“Hello Mr. Evans, it’s so good to see you in person.” Damon stood up as soon as Will entered the meeting room. Alexia had left to do some other work and Jeffrey had already gone to his office as Will wanted to talk to Damon alone.
“Just call me Will and have a seat.” Will extended his hand to gesture for him to sit and he himself sat right in front of him.
Damon McDonald looked tall and average in size with a sharp face. He had this shrewd look about him, making him a popular choice to play villains.
As he glanced at Damon, an image of a businessman formed inside of Will's mind. Although he was wearing a white t-shirt with his arms rolled up to the elbow, he could easily pass off as a rich businessman because of how he gave off the vibes and his look.
“Thanks, and thank you for having me here today,” Damon said calmly.
“No problem, let's get to business. Have you ever read Spiderman comics?” Will questioned.
“I actually never was interested in them. I just read the script. I found it very interesting. Do you think I should read the comics?” Damon questioned back.
Superhero movies weren't a trend of even something that directors had tried a lot in this universe, so even actors were not well versed in them.
Will nodded his head and replied, “Yeah, the thing is, you could actually learn a lot about the character, his story, his personality and whatnot if you give the comics a read. Norman Osborn is a character that developed throughout the story, so it would be easy at your end if you finish reading. It even had a lot of versions of himself in the comics.” Will explained how reading the comics would help him get a better understanding of his role.
“Can I know a bit more about the character— if you don’t mind? I mean your perspective of it.” He questioned, still talking as if he was walking on thin ice.
From his years in the industry, he had met various types of directors. Since he was not aware of what kind of a director Will was, he had to focus more on what questions he would ask and what types of answers to reply with.
Even if he was young, Damon knew Will was a genius.
Will thought for a bit before giving out an answer. “He is an ambitious and overly obsessive man who chose work over family, which is mainly his son, Harry Osborn. Even though he was callous toward him, he did show that he cared about him to a certain degree. He also liked Peter Parker the Spider-Man, who is obviously the main character, and he saw the latter as the son he never had. On the workfront, he's a very big businessman and scientist.” Will explained in short.
“What about the big picture? I mean, about Green Goblin?” Damon asked.
“I was getting to that after the in-character description. Anyway, as you know, Normon Osborn is also known as the Green Goblin. In fact, he is one of the main antagonists in Marvel comics of Spiderman. He became Green Goblin after ingesting a serum that increased his physical abilities yet in the process drove him to insanity. Green Goblin is kind of like a split personality under him.” Will kept explaining and Damon was nodding thoroughly without muttering a single word.
“Osborn initially started off as an uncaring and manipulative, yet troubled, paranoid, disturbed and anti-social businessman, willingly sacrificing others for the sake of his goals and those qualities became extreme when he became Green Goblin. About his weaknesses, His only two weaknesses are his own complete instability and ego, which has clouded his judgment frequently. He believed that he is so powerful and above everybody else, that it makes him underestimate his enemies, and believe that ‘not even death can defeat him’, which oftentimes can be exploited and leads to his defeat. Also, his own megalomania can be a major weakness, as his desire to become powerful can be exploited against him,” Will kept continuing.
“Fair enough,” Damon said at the end of Will’s character analysis. “What about the stunts and the costumes? From what I see, I bet there must be lots of stunts for the character?” Damon questioned Will.
“We can hire a body double for the stunts, and the costumes, don’t worry about them. The team is working on them, and they will be ready once you are ready,” Will replied.
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“If you don’t mind, I think I can give it a try to do the stunts on my own. Would that be a problem?” Damon questioned.
The question made Will add some more plus points in the book of Damon in his mind, due to how he remembered even William Dafoe did ninety percent of his own stunts. Due to the fact that the actor himself was doing the stunts, his costumes were made agile instead of the more bulky ones that Sam Raimi and his team had decided previously.
Will shook his head instantly. “Of course not, I’ll make the arrangements."
The reason Damon wanted to do his own stunts was because recently he had an uneventful experience with an action movie he did at the start of the year.
Since the genre was action, it obviously had an uncountable number of scenes with stunts, fights, and everything that would need a body double. Unfortunately, the movie flopped and the critics had criticized him a lot for the action sequences.
The reason was how artificial they looked because of the poor editing skills that the director and producer had agreed onto. A lot of critics had mentioned Damon and said how the actor could not pull off action movies, and had mentioned how the movie was rated low due to all of it.
Though, he wasn't the sole reason for the flop, it had hit him hard.
Because of that, he wanted to try doing his own stunts instead of relying on a body double which could possibly make things worse– if anything.
“Okay,” Damon muttered to himself while his eyes locked in the file that Will brought with himself.
“Yes, so back to the character, one of the main reasons why I chose him was his bond with Spiderman– The father-son dynamic. It is better if you understand the subtle points when it comes to the character of Norman Osborn. And Green Goblin is equally if not more interesting. They are pretty much two different people and there's a lot of things about him that you would need to incorporate.”
“Sounds interesting,” Damon said and chuckled under his breath.
“You will understand a lot deeper into his character slowly, so, what do you think about him?” Will questioned.
“He is a cool character, of course a villain, but the importance is as much as Spiderman in the whole story in my opinion,” Damon said without any hesitation in his face. “I think Normon and Peter's relationship is a major emotional point too and I really like how the plot goes on.” he continued further.
“So, you think you can do the role?” Will asked.
"Yes."
***
“How in the hell can you insult Will Evans and try to hook up with his girlfriend? What were you even thinking?” A middle-aged woman shouted disappointedly at Charlie, the lead of [Terminator].
The woman was Linda Ray and in profession, she was the agent of Charlie.
Currently, she was heavily disappointed in his behavior due to what happened during the filming of [Terminator]. Ever since she heard what happened, she had noticed how things had been going down for him.
“It was just friendly flirting, I didn’t think much while it was happening,” Charlie said without giving much depth to what happened.
Linda’s anger visibly increased at the unthoughtful words of Charlie. “You are just dumb, Charlie. You are acting in a movie where the main investor is Dream Vision, how can you not think of it before behaving like that? More than anything, you insulted the owner of it and tried to sleep with his girlfriend– That was a huge dumb movie considering how big Will is becoming in the industry.”
Linda’s tone was dislikable for Charlie’s ears. He frowned at her and replied, “He is just a director with two or three hits. It’s really not a big deal. You know who I’m right, an established star, don’t make a big deal out of it, really.”
“Nothing else matters when Dream Vision is continuously growing. Think how much it would grow in the near future considering that every project it owns earned over $100 million. Here’s the part you should worry about–”
Charlie looked at her questioning ‘what are you saying?'
“There’s a high chance that you probably won’t get any more roles in any movie that Dream Vision invests in. I was hoping that you will get more and more roles with them but now it's all gone. You might even lose out more things.” Linda explained what kind of a situation Charlie is in.
“I can’t believe you are saying this to me!” Charlie’s anger increased with every word Linda said. It was almost as if he was not hearing what she was trying to say.
“We lost the project with OP Studio." Linda said in a single breath.
“What? The director actually liked me.” Charlie was surprised to hear how they had lost the project even though he was so sure the director liked him.
“I heard Will Evans had a hand in it, but even if he doesn’t, you totally screwed up your reputation. I got to know that Dream Vision is trying to get information on you, and OP Studio wants to cooperate with Will no matter what. They won’t work with someone Will doesn’t like,” Linda said angrily.
Charlie was speechless hearing her words.
“Next time, try to think from your head instead of your dick. Just know, your career is at stake because of your actions.”