America Tycoon: The Wolf of Showbiz

At Disney Studio, inside the sound stage of "The Martian" film crew.

Martin, dressed in a grey uniform, entered the soil storage repository, ready to become a Martian farmer.

Ridley Scott came over and reminded him, "You must use primitive farming methods."

Martin nodded, "Don't worry, I'm prepared."

As for farming, he was quite skilled at it, having been raised in a rural area that was nationally renowned for vegetable production.

On this planet, there were few who could farm better than his hometown could.

A prop master came over with a bag, which was filled with sealed bags.

Martin took one and gave it a squeeze.

Ridley informed him, "For the sake of filming effects, these contain real human feces."

Martin put the bag back and clapped his hands, "No problem."

Once every department of the crew was in place, Ridley returned behind the director's monitor. Following the clapperboard, the shooting began.

Martin transformed into a farmer, leveled the soil, and used simple tools to make furrows, all the while spouting saucy lines nonstop to the selfie equipment.

To make a monologue interesting, self-deprecation is inevitable.

The shoot had just begun and wasn't going very smoothly; Martin was finding his footing, and Ridley was doing the same.

After the painful failure of "Pharaoh and the Gods," the veteran director Ridley was well aware that if he messed up another big-budget production, his future prospects would not be so good.

Therefore, right from the start of "The Martian," he demanded high standards from everyone involved, including himself and Martin.

After nearly two hours, the crew had only shot four scenes.

During this time, Ridley frequently left his director's chair to coordinate shooting affairs.

Compared to the rest of the crew, he demanded less of Martin, because Martin could always make timely adjustments to achieve the desired effect.

The final scene before lunch began.

Martin held his nose and opened a bag of feces, mixing it into the soil.

The stuff might have been bagged for a while, and with the hot weather of late May in California, the fermented odor still burrowed into his forehead despite holding his nose.

In recent years, Martin had lived quite comfortably, and the smell was strong and nauseating, but he could still bear it.

When he used to help with farm work at home in his previous life, he had handled fermented chicken feces by hand, a smell beyond what the word "pungent" could describe.

Martin worked quickly, processing bag after bag of feces as Ridley Scott had requested to prepare for planting potatoes.

According to his experience, farm manure should not be used this way, especially not buried at the roots.

Back then, the collected cow and sheep feces would be piled up for natural fermentation and were not used directly.

He remembered what the old folks had taught, fresh manure could easily burn the roots.

But Martin didn't say anything, for movies showcase things differently than real life.

The scenes of the male protagonist using feces to plant potatoes were filmed by Ridley back and forth for nearly an hour before passing.

As a result, Martin couldn't eat anything at lunch; every dish seemed to carry a whiff of the odor.

That afternoon, Martin finally moved on from manure to another sound stage set up exactly the same, where he flaunted his well-planted potato field to a selfie camera. Explore hidden tales at My Virtual Library Empire

To shoot this scene, Ridley had long before arranged for someone to plant potatoes in the studio, which were now almost fully grown.

Although the initial scenes being shot were demanding soliloquies, both Ridley and Martin quickly adjusted and entered into the work rhythm.

The former was an experienced director, capable of quickly resolving any sudden issues on set.

Martin's professionalism and dedication were beyond doubt; not a single director who had worked with him had anything negative to say.

Hollywood's past years had proven that as long as the financiers don't interfere and the A-list actors don't cause trouble, the filming process is typically quite smooth.

Over eighty percent of the shooting took place in the sound stages of the Disney Studio.

The personnel from "The Martian" team moved in and out daily, methodically.

Across the main road from the studio, the opposite sound stage hosted "Lone Ranger" crew.

After months of preparation, this movie officially began filming in June.

In the morning, an electric cart came and stopped at the entrance of the sound stage. Megan Ellison hopped off but didn't enter the "Lone Ranger" crew's sound stage. Instead, she stood by the roadside, looking towards the diagonally opposite side.

She had enjoyed teasing and playing with Martin last time, and after having fun once, naturally, she wanted a second time.

Lately, she was quite busy and hadn't come across Martin. Today's visit was not only to check on the filming but also in hopes of running into Martin to have some more fun.

Megan looked for a while, the big doors of the photography studio diagonally opposite were tightly closed, with several security personnel constantly guarding the entrance, obviously in a filming state, rejecting any entry or exit.

After waiting for a moment, the doors of that studio remained closed, and Megan lost her patience, heading to the studio where her own film crew was located.

Arriving at the entrance of her studio, the doors were wide open, and upon entering, she found the studio brightly lit, with crew members idling about, sitting or standing, chatting leisurely, much like employees slacking off at work.

Megan's anger flared at once, as an excellent financier, she absolutely couldn't tolerate such wasteful behavior!

But she didn't act rashly, after all, she had initially given Jerry Bruckheimer the promise that his team would take full responsibility for this part of the production.

As Megan walked further inside, she saw Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the latter discussing with the director of photography, while the former was constantly on the phone.

Both men had faces filled with anger and a touch of helplessness.

Looking at the actors, they were all sitting in the resting area.

Megan frowned slightly, because she couldn't see Johnny Depp, the male lead.

Yesterday, she had her assistant confirm with the crew that there were scenes with Depp this morning, which was why she came to visit the set.

Megan waited a little longer, until producer Jerry finished his call, but still, there was no sign of Depp.

And with so much time passed, there was still no indication that the crew was ready to start filming, still in that idle state as before.

Every minute and every second wasted was Megan Ellison's investment going down the drain!

Jerry saw Megan Ellison and hurried over to greet her, showing respect for the well-funded female investor, at least on the surface.

Megan asked directly, "Jerry, why haven't you started working yet? The crew's break doesn't need to be this long, right?"

Internally looking down on this outsider, Jerry responded, "Wait just a moment, and we'll start filming."

Megan was not easy to fool, she asked, "Where is Johnny Depp? I've seen the crew's schedule for today, there are many scenes with the male lead in the morning, so why haven't I seen him?"

Hearing Depp's name made Jerry's headache intensify, with the veins on his forehead bulging, as if his blood vessels were about to burst.

Knowing that there must be a problem with Depp, Megan asked again, "Where is Johnny Depp? Where is my male lead?"

There was a finance officer from Anna Purna Pictures in the crew, so with careful inquiry, it would be impossible to keep the situation hidden, Jerry gritted his teeth and said, "Depp is running late, he hasn't arrived at the set yet, and the crew here has made all the preparations for shooting, just waiting for him to come."

"Running late?" At first, Megan was surprised, then she looked at her watch, it was almost eleven in the morning, she laughed out of frustration, pointing to the watch face, and said, "Do you think this is just running late?"

Jerry was equally irritated, but since it was his crew, he didn't want the financier to interfere too much with the work, saying, "I'll talk to Depp about these minor problems..."

As he was speaking, seven or eight people came bustling through the studio entrance, two of them even leading dogs.

In the middle of the group, Johnny Depp, with hollow eyes and dark circles, looked like Captain Sparrow had stepped into the real world, staggering as he walked.

Before Megan Ellison could say anything, director Gore Verbinski erupted, "I said, no dogs on set! Lead them out immediately, now! Right now!"

The hungover Depp let out a belch, "If my baby goes, I go!"

After saying that, he waved his hand, signaling his entourage to get ready to leave.

Verbinski's face turned colors with anger.

Jerry hurriedly intervened, "Johnny, let someone take the dogs to the office area's rest room, there are too many people and equipments here, it won't be good if they get hurt."

Depp could take in that much and muttered a few words to his entourage, who then took the dogs to the adjacent rest room.

When Verbinski first worked with Depp on "Pirates of the Caribbean," despite his odd temperament, he was still within Verbinski's tolerance.

But on their second collaboration, Verbinski had a bellyful of complaints against Depp, this eccentric with newfound capital rapidly transformed into one of Hollywood's most difficult and least professional actors.

But Captain Sparrow was too popular, and Disney held their noses and worked with Depp, as did Verbinski.

Nobody would fight against huge profits.

Verbinski glanced at Depp and said, "We can't shoot this morning, not even enough time for makeup."

The male lead's makeup was quite troublesome.

Jerry frowned and said, "I'll go talk to him, get him to makeup and at the same time, sober up."

Verbinski couldn't hold back and reminded, "This can't go on, he alone will drive the crew to the brink of collapse."

Depp was now a top figure in the industry, with the Caribbean series under his belt, his momentum was unmatched, even a top producer like Jerry had to negotiate carefully with him.

Jerry found Depp and tried to communicate.

From Jerry's expressions, Verbinski didn't have to guess too hard that the conversation wasn't going smoothly; Depp, with his muddled, drunken eyes, seemed unable to understand what was being said.

This film had been difficult from the start, and with Megan Ellison's ample investment budget, almost all the difficulties had something to do with Depp.

Verbinski swore this would be the last time he worked with Depp, unless next time someone offered him a director's salary of 30 million US dollars.

Megan, holding back her words, just watched coldly from the sidelines.