Chapter 142: Two Invitations

Bright sunlight fell across the garden. Sitting at a small table beneath a palm tree, Tom Hanks closed the script in his hands and looked across at Eno Martin. Although CAA regulations technically made Martin just one of his co-managing agents, in Hanks's mind, only Eno Martin truly qualified as his agent.

"Eno, what do you think of this audition invitation?"

It was no secret in Hollywood that Duke Rosenberg and CAA had their share of friction and conflicts.

"Worried I might have a problem with it?" Eno Martin laughed. "Tom, I've never met Duke Rosenberg. We've never had any indirect contact, much less a conflict of interest. There's no bad blood between us. The ones with a grudge against Duke Rosenberg aren't the entirety of CAA, but the interest group represented by Martin Bob."

In truth, Tom Hanks knew that like all massive corporations, CAA was far from an internal monolith. The competition triggered by Michael Ovitz's departure had only intensified the company's internal conflicts. Eno Martin was Martin Bob's biggest rival, yet now he could only watch as the other man wielded absolute authority over CAA.

"Tom, a successful director needs outstanding actors, and outstanding actors need a successful director." Eno Martin showed no sign of objection. "Now that you have your School Faction acting awards, leaning toward commercial projects is no bad thing. Duke Rosenberg has proven himself to be one of Hollywood's best commercial directors, and a collaboration with him has a much higher chance of success."

"Won't Martin Bob make things difficult for you?"

The two of them had worked together for years and shared a genuine friendship, so Tom Hanks was still a little concerned. "He hinted before that we should try to avoid working with Duke Rosenberg."

"Tom, none of that is an issue for you or me." Eno Martin gently shook his head. "You are an Oscar Best Actor winner, and your latest film grossed over 300 million dollars at the North American box office. To you, CAA is merely a service tool. Don't forget, while Martin Bob has plenty of supporters, there are quite a few people backing me inside CAA as well."

Tom Hanks thought it over carefully for a moment. "Accept this audition invitation. Eno, I want you to negotiate a massive contract for me, a 1+2 or a 2+1!"

As a professional, Eno Martin naturally understood what Hanks meant. He nodded, stood up, and left.

Whether it was a 10-million-dollar base salary plus a 20 percent profit share, or a 20-million-dollar salary plus a 10 percent profit share, either was a super contract by any measure in Hollywood.

The news that Tom Hanks had accepted the audition invitation reached Ireland immediately. Although Duke was somewhat surprised that Hanks had agreed so readily, thinking about the actor's status in Hollywood helped him understand. For a star of Hanks's caliber, there was no way CAA could control his every move the way those materials Duke used to read online claimed.

It was safe to say that the CAA materials he had once read online were completely unreliable. According to those descriptions, CAA was essentially the puppet master of Hollywood, able to effortlessly manipulate the futures and fates of people like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, and Steven Spielberg. They could casually toss out a project, activate an idiot halo, and instantly obliterate the Big Six Hollywood Companies in minutes.

But what was the reality?

Anyone with a slightly clear head would understand that this was simply impossible. Otherwise, Michael Ovitz, hailed as the emperor of CAA, wouldn't have abandoned the empire he had painstakingly built to desperately scheme his way into Walt Disney.

Along with the acceptance, the asking price proposed by Tom Hanks's agent also reached Duke's ears—the intention for a 2+1 super contract.

Under normal circumstances, since Duke hadn't invested his own money, no matter how high Tom Hanks's salary was, it wouldn't impact his personal interests; it would only be a headache for the producers.

However, the film's production budget was only 80 million dollars. Hanks's 20-million-dollar salary, combined with Duke's own 10-million-dollar base pay, both had to be deducted from the production costs. Add in the expenses and fees for the rest of the cast and crew, and exactly how much filming budget would be left for him as the director?

Running out of production funds and needing to request an additional budget was a very, very troublesome affair. If the crew ran out of money in the future, would they expect him, the director, to slash his own salary and pay out of pocket?

There was a famous saying among Hollywood directors—never use your own money to shoot a movie you are directing. While it didn't completely apply to someone with Duke's unique background, it perfectly suited the current situation.

Regardless of how the co-producers might react, Duke definitely would not agree to the proposed contract Tom Hanks's side was asking for.

Inviting Tom Hanks to audition was one thing, but allowing the actor to indirectly clash with his interests was another matter entirely.

Fortunately, this was only a proposed contract, and there was still room for both sides to negotiate. The specific bargaining wouldn't begin until after Tom Hanks's audition anyway. If the other party refused to make concessions when the time came, Duke would have no choice but to apologize and walk away.

"You were the one who suggested inviting Tom Hanks to audition."

Standing in the clearing of the set, Sofia Coppola spoke, her flat, nasal voice laced with sarcasm. "Yet now you're worried that his massive salary will squeeze your filming budget. Duke, have you been spending so much time with Scarlett that your IQ is regressing?"

"I thought Hanks's agent would pitch an initial contract with a low base salary and a high backend split." Used to Sofia's tone, Duke shook his head. "If that were the case, it would be Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox having the headache. It wouldn't have much to do with us."

"Keep having your headache, then." Sofia turned and walked away. "I still have work to do."

Detailed preparation work was handled by professionals like Sofia Coppola, while Duke focused more on managing the overall picture. The crew had been in Dublin for a few days now, and they had chosen a massive set on the outskirts of the city as their filming location.

While it was called a set, aside from a few rather dilapidated soundstages, it was mostly just vast stretches of wasteland. After all, Ireland wasn't a regular on-location destination for Hollywood, and very few production crews ever came here to shoot.

However, this once-empty and desolate set was incredibly busy now. Not only had the Saving Private Ryan crew moved in, but another Hollywood production team had also selected this place as their primary shooting location.

On his first day at the set, Duke figured out the makeup of that other crew. He wasn't sure if it was a stroke of luck or misfortune, but the other party was a package project put together by CAA for Paramount Pictures—Braveheart, directed by Mel Gibson!

He even heard that his old acquaintance, Sean Connery, was on their crew...

But thinking back on it, Duke didn't find it strange. He had some memories of this famous film. It seemed that the majority of its scenes were shot in Ireland, and the Irish Military had even provided troops to assist Mel Gibson with the filming. Besides, judging by the timeline, Braveheart was certainly due for its pre-production phase.

He must have been the one who rushed over with a massive entourage, crashing headlong into the Braveheart crew that was already here.

Of course, Duke had no intention of changing filming locations. Moving to a new exterior set would inevitably incur a massive expense, and he had no reason or need to hide from CAA's packaged project. In their previous two clashes, he had been the victor.

If anyone was going to hide, it should be them hiding from him!

But that was merely Duke's personal thought; Braveheart certainly wasn't going to relocate. After all, many of their medieval sets were already being built not far from there.

There was a fair bit of distance between their respective shooting areas. As long as no one deliberately tried to stir up trouble, the chances of a conflict occurring were extremely slim.

Moreover, the schedule for Saving Private Ryan was incredibly tight, and Duke didn't have the leisure time to deal with people from CAA.

As he stood there watching for a while, set decorator Hannah Serena was leading a team on a site survey not far away. They were planning to use a drainage ditch that ran through the set to construct a small town destroyed by war. Building a set like this required an enormous amount of work, so they were given top priority in the pre-production schedule.

According to Serena's plans, this town—which would be used to film the final battle—would be difficult to finish by the time principal photography began. As a result, those scenes would have to be shot relatively late in the production.

Aside from this location, the set design team had a massive amount of work to do elsewhere. After Duke led people to survey several beaches along the west coast of Ireland, they still needed to dress one of those beaches up to look as much like Omaha Beach as possible, allowing the crew to shoot the film's opening landing battle.

Over the following days, actors arrived at the set in a steady stream from America, Britain, and other places to participate in the crew's first round of auditions. Duke did not attend this first round, leaving the minor roles entirely to the casting director. The important roles still required a second audition, and Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio—who had been personally invited by him—wouldn't be arriving for a few more days.

Aside from coordinating and reviewing the pre-production work, Duke also made a phone call to Lieutenant Colonel Lenho at the Pentagon, hoping to secure the support of the Marine Corps. Since the two sides had enjoyed two pleasant collaborations in the past, and the crew was going to pay the appropriate compensation, the Pentagon quickly agreed. Not only would they dispatch active-duty officers to train the actors, but they would also send over several amphibious warfare experts to guide the crew in filming the beach landing assault.

This was not a sci-fi movie or some other type of military action film, but a war film with a distinctly realistic nature. The military's involvement was absolutely necessary.

This was also an important reason why Duke chose to shoot in Ireland. The Irish government had promised to dispatch around 800 soldiers to participate in the filming.

None of the tax incentives or other policies offered by the Irish government were as attractive to Duke as this one condition. The main cast could embody a military aura through a certain period of training, but that wasn't feasible for such a massive number of extras. Setting aside the costs involved, the sheer volume of explosive scenes could easily cause some of the extras to panic and create a cascade of problems.

Having professional soldiers act as extras was truly the best option.

The people who went looking for Tiger Tanks also arrived in Ireland, but they hadn't managed to find any suitable ones. The few that still existed were treasured artifacts in military museums, and borrowing them was simply too difficult.

Following Duke's instructions, that executive producer went straight to Russia and bought three Old Soviet-Style T-34 Tanks at incredibly low prices from bureaucrats who were practically itching to sell off their entire country.