Hollywood (我就是好莱坞) Part I

Chapter 130 - Little favors Part 1,2

PART  1

Johnnie To is one of the few Hong Kong film directors who Eric likes the most, because of the big success of 《A Better Tomorrow》 a film made by John Woo in the year 1986. Most people only think of John Woo when they see Chinese action films with that kind of violent aesthetics, but Eric prefers Johnnie To distinctive personal style, his movies have their own blend of cold, violent, tragedy, philosophy and other elements that evoke pity or sadness.

《Running Out of Time》is one of the few films made by Johnnie To that impressed Eric the most, if you Judged the film from the perspective of the ordinary audience, then the word that will appear the most is definitely the word: Cool! That's the main reason why Eric chose this movie.

This was a bold attempt by Eric, he wanted to see if a movie that didn't exist in Hollywood history can succeed.

From his memories, he found that the copyrights for most of the films that were able to succeed in the next ten years were already sold to other studios, taking those films from the hands of those big giants is almost impossible. Especially if they know that Eric himself is looking for those movies, and the film that hasn't been sold yet are hard to find, if he keeps shooting films at his current pace, in a year or two he wouldn't find any thing to shoot.

Of course, this is a fairly safe attempt, first of all, 《Running Out of Time》 have a very exciting story, and the film also received Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks recognition, which shows that there is no difference in the taste of the eastern and the Western tastes audience.

Second, The name recognition of the two Toms and Eric, can guaranty that the film will do good at the box office, at least at the start there won't be any problems. According to the Columbia data Department, with Tom Cruise popularity once again reaching a higher peak after experiencing the success of 《Rain Man》, and Tom Hanks just getting nominated for the best actor at the Oscar for his role in 《Big》. Plus the box office appeal of Eric's name, it was very easy for the film to get more than $100 million dollars at the box office.

On April 5, in a large studio owned by Columbia, Eric

officially started shooting 《Running Out of Time》, the first things he was going to shoot is a series of indoor scenes, but this time Eric wasn't going to shoot the scenes in a chronological order like he did in 《Pretty Woman》.

In 《Running Out of Time》 the image of the two protagonists is very clear, so he decided not to add any changes. As long as the actors can successfully do their role, no matter from which scene he began shooting he wouldn't have any problems. So Eric decided to start from the simplest to the most complex.

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In an examination room, Cruise who plays Andy learned that his condition has gotten worse, so as he slowly wore his clothes he asked the doctor.

"How long?"

"Four weeks, if you start bleeding, you will die at any time." The fat doctor who was sitting behind a desk replied with a hoa.r.s.e voice.

Andy didn't stop dressing when he heard the bad news, and after he fastened his belt, he handed a dozen banknotes to the doctor and said: "It does not matter, just give me four weeks of painkillers."

Taking the bottle of painkillers, Andy put on his coat and decided to leave, as he opened the door the doctor who seemed sad said: "I don't think we'll meet again."

"Maybe in the next life," Andy calmly replied.

"Pause!"

This scene was completely finished, when Eric shouted pause, he didn't say 'good' which means that something wasn't right, sitting behind the monitor, a slight frown appeared on his face as he was thinking about something. Although he has been discharged from the hospital, Eric still had bandages wrapped around him, and he will occasionally get a headache, but after getting inspected several times, the doctor found no problems, so he wasn't nervous about it.