Chapter 425: When Did We Cooperate With V?
“Oh! My God! It’s ten thousand times better than Loving You!
“Mister, to make a movie like this, you certainly can’t be Edward.” Francis Paul Bracco shouted loudly, and he, dressed in a tuxedo, had lost all his gentlemanly demeanor at this moment.
The instant the man wearing a strange mask on his face and gloves on his hands inexplicably appeared in Bracco’s office, he was about to stand up and grab the hunting rifle hanging on the wall.
The other’s outfit reminded him of the infamous murderer not long ago, Edward Theodore, who was also the prototype for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.
But the other then pulled out a cassette tape from his overcoat.
A short two-minute clip, with sharp editing, rapid lens switches, clear image, from visual effects to editing style all things Bracco had never seen, giving a veteran movie industry professional like him the feeling that movies could be made like this.
Eye-opening indeed.
This thing is called a trailer in the future.
It depicted a dystopian future world where the government held absolute power and the people lived in fear.
A mysterious character named V appeared, taking it upon himself to challenge government authority and encourage people to resist oppression.
In the trailer, the government vowed to capture and eliminate V, while some lenses hinted that the government was hiding a dark secret, possibly related to the deaths of thousands of citizens.
The entire trailer’s theme was the struggle between freedom and tyranny, with the country’s fate hanging by a thread.
“What about the rest?”
Bracco dared swear to God that he had never seen a more captivating movie before, although its length was far from qualifying as a movie.
As the head of the largest movie theater in all America, the New York Broadway Paramount Theater, Bracco had seen countless films and was confident in saying this.
The Paramount Theater screened not only movies but also stage plays and dramas, so Bracco wore a tuxedo year-round during work.
And it rode perfectly on V’s popularity.
Who was the hottest right now globally?
Of course, it was V.
The movie fit this theme perfectly too.
Who was the villain character?
Of course, the Soviet Union.
Didn’t the trailer hint at it perfectly?
Movies riding popularity waves rarely balanced quality, usually being shoddy goods.
Even average quality could explode big.
But something like this, top-tier quality, it was hard to imagine how much profit it could bring them.
A virtual future world, a totalitarian country ruled by a dictator, people living under brutal rule, with disease, famine, gloom, and secret police everywhere.
Here, foreigners, homosexuals, and dissenters were rounded up and executed after being caught.
Didn’t this perfectly metaphor a certain Eurasian alliance superpower?
Bracco was sure that everyone in all New York, no, all America, would want to see this movie.
The Paramount Theater had a total of 3600 seats, a single screening hall with 3600 seats, meaning one huge screen that could seat 3600 people, the largest single screening hall in America.
The Loving You that Bracco mentioned earlier was Elvis Presley’s first movie, which premiered at the Paramount Theater several years ago, attracting a large crowd of Elvis fans.
Made by fan economy, broken by fan economy; Elvis’s Loving You started high but ended low, with box office ultimately ranking only 23rd for the year.
Compared to Loving You, Bracco was confident that even without riding V’s popularity, there wouldn’t be a more exciting movie in the next fifty years, especially given the movie’s story background at this current time point.
If it could be screened at the Paramount Theater, the value would be too high.
The man of unknown identity wearing the same mask as the movie’s villain took off the mask: “Mr. Bracco, I’m Tom.
Bracco looked puzzled: “Tom? Why are you dressed like this? Think you don’t have enough night shifts?”
Tom was one of his employees, wearing V’s mask and a bizarre cloak.
Even if the other hadn’t removed the mask, Bracco wouldn’t have thought he was the real V.
What kind of character was he, what kind of character was V; how could he possibly have any relationship with V.
He didn’t dare have any relationship with V either.
Once discovered to be connected to V, a small character like him with no background would face mountain-like pressure from the FBI.
“Mister, this cassette tape comes from V.” Tom explained: “There was an email in your mailbox from an unknown sender, with V written on the envelope.
I opened it and found it.
I thought dressing up as V to deliver it to you would make it more ceremonial.”
Bracco was speechless; I know you’re a die-hard supporter of V, but no need to use role-playing to deliver a letter.
“V?” Bracco pondered.
Too many people claimed to be V.
Who knew if it was real or fake.
Even the FBI couldn’t determine it, let alone him.
“There’s also a letter inside; the gist is, if we want to screen this movie, we’re welcome to go to Warner Bros. to pick up the movie prints.”
Bracco signaled Tom to leave; he needed to think quietly alone.
Half an hour later, he hurriedly took the movie print to see Paramount Pictures’ head Adolf Zukor.
By now, Paramount was long past its peak era; in the 1950s, television entered ordinary American households, theater audiences dropped sharply, and movie theaters faced the same impact as short videos in later generations.
Paramount’s movie production scale shrank from 60 films per year in the past to 20 now, and precisely because of insufficient in-house productions, with audience enthusiasm plummeting, the Paramount Theater took on a lot of stage play orders.
If it were just screening itself, Bracco could decide alone, but since it might involve V, he had to convince Adolf.
This clearly wasn’t something a small theater head like him could decide.
“You mean just these two minutes of content are better than all the movies you’ve seen? Including last year’s The Ten Commandments?”
The Ten Commandments was Paramount Pictures’ most presentable work of the entire 1950s, telling the story of Moses Parts the Sea, grossing 123 million US dollars in that era, downright terrifying.
“Exactly, besides the story itself being exciting enough, it’s a very special genre, one never seen before.
Past sci-fi movies, whether A Trip to the Moon, The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Creature from the Black Lagoon, were just telling future stories. But V for Vendetta builds a relatively logically consistent worldview.
I believe it will bring Paramount unprecedented glory.”
Bracco’s tone was firm; he had never been so optimistic about a movie. “If considering its connection to V, it’s even more epoch-making; compared to the movies we make now, it’s like modern movies compared to the silent film era.
Chaplin’s movies are certainly wonderful, but after seeing color movies, few people want to revisit Chaplin’s silent films.”
After seeing the movie trailer, Bracco’s words gained more persuasiveness; Adolf Zukor asked: “What exactly is the movie called?”
“V for Vendetta!”
When the Kremlin used V to widely promote Hoover’s identity, using the V persona to achieve its purpose, Lin Ran believed he should shape V’s image himself.
All he needed to do was release the V for Vendetta movie.
The media would naturally shape V’s image.
The totalitarian government here could be the Soviet Union or America.
It could even be England.
As for whether the movie would be accepted by the public, he believed this worldview would actually be easier for the public to accept right now.
Especially under V’s name.
The White House was at its wits’ end over the Hoover news, and they would naturally hope for bigger news to dilute the negative impact of the Hoover matter.
They would certainly do their utmost to help promote this movie.
Whether it came from V or not, the White House would make it so.
Current movies generally use film reels for screening.
The standard length of a 35mm film reel is 305 meters, allowing a sound movie to run about 11 minutes.
V for Vendetta is a full 132 minutes, requiring 12 cassette tapes.
Fortunately, the movie version of The Truman Show, co-authored by Lin Ran and Philip K. Dick, had been filmed and screened globally.
He had visited Warner Bros.’ sets, internal screening rooms, and even warehouses with Jenny.
Now it could come in handy.
It was time to let Warner Bros. take the blame.
As for suspicions that Lin Ran was V, impossible; Warner Bros.’ headquarters was in Burbank, California, while Lin Ran was in Washington, always by the president’s side, sharing the president’s worries.
Bracco ultimately chose to take the risk.
He decided to go to Warner Bros. personally.
Theater chains from all over America gathered at Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. CEO Steve Ross was baffled; a total of 10 theater heads, each chiming in.
At this time, Warner Bros. had merged with Kinney National Services, and Steve Ross, as co-founder of Kinney, became the new company’s co-chief executive officer.
Ross held the CEO position until his death in 1992.
What V, what movie, what trailer.
“When did we cooperate with V?” Steve Ross muttered, turning to ask his secretary beside him.
