America Tycoon: The Wolf of Showbiz

Brooklyn Bridge Park, a famous check-in spot in New York.

The crew had rented several houses from the park management to serve as temporary changing rooms for Martin and the leading lady to change clothes.

Due to traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, Martin arrived on the Manhattan side later than expected by over ten minutes.

"No wonder it's a hotspot for suicides," Bruce said, looking towards the bridge as they got out of the car. "We even encountered three people queued up to jump."

Martin speculated, "They might have been into financial securities with leverage."

Chad called out from the management office, "Come over here."

Martin and Bruce entered the office together, where they found not only Chad and his team but also a girl with long dark-brown hair.

Hearing the commotion, the girl turned her head to look their way.

Martin caught only a glimpse of her, but two impressions struck him deeply: her bright, blue eyes sparkled like glass, and the scale of her peaks was astounding.

She briskly walked over to Martin, the amplitude of her bounce making one seriously doubt whether Manhattan was experiencing an earthquake.

Martin recognized her; the big shots in the group had recommended "True Detective" more than once, right down to the minute and second.

The girl approached Martin and, with great excitement, pulled out a pen and a poster of the male protagonist from "Limitless," her voice trembling as she said, "Martin, could you sign this for me? I'm your fan."

Martin took it and signed for her.

"Look, I have the Cola Cult's credentials." The girl bowed her head slightly and pulled out a pendant from inside her neckline, on which hung a red cola glass bottle the size of a little finger.

Martin glanced unintentionally, as if he had caught sight of the snowy peak of Mount Everest.

It wasn't intentional; her collar had been pulled down while she was retrieving her pendant, and the peaks were simply too grand.

The girl flashed one of the Cola Cult's credentials and tentatively added, "Martin, could you include a message for Alexandra Daddario?"

"Alexandra?" Martin quickly wrote the message and said, "I have a friend in New York named Alexandra too."

He meant AA.

Alexandra misinterpreted intentionally, "Then I guess I'm a lucky one."

Martin handed her back the pen and poster, asking, "Are you from New York?"

Alexandra nodded, "Yes, I grew up here. I thought about chasing dreams in Los Angeles, but there were no great opportunities."

At that moment, Chad came over and reminded them, "Handsome guy and beautiful lady, we need to start working. Let's begin with some casual photos." He stepped back a few paces and looked at Alexandra in plain jeans and a T-shirt, "That outfit will do, let's get started."

The photography team had already set up cameras and reflectors by the seaside, and Chad personally took the camera to act as the photographer.

As they needed many photos of the two together to decorate the male lead's house, a large number of pictures had to be taken.

"Relax, just relax a bit more," Chad loud reminded Alexandra, "You need to get closer to Martin; you two are husband and wife now, not strangers."

Alexandra, who had been acting since 2001, was an experienced actress and finally got into the groove.

She grabbed Martin's arm and clung tightly to him.

Even though his arm felt like it was sinking into a pile of cotton, Martin's professionalism was unmistakable; he fully immersed himself in the role of husband, and made various affectionate gestures with Alexandra.

Chad kept shooting, particularly valuing the photos taken against the backdrop of the setting sun.

Soon after, Martin and Alexandra went into the temporary changing room to change outfits and moved to a new scene to continue the photo shoot.

Chad was also stringent about details like the backdrop since this was his first film as a director.

For Martin, with his current status, failure wasn't a big deal,

but Chad would struggle to get another chance to direct a film on his own.

After several outfit changes, Martin put on a black formal suit, and Alexandra wore a low-cut wedding gown, and they proceeded to take wedding photos together.

They also needed to shoot a first-person perspective selfie video from Martin's viewpoint.

Martin held a handheld DV camera and stood in an empty area, while Alexandra, in her wedding dress, was supposed to sprint towards him from the backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge.

As soon as Chad saw the lighting adjusted, he announced, "Action."

Martin pressed the DV's start button. Explore more at empire

Alexandra lifted her wedding gown and ran madly towards Martin, her frantic bouncing akin to an apocalyptic upheaval.

Martin watched intently through the DV until Alexandra reached him and stopped.

Chad joined Martin to review the video playback and said, "That was a good take."

He complimented, "Martin, you could work part-time as a photographer."

Martin replied casually, "Actually, I've always wanted to be the world's most outstanding photographer."

Chad prompted the crew to secure the DV and said, "Take a few minutes break, then we'll continue shooting."

Martin saw that the hem of Alexandra's wedding dress was too long and, taking the initiative, lifted the train for her so she could sit on a bench and rest for a bit.

Alexandra was breathing heavily and kept rubbing her shoulders. The sprint had clearly taken a toll on her.

Out of concern, Martin asked, "Are you okay? Do you need to rest a little longer?"

Alexandra smiled and tried to puff up her chest, saying, "I'm fine, I've gotten used to it over the years, as long as I don't have to sprint, it's not a big problem."

Martin nodded, not saying much more, and took a seat in a nearby chair.

Alexandra quietly sized up Martin, her eyes filled with curiosity. From today's work alone, she saw that this Hollywood star was extremely professional.

Before the sky turned dark, the crew completed their work and wrapped for the day.

Martin left the dressing room, ready to head back to the hotel.

The door of the room next door opened, and Alexandra came out, saying, "You're leaving?"

Martin nodded, "There's a lot of action scenes to shoot tomorrow, so I should get back early and rest."

Alexandra said, "In a few days, I'll also join the crew. My acting skills are average, and if I have questions that I don't understand, can I come to you for advice?"

Martin, who always adhered to principles, replied, "As long as I have time, you can come to me anytime."

"Thank you, Martin." Alexandra's laughter caused her chest to shake continuously.

The two of them left the management office together, exchanged contact information, and headed to the parking lot to get into their respective cars.

Back at the hotel, Martin had dinner and then returned to his room.

After a quick shower, he made a phone call to Elizabeth, and went to bed early.

Even though Martin was in good physical condition, performing a large amount of action scenes himself throughout the day was still tiring.

During the whole filming process, the narrative shots were limited. At least two-thirds of the time, Martin was either killing someone or on his way to killing someone.

The next morning, the animal actor arrived on set.

Martin recognized the dog—it was the puppy that Chad had adopted in Atlanta while serving as the action director for "Wanted Order."

To commemorate Marcus's dog that was killed by those African Americans, Chad named this dog Daisy as well.

Of course, for the sake of filming, the protagonist's dog in the movie was also called Daisy.

The Russian mafia boss's son Ivanov, who killed the protagonist's wife's dog and stole his Cadillac, was bound to pay with his life.

HK Company completed all the procedures and delivered their firearms to the crew for filming.

On set, the camera, mounted on a curved track, swung to Martin's side.

Martin took apart the wooden floor, opened a steel door, and retrieved a large black leather case.

Upon opening the case, the topmost item was a freshly developed wedding photo, with Martin and Alexandra standing intimately together, like a real engaged couple.

He placed the photo in a spot easily captured by the camera, then took out a pile of US Dollar cash, stuffing it into his pocket.

At the bottom were two guns.

One black USP and three magazines.

The other was a UMP45 submachine gun with a folding stock.

Martin efficiently loaded the magazine into the USP, slid it into his underarm holster, then pressed the bullets into the magazine of the submachine gun, and placed it into a black bag beside him.

The entire process was smooth and practiced, as if he were a real professional killer.

Besides capturing Martin and the wedding photo, the camera gave a lot of screen time to the two weapons.

Hollywood, having taken sponsorship money, was not sloppy about product placement.

After all, there was no trace of forced advertising here, as the protagonist was indeed set to take up arms for revenge.

Even the sniper in the film used a G22 sniper rifle, which is part of HK Company's lineup.

If the first film in the series were to succeed, follow-ups would definitely continue, with the leading man using a large variety of firearms and other weapons. The first movie was also a message to the NATO countries' arms manufacturers—hurry up and sponsor us, as your weapons will be showcased in numerous close-up shots.

Hollywood has always been making similar military equipment advertisements, with the most typical being the blockbuster movies sponsored by The Pentagon.

Movies like "Top Gun" and "Transformers" were practically brazen American equipment trade shows.

The latter even directly influenced the content of the film, with American soldiers armed with American weapons taking down the aliens.

If a Hollywood crew wanted to use the U.S. Army's equipment for filming at a low cost or even for free, they had to accept direction on some content from The Pentagon, even if it was far-fetched, holding their noses and agreeing to it.

The soundstage where the crew was working would hear gunfire every day, and occasionally, fireballs would explode on set.

As filming progressed, Mene joined in as well.

For considerations of political correctness, this black owner of the Continental Hotel was paired with a white assistant.

In the few narrative scenes between Martin and Mene, the concept of the High Table was specifically mentioned, and the setting of the High Table was emphasized.

These were all left open-ended for sequels. The most important thing for the first film was to achieve success; if it was a commercial failure, sequels would be impossible.

In Martin's previous life, the first film came when Keanu Reeves's career was waning, his drawing power had hit nearly rock bottom, and the box office success was not particularly notable. However, it gained significant offline market revenue through the appeal of the dog's storyline, which led to sequels and successfully revived Keanu Reeves's career, ushering in his second heyday.

Different from Reeves, Martin was currently at the peak of popularity, in top physical form, with excellent combat and shooting skills, both a draw and a hot topic, naturally aiming for greater commercial success.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

With a production budget of forty million US Dollars, the target was to break one hundred million at the North American box office.