Only two people remained in the office.
Ryan looked at James Wong curiously, not quite sure what this guy was trying to do.
Was he dissatisfied with the salary? If it was about a raise, he would have gone through his agent first, right? $300,000 was already the highest price Ryan could offer, and that was only because of James Wong's experience working on The X-Files.
The actual budget for The Purge was only $1.8 million, which included various expenses for Starlight Entertainment and himself.
"Is there something we need to discuss privately?" Ryan was direct.
It couldn't be that James Wong had some designs on a handsome guy like him, could it? If there was going to be any casting couch business, it should be the producer doing it to others. Since when did it work the other way around?
Perhaps because of his Eastern background, James Wong's answer came out a little roundabout.
"Mr. Anderson, I'm very interested in your project," he said. "Horror and thrillers are actually the genres I'm best at. I don't know if you've seen the TV work I've directed, but my best stuff is in building that horror-thriller atmosphere."
Ryan nodded slightly. "That's true."
If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have reached a verbal agreement on salary with Edward first.
Thinking about the script he and Glen Morgan had written together, James Wong felt like something was scratching at his chest. He wouldn't feel right if he didn't at least give it a shot.
Opportunities are fought for.
Even if the other party said no, it shouldn't affect the project they were currently discussing too much, right?
He had heard it very clearly just now. Starlight Entertainment had secured financial backing from Arabs. Those oil guys were exceptionally wealthy.
James Wong thought for a moment, then said, "Well, as for me, I used to be a screenwriter. I got into the industry with my good friend Glen Morgan, who is also a screenwriter."
Ryan smiled. "Wong, we hit it off right away. No need to be polite. If you've got something to say, just say it."
"Glen and I wrote a script together, a horror film." James Wong opened his briefcase and pulled out a script. "We came up with the idea while working on The X-Files, wrote an outline, and only finished the full script in the last six months."
He set the script on Ryan's desk. "Could you take some time to look at it?"
Ryan frowned slightly, a rough idea already forming in his head about what James Wong was after.
Seeing that Ryan hadn't touched the script, James Wong pressed on. "This is a new kind of horror film, different from the traditional American slasher and ghost horror styles. Mr. Anderson, I can guarantee this will be a spine-chilling film that will genuinely terrify audiences."
"You want me to invest in your project?" Ryan asked directly.
It was pretty obvious. There were too many directors in Hollywood searching everywhere for investment, and very few of them ever found it.
"Yes." James Wong stopped beating around the bush. "I want to direct this script."
Ryan nodded slightly, opened the script, and skimmed through a few pages. He couldn't help raising an eyebrow.
Interesting. Very interesting.
While reading, he asked, "Wong, if I don't invest in your project, are you going to turn down The Purge?"
"Well..." James Wong hesitated for a moment. "At least it wouldn't be my first choice."
He decided to push his leverage a little harder. "Dimension Films invited me to direct Scary Movie, a parody of Scream. They rejected my terms, so I haven't accepted their invitation yet. An executive at New Line Cinema thought my script was creative and wanted to buy out the rights, but refused to let me direct, so Glen and I turned them down."
Ryan wasn't stupid. He understood what was being said. James Wong was letting him know he wasn't short on directing offers, and that other companies were already interested in the script.
This script, well, how should he put it? It really was quite something.
This man, James Wong, seemed a bit paranoid and a bit impatient at the same time.
For a typical new director, getting the chance to direct a movie meant they would rarely set heavy conditions. But this guy was tying himself to a whole other project on top of it.
Ryan stayed calm, a lot of thoughts moving through his head at once. He watched quietly. James Wong's mindset was definitely a little rushed.
He had likely hit a lot of walls before.
For a director with no film credits to want to direct their own script, attracting investment was genuinely hard. Not everyone got as lucky as James Cameron meeting Gale Anne Hurd. And Cameron already had film directing experience before The Terminator.
James Wong was watching Ryan too. It wasn't that there were no companies interested in buying the script. The mention of New Line Cinema wasn't a lie. But he knew very well that those companies had no real intention of inviting him to direct, let alone putting the film into production anytime soon.
The script he and Glen Morgan had written would most likely end up like so many others, disappearing into some company's massive script library, maybe becoming a movie many years down the line.
That could mean three years. It could mean ten. It could mean even longer.
Back in the eighties, he had a script acquired by Fox. That movie still hadn't been produced to this day.
If he had known that was how it would end, he never would have sold the rights in a one-time buyout.
To a film company, a small script buyout fee was barely worth mentioning.
He was already forty years old. He didn't want to wait much longer.
Ryan had read through the first quarter of the script and started skimming. His mind was no longer on the pages themselves, but on how to use this to his advantage.
There were roughly two parts to think about: short-term interest and long-term interest.
The short-term side involved James Wong and The Purge. Looking at it from every angle, James Wong was a very solid fit for the position.
The long-term side was, of course, the script sitting in his hands.
This was a well-known project after all.
After reading the first few pages, Ryan remembered exactly who James Wong was.
If the guy had given his Chinese name instead of the English one, Ryan would have placed him long ago.
Huang Yiyu.
That name wasn't unfamiliar at all to anyone in film production.
A director who had started out and built his name through horror films was, overall, a pretty good match for The Purge.
A perfect match was impossible. But out of all the candidates he had interviewed, Huang Yiyu was the best one.
Ryan closed the script, held back the urge to buy the rights on the spot, and said calmly, "This isn't a traditional American horror film. There's a saying in Hollywood: don't easily try things you're unfamiliar with."
"But the right kind of innovation is exactly what brings fresh excitement to audiences," James Wong argued. "Slasher films need a certain level of it."
Ryan stroked his chin. "A group of students escape a plane crash through some sudden event, and then Death hunts them down one by one. How should I put it?" He frowned. "The horror core of this film feels like it comes from Eastern culture."
James Wong asked, "You know Eastern culture?"
"A bit. When I was studying at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, I spent some time looking into it." Ryan shook the script lightly. "There's a saying from the ancient East, something like..."
He put on a look of trying to remember. "When Death wants you dead at three o'clock, he won't let you live until five?"
James Wong nodded right away. "Exactly. There's no suspense about death in this story because the protagonists are already doomed. They will definitely die. The entertainment value of the film lies in the journey toward death, not the outcome."
Ryan kept shaking his head. "Using an Eastern-style core to build a Hollywood horror film is a bit of a risk."
James Wong went quiet. The script felt genuinely creative to him, but the industry was full of creative scripts, and most of them went nowhere.
On top of that, his ambition went further than just selling the script. He wanted to direct it himself.
"James, you should know pretty well that this film doesn't fit the usual taste of North American horror audiences." Ryan wasn't just talking to fill the silence. The genre with the strongest overall commercial performance in Hollywood horror was the slasher and torture type. "Personally, I think your script is interesting. But I'm a businessman, and I have to be responsible to my investors."
James Wong was well aware of that. It was exactly why he had been hitting walls everywhere he turned.
He sighed quietly to himself.
Should he shelve this script for now, direct something else first, and come back to it later?
Just as the disappointment was settling into James Wong's face, Ryan said, at exactly the right moment, "I can consider investing in this project of yours."
He looked as if he had just made a very difficult decision. "But I'll have to convince the investors first."
James Wong, who had nearly given up, looked straight at Ryan now, his eyes full of expectation.
Ryan's brow was still tightly furrowed. "My funding comes from the Arabs. Arab oil tycoons are very rich, but they value money carefully and they're stubborn about it. If the conditions aren't generous enough for them, it's hard to get them to open their wallets."
"Is there anything I can do?" James Wong asked quickly.
"This project of yours won't work on a low budget." Ryan spoke slowly, as if he was still working it out as he went. "The production investment will have to be significant, so I need to cut costs in other areas, like the script buyout fee."
James Wong was quiet for a stretch, clearly weighing things in his head. Finally, he gritted his teeth. "That's fine. We can use the minimum price set by the Writers Guild as the transfer fee, but I have to be the director. My directing fee can stay the same as what we discussed for this project."
In his mind, that was nothing. To direct The Terminator, James Cameron had sold his script for just one dollar.
Ryan pushed a little further. "A full rights buyout."
"Fine." James Wong's goal was to direct. Everything else was negotiable.
Ryan kept that same troubled look on his face, but inside he was more than satisfied. Full rights naturally covered merchandise and sequels. As long as the first one could perform the way it had in his previous life, he could build out many installments following that same formula.
"My funds are very tight." He was a businessman, so of course he kept pressing for every advantage. "The earliest your project can go into prep is after The Purge is released."
James Wong nodded. "That works for me."
"I need you to get into The Purge as soon as possible." Ryan knew his own limits well. At this stage, he still wasn't polished enough in the Hollywood style of film production. "Put together a detailed shooting plan for Starlight Entertainment."
James Wong kept nodding.
Ryan lowered his voice a little. "There might be some parts of this project that raise questions. You only need to do your job as a director and not ask about anything else."
"I understand." James Wong was no stranger to Hollywood.