Chapter 700: Fury Road

Relying solely on the Marvel Series wasn't enough to break into the A-list. Scarlett Johansson still needed to prove herself in a solo starring role.

Duke understood this perfectly. He had registered a script with the Writers Guild early on—a film told entirely from a female perspective. For nearly the entire runtime, the female lead would be acting alone, requiring an actress with exceptional skill and powerful personal charisma to carry the picture.

Frankly, acting was never an issue for Scarlett as she transitioned from her indie roots to the commercial path, but her presence and magnetism were still somewhat lacking.

So, after registering the script, Duke had been waiting for the right moment.

"I had dinner with Jamie Jensen yesterday..."

Nancy Josephson finished her water and changed the subject. "He asked me to find out if you have any concrete plans for the next installment of The Dark Knight or the Transformers sequel."

Hollywood studios loved nothing more than producing sequels to blockbuster hits, and Warner Brothers was no exception. Both The Dark Knight and Transformers had achieved massive success. If they didn't put those sequels on the schedule, they wouldn't be a Hollywood studio.

"The next installment of The Dark Knight will have to wait a few more years," Duke said.

While those who loved the film worshipped it and those who disliked it loathed it, no one could deny its success and influence. Duke understood this; sequels to films like The Dark Knight, which reaped a dual harvest of box office and critical acclaim, were incredibly difficult to produce.

"We need to drag it out a bit," he continued. "Let the impact of The Dark Knight fade a little and the market's expectations rise higher. We'll make it then."

Clearly, Warner Brothers management knew they couldn't change Duke's plans, so they resorted to sending reminders through Nancy Josephson. They just didn't want him to forget about those highly profitable franchises.

Duke thought for a moment before speaking again. "As for Transformers... I think releasing one every two to three years is more appropriate."

"You want to find someone else to take over?" Nancy Josephson had already guessed his intentions.

"That's right." Duke nodded, resting his left arm on the armrest and propping his chin on his hand. "I remember you already signed Michael Bay. I'll recommend him to Warner Brothers to take over the series."

He frowned slightly. "Convincing Michael Bay is your job, Nancy."

"He doesn't have a choice right now." Nancy Josephson looked extremely confident.

In truth, ever since The Island bombed, Michael Bay's standing in the industry had plummeted. Few big-budget productions were willing to let him take the helm. His situation had improved slightly after Nancy poached him for ICM, but the action film he had recently produced received a mediocre market response. He didn't have many options left.

Even if it meant taking over a sequel, it was highly unlikely he would refuse.

It wasn't just the next installment of The Dark Knight and the Transformers sequel. Time Warner as a whole had long set their sights on Duke's blockbuster hits, planning to develop them into franchises. For example, a sequel to Taken was already on the schedule, and a sequel to Independence Day was in the planning stages. Rebooting The Matrix series was also one of their future plans.

As the three of them chatted, Tina Fey received a phone call. She briefly stepped off the terrace and returned a few minutes later.

"Good news..." Tina Fey said to Duke, sitting back down in her seat. "Charles Roven has reached an agreement with Pat Kingsley. Tom Cruise is basically locked in."

Duke gave a slight nod. Coupled with the already secured Charlize Theron, the male and female leads for the new project were all set.

"Also," Tina Fey continued, "Warner Brothers has secured the sequel rights you wanted for the Mad Max trilogy from Twentieth Century Fox."

"What do you want the rights to these B-movies for?" she asked, somewhat puzzled.

Tina Fey thought Duke was targeting Mel Gibson again. After all, rumors had been circulating in the industry recently that Mel Gibson might be returning to Hollywood from Australia, and her employer had never been magnanimous in such matters.

"Nothing." Duke shook his head. "Just in case."

His next film project was tentatively titled Fury Road, an upgraded installment of the Mad Max trilogy. The film merely borrowed the name Max, but its content actually had almost nothing to do with the first three.

The original Mad Max was a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller, adapted from an original screenplay by James McCausland, and starring Mel Gibson. In its time, it was the highest-grossing Australian film and had held the Guinness World Record for the most profitable film for decades, unequivocally opening up the international market for the Australian New Wave of cinema. The sequel, Mad Max 2, was released in 1981, and the third installment, Mad Max 3, hit theaters in 1985. After a thirty-year hiatus, George Miller returned to film the fourth installment, Mad Max: Fury Road.

That version of Mad Max: Fury Road had left an extremely profound impression on Duke. It was a nonstop climax all the way through its two-hour runtime. Without exaggeration, several scenes had reached an unprecedented, god-tier level of cinema. If one had to describe its style, it could loosely be called a hybrid of a racing-themed Terry Gilliam and a punk-infused James Cameron. Beyond the awe-inspiring cinematography, the director's masterful pacing, and the storyboard control, the film was packed with elements of steampunk, wasteland aesthetics, apocalyptic futures, feminism, hybrid vehicles, and heavy rock.

Although he was using Fury Road, Duke didn't want to tie it too closely to Mad Max, so he had taken plenty of precautions.

He hadn't merely secured the sequel rights to the Mad Max trilogy from Twentieth Century Fox; he had also sent someone to investigate George Miller's side of things. After all, past promotional hype claimed that Miller had been preparing for this film for over a decade. However, the investigation results showed that this was purely marketing spin. George Miller had absolutely no intention of making another sequel. He had spent the last few years meticulously preparing and producing Happy Feet, and had practically entered a state of retirement over the past two years.

If that hadn't been the case, Duke wouldn't have chosen this project.

Undoubtedly, this was a film with an intensely strong personal style. To some extent, it was a quasi-cult genre that didn't entirely mesh with his own production style.

Duke wasn't particularly skilled at such a style. He intended to make a series of changes to the film, reducing the unconventional elements as much as possible while maintaining a sufficient baseline of coolness.

Furthermore, the theme the film would promote in his hands was extremely mainstream—even in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where society and order had collapsed, nothing could stop humanity's yearning for freedom.

The world in this film had suffered a nuclear disaster, and the environment was permanently destroyed. Under such circumstances, what exactly was the most precious resource? Apart from freedom, Duke's script shifted its focus onto unpolluted human life—the existence of the five wives in the film and their reproductive capabilities were the most precious resources in the apocalypse.

Just as George Miller himself had once said—Fury Road was not Mad Max 4. It wasn't a continuation of the previous trilogy, but an independent new chapter. These films shared no chronological continuity.

The name Max wouldn't even appear in the film Duke was producing.

The women in that original version had become the absolute protagonists. Compared to Commander Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy's character was relegated to a secondary position. Although the film had no shortage of testosterone-fueled blockbuster spectacles and action sequences, the capable and fiercely independent Furiosa was the true anchor driving the plot forward.

Now that Duke had brought in Tom Cruise as the male lead, he would inevitably have to adjust the screen time of the male and female protagonists.

In Duke's vision, Fury Road was a film where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. It definitely wouldn't be like the Mad Max trilogy, filled with fearless spirit and unbridled energy, but it would be more mature, more refined, and feel much more like a modern film than a B-movie.

The estimated production budget Duke proposed to Warner Brothers was as high as 100 million dollars. Shooting a B-movie for 100 million dollars wouldn't just drive Warner Brothers crazy; it would drive him crazy too.

Besides, that original film wasn't a B-movie by any stretch of the imagination, and its cult elements were actually quite minimal. From its themes to its production, the film was practically a standard mainstream commercial blockbuster.

This was also an important reason why Duke had chosen it.

In Hollywood and across the globe, the film industry and moviegoers largely shared a consensus: Duke had redefined action films with Speed, The Rock, and The Matrix, leading a new wave for the genre. Wouldn't it be even more interesting to release an atypical, subversive action movie right about now?

Most importantly, Duke now had enough capital to do so, and he had even brought along two massive superstars, Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise, to join him.

Duke had submitted the script and related plans to Warner Brothers as early as the first half of the year. The review committee had completed their assessment in July, but Warner Brothers still had some reservations.

"They are strongly requesting that you use 3D technology to produce the film," Nancy Josephson said, relaying some of Warner's thoughts. "3D can bump the film's box office numbers up to another tier."

After thinking it over for about five minutes, Duke gave a slight nod.

"I will produce it using IMAX 3D technology," he said. "Inform Warner Brothers that I'm demanding the production budget be increased to 120 million dollars."

In the original plan, the most capital-intensive expenses were the salaries for Duke, Charlize Theron, and Tom Cruise. Although Warner Brothers employed the industry's customary method of a base salary plus back-end profit participation to reduce the financial pressure of early-stage investments, the base salaries for the three of them still accounted for nearly half of the initial 100-million-dollar budget.

To complete an outstanding film, sufficient funding would always be one of the foundational requirements.