Birth of an actor

In front of William was a fairy tale book with a brightly colored cover. The upper half was in red, with the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" written in yellow fonts, and the lower half was In one illustration, a young man with black hair and round glasses is standing in front of the red train "Hogwarts Express" with a surprised expression.

The cover is hard leather, very textured, like those old books in the library. When you open the cover, the pages are made of light yellow paper, which feels a bit like a scroll, and the layout of the novel is also the same. Almost every There are special illustrations in every chapter, such as the chapter on The Boy Who Lived, in which an image of a baby sleeping peacefully on the doorstep is drawn on the page, and in the following chapters, Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape, etc. Both the characters and the Hogwarts map have illustrations that are very consistent with the text descriptions, very childlike, and very nostalgic.

However, this cover is a bit strange in William's memory. The cover illustration of the first edition of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in his memory seems to be different from the one in front of him, which uses a large area of ​​bright red, and the one used seems to be yellowish brown. Hue, and the cover of Harry Potter does not seem to be standing in front of the Hogwarts Express, but riding a broomstick flying in the sky?

Could it be that he remembered wrongly?Or because of the change of the publishing house, all kinds of things related to the "Harry Potter" series also have a little deviation?

——William didn't know at this time that the bright red book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in his hand was the real first edition. There are only 1997 copies of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" first published by Bloomsbury Publishing House in 2013, and one of these 15 copies was auctioned by Sotheby's in London in 23 At an auction held in the United States, it was sold for a high price of about [-] pounds (about [-] U.S. dollars).

And now Bloomsbury Publishing no longer owns the copyright of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", and Waddington Publishing will not only print [-] novels in the first edition, but the illustrator still chooses For the original one, the book cover was finally adopted the same one, which has to be said to be a coincidence of history.

William turned to the back of the book and found the biggest surprise and surprise since today. In the column of the publishing house, the words "Wadington Press" were impressively printed, not any other publishing house.

William couldn't help breathing fast, countless plans and ideas exploded in his head like fireworks, making him dizzy.

Lance looked at William with a smile, and the peacock blue eyes were not the usual cold light, but warm emotions: "Are you surprised, Will?"

"This is really, really great!" William couldn't help giving Lance a tight hug: "You did it! You really did it! How did you do it?"

Lance said lightly: "It's not difficult to cut off the beard before Bloomsbury Press and Joanna Rowling sign."

"Has the book been published? How much is the first printing? How much is the sales volume?" William scratched his hair angrily: "Sorry, after I left everything to you, I just went to filming selfishly, even "Harry Potter" The publication and sale of the book failed to catch up with—”

"Relax, Will, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" hasn't been officially published yet, and it's just in the distribution stage. After all, it's going to be launched simultaneously in the UK and the US, right? The scheduled sales date is Christmas , which is why I was going to leave it to you as a Christmas present."

Then Lance told William about the ins and outs from his signing with Joanna Rowling to the preparation of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for simultaneous sales in the United Kingdom and the United States——

Waddington Publishing, whose scale ranks second in the British publishing industry, originally had a branch in the United States because the boss changed to an American a few years ago. The Philosopher’s Stone and subsequent series of books must be launched simultaneously in the United Kingdom and the United States, so Waddington Publishing doubled the size of its branch in the United States at a very fast speed, and quickly settled the publication approval of the two countries. .

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was originally scheduled to be launched simultaneously on Halloween (November 11), but before printing, an editor in the US branch of the publishing house proposed the British version of the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" Philosopher It may be too obscure for American readers-although this word has two interpretations of philosopher and alchemist, in the United States, people generally only use the interpretation of "philosopher", and few people know that it has another meaning. One meaning "alchemist".

Think about it, as a book whose main audience is teenagers and children, if the title of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was misread as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher" when it was sold in the United States, it would be How big a disaster?Everyone knows how important a good beginning is to a novel, just as the best paragraph of "The Lover" is in the first chapter, the title of the book is the best beginning of a novel, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher" is so inexplicable The title of the book, let alone teenagers, even adults will not be interested in opening it, so the American branch suggested that the book should be changed to a more understandable title when it is published in the United States?

So the title of the book was changed again, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" - Sorcerer means a direct wizard and magician, this word is easier for American readers to understand - re-find an illustrator to draw the cover of the American version, interjection, and publish The date was pushed from Halloween to Thanksgiving (November 11), and finally decided to be Christmas.

Then, after the books had been printed, and the United Kingdom and the United States were simultaneously distributing goods and waiting for the official sale, Waddington Publishing House has not been idle. Not only did they not do any regular publicity, but they also purchased British books under Lance's suggestion. The full-page advertisement pages of "Daily Mail" and "USA Today" in the United States carry out additional publicity. The slogan calls "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" "the best fantasy novel in recent years, not only suitable for teenagers, Also suitable for adults to read".Now that the Internet media is still underdeveloped, paper media is still the most important publicity medium, and the publicity effect achieved is really good. The [-] copies of the book are already sold out, and a second edition is already in print.

The last thing is because of the strong backing of Joanna Rowling from Waddington Press (William: ...), Joanna Rowling's writing speed is amazing, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is still Unpublished, it is said that she has already written the first draft of the second book, and it will take at most two or three months to revise it before it can be scheduled for publication again.

When was the second book in the original "Harry Potter" series "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" published?At least after 1998, right?But now that the new year of 1997 has not yet arrived, the publication plan of "The Chamber of Secrets" has actually been completed.

After hearing this, William became a little numb: "How much does it cost to buy a full-page advertisement in a newspaper? What's more, national newspapers like "Daily Mail" and "USA Today" have such a big publicity campaign. The first edition of the novel is all sold out, can it really make a profit?"

"Profit from selling books?" Lance raised his eyebrows and said, "Do you still remember what you told me, Will, about making Harry Potter a movie? We don't plan to rely on selling books Isn't the real purpose of earning money to make the series famous as soon as possible, and then turn it into a movie?"

With such an idea, Lance is definitely not blindly following William’s words—although William’s advice is indeed important to him, the education and living habits he received since he was a child make Lance not do something meaningless to lose money. After reading Joanna Rowling's novel, he really thought it was a good book, and the keen intuition inherited from the Roderick family also told him to put this magical fairy tale novel on the big screen. An investment he won't regret.

Moreover, the most important thing is that the giant Roderick Industrial Group is too huge. As the largest unlisted company in the United States and even the world, the business of Roderick Industrial Group involves most of the fields in the United States. The government has received many orders for radar, engines, computers, and electronic equipment, ranging from military products, infrastructure, crude oil extraction, refining, trade, pipeline transportation, agriculture, financial services, and commercial electronics. More than [-] employees, and contracted projects in many countries in Asia, Africa, and South America...Hollywood is just not among them.

What better way to get past Tyler Roderick than to be at the top of a whole new field?At that time, he can say without showing any weakness in front of Tyler Roderick: "You just took over the family business from Roderick's ancestors, and no matter how hard you work, you can only keep them the same, and I, He is the one who expanded the group's territory."

——Lance has not explained this little selfishness to William, but Lance believes that William knows what he thinks, and also knows his ambitions, because Lance has never concealed this in front of William.

William thought publishing the "Harry Potter" series of books is not so unprofitable. Man, the total box office of seven books and eight movies seems to be $80 billion, but how much did the books sell?Before the death of William in his last life, the sales volume of the first "Sorcerer's Stone" in the "Harry Potter" series seems to have exceeded 5000 million, and the other six books have also sold at least [-] million copies, all of which are on the best-selling books in world history. The top [-] books on the list of books—this is the total historical sales volume that has been calculated since the publishing industry began. To occupy a position on this list, the author and his works can already be passed on to future generations, and even more so, they have been mentioned. · K. Rowling's seven books are all on the list of best-selling books in world history!

But William thought about it, and swallowed these words. Although he didn't mind that Lance knew more secrets about himself, some things would not have much effect if he said them now. He thought about it and said, "The movie must be made. ,but not now."

Lance raised his eyebrows and said, "If you want, Joanna Rowling will come to New York for an autograph sale on January 1. We can meet her in the past and discuss the filming of the first movie."

"It's too early to talk about making movies, Lance." William said with a wry smile, "We have no money, and no one—"

"We've got money," Lance said.

"Where's the money?"

"My fund." Lance did some calculations: "Excluding shares and fixed assets that may appreciate in the future, and excluding a part of operating funds, I can still use the money to set up a film company and make movies."

"Making "Harry Potter" is different from making ordinary movies, my friend." William explained with amusement and helplessness: "Movies with simple scripts and simple scenes can cost tens of thousands of dollars sometimes. Yes, and the production budget of high-level films is generally between several million to tens of millions. If "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is to be filmed, the cost will never stop at tens of millions. But it is tantamount to recreating a magical world that does not exist in reality on the screen..."

For Hollywood movies with sophisticated scripts, many scenes, exquisite costumes, and a strong director/actor lineup, it is very common to invest tens of millions of dollars in the early stage and then spend nothing. But unlike other types of movies, "Harry The "Porter" series will not only cost a lot of money and be difficult to shoot, but also consume unimaginable manpower and material resources.

For example, as a high-investment movie that consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, historical movies such as "Cleopatra" and "The Last Emperor" have quite a lot of historical documents to check, and you can also directly use props and costumes that exist in reality To use, "Alien", "Terminator" and other sci-fi horror movies, as long as the special effects are done well, other background scenes can also be completely copied from modern society. Although the "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" series can also be said It is to reshape another world on the screen, but as long as the big scenes such as spaceships, weapons, and space battles are done well, the characteristics and personalities of each alien race are sufficiently vivid and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and other details do not need to be so particular—because None of these movies have the original novels, so there will be no book fans pointing to the screen after the film is released and saying: "Hey, this scene/costume/style is wrong."

The "Harry Potter" series is different. There is a magical world here, but this magical world is not the magical world of the Middle Ages. Different from Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" series, Tolkien's novels follow the medieval style. Although the requirements for scenes, special effects, costumes, and actors are high, because of the ancient style, it can avoid a lot of trouble ——As for the wizarding world in "Harry Potter", it blends with modern society. Hard scenes such as Hogwarts, Quidditch pitches, and the Forbidden Forest need to be designed. Soft backgrounds such as clothing modeling, cultural traditions, and classroom teaching materials need to be designed, as well as the Daily Prophet, Magic Broom, Magic Bar, various shops in Diagon Alley, Gringotts, etc. Not only these major aspects, but even the Chocolate Frog Although small details such as magic cards, strange beans, and butter beer are described in words, isn't it very labor-intensive to restore them into real objects and then shoot them into movies with only a few lines of words?

And once the preparation work is not in place, it is impossible to shoot the film in the right taste, and it will be difficult to achieve success-this has not counted the most important soul of a film "how to find the actors that best match the spirit of the original work" Inside it.

After giving Lanskop the key aspects of filming "Harry Potter", William finally concluded: "I heard that [-]th Century Fox is planning to restart the "Star Wars" series, with an investment of about hundreds of millions of dollars. If magical novels like Potter want to be reproduced on the big screen in an authentic way, although the budget cannot be compared to that of "Titanic", it is estimated to be on the same level as "Star Wars."

And Lance, after listening to William's long speech, gave the answer: "No problem."

"……What did you say?"

Lansto replied with his chin: "I said that the amount of investment is no problem. We can first set up a film company. The sovereign is you and me. We jointly own it. The establishment and preparation of the company will probably take a few months. Shooting, if this is the fastest, it will be next year, no, the year after next—”

"Wait." William interrupted Lance: "Where did the money come from the registered company? And making movies, we're not talking about hundreds of thousands or millions, we're talking at least hundreds of millions—"

"I pay money, you pay people."

"But the sovereignty of the company is shared between you and me?"

"Yep."

"Do you think starting a company is doing charity, Lance? I will never allow you to do that."

"Why?" Lance said puzzledly: "Will, I don't want to say that mine is yours, although we both know that without you, there would be no me. However, since it is a company shared by you and me, the initial investment It doesn't matter whose money it is, or you can think of me as an angel investor."