*Chapter 184: Are All These People Here for the Audition?!*

"Are you guys planning to go shopping later?"

"Yes, dear. Do you want to join us?"

"I'll pass. If I go, we won’t have to wait until tomorrow morning—tonight we'll be on the entertainment headlines."

"Then it’s just the few of us going. We also plan to check out the movie The Mummy Returns that came out a few days ago. I've heard it's pretty good."

After dinner, Mia and the others planned a shopping and movie outing with Charlize Theron, Lydia, and Amanda.

Seeing them getting along so well made Wayne feel very content.

"Okay, but don’t forget to take a bodyguard."

"Got it~"

Although Beverly Hills has excellent security and there hasn't been much trouble, Wayne still reminded them to take a bodyguard just in case.

"By the way, we've received dozens of investment proposals recently. If you have time, please review them so I can get back to them as soon as possible."

"Alright."

Wayne casually agreed without giving it much thought.

He first took a walk in the garden with Masami Nagasawa and the others, then returned to his study to continue working on his script.

As everyone knows, when women go shopping, they don't notice the toll it takes on their energy until they return home with bags in hand, only to suddenly realize they’re exhausted.

So, when Mia and the others returned around 11 p.m., they were all yawning from exhaustion, too tired to do much else.

This left Wayne, who had planned on spending some quality time with them, speechless and forced to shift his focus.

While being attended to by Masami Nagasawa and the others, he began reviewing the thick stack of project proposals.

"Black Water Megalodon... House of the Dead... Criminal Couple?"

"Damn!"

"What are these? I've never even heard of them!"

After flipping through a few proposals, Wayne couldn’t help but show a frustrated expression.

Even as someone who specialized in Hollywood film history, he had never heard of these titles, which indicated just how bad they were. Many of these films likely never even secured funding and were canceled early on.

Wayne was a bit annoyed.

Luckily, with Masami Nagasawa and the others helping him, he managed to keep his cool and continued to go through the proposals.

And to his surprise, he actually found a few promising ones.

For example, even though it only grossed $28.6 million, the publicly announced production and marketing costs were only $12.6 million for a seven-film series called Wrong Turn.

Then there was the Transporter trilogy starring Jason Statham, with each film earning more at the box office than the last.

But what surprised him the most was a classic disaster film called The Day After Tomorrow, written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich, who handled most of the work himself.

As the director of Independence Day, Roland Emmerich was already well-known in Hollywood, so many were eager to invest in his next disaster film.

However, The Day After Tomorrow had a steep production cost of $125 million, so Roland Emmerich was still seeking funding.

If history followed its original course, he might not secure the necessary funds until next year, with filming beginning late next year or early the following year.

This movie earned $544 million in global box office revenue in Wayne’s previous life. If conditions were right, Wayne would certainly be interested in investing.

But Wayne wasn’t sure if Roland Emmerich expected The Day After Tomorrow to earn as much as Independence Day, which grossed $817 million worldwide.

Emmerich was asking for a $20 million investment, in exchange for 10% of the box office revenue as a priority share, and the right to cast the female lead.

Based on a $544 million box office, a 10% share would be around $25 million.

Investing $20 million and waiting nearly three years to earn just $5 million, before taxes?

Is he taking me for a fool?

Of course, Roland Emmerich wasn’t actually trying to con Wayne; he just overestimated himself.

"The Day After Tomorrow is out; I'll grab his 2012 instead~"

Wayne thought to himself.

While 2012 might not be as classic as The Day After Tomorrow, its box office performance was much better.

Among Roland Emmerich’s films, only Independence Day earned more at the box office than 2012.

2012 also marked Emmerich’s last peak. After that, his films earned less and less at the box office.

Even Independence Day: Resurgence, which had a $200 million budget and used the classic Independence Day IP, only grossed $389 million worldwide.

The 2022 release Moonfall did even worse, with a pitiful $67 million, showing that both audiences and the industry had moved on.

With this in mind, Wayne sneered and, without even considering negotiating, tossed The Day After Tomorrow’s proposal aside and picked up the ones for The Transporter and Wrong Turn.

For Wrong Turn, they were offering him a deal to invest $5 million in exchange for 70% of the priority box office revenue and the right to cast all female roles.

This might seem like a great deal, but Wayne knew that the actual production cost for Wrong Turn was only about $2 million.

$5 million could easily cover the entire production and marketing costs!

However, the box office revenue share is only 70%. This means that the director and the distribution company don't have to invest a penny or take on any risk, yet they still get 30% of the box office revenue, along with the proceeds from subsequent DVD sales. That's a pretty sweet deal.

On the other hand, the terms for Transporter seem reasonable.

Luc Besson, who is both the screenwriter and producer, offered an $8 million investment, 50% of the box office share as a priority, plus the right to cast the female lead.

Based on his previous box office performance, the expected return would be around $22 million, with a 175% return on investment.

The only thing that made him hesitate was that the entire process, from preparation to release, would take about a year, which felt a bit long.

"Whatever, $8 million isn’t that much, and the female lead in this movie is Asian, anyway."

"As for Wrong Turn..."

Wayne thought for a moment.

Based on previous box office results, his $5 million investment could earn him around $9.8 million, with only a 96% return on investment.

There are supposed to be a lot of female characters, but actually, there are only three, and one of them gets killed off in the beginning in a very brutal way.

The only advantage is that the production cycle is short.

From preparation to completion, it would take only about three months.

After considering everything, he decided to give them a chance, offering a $3.5 million investment, 80% of the box office share, and the rights to any sequels.

If they don’t agree, he can just abandon this unimportant project.

After stretching lazily, Wayne, having taken care of these minor tasks, didn’t waste any more time. He pulled the kneeling Masami Nagasawa and Yuko Ogura up from the floor and led all four of them back to the bedroom.

Wayne certainly didn’t have any tender feelings for them.

And since all four of them had some masochistic tendencies, they "interacted" until around 4 AM.

Even after they finished, the four women couldn’t get out of bed until dinnertime and had to rely on other maids to feed them.

On the other hand, Wayne felt refreshed after breakfast and drove to the office with Mia and Hannah. On their way, they ran into Quentin, who was hiding in the break room, eating a sandwich and drinking coffee for breakfast.

"Hey, Quentin, it looks like you haven’t been sleeping well lately. Did you try the energy-boosting soup I recommended?"

Quentin, with his messy hair and dark circles under his eyes, and looking pale, resisted the urge to flip him off and rolled his eyes.

It's because he drank too much of that energy-boosting soup that his sleep quality is terrible!

In a way, that soup's "invigorating effect" was comparable to drinking seven or eight cups of strong coffee all at once in the middle of the night.

If you're as handsome as Wayne or Leo, it's no big deal.

But if you look like Quentin...

Even though Quentin had some money now, he planned to save it for his film Kill Bill to make it even better.

Spending money on finding a partner? He wasn't willing to do that at the moment.

Seeing Quentin's heavy resentment, Wayne decided to share some good news with him ahead of time.

But after hearing it, Quentin didn't show any joy. Instead, his eyes widened like saucers, and after a long minute of silence, he let out a deep breath, his chest heaving like an old bellows, and then he cursed hoarsely.

"Shit!"

"Are you the devil or something?!"

"$4.5 million? But the budget's going to be $160 million? How can I say no to that?!"

Wayne laughed heartily, patted his shoulder, and, without further disturbing his breakfast, left the break room with Mia and Hannah.

Afterward, Wayne first sat in Mia's office for a while and told her about the investment plans he had thought of the previous night. Then, when the time was right, he took Hannah to the audition site for Wedding Crashers.

Earlier, when selecting a director for this film, the candidates he had in mind were all available, so he ultimately chose Peter Farrelly, who had directed several blockbuster movies starring big names like Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, and Cameron Diaz.

Although Peter Farrelly's fee was the highest among all the candidates, the director is crucial to a movie, and Wayne, who wasn't short on money, naturally wanted to pick the best director possible.

Besides that, he only confirmed that Sarah Michelle Gellar would play the lead role of "Claire," and Isla Fisher, who played the same role in the original version, would reprise her role as "Gloria."

As for the male lead, although they contacted Vince Vaughn from the original, Wayne didn’t finalize anything or sign a contract with him, only inviting him to audition.

There were also many small roles with only a few seconds of screen time or a couple of lines.

Plus, the antagonist "William," and the father of the two female leads, "The Secretary," hadn’t been cast yet.

And most importantly, this movie would star Wayne himself, now a top A-list actor as popular as Tom Cruise.

Because of this, the number of people auditioning was even crazier than it was a few days ago for the American version of The Ring.

The waiting area looked like a crowded job fair in China, with people packed shoulder to shoulder, making it hard to move around. It seemed like there were at least 300 people there!

"Why are there so many?"

Wayne was surprised.

But he quickly realized that it was because of the script.

The movie was about two professional divorce lawyers— the male lead "John" and the second lead "Jeremy"—who had seen so many divorce cases that they no longer believed in love and became playboys.

But deep down, they still yearned for love; they just didn't realize it.

So, at Jeremy's suggestion, they started a fun game: pretending to be distant relatives of newlyweds, crashing weddings for free food and drinks.

At weddings, they would flirt with attractive women and try to hook up.

At their peak, they once attended 17 weddings in 17 consecutive days.

Even though not all 17 weddings would be shown in the film, several unique wedding scenes and some hooking up scenes would be filmed.

This meant that a lot of young, attractive actresses would be needed.

And in Hollywood, there’s no shortage of such actresses.

However, the male lead "John" was still relatively young, not as jaded as "Jeremy," who had been in the field longer and had seen more divorce cases, so he still held onto some romantic ideals.

During another wedding crash, he fell in love at first sight with the female lead, "Claire."

Meanwhile, "Jeremy" used his balloon tricks to quickly win over Claire's sister, "Gloria."

The rest of the story follows typical romantic comedy tropes.

The male lead "John," with his wit and charm, quickly wins Claire's heart.

But Claire already has a boyfriend.

She doesn’t really like him, though; she’s only with him because of a family arrangement.

Later, the antagonist "William" exposes John as a fraud, making Claire deeply disappointed.

But in the end, John’s heartfelt confession wins Claire back, and the charming underdog gets the girl.

Meanwhile, "Jeremy" initially just wanted to have fun with "Gloria."

But naive "Gloria" fell for the story he made up, and being naturally clingy, she actively pursued "Jeremy."

In the end, the sweet, romantic girl successfully wins over the middle-aged man.

The two couples live happily ever after, perfectly catering to the fantasies of both underdogs and middle-aged men.

So, even though the original movie had no big-name stars and the visuals were low-budget, with a claimed budget of $40 million that barely even reached $10 million, it still grossed an impressive $288 million, thanks to its charming storyline.

(The end of this chapter)