If it were the past, Li Xiaole would definitely doubt whether he could make a movie of this level, but now, after being baptized by so many works, his mentality has become more mature, and he has completely made it confident to treat actors and control the crew.

He is no longer just a director fighting alone, but he has powerful Apple, Pirate TV, and CNN behind him as strong backings. Whether in terms of technology or publicity channels, Li Xiaole has the ability to control this big production.

Today, his Black Pearl is no longer the ragged wooden boat, but a well-equipped steel giant ship. Under the pirates flying on the mast, standing there are Tom Cruise, Steve Jobs, Wagner, Stallone, and George Cruise, the top figures in various fields.

In the eyes of outsiders, this is the first time that United Mei Black Pearl has completely independently produced, released and sold a movie, and it is so expensive that if it fails, everything he has accumulated may disappear. But the captain is indeed unprecedentedly at all, without any panic, only the irresistible excitement in his chest, and even after a day of work, he was so excited that he couldn't sleep all night, just like the expectation and desire on the eve of the spring outing in his childhood.

"Iron Man" is the first Hollywood A-level production in his directorial career, and the first independent film produced by United Mei Black Pearl. It is the moment when his long-cherished wish comes true for many years... Li Xiaole was lying on the bed, and seemed to hear the wonderful "rustling" film rotation in the camera... I felt that every minute and every second in the present are so wonderful... He was very intoxicated with this feeling.

While Li Xiaole enjoyed all this, Wagner, as a partner, felt a deep sense of crisis. She read Iron Man's plan in detail. This movie not only rented Edward Air Force Base, but also the historic "Movie Road" and the Playa Vista platform in Penang, California as the shooting location, but also Iron Man's extremely complex prop design, post-production computer special effects synthesis, Iron Man's action expression capture technology, various military equipment rentals, etc.

In terms of special effects, theoretically, the company's "Black Sail" studio has this ability, but since it is about to be released at the end of the year, Li Xiaole decided to distribute computer special effects to 12 other special effects companies, including "Industrial Light and Magic", to complete the cost alone, which exceeded tens of millions of dollars.

During several preliminary discussions between her and Li Xiaole on "Iron Man", Wagner proposed to try to use computer animation to make military equipment scenes in some large-scale scenes, and try to avoid close-ups as much as possible, and reduce the proportion of various weapons and equipment, which will greatly reduce costs.

But Li Xiaole was stubborn about this matter. He insisted on using real-life shooting. His reason was: "The quality of the actual military equipment will be particularly textured and can shorten the shooting events."

Using virtual photography technology plus post-synthesis, based on the current technical level, the effect is far from Li Xiaole's standard. In the end, Wagner had no choice but to discuss cooperation with the US Department of Defense in person according to Li Xiaole's request.

In China, private film companies renting military equipment for shooting is almost impossible. In the United States, as long as you have money, this is not a problem at all.

In the US military, each department has its own intermediary agencies that contact the film and television industries. These agencies work in an office building on Wilsha Avenue in Westwood, and the intermediary agencies of the Department of Defense are the most famous of them.

As the main representative of the American cultural industry, Hollywood movies are an important way to promote American culture and the best channel and means to maintain and enhance the American world image. However, the military often finds domestic public opinion and news that often discredits the image of soldiers, such as the "Iraq prisoner abuse incident" and so on, which makes people feel helpless.

As the anti-Iran war sentiment spreads in the United States, the Pentagon began to actively seek cooperation with Hollywood, trying to reverse the United States' impression of being a "bully" in the world. The Ministry of Defense is the most standardized organization among them.

In order to meet the needs of weapons and equipment in the film industry when shooting movies, the website of the Ministry of Defense's intermediary agency even clearly marks the rental prices of weapons and equipment platforms.

Li Xiaole quickly got a price form for renting equipment:

The price of renting an e-4b air command aircraft is $72,000 per hour. This aircraft will serve as the US President's "Air One" when the nuclear war breaks out;

The price of a B-1b long-range bomber is US$505) per hour; the price of an AH-64 armed attack helicopter is US$11,306 per hour; the price of an F-16c fighter is US$10,181 per hour;

The rental price of a Global Hawk drone is $81 per hour. The lowest price for training gliders is only $99 per hour, which also includes the use cost of the pilot.

As long as you have money, you can even rent the most advanced f22 stealth fighter of the US Air Force, and the price is cheaper than the e-4b, only 6.50,000 US dollars per hour.

This price has dropped to varying degrees due to the spread of the economic crisis in the United States, which is almost the same as the production of special effects screens. This is also the reason why a large number of US military equipment appeared in films such as "Transformers" and "Super Battleships".

In the previous original version of "Iron Man", in order to save money, the crew just used a computer to make several f-22s, which greatly reduced the persuasiveness of the movie itself.

In Li Xiaole's mind, the name "Iron Man" should be associated with military equipment. At the end of the original movie, the two Iron Man fights in downtown Los Angeles, but the scene where even a soldier has not seen is really ridiculous.

In order to increase logical persuasion, the crew even set the most exciting battle scene in the night. When Li Xiaole saw this dimly lit scene in the cinema, he felt that the director was completely avoiding the cost and making the climax of the showdown between good and evil, and making the battle between the street hooligans...

Big scenes are the most outstanding essence of superhero movies, avoiding the scenes that the audience expects the most is simply a fucking crime!

Of course he can't commit crimes! Li Xiaole wants real battle scenes, a terrifying villain. If the daylight of "Transformers" is bright and you can see the details of the battle scenes, and what you want is a wonderful scene that will destroy the city of Los Angeles.

In the end, Li Xiaole arranged the equipment he wanted to rent, 6 F-22 Raptor fighters, 2 A-10 fighters, 6 F-16 fighters, 10 armored Hummers, the "Golden Knight" military parachuting team, 2 m1a2 tanks, 2 m3a3 tanks, 2 self-propelled missile launchers, 2 armored vehicles, and the Baisha missile test site.

When Wagner, who was used to seeing this list, was also shocked and wondered whether Li Xiaole wanted to make a movie or organize a small war in Los Angeles?

She calculated all the costs with fear, including cast and crew funds, filming costs, renting these huge amounts of military equipment, extras' fees, leasing public venues in Los Angeles, and post-production... Together, she roughly estimates that the pure production cost of "Iron Man" has exceeded 200 million US dollars... This is like "Titanic", "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", "Return of Superman", "X-Men 3", and "King Kong", and is the highest-level production of Hollywood movies in the world...

As a small film company and for the first time independently produced, this cost seems amazing anyway...

"Li... Can you think about it again? I think it is reasonable to compress the production cost to about 100 million US dollars." Wagner said terrified. She had begun to doubt whether Li Xiaole had become a little obsessed with the continued success...

Even if the production cost is 100 million US dollars, the total promotional cost will exceed 15,000 US dollars. This investment is too huge. This movie is not supported by the social craze like iPhone in "Life Remote Control"... It is definitely not an easy thing to get a profit balance point of 200 million yuan.

If it is 200 million, then the promotional cost will be 300 million yuan... The global box office will only be 3.5 billion US dollars to avoid losses. Even if a giant company like Paramount invests in "Mission Impossible 3", which has also been invested in, has not reached this number. As the first movie in the series, "Iron Man" is almost impossible to complete this task...

"If you want to make this movie well, it must be 200 million US dollars." Li Xiaole sat upright and looked at Wagner and said that the original Iron Man invested 1.5 billion yuan. His investment of 200 million yuan is not an excessive amount, and it can only be regarded as his minimum standard.

"Okay..." Wagner saw the determination in Li Xiaole's eyes, and finally could only sigh. After all, he was the boss of Black Pearl Lianmei, and said helplessly:

"I'm going to find a way to find an investment. With the support of the theater, it's not impossible to get the investment amount."

After all, with top production lineups like Tom Cruise, Stallone and Li Xiaole, coupled with the appeal of the theme of "Iron Man" itself, it is not difficult to get some sponsored advertisements. There are always some speculative businessmen who are willing to invest.
Chapter completed!