Chapter 327: Grim Reaper #

In late April, Firefly’s three movie projects were launched almost simultaneously, and their release schedules were all set for this year’s summer season. This move goes against the normal release cycle of many movies, after all, in this day and age, many Hollywood movies take several months to over a year to be released after production is completed. Therefore, many media outlets questioned Eric’s arrangement.

However, Eric did not respond to these comments because Firefly operates very differently from the seven major movie companies.

After all, Firefly is still much smaller compared to the massive seven, and for major movie companies that have to arrange the release plans for dozens of movies a year, there will of course be some movies that are repeatedly delayed due to various conflicts. But Firefly is different.

After merging with New Line, Robert Shaye suspended New Line’s low-cost film production plans. Therefore, Firefly only has three movie release plans to arrange in the first half of the year, including “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Sleeping with the Enemy,” and “Ghost.”

“Basic Instinct” is distributed by Universal, so Firefly doesn’t have to worry about it, and “Ghost” is still co-produced and distributed with Disney. In this case, Firefly’s release pressure is even smaller, and it’s easier to operate. Almost at the same time as making the movie, simple promotional work can begin.

By the time the movie is released, the promotion has actually been going on for three months. Compared to many movies from major movie companies that only have one month of promotion time, Firefly’s promotion is already very sufficient.

At the same time the movie was being filmed, Eric’s book “The Matrix” with only a little over 50,000 words was quietly put on sale, and Michael Klaus hardly spent any effort on promoting it. This book easily climbed to the top of the bestseller list.

This was followed by a lot of skepticism. After all, the book was written too hastily. Eric only spent a little over a week’s free time on it, and many details were not fully considered, making it more like telling many seemingly false segments.

Therefore, many newspapers criticized Eric’s book for having a clever idea, but being completely shoddy in detail, simply fooling readers, and even some newspapers criticized Eric for being just trying to make money. Even readers who don’t like the book laugh at such opinions. With Eric’s current wealth, how could he be interested in insignificant royalty income?

Of course, many people in Hollywood are aware of Eric’s true purpose in writing this book. Compared to his previous works such as Jurassic Park and Resident Evil, this novella is clearly geared towards a movie adaptation. After careful examination of the novella, many people also realized the huge potential for The Matrix in the film industry.

Despite knowing the slim chances, people continue to reach out to acquire the film rights. Even Cameron, who was preparing for Terminator 2 at the time, expressed a strong interest in The Matrix and called Eric to discuss some of his thoughts on the film.

However, Cameron wisely did not bring up the topic of acquiring the film rights, and Eric did not consider handing over The Matrix to Cameron to direct, despite the tempting and interesting idea. The Matrix and Cameron’s film style have significant differences.

While Cameron’s films contain some thought-provoking elements, such as the Terminator series expressing a strong concern for human’s endless expansion of nuclear armaments, and Avatar, which tells the story of the Na’vi people protecting Pandora against humans’ endless exploitation of natural resources, ultimately facing strong counterattacks from nature, his films have always pursued the most gorgeous visual effects and most explosive action scenes, which are not the main focus of The Matrix.

The Matrix phenomenon continues to persist, and Eric has not been influenced by any external opinions. The filming of “Ghost” is proceeding smoothly in various districts of New York.

“Stan, the Grim Reaper I need is the real one, the one wearing a black cloak and carrying a scythe, not a few blurry shadows. But according to what you said, the final effect is likely to be just a few blurry shadows.”

Night has just fallen in the closed-off street in New York, where the crew is busy preparing for the filming. Eric and Stan Winston, who is responsible for the special effects, are discussing something.

“By the way, speaking of shadows, it’s a big problem. Sam has become a ghost, so according to common sense, he shouldn’t have any shadows or footsteps when walking. The footsteps are easy to solve, but what about the shadows?”

After thinking for a moment, Stan Winston said, “This is easy. We’ll use a shadowless light and then adjust the lighting in post-production. However, filming like this will be very troublesome.”

“I’m not afraid of trouble, as long as I can handle the details well,” Eric decisively said.

At this moment, the set designer in charge walked over and told Eric that everything had been arranged.

Several temporary actors wearing blue bodysuits arrived in front of Eric and Stan Winston. These people were supposed to be the frightening “Grim Reapers” in the movie, but they didn’t look scary at all, and instead seemed a bit comical.

Stan Winston and Eric personally inspected the costumes of the temporary actors and said, “Eric, I don’t think the Grim Reapers need to be too realistic. If they’re too realistic, it’ll become a horror movie. So a few dark shadows are just right.”

“No, Stan, I mean a realistic effect, not a horror effect.”

“If the Grim Reapers are too realistic, wouldn’t that be terrifying?” Stan Winston asked, somewhat confrontational.

Eric shrugged helplessly. “You just need to do it according to the effect I want. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Okay, as you wish. Actually, this has to do with post-production rendering. The digital rendering farm isn’t set up yet.”

“Then use Pixar’s. They have a ready-made rendering farm, although it’s used for rendering 3D animations. But I remember the principles are similar. Talk to John Lasseter over there. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll rent from Industrial Light & Magic.”

After Eric and Stan Winston finished inspecting the few background Grim Reaper actors, they made an “OK” gesture to the assistant director and the shooting resumed