China Entertainment 1997.

Chapter 407 They fawned on the Hong Kong circle, and the Hong Kong circle fawned on Cao Xuan

Beijing, New Screen Company
Looking at the report sent by the staff, Boss Zhang felt mixed feelings and mixed feelings.

It's as if I took a day off on New Year's Eve, celebrated the New Year happily, and then watched the shit-like Spring Festival Gala; it's also like seeing other people having fun on New Year's Eve, forcing the author to hide aside and type.

Well, plus a national football team playing in Vietnam...

One word, heart tired!
And the reason why Boss Zhang has this mentality is also very simple, it is a summer box office statistics form.

The above densely counted the box office data of related theaters and even specific theaters on August 8, and finally gave a total number.

Boss Zhang ignored the data of other movies, and only had two movies in his eyes, which were also the first and second in the overall ranking.

① "Embroidered Spring Knife": 1289.34 million box office

②"House of Flying Daggers": 290.12 million box office

And just two days ago, the single-day box office of "House of Flying Daggers" was still in the range of 500 million to 600 million. Now, because of the release of "Xiu Chun Knife", the box office has been cut by nearly half, and the single-day box office is only "Xiu Chun Knife". Fraction.

To be honest, before the release of "Embroidered Spring Knife", Boss Zhang was still very optimistic.

"House of Flying Daggers" surpassed [-] million in half a month. Although it lacks stamina and is obviously inferior to the previous year's "Hero", it is also a thriving existence in the mainland market. . .

Boss Zhang felt that although the release of "Xiu Chun Knife" might affect the box office of "House of Flying Daggers", it would not hurt the basic market.

And when "Embroidered Spring Knife" was actually released, Boss Zhang realized that he had underestimated the box office appeal of this movie and Cao Xuan.

Although the box office of 960 million on the first day was far inferior to that of "House of Flying Daggers", the trend of blockbusters has already been fully demonstrated.

It ranked third in the first-day box office records of theater movies released in the Mainland, second only to "House of Flying Daggers" and "Heroes".

And on the next day, under the condition of some word-of-mouth fermentation, the box office did not fall but increased, and won nearly 1300 million box office.

The two-day box office exceeded 2000 million, just from the momentum.It is not inferior to the previous "House of Flying Daggers" too much.

If there are no major accidents, according to the box office trend, it is only a matter of time before the box office of "Xiu Chun Knife" breaks through [-] million.

This result really exceeded many people's expectations.

The investment in "Embroidered Spring Knife" is not low. Counting the investment in publicity and distribution, the cost of 3000 million is real.

But this number is really not particularly high in the current film market.

Among the more prestigious films this year, Feng Pants' "A World Without Thieves" also cost about 3000 million yuan.

However, because it is an urban theme, a large number of product placements were sold, such as BMW cars, Carlsberg beer, etc. It is conservatively estimated that more than 1000 million yuan can be recovered from the advertising operation alone.

It is also because of this that the cost of "Xiu Chun Dao" in this year's blockbuster has not become the youngest.

But aside from the Wang brothers and Feng Kuo, who are so searched and searched, the remaining blockbusters "New Police Story", "Kung Fu" and "Ambush from Ten Daggers" basically cost over [-] million yuan.

The highest is "House of Flying Daggers", which claims 3000 million U.S. dollars, converted into RMB 2.5 million.

Of course, it is not clear how much this "claim" is worth. Anyway, Cao Xuan estimated that the scenes and actors of "House of Flying Daggers" will definitely not cost 2.5 million yuan.

As for Master Xing's "Kung Fu", more money was spent on special effects. There are different opinions on the specific cost, but it must have exceeded [-] million.

As for "New Police Story", the cost is mainly the remuneration of the two superstars Cheng Long and Cao Xuan.

Cao Xuan didn't know exactly how much the original time and space cost, but now, he estimated that the cost would not be less than 1 million.

Calculated in this way, the so-called 3000 million cost of "Xiu Chun Knife" is not too much, and part of it is Cao Xuan's salary.

In conversion, the actual cost of the film is 2000 million, which is enough to support the sky.

Under such circumstances, many people who only "input cost theory" are conservative in their box office estimates for "Xiu Chun Knife".

The most in the mainland is 8000 million, basically 4000-6000 million, plus the overseas box office totals over [-] million, which is slightly stronger than "When Men Are in Love".

But now "Embroidered Spring Knife" is actually released, and it has been fermented by word of mouth in just two days.

Xu Laoguai + Cao Xuan, a brand new combination, handed over an answer sheet that surprised many people. Many film critics called "Embroidered Spring Knife" a "new style of martial arts movie".

This so-called new martial arts movie is actually a very abstract evaluation.

When "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was released, it was also called a new style of martial arts. It claimed to combine Chinese and Western styles to create a martial arts movie that foreigners can understand.

When "Hero" was released, it was also known as a new style of martial arts blockbuster, which combined with history, and the scene was grand and blah blah.

Now that "Embroidered Spring Knife" is released, it still hasn't escaped this law, and the feature of this movie is that it is based on characters, and the story focus is firmly on the three brothers, which is different from traditional martial arts movies that focus on plot.

At the same time, the martial arts style of "Xiu Chun Knife" is full of realism.

It has reduced the eaves and wall-walking, elegant and unrestrained style of previous martial arts movies, and the fighting scenes have a kind of realness of fists to flesh, real swords and guns.

In terms of plot, "Embroidered Spring Knife" is not complicated. In short, it is the struggle of the ancient low-level people in the whirlpool.

Although similar routines are not new in martial arts movies, the mature and concise narrative style and rhythm still make the audience enjoy watching.

Especially against the backdrop of the disappointing plot of "House of Flying Daggers".

There is one thing to say, the reason why "Embroidered Spring Knife" is so highly rated is almost one-sided praise, and "House of Flying Daggers" has helped a lot.

After watching a gorgeous scenery film with a messy storyline at Lao Mouzi, I saw "Embroidered Spring Knife" which followed the plot line in a down-to-earth manner.

Even if the plot of the story is not amazing, the impression score has been directly raised by several levels.

Another reason is that although Cao Xuan performed well at the box office last year, he is a newcomer to film after all, and Mr. Xu has just rushed to the street because of "Shushan".

Although later generations spoke highly of the movie "Shushan", at the moment, apart from the special effects, Old Monster Xu has been criticized very badly in terms of the story.

Coupled with the fact that Hu Jun and Gao Yuanyuan are all TV stars, the outside world has low expectations for the quality of "Xiu Chun Knife".

Also because the expectations were too low, I actually felt a sense of unexpected joy after watching the finished film that was above the level of "Xiu Chun Knife".

Therefore, "Embroidered Spring Knife" got a lot of contrast impression points and surprise points, and the quality itself is not bad, resulting in a pretty good word-of-mouth evaluation.

Especially compared to "House of Flying Daggers" half a month ago, it is simply overwhelming, and it can be said that it is stepping on the head of Lao Mouzi.

This is also an important reason why the box office of "House of Flying Daggers" was cut short, and the audience's box office went to "Embroidered Spring Knife"...

The more Boss Zhang watched, the more breathless he became. "Spider-Man 2" will be released soon, and I'm afraid it will score another wave of box office.

If it goes on like this, the total box office of "House of Flying Daggers" will be 1000-2000 million less than expected, or even more.

Even though "House of Flying Daggers" now has a combined global box office of hundreds of millions of RMB, but for many overseas box offices, the film studios don't get that much dividends, and they even just get copyright fees.

Even if the new picture can be divided a lot, the box office share of 1000-2000 million is still several million. No matter how small a fly is, it is still meat.

What's more, a few million is not a fly...

Thinking of the disappearance of several villas or luxury cars, Boss Zhang couldn't help grinding his teeth.

At the same time, he also regretted the falling out with Cao Xuan more and more. He would not consider the advantages and disadvantages of "House of Flying Daggers" and "Xiu Chun Knife". Boss Zhang's concept is very simple.

"Embroidered Spring Knife" can sell money because of Cao Xuanhong, the same "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" are also popular because of Lao Mouzi + Li Lianjie, Liang Chaowei, Maggie Cheung/Liu Tianwang, International Chapter, Jinchengwu.

Boss Zhang couldn't help but imagine that if Cao Xuan's box office alone could be so terrifying, and if Lao Mouzi was added, how much box office would it reach.

2 million?
3 million?
or more?

But it is a pity that because of "House of Flying Daggers", he offended Cao Xuan, and the other party was not willing to cooperate.

What's more, Cao Xuan himself is the boss of Fanxing, and he has a lot of projects in his hands. Even if he cooperates with the new picture, it is hard to say who will be the master and who will be the second.

Moreover, it was no secret in the industry that Fanxing wanted to recruit directors like Huayi and New Picture. Boss Zhang was also afraid of cooperating with Cao Xuan, and the old schemer would be poached.

Although he was crazy, he also knew that Cao Xuan was stronger than him in terms of assets and connections, so Boss Zhang didn't dare to bet.

But Boss Zhang was greedy for Cao Xuan's popularity, and after thinking about it, his eyes suddenly brightened.

Since Cao Xuan, the king of Asia, can't cooperate, isn't there another little king of Asia, Jay Chou...

It doesn't matter if his popularity is low, he doesn't expect to be able to catch up with Cao Xuan, if he can achieve 2/3 of Cao Xuan's gain, then he will earn blood.

Thinking of this, Boss Zhang immediately picked up the phone and called Lao Mouzi who was preparing for the closing ceremony of the Athens Olympic Games overseas.

"Yimou, can you add a character to your new script..."

.........

Cao Xuan didn't know about his butterfly effect, which made Boss Zhang focus on Xiao Zhou earlier.

At this time, he was having a secret conversation with Mr. Xu and Mr. Shi in the hotel room.

Although "Embroidered Spring Knife" has only been released for only two days, its box office has already exceeded 2000 million fiercely, and any fool can see that this movie has a bright future.

You can make a small fortune in the mainland market alone, and the overseas box office is even more profitable.

In this way, the project of the movie prequel "Xiu Chun Knife: Asura Battlefield" was launched naturally.

If there is no accident, the filming will be next year. Cao Xuan prefers to cooperate with Mr. Xu again. For this, Mr. Xu is naturally willing.

"Embroidered Spring Knife" became popular, making him hopeful to become the first Xiangjiang director with a domestic box office of over [-] million.

Before the release of "Seven Swords" with high expectations, he turned around beautifully and became a hot and famous director in the film industry again. Mr. Xu almost woke up laughing from his sleep these two days.

Xiangjiang film and television companies such as Yinghuang, Media Asia, Anle, etc., all extended olive branches to him, and there is a faint 90s feeling.

At this time, Cao Xuan personally came to the door. In addition to finalizing the cooperation of "Xiu Chun Knife: Asura Battlefield", he also proposed another idea.

Fanxing wants to reach a long-term strategic cooperation with Mr. Xu!
After the cooperation is reached, Fanxing's projects will be given priority to Director Xu. If Xu Laoguai has any projects of his own, Fanxing will also invest according to the evaluation.

The two parties are bound to a certain extent, the interests are relatively consistent, and there are detailed rules such as conflict avoidance, cooperation and sharing.

To put it bluntly, Fanxing "signed" Mr. Xu, but unlike ordinary contracted directors, Mr. Xu has a high degree of freedom, and the two parties are more of a relatively equal cooperative relationship.

After Cao Xuan finished talking about his thoughts, he put down another letter of intent, then politely flashed away, leaving Old Freak Xu and his wife to discuss.

"The conditions are very generous."

Mr. Xu's eyes flickered, he had sufficient creative freedom, and he retained the independent rights of the studio. Such a big water pipe is hard to find, let alone Cao Xuan personally agrees. Once the two parties sign a contract, he will get a lot of signing fees.

"It's good to listen to these words. The big boss recruiting talents is not just talking about the hype, but if he really has any ideas and asks you to change the script and add an actor, can you refuse?"

In contrast, Shi boys are much calmer, pointing out the reality behind it when they come up.

Yes, Mr. Xu is talented and can make money for his boss. He is the guest of many film and television bosses, but he is not the only guest of the bosses.

Unless you invest and become the boss yourself, if you take other people's money, you are doomed to be unable to refuse some things.

"Then I refuse?"

Old Freak Xu hesitated to ask, Shi Nansha shook his head, looked at his bewildered husband, and patiently explained.

"My lord, haven't you noticed this summer? The two movies "House of Flying Daggers" and "Embroidered Spring Knife" broke [-] million yuan.

In just one summer vacation, the total box office is expected to exceed 3 million, which is almost comparable to the total box office of Xiangjiang last year.

Yes, there was SARS last year, which affected the film market, this is undeniable.

But what about this year?There is no SARS this year, right? It’s already August. Is there a movie with a box office of more than 8 million in Xiangjiang?
Master, whether you admit it or not, the film market in mainland China has just opened up, and Xiangjiang has already been thrown a few blocks away.
Zhou Xingchi and Cheng Long both started to go north, Fatty Wang came to the mainland to film a TV series, An Le hooked up with Lao Mouzi, and Yinghuang hooked up with Cao Xuan.

All this shows that the future of the Xiangjiang film industry and even Chinese-language films lies in the mainland. "

Having said that, Shi Boyan looked at Old Freak Xu with a shrewd smile on his face.

"I heard you said that this Cao Sheng is a bit strong, but the boss is easy to deal with. Compared with those who played with guns a few years ago, Cao Sheng is at least reasonable, respects the people below, and is generous.

More importantly, Fanxing is a well-ranked film and television company in the mainland, and it also has its own theater chain.

With this kind of strength, even if it is not the Shaw Brothers giant in the early years, it is at least a Golden Harvest. If we want to come to the mainland to find food, why should we reject such thick legs. "

"..."

Old Freak Xu fell into deep thought, but Mr. Shi didn't bother him, and just quietly watched him think about it, and just added another sentence.

"Fatty Wang and Chen Kexin, who worked with Cao Sheng before, are both smart people, and now we have the upper hand because of "Xiu Chun Knife".

But if you don't seize the opportunity and wait for others to react, it's two different things to give help in the snow and add icing on the cake. "

"But……"

Old Freak Xu hesitated for a moment, and said in a low voice: "Cao Sheng doesn't seem to like Xiangjiang people very much. I wanted to recommend Xiangjiang actors to play several roles in "Embroidered Spring Knife" before, but they were all rejected.

In addition, the costumes and props in my team were all discarded, and the crew was also kicked out of the crew for a small incident. I think Cao Sheng seems to be prejudiced against Xiangjiang people. "

"Oh, is it biased or your people are not clean."

Mr. Shi sneered: "Don't talk about anything else, I know about A Biao, the director of the show, and that bad boy gave me a false account in "Seven Swords", and he got [-]% of it.

I think because he is your brother, I only let him spit out the money, and didn't bother with him about the rest. Cao Sheng didn't bother to care about it. Thanks to the strict security in the interior, he would at least lose his hand in Xiangjiang. "

Old Freak Xu was a little embarrassed when he heard that, that A Biao was indeed arrested and kicked out, and the costumes and props were discarded because they did not meet the historical standards.

People from Xiangjiang are still not very familiar with the history. The props need firecrackers from the Ming Dynasty, and they got at least the Lianzhu guns from the late Qing Dynasty.

If Wei Zhongxian's subordinates want this thing, even ten Ding Xius are not enough to die...

The same is true for clothing, not to mention the mix of various dynasties, and even a little modern fashion element, which is called artistic beauty.

All the costumes and props of "Xiu Chun Knife" were specially checked for Ming history data, and historians were also invited to check.

I dare not say that it is completely restored, but there is no problem with 80 points, especially the costumes. In order to stay close to history, Cao Xuan even asked several leading actors to abandon the handsome and exquisite flying fish suits.

After all, according to history, petty officials like Jinyiwei Baihu and Zongqi are basically not qualified to wear flying fish suits.

In order to stay close to history, Cao Xuan made such a big sacrifice, so how could he fall in love with those gaudy costumes and not directly throw them out, just to give old monster Xu face.

Old Monster Xu more or less understood in his heart that what he said now was just an excuse to make excuses for his hesitation.

Now that the behind-the-scenes background has been uncovered by Shi Nanban, he is also a little embarrassed and mentions actors again.

Mr. Shi replied unceremoniously: "There are a few Hong Kong films that use mainland actors, so why do mainland films have to use Hong Kong actors.

If I were Cao Sheng, the boss of Fanxing, I would definitely use my own people I am familiar with. How could this talk about discrimination. "

Seeing that Mr. Xu was sprayed and couldn't say a word, Shi Boyan also softened his tone.

"My lord, if you have a Xiangjiang actor you want to use, why don't you talk to Cao Sheng? If you really insist, I believe he will not sell you. I can see that Cao Sheng loves talents and values ​​you very much."

Speaking of this, in fact, Old Freak Xu has been tempted for a long time, but just now he was rushing to talk, and he was a bit embarrassing, so he could only speak stubbornly. Now that Boyan Shi gave the steps, he immediately went down the donkey.

"I understand. Cao Sheng's subordinates are also a group of people, and they must be appeased and taken care of."

"That's right, everyone understands each other."

The couple tacitly agreed, and then carefully studied the letter of intent, and called the lawyer they had made friends with for advice.

Early the next morning, when the crew of "Embroidered Spring Knife" went to Hangzhou for publicity, on the way, Old Monster Xu expressed to Cao Xuan that he agreed to cooperate.

Cao Xuan was not surprised by his choice.

If it is said to be moving into his subordinates, Mr. Xu may hesitate to refuse, but this slightly loose cooperation model, the probability of the couple agreeing is more than 90%.

This is also the method discussed by Cao Xuan and some high-level officials of Fanxing.

To be honest, except for new directors or directors with low ambitions, it is difficult for film and television companies to recruit directors with some qualifications and achievements, especially famous directors.

In order to cooperate with Lao Mouzi, New Screen is almost serving him alone, and it is almost becoming Lao Mouzi's studio.

Huayi and Feng Trousers also gave shares, entered into gambling contracts, and gave money in different ways. They finally coaxed people, but there were still some disturbances every now and then.

Most of the other directors also started their own companies, and then cooperated with major film and television companies.

With so many stars and no directors, it is very difficult to become a leader in the film and television industry without a famous director.

But on the one hand, it is very difficult to find a famous director, and on the other hand, Cao Xuan doesn't want to get an ancestor to come back to serve him.

So after thinking about it, I feel that I have borrowed from the studio system of later generations and formed a relatively close strategic cooperation relationship with some famous directors.

In fact, this system cannot be said to be a reference to later generations. Now it has a prototype, and Huayi and Feng Pants are almost the same model.

It's just that Feng Pants basically only cooperates with Huayi, and the interests of the project are highly bound together.

Fan Xing and Mr. Xu are more loose. Whether or not to cooperate in the project depends on their own considerations, but they must be closer than other companies and directors.

For example, for Mr. Xu's project, Fanxing has the absolute priority to invest, and the guaranteed share must be more than 50%.

Of course, Fanxing can only invest 10% or 5% if he wants to, but if Fanxing is optimistic about the project and wants to invest more, Mr. Xu will keep at least 50% of the share, and Fanxing will independently produce the most.

Similarly, for Fanxing's resources and projects, Mr. Xu also has priority.

Aside from that, Old Freak Xu's movies will be treated like his own in Fanxing Cinemas. This alone is enough to make many directors envy and hate.

The cooperation has been finalized, but the various details of the contract will be discussed later.

Anyway, the general intention is to get it done, those are small problems, and everyone is not in a hurry.

Cao Xuan has great ambitions, and he is not only aiming at Mr. Xu, he plans to get a few more directors.

When the Fanxing Building is completed next year, they will announce it together, so that the entertainment circle can see the majesty of his boss Cao...

Although the contract has not been formally signed, Old Freak Xu has already begun to enter the role. In his speech and behavior, his attitude towards Cao Xuan is obviously much more respectful than before.

Such changes in details naturally cannot escape the eyes of the creators of "Embroidered Spring Knife".

Wu Jing was foolish and bold, relying on his good relationship with Cao Xuan, he got this matter out.

For a while, the mood of the entire "Embroidered Spring Knife" crew was complicated.

Old Monster Xu, the representative director of Xiangjiang film industry, is not ranked in the top three in the comprehensive index of Xiangjiang directors, but can also break into the top five.

After "Embroidered Spring Knife", he is expected to return to the top, and even became the most popular Xiangjiang director at one time.

In the current environment where mainland actors are trying their best to curry favor with the Hong Kong circle, Cao Xuan took the initiative to recruit this big man, which undoubtedly gave everyone a great impact.

For a time, it gave everyone the illusion that they were fawning over the Hong Kong circle, and the Hong Kong circle was fawning over Cao Xuan.

Well, it can't be considered an illusion.

After all, it is true that many bigwigs in the Hong Kong circle lower their stance and want to cooperate with Cao Xuan to enter the mainland market.

In the face of Huayi and the new picture, the Hong Kong circle still has funds on hand as the greatest confidence.

But in the face of Cao Xuan, Boss Cao has even more money than them. The only card that the Hong Kong circle can show is film talent.

And these talents are not irreplaceable, even Cao Xuan can use them for himself, so in the cooperation between the two parties, Cao Xuan is the one who takes the initiative.

With the current background of mainland movies, blindly attacking and contradicting the Hong Kong circle will do more harm than good.

Incorporate and absorb part of the other party's talents, while cultivating their own talents, and when they have accumulated enough background, the mainland can be completely self-sufficient in terms of talents, technology, and resources.

The rest is simple, either kneel down and be a dog obediently, or lift the table and get out...

----

ps: Happy New Year to everyone on the first day of the Lunar New Year▄██●, please ask for a New Year’s Eve ticket by the way

(End of this chapter)