Chapter 449: Multiple-Choice Question

Chapter 449: Chapter 449: Multiple-Choice Question

As the awards ceremony at the Kodak Theatre came to a close, the news that Brokeback Mountain had swept four major awards—Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Director, and Best Picture—swept through the North American internet like a storm.

Just hours after the live broadcast of the awards ended, major film forums, social message boards, and news portals were entirely occupied by related content.

Countless film fans, unable to suppress their inner excitement, spontaneously celebrated online, with "Well-deserved" comments blanketing the web.

Originally a small-scale release limited to art house cinemas, the film, riding on the tremendous momentum of the Oscar, sparked strong viewing interest among a large number of ordinary audiences; cinemas everywhere received a steady stream of audience inquiries, and theatre chains quickly decided to expand the screening scale.

Countless viewers flocked to the cinemas over the weekend, eager to witness firsthand the work that conquered the Oscar.

Theatre data continued to climb daily, the North American box office steadily rose, and in less than half a month, the global box office of Brokeback Mountain smoothly broke the 100 million US dollar mark.

At the same time, "Brokeback Mountain" became a trending keyword sweeping the entire internet; whether in film review columns, talk shows, or ordinary people’s daily small talk, everyone could not avoid this movie.

A large number of discussions, analytical articles, and edited short clips derived across the network, and dialogue lines and screenshot frames continued to circulate on the internet.

Even though there were still quite a few viewers who could not accept the film’s theme and publicly expressed negative views, it could not stop the film’s dissemination wave in the slightest.

A literary-leaning Western love story completely stepped out of the niche circle and turned into a nationwide cultural topic.

This victory belonging to Brokeback Mountain also elevated Echo Pictures’ reputation in Hollywood to a new level.

Having successively created box office hits and Oscar-winning works, Irene Coppola’s voice and influence continued to rise; many capitals and partners actively extended olive branches to Echo Pictures, and the advancement speed of various negotiation projects noticeably accelerated.

Several core plans piled on Irene’s desk welcomed a rare advancement window period.

Chief among them was the long-stalemated acquisition negotiation for Lucasfilm.

After multiple rounds of business consultations, George Lucas’s team finally relented, initially accepting the complete payment plan proposed by Echo Pictures: 500 million US dollars in cash for immediate delivery, 1 billion US dollars paid in instalments year by year, and the remaining 1.5 billion US dollars settled by exchanging equities of Future World Pictures and Facebook.

The framework agreement was basically finalised, leaving only various equity valuations, exchange ratios, and additional binding clauses for both legal teams to repeatedly check and continuously negotiate.

Irene arranged for Jean Williams to take the lead in forming a special negotiation team to continuously follow up and steadily promote the landing of the acquisition.

Once the transaction was completed, Echo Pictures would hold the complete IP of Star Wars and the Industrial Light & Magic special effects studio in its hands. By then, taking advantage of the momentum to launch a brand new sequel to Star Wars, a complete super IP would be entirely in Irene’s grasp—and that would be the moment Irene officially declared "war" on The Big Six Studios.

On the other side, the preparation progress of the crew for The Pursuit of Happyness, which had been prepared for a long time, also noticeably accelerated.

After the leading actor was confirmed later, Will Smith’s attitude towards the project was not very positive, probably wanting to put on airs to vie for more voice and influence. Meanwhile, Irene handled it with a cold shoulder; anyway, the contract was signed, the movie would be shot sooner or later, and the start time would latest not exceed May.

But the success of Brokeback Mountain made Will’s attitude completely change. He even urged the crew’s setup work more actively than Irene, and his cooperation level visibly improved.

Whether it was costume fittings, script readings, or on-site location scouting, he would arrive at the scene ahead of time, actively communicating character understanding with the creators and repeatedly polishing character details.

Irene watched all this with a cold eye and saw it very clearly.

Will Smith dreamed of an Oscar statuette for Best Actor. The inspirational story adapted from reality in The Pursuit of Happyness and the persona of a struggling grassroots small character moving upwards perfectly matched the Academy judges’ aesthetic preference for real-life biographical themes, making it his best opportunity to impact the Best Actor award.

Will and his management team behind him naturally pinned their hopes on using this film to stand on the highest stage of the awards season.

It was just that Irene’s heart was very clear; Hollywood’s Oscar had potential unwritten rules that outsiders rarely knew.

The Academy judging panel would deliberately avoid resources continuously concentrating in the hands of the same Producer and the same batch of creative teams.

At the just-concluded 77th Oscar, Brokeback Mountain had already swept the two highest awards of Best Picture and Best Director, reaping huge attention.

In a short period of time, the judges were extremely prone to aesthetic fatigue. At least in the next Oscar selection, if the films launched by Echo Pictures wanted to win heavyweight awards again, the difficulty would increase exponentially.

Irene did not choose to pour cold water to strike Will’s confidence; dreams and expectations were the most important driving forces supporting actors to immerse themselves in performance.

What was more, whether winning an award or not was not up to Irene to decide, but the hope of a nomination was still quite large. She arranged for Vera to tactfully convey the industry status quo to Will’s agent Jay Shapiro at an appropriate time.

But obviously, Will Smith’s team still harboured expectations and were unwilling to easily give up this opportunity to vie for the Oscar; even getting a nomination was a huge success for them, so everyone still exerted all their strength to fully prepare for the film’s shooting.

Everything seemed to be moving forward methodically, but an accident quietly occurred less than three weeks away from the official start of shooting.

The crew’s casting director successively sent news that several supporting actors who had already finalised contracts and were ready to join the crew to participate turned in temporary resignations citing reasons such as family members’ physical discomfort, schedule conflicts, and personal planning changes.

Receiving the news, Irene was slightly surprised.

Nowadays, Echo Pictures was riding high with momentum, and countless actors broke their heads trying to fight for the opportunity to cooperate with her. Being able to get the crew’s invitation was a rare stepping board for quite a few second-tier and third-tier actors. Having finalised cooperation yet backing out at the last minute—this situation was extremely rare in her career experience.

After brief contemplation, Irene quickly calmed her mind.

All those who resigned were supporting roles with limited screen time. As long as sufficient time was set aside to re-screen actors, it would not cause a fundamental impact on the overall shooting schedule.

As long as the core leading actor Will Smith could join the crew on schedule as agreed, the shooting of the entire film would not face a major crisis.

She instructed the casting team to immediately expand the search scope, re-scout suitable candidates, and give priority to ensuring that the start time was not disturbed.

At this time, she had not yet associated that this concentrated occurrence of supporting roles resigning was just the first chess piece released by opponents in a secret layout.

At the same time, Will Smith was also standing in front of a difficult multiple-choice question.