A sudden gasp rippled through the quiet theater, especially from the n in the audience, who were staring intently at the image on the big screen, seemingly in complete shock.
The protagonist, Mike, erges from a police station only to encounter a father and daughter being chased by zombies, and the way the daughter looks as she runs can only be described as absolutely stunning.
It was a cheap cinematic trick, but it was remarkably effective at pulling the audience in.
Then, with incredible skill, the lead actor dispatched the pursuing zombies and rescued the father and daughter.
Goldsman glanced over at Doug. "What do you think?"
Doug, having directed a film like The Bourne Identity, which was highly praised for its action sequences, had an expert eye for the genre.
"Not bad," Doug answered, keeping his voice low. "The editing wasn't great, just average. If the actors hadn't perford so well, the action scenes wouldn't have had nearly the sa impact."
Goldsman nodded slightly. "So you're saying the actors themselves made the scene work better than the editing?"
As everyone knew, Hollywood action films relied heavily on editing, not necessarily on the actors' raw abilities.
"It's about half and half," Doug said, his eyes fixed on the screen. "Most action films are thirty percent actor and action design, and seventy percent post-production editing."
Goldsman understood what Doug ant and said nothing more. Although he had been focused on chasing awards in recent years and hadn't touched many action films, he had been involved in Batman Forever and had a decent sense for fight choreography.
The protagonist’s action sequences were magnificent. Aside from a brief mont where the supporting actress's running scene stole the spotlight, he was the undisputed star whenever he was on screen.
The character was also brilliantly crafted—highly skilled, agile, and decisive, yet not without a sincerity that drove him to protect the other survivors, leading them to a shopping mall to escape the dead.
Using the mall as a makeshift fortress, he managed to save a group of people, including a gorgeous nurse who had escaped from a hospital.
Then, the film’s first gunfight erupted on screen.
Bang!
The crisp crack of gunfire echoed through the theater as the lead actor, a pistol in each hand, blew the head off a zombie.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
More shots rang out.
Doug sat up straighter. After seeing several of the protagonist's hand-to-hand combat scenes, he was finally getting to the gunplay.
Before attending the premiere, Goldsman had told him that their main objective tonight was to scout actors for their new project. Matthew Horner had a pretty solid profile—handso, charismatic, and a major star in last year's Pirates of the Caribbean. He was a rising B-list star who had appeared in a number of action-oriented films, which made him seem like a perfect fit for their movie.
However, Doug had his reservations. Matthew Horner’s impressive roles in Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down were smaller, supporting parts. The two roles that had truly brought him popularity and box-office appeal were period pieces, not modern characters.
But after seeing Horner in this pistol scene, Doug couldn't help but give a slight nod of approval. The actor's grip and shooting stance were so impeccable that they spoke of a high level of professionalism, much like the training Matt Damon had received from a professional instructor during the filming of The Bourne Identity.
More than halfway through the film, Doug felt that the lead actor was quite good. Horner’s dramatic performance was about average, not as strong as Matt Damon’s, but his action sequences—the shooting and close-quarters combat—were impressive. The film's editing was odd, however, with most of the action scenes relying heavily on the actors' performances.
"Well?" Goldsman prompted.
"Horner is much better at action scenes than Damon," Doug replied instantly.
He had essentially dismissed any lingering doubts he had. Matthew Horner’s modern persona and contemporary action skills were every bit as compelling as his portrayal of Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Even the dramatic scenes had a few impressive monts.
The protagonist, who had been missing his family, learns that his parents' and brothers' town has been transford into a hell on earth, leaving him with nothing but grief. He retreated to the roof of the building, where he and another survivor, Andy, played a leisurely ga of chess amidst the post-apocalyptic, lifeless landscape. It was, by far, the most morable scene in the film.
It was also the film’s most emotional mont, as Andy eventually turns into a zombie, and a grief-stricken Mike is forced to blow his head off.
But the final chainsaw scene made Doug completely reverse his earlier assessnt.
When one of the escape vehicles crashes, the protagonist, ard with a chainsaw, attempts to rescue those trapped inside. The resulting carnage—flying heads, sprays of blood, and scattered limbs—was utterly visceral.
The protagonist, the chainsaw, and the zombies as supporting characters created a strangely grueso romance.
A chainsaw... was there anything more romantic and bloody than a chainsaw against a horde of zombies?
The hero, Mike, a total badass, slaughtered his way through the zombie siege to save the people in the vehicle, only to be bitten in the process.
The film concluded with the hero saying goodbye to the heroine and choosing to go off alone, leaving the others to escape to an island. He stood next to an oil drum on the pier, drawing the majority of the zombies toward him, then shot the barrel, which erupted in a pillar of fla that shot into the sky.
Watching this, Doug’s tense nerves finally relaxed. He rembered that the film’s director was a newcor, and it was true that so elents, like the editing of the action, weren't well-executed. But with Matthew’s performance, the film had created a vivid and distinct male protagonist. From that perspective alone, the movie was a success.
The film ended with the roar of zombies, as the remaining survivors stared in despair at the hordes of the dead on the island.
They had naively thought they would be safe if they escaped to an island, but it was... full of zombies.
"An unforgettable character, right?" Goldsman seed to be muttering to himself as the credits rolled over a lancholy score. "His action scenes are brilliant."
"Agreed," Doug chid in. "He was born for roles like this."
Goldsman imdiately recalled several of Matthew's roles: Ronald Speirs in Band of Brothers; Sergeant Hoot, who cut a bloody swath through Somalia in Black Hawk Down; the defiant Scorpion King; and of course, Will Turner, one of the most charismatic characters in Arican cinema last year.
Doug added, "Matthew handled the 'civilian' scenes we were worried about pretty well. He's excellent at portraying the leader of a team of survivors, showing a subtle but confident leadership outside of the action scenes."
Goldsman nodded thoughtfully.
As an experienced screenwriter and producer, he could certainly see that.
When they encountered the three security guards in the supermarket who wanted to confiscate all their weapons, and after hearing their selfish demands, an ordinary person would have beco hostile. But instead of engaging in a childish standoff, the hero adopted a cooperative stance, suggesting to the lead guard that they fortify the entrances and exits and post a distress signal on the roof.
And Matthew’s tone of voice was perfectly on point. It all conveyed that the hero possessed a brilliant mind and a calm heart in addition to his formidable physical skills.
At the sa ti, he built a bridge of cooperation and communication between the two feuding groups of people.
For instance, whenever the survivors clashed with the guards or others, he was the first to intervene. And when everyone else hesitated about whether to go back and rescue others, the hero made the final decision.
In fact, he was the only one who truly thought about the entire team and wanted to get them all out together.
The supporting actress had large breasts, no brain, and was in the film purely for the male audience.
The young black man cared only about his pregnant wife; he couldn't care less about anyone else, so he hid the fact that she had been bitten, a decision that would later endanger everyone.
The female lead was kind but lacked the ability to unite the team. She was a typical sweet but uninteresting character.
The head security guard started out wanting only to stay alive and thinking only of himself, but later, under the hero’s influence, he found a spirit of self-sacrifice.
As for the other characters, it went without saying that practically all of them unconsciously deferred to the protagonist when it ca to important decisions, plans, and so on.
Overall, the hero's courage in this film—his concern for others, his sincerity, his flexibility and composure, and his ability to diate disputes among team mbers—all contributed to him becoming the de facto leader of the survivors.
That's why it was so heartbreaking to watch him die at the end. If the character hadn't been so well-developed, would the audience have felt such emotion?
At that mont, Doug spoke again. "I think we can make Horner one of our candidates. A key one, at that."
"Alright," Goldsman replied after a short pause. "But let's wait until the movie is officially released. We won't be starting auditions until the end of May anyway, so there’s no rush."
"Okay." Doug made no further comnt.
In the end, just because he thought the movie was good didn't an the market would respond positively. The success of a film like this would depend on whether Matthew Horner had genuine box-office appeal and whether audiences were willing to pay for tickets to see him.
As the screening concluded, the theater erupted in loud applause. Goldsman and Doug made their way to the front row to find the director and the lead actor and offer their congratulations.
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