Chapter 516: Batman Reboot

Saving the Batman films would be no easy task. The terrible experience Joel Schumacher had delivered with Batman and Robin still lingered in the minds of many viewers. This was bound to damage their confidence in the franchise, leading them to wait and see—or even abandon the new Batman movie entirely—when it premiered.

Forging the glory of a film franchise required immense sacrifice from countless people, but destroying a successful series only took a single terrible movie.

If Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever could still be considered a commercial success, his subsequent works, starting with Batman and Robin and including The Phone Booth, had performed abysmally at the box office.

Strictly speaking, at the start of the new series, Duke's most important task—aside from establishing Batman's origins—was cleaning up the mess Joel Schumacher had left behind.

Duke drove an electric cart along the roads of Warner Studios. Passing the rear exit of the Warner Building, he hit the brakes. He waited for about five minutes until the rapid clatter of high heels rang out. Tina Fey walked out of the building, climbed into the cart, and leaned heavily against her seat.

Starting the cart, Duke drove toward the soundstages.

"How did the negotiations go?" he asked.

Tina Fey grabbed a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip before replying. "Warner agreed to the 140 million budget you proposed. Nancy also finalized your personal compensation: a 15 million base salary, a tiered box office cut capped at twenty percent, and a 7.5 percent share of merchandising revenue."

This was already a top-tier director's contract in Hollywood. Duke had no objections, so he asked about the other matter.

"What about the acquisition talks?"

"The disagreement between Warner Brothers and us is the price. Doug Walter agreed to our terms in principle, but..." Tina Fey shrugged. "Time Warner Group has concerns about our supplementary clause regarding Pixar Studio."

"Then just keep negotiating," Duke said, not anxious in the slightest.

"Warner also asked about the release date for the new Batman," Tina Fey added. "They want to know roughly when you'll be finished."

Duke thought about it for a moment. "If all goes smoothly, we should make next year's Summer Season."

The electric cart rolled past a flat outdoor lot and stopped in front of Soundstage 17. Duke hopped out. Together with Tina Fey, he entered the soundstage and headed toward the temporary office area on the left.

This was the base for Underworld. The film had officially been greenlit last weekend. People constantly came and went through the soundstage, clearly in the middle of recruiting crew and casting actors.

"Hello, Director Rosenberg."

A tall woman walking toward them suddenly greeted him. Duke nodded at her.

"Hello, Miss Beckinsale."

Duke merely exchanged pleasantries and had no intention of saying more. Following their collaboration at the end of the century, the two had long since become strangers.

In the report submitted by Wallace Lee, Kate Beckinsale was the top choice for the female lead.

The British actress had experienced a turbulent few years of extreme ups and downs. She had served as the female lead in two massive blockbusters—Pearl Harbor and the recently released Van Helsing—yet the reception had been mediocre. Dragged down by those films, her standing in Michael Ovitz's eyes had plummeted.

She had once fired Nancy Josephson, but a few months ago, she had chosen to return to ICM.

For a role as important as the female lead, director Wallace Lee had no final say. He proposed Kate Beckinsale, and thinking of the former female vampire, Duke did not object.

Duke went straight to the director's office, but it was empty. Wallace Lee was participating in auditions and only returned a full half-hour later.

"Hi, Duke. Hi, Tina."

After the greeting, Duke cut to the chase. "How's the work progressing?"

"Pretty smoothly," Wallace Lee said with complete seriousness. "With you and Warner fully supporting us, the recruits are basically all experienced professionals. The firearms and action directors, in particular, are members of Joss William's and Jimmy Carter's teams. They can help me solve a lot of problems, and once the cast is finalized, they'll take on the job of training the actors."

Speaking of this, he asked with concern, "Duke, do you think Kate Beckinsale is acceptable?"

Duke didn't answer immediately. Instead, he just looked at him.

Wallace Lee scratched his head. "I do have a very favorable impression of her, but I swear, nothing out of line has happened between us..."

Raising a hand, Duke cut him off. "Lee, you know my principles. Kate Beckinsale can be the female lead of the movie. But if you screw this film up, I'll send you off to the San Fernando Valley to direct movies."

"I promise!" Wallace Lee said with utmost gravity. "Duke, I know how important this opportunity is. I would never joke around with work."

Duke nodded. After asking a few more questions about the specific progress of the film's pre-production, he quickly took his leave.

But he didn't leave Warner Studios. Alongside Tina Fey, he walked deeper into the soundstage area. Another production related to him had been greenlit even earlier, and they had already begun actor training.

The two didn't enter the soundstage, heading straight to a specially set-up gym nearby instead. Sure enough, Zack Snyder was there.

Of course, what drew far more attention than Zack Snyder were the nearly forty burly men sweating profusely. Under the guidance of professional trainers, they were working on their muscles. The bulging muscles on Gerard Butler, who was leading the pack, looked as hard as rock.

He saw Duke walk in and flashed a smile in their direction. Duke waved back in response.

"I had originally put Michael Fassbender on the shortlist for Bruce Wayne."

Walking up to Zack Snyder, Duke looked at a Germanic face among the actors and added, "I didn't expect you to drag him over here."

"That just proves I'm more attractive than you," Zack Snyder said with a laugh.

In truth, Michael Fassbender's mindset wasn't hard to understand. Compared to landing a supporting role in this film, his hopes of winning the role of Bruce Wayne were simply too slim.

Besides, in Duke's mind, he was only a backup choice, and a very low-ranking one at that.

"The natural form of human muscles is something CG animation can't replicate."

Watching the actors train, Zack Snyder steered the topic toward the movie. "Their muscles must meet the film's requirements, or else they'll just have to be cut."

Duke nodded. Muscles were inherently one of the selling points of this film.

Especially for female audiences. To draw them into the theaters, the muscles of the red-briefs army would play a crucial role.

This was North America, where pretty boys had never been in vogue. Even a piece of eye candy like Orlando Bloom had a strong physique.

As for pretty boys, in North America, that was synonymous with sissies and bottoms.

Hollywood stars would have to be out of their minds to turn themselves into pretty boys.

In fact, looking at the A-list and B-list actors in Hollywood, it wasn't hard to find that they could be decadent, wacky, exaggerated, or even arrogant, but they would never turn themselves into sissies.

"Duke, I'm not planning to shoot on location," Zack Snyder continued. "I intend to use green screens entirely..."

Unlike Wallace Lee, Duke had been working with Zack Snyder for over ten years. He knew his capabilities and style very well, so he said directly, "As long as you don't exceed the budget and don't violate the principles of a commercial film, you can let your creativity run wild."

No director wanted their movie to fail.

The Zack Snyder from his past life had done a great job, and this enhanced version of Zack Snyder had communicated thoroughly with him beforehand. The visual style he envisioned for the film wasn't much different from the army of three hundred red briefs in Duke's memory.

Although Duke held the title of producer for both films, he felt far more at ease with Zack Snyder, even though the investment for 300 Spartans was 75 million while Underworld only cost 30 million.

Of course, compared to the Batman film Duke was about to prepare for, these two could only be considered mid-to-small budget productions.

As the funds allocated by Warner Brothers gradually fell into place, the new Batman Series had reached the stage where it was about to be officially announced. The members of Duke's team hurried back to Los Angeles from vacation spots all over the world. Hannah Serena, John Schwartzman, Charles Roven, and Anna Printz quickly took their posts, and Josh William, who had been away from him for some time, also officially returned.

"Fundamentally speaking, the new Batman Trilogy still falls under the category of science fiction."

During the pre-production meeting after gathering his team members, Duke stated, "But this will have a clear distinction from the traditional Batman. I want to imbue him with a more realistic style. The script, character design, props, and action choreography must all align with this tone."

He didn't even need to mention the film's dark tone. Aside from the incoherent mess Joel Schumacher had churned out, the other Batman movies were basically all in a dark style.

"In my movie, Bruce Wayne is no longer a god. He's just a man," Duke continued to emphasize. "He has desires, he feels sorrow, he has emotions, and he will lose his way. And after losing his way, he will need to find himself again."

"The Batman movies need redemption, and Bruce Wayne himself needs redemption!"

Ignoring the other factors behind the film's success, dragging Bruce Wayne down from his pedestal was undoubtedly one of the reasons it became so popular.

The protagonists of DC Comics often tended to be flawless and larger-than-life. Such heroes were far too detached from the public and completely lacked the personalities of ordinary people. The previous failure of the Superman reboot was the best example of this.

In contrast, DC's more brilliant characters were actually the villains, such as the Joker and Two-Face.

The reboot of the Batman Series was a massive event for Warner Brothers, and naturally, Warner would prepare a grand press conference.