Agent Jimmy began frequent contact with Warner Bros. After each negotiation, he would report progress with Wayne. With both sides intending to speed up the progress, almost every negotiation would take a big step forward and reach some consensus.

As time slowly moved forward to mid-January, Wayne ended his short vacation and once again assembled his core team, two deputy directors and producers, dived into the Warner Bros. late studio.

This is the third time that editor Dawn Scott has worked with Wayne, and both parties are already very familiar with each other, especially Dawn Scott has a thorough understanding of the director's production style, so there is no problem with the cooperation.

Compared with the editing of the "Joker" period, the difficulty of this film is almost negligible for Dawn Scott. After scanning the camera material on the first day, he confirmed the editing of "Joker Back" and it can be done as late as five months ago.

Zach Schneider has participated in many shots because he has started to have ideas in the later work. He also understands Wayne's intentions and has communicated with the final effect of the film for countless times.

In this way, most of the time, Zach Schneider stared at the editing, so Wayne had more time. Every day, while staring at the editing work, he began to record his thoughts about "Batman".

"The Joker Returns" does not require repeated comparisons, and the extremely complicated scenes that require trade-offs, nor does it add special effects that can slow down the post-production work. This editing work that splices along the way can be said to be the most brainless and simplest in Wayne's movie.

But simplicity does not necessarily mean that the audience doesn't buy it. This video can be said to be one of the best North American horror films in Wayne's own personal heart. Its popularity is incomparable to other films of the same type.

This is one of the rare films in Wayne's memory that uses the theme of genre films to leverage the theater market.

Not only is he caring about the editing of "The Joker Back", but he is preparing for the idea of ​​"Batman", but he is also always understanding the progress of Jimmy and Warner Bros.'s negotiations.

In this way, it seems that Zach Schneider, the helper, is still busy and full of work plans, almost all the time.

“A good news.”

After the work ended that day, Wayne had just gotten into the car. Nina handed him a bottle of water and looked at him and said, "Your personal accountant, Collin Howard, went to Warner Bros.'s finance department today to confirm that the other party had divided the second box office of "The Joker" into Greenberg's studio account."

He shook his hand exhaustedly and asked, "Have all the money been paid?"

"There may be some in the future, but the big head has already arrived. Warner Brothers has almost no hiring this part of the funds. As long as the theater company allocates them, they will pay off your share as soon as possible. This efficiency..."

Nina smiled and shook her head. This efficiency is very rare in Hollywood. Normally, it is already very conscientious to be able to pay this reward within half a year after receiving the theater share.

But Wayne and Warner Bros. are in the sweetest love period. Not only is the new film "The Joker" being produced, but the negotiations for "Batman" will be completed immediately. The messy reasons add up to this non-Hollywood payment speed.

"Just put the money in the studio, maybe it will be used in a few months this year."

"The Joker" had a box office of 350 million US dollars in North America, and Wayne also earned more than 30 million US dollars from it. If he included the 10 million basic salary in the early stage, he would make more than 40 million US dollars in this film.

No matter how you calculate this income, it can be said to be first-class in the Hollywood circle.

Good news came one after another, and on the next day, good news came from Jimmy. He had reached an agreement with Warner Bros. on Wayne's director treatment.

This time, unlike before, Wayne, as the director, producer and screenwriter of the film, has greatly improved his treatment compared to the previous films. Jimmy even clearly talked about the first-class standards of what hotel he would stay in, what cars he used during the filming of the crew.

Of course, the main difference between the two sides is still the director's share. Every increase in the amount of one percentage point may be US dollars in units of tens of thousands.

"Batman" itself has a wide fan base and is born with a box office that will not be bad. This is the foreseeable income of Warner Bros., and it is being torn up by Jimmy bit by bit.

"Jimmy, so?"

Sitting on the bench at the door of the editing room, Wayne asked the agent curiously what the price was.

Jimmy took a big sip of coffee with a satisfied smile on her face. “20 percent!”

“Global?”

"Global!" The agent gave a positive answer. "I told them that Spielberg had already received this price, and you, Wayne Greenberg, are not inferior to Spielberg in their business achievements in the past two years."

At this moment, even Wayne himself admired Jimmy, and he didn't expect to negotiate the price. In fact, he couldn't compare with Spielberg. The other party's value and status took more than ten years to win.

As for himself, although the box office of the film broke out, even he himself admitted that the price was indeed higher than his own value.

"I told them that Wayne Greenberg represents success! Whether they admit it or not, this sentence is reality!"

Speaking of this, Jimmy held the coffee cup and prideedly ran into Wayne.

Others don’t know it, but Jimmy, as an agent, knows best that Wayne can get such a high share, not only the pay for "Batman", but also the design fee for the universe plan.

Warner Bros. is also very clear that if the video of the beginning of the universe succeeds, what is the meaning behind it, so he gritted his teeth and agreed to it, just to get Wayne to start it as soon as possible.

After a cup with Jimmy, Wayne stared at the agent and asked again. "20+20?"

"Of course, you are now getting the top contract in Hollywood." The agent nodded firmly. "Wayne, this is almost the peak of Hollywood's income. You have already stood there. There is no need to doubt that in my opinion, the DC Universe Plan is worth this price."

Giving Jimmy a thumbs up, Wayne really felt that he deserves praise, not because of this "20+20" top-tier in-circle contract, but because of his vision.

I'm afraid even the head of DC and the CEO of Warner Bros. may not necessarily have the vision of their own agents. They only know the possible benefits behind them, but Wayne himself knows what will be brought once the plan is successful.

“When will we sign the contract?”

It’s not that Wayne is anxious. Only by signing a formal contract can he use the funds to contact Industrial Light and Magic to start making movie props and special effects needed in the film.

The earlier these preparations, the better. The more you prepare, the less difficulties you encounter during shooting.

Jimmy said: "The day after tomorrow, there will be a press conference. This is the Batman series. Almost the signing starts, which means that the publicity work has begun. This kind of thing cannot be avoided. Tim Burton will also attend at that time."

He knew that all directors did not like to be disturbed by the media, but these tasks were necessary. Any director wanted the film to start quietly during production and was unwilling to be influenced by various public opinion work.

But production companies need media publicity, and the more important the investment is, the more this is the case.

"Yes." Wayne nodded.

It is understandable that Warner Bros. wants to promote it in advance. The movie industry has always been full of wine and is afraid of being deep. Only by large-scale publicity and promotion can you get a higher box office.

Moreover, this is a heavy production with an investment of up to hundreds of millions of dollars. This investment-scale project is definitely the top-notch production in Hollywood in the 1990s.

If you invest hundreds of millions of dollars, you can basically not burn special effects, you can say that you can do anything. Moreover, this kind of investment project is almost the ceiling of this era, and there may not be one in a few years.

Don’t doubt Warner Bros.’s persistence in big investments, even many box office tragedies come from this company, because they know best that only large investment can bring high returns.

Think about Brian Singer's "Return of Superman". If it weren't for sure that there would be a big profit, Warner Bros. wouldn't have spent $270 million.

Although this video almost lost all Warner Bros.'s underwear, it can prove that this company likes big investments and big productions very much, and they have also tasted more sweetness.

The post-production work continues. According to the current work progress, Wayne also notified Warner Bros. that the video will be able to complete all productions by July.

The next day, Warner Bros. set the release schedule of "The Joker's Return" on the first weekend in September, and the next weekend was another movie adapted from Stephen King's masterpiece, "The Shawshank Redemption".

The media discussed this matter that day. It was also an adaptation of Stephen King's novel and was released in almost the same schedule, which left many topics worth discussing for the two films.

"Bang."

Nikki Marvin threw the newspaper on the table, and he understood why Warner Bros. did this. Morgan Freeman, as one of the leading actors of the film, was unable to leave the house for a short time.

This is definitely a major dark spot for "The Shawshank Redemption". Now, whenever this video is mentioned, it will inevitably be accompanied by the public's voice of swearing Morgan Freeman.
Chapter completed!