Chapter 30: cousin

Watching Sofia send Monica Bellucci away, Helen adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on her face and said, "Very good candidate."

Naturally, Helen's careful thinking couldn't be hidden from Ryan. An actor who is about to return to Italy has a relationship with his agent, so it's not difficult to win him over with Helen's means.

"It's really good."

"It's a pity that there are limited scenes for the heroine in the film, so compared to the heroine, the choice of the hero is the key."

"Helen, do you have any good candidates to recommend!"

Ryan changed his voice and suddenly asked Helen.

Helen glanced at the work records on the table and said, "Didn't Sophia already arrange for the actor to audition?"

Ryan shook his head and said, "It's true that Sophia arranged for an actor to audition, but I'm not very satisfied with the candidate."

Some of the actor candidates arranged by Sofia for the audition are from actors under the Star Brokerage Company, and some are from the actors' union. There are a lot of them.

However, he was not very satisfied.

The heroine in the film can be a beautiful vase, while the hero needs good acting skills.

"The suitable candidates I can recommend are all on the audition list."

Helen glanced in the direction of the door and saw that Sophia hadn't come back, so she continued, "You shouldn't ask me, but you should ask Sophia."

Before Ryan could react, she continued, "The Coppola family is not just directors."

"You mean Nicolas Cage, Sophia's cousin?" Ryan immediately realized.

Sophia's cousin is none other than future box office poison Nicolas Cage.

"Okay, it's time for lunch. After lunch is over, you can talk to Sophia in person." After speaking, Helen stood up and walked outside.

She has one more important thing than the Nicolas Cage just mentioned.

"Nicolas Cage is a good candidate." Ryan said to himself.

After lunch, Ryan called Sophia into the office to talk about Nicholas Cage.

"I heard that Nicholas Cage is your cousin?" Ryan asked knowingly.

Sofia Coppola frowned. After a few days of contact, she already knew Ryan's character very well, and she would never ask silly questions for no reason, unless it was related to filming.

"You want me to send him an audition invite?"

"I advise you not to waste your time in vain, he will not accept a horror film."

"Besides, his salary is definitely beyond your budget."

Since "Wild at Heart" was released and won the Palme d'Or at the 43rd Cannes Film Festival, Nicholas Cage has made some fame, there is no shortage of scripts, and the salary has also increased.

"I just want you to send him an invitation for an audition. As for how to convince him and the budget, I will solve it myself."

"I guess as a cousin, he wouldn't say no to your audition invitation anyway," Ryan said half-jokingly.

American society also pays attention to human relations, not to mention that Nicholas Cage is also a member of the Coppola family, the nephew of director Coppola, and he has naturally been taken care of by director Coppola, such as the role in the film "Betta Fish".

Even though Nicholas Cage had been reduced to box office poison in his previous life, he was still taken care of by Sophia, who had already achieved fame.

It can be seen that the relationship between the two cousins ​​has always been good.

Sofia Coppola couldn't believe his ears, he tried to use himself to send out audition invitations!

However, she still agreed, anyway, it was just an invitation to audition.

"Well, I can try, but I can't guarantee that he will accept it, and in terms of salary, even if he is my cousin, I can't do anything."

Favors are favors, and work is work. Although they can be confused occasionally, once money is involved, they can only be done in business.

Hollywood seldom sees actors lowering their salary to appear in it, unless it is an art film for the sake of winning awards.

Sofia Coppola sent her cousin an audition invite and made a phone call herself.

After receiving Sofia's call, Nicholas Cage was speechless for a while. He just greeted Sofia for Monica, but why did he send him an audition invitation instead?

But I couldn't refuse, no matter what the script was, I had to find time to go to an audition.

Just as Ryan thought, the relationship between Nicholas Cage and Sophia has always been good, and Sophia's father took care of him a lot, so he couldn't refuse anyway.

"Sophia's phone?" The agent who just walked in asked a little surprised.

"Well, she sent me an audition invitation, and I have already accepted it. It seems to be a horror movie." Nicholas Cage didn't hide anything.

"Since it's Sophia's invitation to audition, you should go there. As long as you think the script is suitable, you can agree to it."

Naturally, the agent would not let him refuse an opportunity to deepen the relationship with members of the Coppola family.

It is true that Nicolas Cage is a member of the Coppola family, but he is only the nephew of Coppola's director, and his degree of intimacy is far inferior to that of Sofia Coppola, who is his daughter.

The last work directed by Coppola, the fantasy horror film "Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombies", has a global box office of more than 200 million US dollars, an astonishing figure.

Perhaps Nicolas Cage would have some resistance to a horror film, but as an agent, he has no resistance at all. "Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombie" is also a horror film, but its global box office has exceeded 200 million US dollars.

Nicholas Cage didn't say much. It might be a good experience to cooperate with Monica Bellucci.

Of course, if there is no Sophia, maybe it will be more pleasant.

The next morning, Ryan asked Sofia to notify the other actors who came to the audition to move the time to the next afternoon.

The reason is simple, today Nicholas Cage will come to audition.

At around nine o'clock in the morning, Nicholas Cage appeared downstairs in the office on time.

The Nicolas Cage in front of him should be said to be a younger version. Even though he is thirty years old, he still looks very young, far less mature and full of charm than his previous life.

According to his appearance, he is not very outstanding in Hollywood, but it can be remembered at a glance that he is Nicolas Cage.

Even if the Nicolas Cage in front of him lacks the charm accumulated over time, he is still outstanding enough to be qualified for the role in "Saw".

The most important point is that Ryan is very clear that the current Nicolas Cage is far from reaching the peak of his career. Next, he will shine in Hollywood and become an out-and-out box office star.

The only thing that makes him a little embarrassed is probably the salary.

Nicholas Cage put down the script in his hand, glanced at the expressionless Sophia, and said, "Very interesting script."

"It doesn't look as elegant and luxurious as "Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombies", but it is full of horror. It seems that when you close your eyes, countless **** images will appear in your mind."

"It's just that I don't understand why Sophia is interested in a horror script!"

He knows Sophia very well, a typical literary girl, no matter how you look at it, she will not be an assistant to a horror director.

With the contacts owned by the Coppola family and their status in the independent film circle, Sofia can definitely enter any crew.

Even for some commercial film crews with huge investment, there is no difficulty.

"Why can't I be interested?"

"Just because it's a horror movie!"

Sofia Coppola said unceremoniously: "The end of art will always be commerce. I just got acquainted with it in advance."

She has watched art films clearly since she was a child. Is there any art film director who doesn't want to see his works sell well at the box office?

Including her father, all directors are nothing more than pursuing more profits and fame.

"Sophia, you are still the same as before."

Nicolas Cage rolled his eyes, he didn't want to argue with a literary girl.

In his eyes, Sophia is a literary girl, even a problem girl.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have just become famous in Hollywood, but because of a Golden Raspberry Award and the cynicism of the media, he would end his acting career in a fit of anger.

"Director Ryan, I'm very interested in the characters in the script. You can ask Sophia to discuss specific matters with my agent."

After finishing speaking, Nicholas Cage closed the script, glanced at Sophia, and said, "I'm very happy to work with you."

Apparently he was speaking to Sophia, not Ryan.

Ryan didn't expect things to be so easy, so he was somewhat surprised.

All things equal, any director wants to work with a guaranteed actor, and so does Ryan.

In fact, Ryan doesn't know that the current Nicolas Cage is far from smooth as he and Sophia imagined.

"Wild at Heart" won the Palme d'Or at the 43rd Cannes Film Festival in 1990. As the protagonist in the film, it can be said that Nicolas Cage will soon become famous.

However, things were far from as good as imagined. At the trial screening of "Wild at Heart", 300 of the 350 spectators left.

The market response after the film was released was not good, and critics and audiences gave mixed reviews to the film directed by David Lynch.

In the next few years, almost all of the films starring Nicholas Cage were made at low cost.

The only "Honeymoon in Vegas" with a relatively large investment made him nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical Comedy.

Of course, the box office of "Honeymoon in Vegas" was not a big success. The cost of the film was as high as 25 million U.S. dollars, but the North American box office was only 7.1 million U.S. dollars, and the global box office was only 35 million U.S. dollars.

It may be difficult for UU Reading www.uukanshu.com to recover the investment cost of the film, and it will take a long time.

"The First Lady's Bodyguard," which was released in March, was even more like a basin of cold water falling from the sky. The investment cost of the film was as high as 20 million US dollars.

But the North American box office of the film was only 7 million U.S. dollars, and the global box office was only a little over 27 million U.S. dollars. It hit the street again.

Even if you count the distribution rights of offline videotapes, the first-round broadcast rights of TV stations, etc., it is still difficult to recover the investment cost.

Therefore, facing the absolute protagonist in a film, even if the investment is small and it is a horror film, he will not easily refuse it.

After all, the previous horror film "Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombies" was a great success, and it was Sophia who personally sent the audition invitation.

According to past experience, generally speaking, the shooting time of such a small-budget independent film will be very short, not many days.

According to the trajectory of his previous life, his next two films released this year, "A Tale of Allure" and "Trouble in Heaven".

The former "Tale of Allure" only grossed US$8.1 million at the North American box office and US$37 million at the global box office, and the cost of the film was as high as US$20 million. Even with the various offline copyright income, it can barely recover the cost at best.

The latter's "Trouble in Heaven" has a North American box office of just over US$2 million and a global box office of just over US$6 million.

Until the low-cost film "Leaving Las Vegas" released next year, he dropped his salary to join the crew, won the Academy Award for Best Actor in one fell swoop, and became an Oscar winner.

The film investment is only 4 million US dollars, and the global box office is as high as 49.8 million US dollars, making the investment company a lot of money.

This is the time to turn, and start to change in the direction of an action superstar.