"Friends" is Xia's favorite American drama in his previous life, no doubt about it.

He always watches other American dramas in a fresh and interesting way, and rarely watches them twice or three times.

However, Xia Tian never gets tired of watching the drama "Friends".

The deep friendship between Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chand, Joey, Phoebe, and the six people really brought a lot of spiritual comfort to him who worked alone in the city.

Xia Tian treats the six of them as his good friends. Whenever he feels upset or lonely, he will watch one or two episodes of "Friends", and then his mood will improve.

Therefore, when I decided to film "Friends", Xia Tian did not plan to replace any old friend.

In his opinion, Jennifer Aniston is Rachel, Matt LeBron is Joey, Matthew Perry is Chand... These actors have perfectly merged with these characters, and replacing any of them will make the show eclipse.

So he doesn't care about how to choose actors in other dramas, but "Friends" must be chosen according to his thoughts.

Brookheimer was a little surprised to see Xia Tian care about the drama "Friends".

In his opinion, the drama "Friends" is not very outstanding, it is just an ordinary sitcom. It may make money, but it should not be as good as that of "Star Gate".

"Star Gate" is a science fiction drama. A real big production may become the next "Star Trek" or "Star Wars". Such a series has the most potential and should invest more energy.

"Okay, don't ask too much, just do as you do." Xia Tian was too lazy to explain to Brookheimer, and it was not understandable to explain to him.

...

In his previous life, "Friends" performed in the first season in a normal way. The crew didn't even have enough budget, so even the actors were picking up rags while sitting on the sofa.

Moreover, because the high-quality comedies such as "Happy Family", "The Story of the Emergency Room", "Sein Fei", "Everyone Loves Raymond", "Little People in the Political World", and "The Crooked Stars Crash the Earth" were also aired at the same time, which also made it difficult for "Friends" to make a debut.

Even in the Emmy Awards competition, "Friends" was not as good as "Seinfeld" and "Everyone Loves Raymond" performed well.

But none of this matters.

The drama "Friends" is like "The Shawshank Redemption". The movie was not very good at the box office when it was released that year, and it also lost to "Forrest Gump" at the Oscars, but gold will shine sooner or later.

"The Shawshank Redemption" eventually became a classic in film history and received unanimous praise from fans. Moreover, with the copyright fee, it not only recovered the cost smoothly, but also made hundreds of millions of profits.

The same is true for "Friends". When it was aired, it rarely ranked first in the ratings. However, it later ranked first in the ranking of my 100 favorite American dramas selected by the authoritative American media "Hollywood Reporter".

Moreover, it has been popular for more than ten years since its broadcast, not only in the United States but also in the world. Every time it plays, a copyright fee is paid.

Over time, over the past decade, the drama "Friends" alone has earned more than 4 billion US dollars in profits for Warner, which can be regarded as one of the most successful dramas in history.

These two things alone are enough to make Xia Tian pay attention to "Friends", not to mention that there is still a feeling, so Xia Tian attaches great importance to this drama.

Seeing Xia Tian say this, Brookheimer had to nod.

...

The casting of "Star Gate" and "Prison Storm" went very smoothly. By May, both crews had basically gathered together.

However, the casting of "Friends" has not been very smooth. Many actors who were favored by producers, directors and screenwriters were rejected by him when they were sent to Xia Tian.

This put the casting of the crew into a state of stagnation for a time.

"Mr. Xia, what kind of actor do you want?" Brookheimer asked depressedly.

The fact that Xia Tian was rejected many times in a row made them feel at a loss and no confidence in casting.

Summer is also a little depressed.

In fact, he knew the names of the six starring actors in "Friends", but he could not directly say the names and designated the crew to find these six people.

First, it is difficult for him to explain why he uses these six people; second, if he designates these six people, it will easily cause them to have a spoiled mood and may trigger a chain reaction in the future.

So he didn't say that he wanted to wait for the six people to come to his door. But unexpectedly, after waiting for more than a month, none of the six people appeared, which made Xia Tian speechless.

"Is it because I saw too many celebrities coming to audition and worried that I didn't have the chance, so I didn't dare to try it?" he considered.

The six protagonists of "Friends" were not well-known before filming this drama.

Matt LeBron, who played Joey, was in the same situation as his role at the time, and was an unsuccessful young actor. Before he joined the crew, he had only two dollars left in his pocket.

Jennifer Aniston was just a newcomer at the time, and like Rachel in the play, he served as a waiter for a while.

The only more famous Cotney Cox, who has appeared in some movies and TV series before filming this drama, but is still not a real star.

So they are very likely not afraid to come to audition because of their inferiority complex, or they were originally here, but were rejected by the crew on the grounds that they were not famous.

"Well, let's do it, recast. Tell the casting director that I will use a group of newcomers to act in this drama this time. I don't need to have much fame, as long as my temperament, appearance, and personality are consistent with the role." Xia Tian said again.

"Will you take a little risk?" Brookheimer said in surprise when he heard this.

Although American dramas do not mean that the more famous the actors are used, the better, it is a bit too risky to use all newcomers.

"This drama is a low-cost sitcom. Isn't it more adventurous if you do with so many stars?" Xia Tian curled his lips.

In the past life, in the first season of Friends, the six starring actors were not paid high, like Matt LeBron, only $50,000 per episode. They would not be given too high in the early summer, otherwise they would be so high in the future.

When Brookheimer heard this, he suddenly realized and nodded with a smile.

He had seen Xia Tian value the drama "Friends" so much before, so he thought it would be a well-made comedy, so he chose stars when selecting actors.

Now he realized that he had been thinking about Xia Tian’s thoughts wrongly.

"Okay, Mr. Xia, I'll re-study it right away." Brookheimer nodded.
Chapter completed!