was so huge that these two Hollywood super-A-list actors were willing to pay any price to open up this relationship. If Li Mu was given a little more time, Li Mu would probably turn all of Hollywood into his own backyard …
Since Hollywood itself was the playground of the world's capital, Spielberg did not regard Li Mu as an invader in Hollywood. On the contrary, in his heart, Li Mu had become his biggest opportunity.
Before Li Mu appeared, the major Hollywood companies and the major capitals behind the scenes had already made the competition white-hot. At this time, no matter who wanted to snatch any piece of cake from the competitors, they would be attacked by countless people. It was even more difficult to shuffle the cards.
Under such circumstances, there was only one possibility for a shuffle: a powerful external force!
Li Mu was currently the most powerful external force in Hollywood!
Spielberg was well aware of Li Mu's influence. Not to mention anything else, as long as he went back and worked with Makino Image to promote the Mu Ying ticketing system to the entire North America, Hollywood's cinema channels would be firmly controlled by the Mu Ying ticketing system. If Li Mu combined the influence of YY, it would be a killer in the film market. Moreover, Li Mu not only had resources, but also money!
What was Hollywood playing at? Wasn't it just money and resources? Right now, Li Mu had a net worth of tens of billions of US dollars. This did not include the market value of Taobao, Alipay, and Taobao Logistics. Spielberg firmly believed that Li Mu could become the world's richest man in a few years. In front of the world's richest man, not only would Hollywood not resist, but they would also take the initiative to take off their clothes and climb into bed with him!
…
It was not until the next day that Li Mu learned the good news from Spielberg, which made him excited.
What excited him the most was not that these two people reduced their pay and saved him at least 30 million US dollars, but that these two actors he liked very much had decided to participate in "Flying Tigers"!
At Li Mu's stage, tens of millions of US dollars was really nothing. Even if these two people directly quoted him according to the market price, as long as they were willing to act, he would definitely not be stingy with the funds. What he was most worried about was if either of these two people was unwilling to act, or if there was a scheduling conflict.
In Li Mu's mind, he could not think of any actors more suitable for the two roles in "Flying Tigers" than these two people.
Li Mu had seen all the movies that Tom Hanks had acted in, and he was most convinced of this old man's acting skills. It was not inappropriate to say that he was the best actor in America. For example, the basis of the movie "Captain Sully," which was Captain Sully, who created the miracle of the Hudson River, specifically asked Tom Hanks to play himself. Li Mu had also seen that movie, and he felt that it was like watching a documentary.
Other than him, Li Mu really could not think of a second suitable candidate. At first glance, it seemed that the bald Bruce Willis's image and temperament were quite compatible with Chennault, but deep down in Li Mu's heart, he always felt that Bruce Willis was not suitable for roles that were too deep. He was more suited to acting in action movies and purely commercial movies. His acting skills were in a different dimension compared to Tom Hanks, the double Oscar winner.
Moreover, there was indeed no one more suitable than Leonardo for the role of the third male lead, which was the role of the young American pilot. Currently, Leonardo was still handsome, and he had a natural temperament of a rebellious youth. This was vividly reflected in "Cat and Mouse." If he were to play this role, not only would his temperament be perfect, his acting skills would be passable, and he would also be handsome. He was definitely the best candidate.
Now, in Li Mu's mind, the two best actors were already in place.
Not only the two of them, but even Anne Hathaway was already in place. A total of five key leading actors had already been confirmed.
In the script of "Flying Tigers," there were two other leading actors who had a lot of scenes. One was the ace pilot role of Hua Xia, and the other was the role of a local rural girl in the southwest. As for the latter, Li Mu was very inclined to continue letting Du Wei play the role. This was not because he wanted to take care of Du Wei, but because Du Wei's acting skills were indeed very good, much better than those from academies.
Many academies' acting skills were so clumsy that it was hard to look at them directly, but many non-academies' acting skills could be done without any trace. Not only was she beautiful, but she also had a temperament that was as gentle as water. She was very suitable to play the role of the most beautiful village girl.
Moreover, Li Mu was sure that Du Wei would never reject his invitation. In this way, four of the five key leading actors had already been confirmed.
As for the role of Hua Xia's ace pilot, Li Mu was really in a dilemma.
Although Zhang Kexuan's acting skills were passable, it was only passable. He could act in idol dramas, but he could not handle such a big production.
In fact, there were many good male actors in Hua Xia, but the ones that Li Mu could think of were all older, such as Li Xuejian, Bao Guoan, Tang Guoqiang, Chen Daoming, Ge You, Fan Wei, and so on. However, they were all too old. If there was a need for other older roles in the film, he could invite these veteran actors, but the second male lead was an important role.
Li Mu's brain searched for the male actors in Hua Xia's current 30 years old who had good acting skills. After thinking for a long time, he could not think of a suitable one.
It was not Li Mu's fault. In this era, domestic movies were already in decline. Occasionally, there would be a few good movies, but almost all of them were supported by a group of veteran actors. There were not many young actors who could really stand out, and there were not many who had good acting skills.
Li Mu was also very clear that if he wanted to find the most suitable actor for this role, he should find him from the Hong Kong film industry. Among the younger generation of actors, the acting skills and professionalism of the young actors in Hong Kong were indeed much higher than the domestic actors. Even if he brought Teacher Guanxi over, his acting skills and appearance would be able to hold up.
However, Li Mu really did not want to use Hong Kong actors in such a movie. It was not that he had any discrimination against Hong Kong actors or treated them differently, but he felt that such an international movie had to be controlled to the minimum. Since it was a story about the people of Hua Xia and the Americans fighting side by side, the core languages could only be Mandarin and English. The Japanese invaders could only use a small amount of Japanese, which was just right. This was the best result.
Therefore, all the actors in Hua Xia had to be actors from the mainland who could speak standard Mandarin. A truly good movie could not be recorded in post-production. It had to be strictly recorded at the same time.
Moreover, there was an indescribable obsession in Li Mu's heart. This was a movie about the hardships of the people of Hua Xia. He subconsciously hoped that all the actors in Hua Xia would be actors from the mainland. Only then would it be more pure.
However, this generation of young actors in Hua Xia was really disappointing. Li Mu racked his brains, but he could not think of a few actors with real acting skills.
Huang Bo's acting skills were not bad, but his appearance was a little disappointing. If he were to play this role, the audience would definitely think that the beautiful nurse played by Anne Hathaway must be a blind woman.
Dengchao's acting skills were passable, but in his previous life, Li Mu saw that he had acted in too many bad movies, and he had been turned into entertainment. He really did not want to give such an important role to him.
Who should I use?
Li Mu thought hard, but he could not come up with an answer. Soon, he decided to put this problem aside. Then, he asked Wang Yuanlang to go to the hotel and bring Spielberg to his home. He wanted to talk to him about the establishment of the crew. Since four of the five core actors were in place, it was time to officially start!
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