Chapter 207: You've come out of the woodwork, you've got to pay back

Gustav sought out Jackie Chan and Jet Li to act as lobbyists, but the two ended up being persuaded by Lin Ming Yang instead, and he himself was also persuaded by Lin Ming Yang's story after listening to his revised conception of the script.

Lin Mingyang had changed the original script into two clues alternating between reality and dreams, and while the content of the story did not seem to have changed drastically, the connotations were very different. While the original story was just a simple fantasy adventure story, the current story utilized the interlacing of reality and dreams to imply an attitude of positive contemplation on life.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li sighed in awe at Lin Ming Yang's skill in adapting this kind of story into a miracle, but Gusto, who had worked with Lin Ming Yang many times, had long since seen it all, and there was only one question in his mind after the story was told.

"I want to know, was that dream real?"

Lin Ming Yang bristled and said, "Having said that it was a dream, do you think it could still be real?"

"Well, just pretend I never asked!" Gusta had no intention of dwelling on this issue, "Since you've already made changes to the script, are you also... the male lead in the movie?"

Lin Ming Yang shook his head decisively, "It was hard for me to break free from the image of a youthful idol, so there's no need to revisit this type of role."

It should be noted that Lin Ming Yang was only 21 years old now, and most actors around his age were still playing the roles of immature high school students at this point in time, but these words coming out of his mouth did not seem out of place at all, and even Gusto himself felt that Lin Ming Yang was no longer suitable for this kind of "childish" roles.

This makes Gustav "big head" up, his desk in front of Lin Mingyang has been put on the revised script, but Gustav boasted of before but most of the big mouth did not materialize, I heard that Jackie Chan and Jet Li teamed up, Yuan Woo-ping was very quick to agree to serve as the film's action director, but Lionsgate company optimistic about the director of the Rob Minkoff but His attitude is not clear...

Gusto was agonizing when Lin Mingyang threw him an even bigger problem. The guy was unwilling to take the lead role in the movie, but had a very strong interest in the director's position.

"Why don't you just let me be the director of this movie!" Lin Ming Yang's face had a look of eagerness, while Gusto's face had a look of tears and laughter. Lin Ming Yang had opened his mouth so directly to ask for the director's position, and Gusto was still not in a good position to refuse in terms of face.

After all, he was an old fox, Gusta's eyes rolled, then politely said, "The investment for this movie is just 125 million dollars, which also includes Jackie Chan's and Jet Li's paychecks, the funds will be relatively tight..."

"My personal compensation is tied to the movie's box office results, I only need 15 percent of a thousand, is that okay?" Lin Ming Yang shrugged, "And I guarantee that the filming of this movie won't overspend, if it does, the extra part will be borne by me personally."

As soon as Lin Ming Yang's words fell, Gusta, who had a difficult look on his face a second ago, had a smile piled up on his face at this time. He jumped up from his seat and shouted, "Deal!"

Lin Mingyang was startled by his sudden excited reaction, at this time he suddenly had the feeling of falling into the other party's trap, but it was too late to regret it. After both sides reached a verbal agreement, Gusta couldn't wait to find a lawyer and drew up a contract as fast as he could, until Lin Ming Yang's signature in black and white landed on the contract, only then did Gusta take a long breath of relief, with a conspiratorial smile on his face.

After The Social Network, Lin Ming Yang's directing style had matured, and he now desperately needed a touchstone to prove himself. Lionsgate's box office expectation for this movie is between $400 million and $500 million, $6 million compared to Lin Ming Yang's minimum of tens of millions of dollars in honorarium, has saved the company a large sum of money, whether it is an actor or a director, Gusto's ultimate goal is to tie Lin Ming Yang and the film together, although the purpose is different, but both sides have got what they want.

----

The first thing Lin Mingyang did when he took over as director was to find a suitable male lead for the movie. Because Lin Ming Yang wrote the role of Jason in the script, which had a very vague setting, the casting requirements were very broad. For this role, Lin Ming Yang had only one requirement, and that was to be young.

Lin Ming Yang was already a hot big star in Hollywood, every move is the focus of media attention, and "King of Kung Fu" has the passionate collision of the Chinese world's two kung fu superstars, the preparation of the film naturally attracted the attention of all parties, and even the casting of the leading man also entered the media's sights.

With the two international kung fu superstars equally dramatic can be described as a huge temptation, we all know that such an opportunity is not often encountered, so the number of people who signed up to participate in the audition Lin Mingyang startled a bit. How to select a suitable actor from these 3,000-odd people became the primary problem facing the crew.

Lin Ming Yang sat in the living room of the H33 dormitory with a laptop on his lap, looking at the mailbox of up to 30 megabytes of information, he was full of doubts and dialed the phone number of Tony, the assistant director in charge of the audition matters.

"Are you sure that what was sent over in the mailbox was the screening results after deleting the ones with no acting experience and over 22 years old?"

"According to your request, we have screened a total of 67 suitable actors." Tony's rather helpless voice came over the phone as he explained for this result, "Because most of the people who participated in this audition are young people, with an average age of just 20 years old, with regards to the age restriction, we excluded a very small portion of the people, and when we considered acting experience, the ones that we screened out were actors who had taken up some important roles in more famous movie and television productions...the actors...who had no acting experience, and who had taken up some important roles... roles in more famous movie and television productions...you know, the number of applicants this time is just too many!"

Lin Mingyang said with emotion at the information that hadn't reached the bottom even after the computer screen's mouse wheel had continued scrolling for half a minute, "It seems that in the future, we can only make internal selections, and we can no longer make this kind of needle-in-a-haystack-like sea selection...well, hard work to you guys this time!"

In the subsequent browsing of these materials, Lin Ming Yang didn't even look at the textual information of the actors, he just looked at their photos by feel to see if they looked familiar, during this process his finger kept on scrolling the wheel of the mouse, until the appearance of a photo made his finger scrolling the mouse suddenly stop.

The brown, ear-length, sunny and handsome boy on the photo gave Lin Ming Yang a very familiar feeling, the more he looked at it, the more he felt that he should recognize the boy, and subconsciously moved the mouse and clicked on the profile link underneath the photo.

"Zac Efron?" At the first sight of this name, Lin Ming Yang froze. In fact, not only did he recognize this boy, but he also had a deep connection with him. In Lin Ming Yang's memories of his previous life, this popular young boy who was famous for "Song and Dance Youth" was still an unknown actor to this day.

After reading Zac Efron's biographical information, Lin Mingyang's heart welled up a burst of guilt, but because of his appearance "crowded" the other side of the opportunity to become famous, Lin Mingyang has always been high on self-esteem, but he does not deny that the "Song and Dance" series of films in the early stages of his fame important role. Since he owes Zac Efron such a "favor", Lin Mingyang now return to him.

----

Zac Efron family is sitting around the sofa watching TV, the home landline phone suddenly rang, other people have not yet reacted, the nerve sensitive Zac Efron a "carp push-up" like jumped up from the sofa, grabbed the phone before his brother.

Dylan, who was one step behind, complained, "Zach, Bob promised to call me at this time!"

Zack made a "shh" gesture at him, and he put the receiver to his ear before saying "hello" and then shoving it into his brother's hand with a disappointed look on his face.

"It's for you!"

Returning to the sofa, he held his head with a disheveled face, he had been waiting for news from the cast of King of Kung Fu during this period of time, but there had been no response from that side, and he gradually felt a bit disappointed.

His father asked in disbelief, "Zack, you should have left them your own cell phone number, so how could the crew call the house?"

Without looking up, Zack replied, "I put my own cell phone and my home phone number..."

His mother made it to his side and gently put her arm around his shoulders, "Don't be discouraged young man, if you're ready, the odds will favor you!"

Zack pulled his hair and said with chagrin, "Mom, if I miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I don't know when I'll have to wait until I want to be famous in the future!"

Dylan, who had finished answering the phone over there, also walked into the living room with a lost look on his face, muttering and complaining, "Bob told me that he sprained his foot, and that the baseball rivalry game the afternoon after tomorrow is canceled!"

"I think that's good news, so you'll have the whole day to stay home and work on your homework!" The look of distress on Dylan's face grew as soon as his father mentioned homework.

He grumbled disgruntledly, "Maybe I should have chosen to be an actor like Zack, at least he doesn't have to deal with all that damn homework!"

His father warned him in a stern tone, "I don't expect two stars to come out of this family, so you might as well give up that idea while you still can and stay in school!"

Dylan mouthed, "Zack's a better student than me, and isn't he a star now? Maybe he's the one who's good for studying and I'm good for going into acting."

"Dylan!" His mother glared at him angrily, "How can you talk about your brother like that?"

Just then the phone rang again and Zack, who had been silent, jerked his head up and realized that none of the rest of the family had gotten up to answer the phone and everyone was looking at him.

Zack's father suggested, "I think it's better if you answer it, maybe this is the call from the cast informing you of your audition!"

Everyone else nodded, and Zack had to get up and walk helplessly towards the landline phone, not really putting much hope in his heart anymore after the long wait.

Dylan continued after his brother went to the phone, "I think you guys should really consider my suggestion, Zack has been an actor for over four years now, other people have been famous for a long time now, but he's still playing the same small roles that he's not known for."

His mother glared at him again before admonishing him seriously, "Success is never as easy as you think!"

Dylan argued, "But Felix Lim was already an Oscar winner when he was my brother's age..."

"There's no comparison!" Her mother shook her head, she was about to move on when Zack walked in with a lost face.

"Dad, that call was for you!"

Going to answer the phone, his father patted Zack on the shoulder as he passed him and didn't say anything.

Anyone could see see that Zack was in a bad mood right now, even Dylan dutifully kept his mouth shut, and the atmosphere in the living room seemed incredibly depressing for a while.

The first to break the silence was still Zack's mother, who comforted her son by saying, "I know that this opportunity is rare for you, but after all, there are a lot of people involved in the competition... I mean even if you don't make the cut, don't feel too bad!"

Zack didn't say anything, just nodded his head vigorously, and could tell he was really upset to the core.

At this point even Dylan couldn't look away, after all, Zack was his brother, "I actually liked those TV shows you appeared in, for example, that role you had in Crime Scene was great..."

Zack said sadly, "But I was only in one episode of it, and it was a supporting role with no presence to speak of. Maybe you're right, I'm just not cut out to be an actor."

Dylan realized that his consoling was having the opposite effect; anything he said at this point had Zach thinking the worst. Under his mother's stern look, he finally chose to shut up.

Zack stood up, he was ready to go back to his room and have some quiet time to himself, but his cell phone rang in his pants pocket.

He stopped and pulled out his cell phone with a bewildered look on his face, it was a completely unknown number. Carefully, he pressed the answer button and put the phone to his ear.

"Is this Zac Efron, please?"

"Yes!" Zack froze, a possibility suddenly occurring to him, and then his heart began to race.

"I'm Tony, the assistant director of The King of Kung Fu...huh, I guess you've guessed the outcome right?"

Zack nodded his head vigorously, even though the other man couldn't even see it, and his voice trembled a little from excitement, "I...I made the cut?"

"To be precise, as soon as you've signed the contract, you'll immediately become the leading man of this movie!"

Despite being mentally prepared, Zack was still stunned by this sudden news, and it took him half a day before he stammered, "I can directly become the male lead... no audition is needed?"

"Of course you don't need to, because this is a decision made by the director himself!"