China Entertainment 1997.

Chapter 452 Crazy Entertainment Stars and "Taken" (Update 26)

Regarding Fan Xing's next movie, most of the outside world is paying attention to "Painted Skin".

This "Liao Zhai" movie, which cooperates with Hollywood, Japan and other companies for special effects, not only has a strong lineup, but also has the most investment in Fanxing's production over the years.

Although it has not been confirmed yet, the roughly estimated production and distribution budget is about 6500-8000 million, and it is said to be 1 million, which is a big production next year.

There's no way, the f-ck movie industry is too busy now, and they are throwing money like crazy.

Lao Mouzi's "The City Is Full of Golden Flowers" claims an investment of 3 million yuan, and Feng Xiaogang's "Night Banquet" also claims to have invested 1.2 million yuan.

Li Lianjie's "Huo Yuanjia" and Liu Tianwang's "Mo Gong" also all invested over [-] million yuan.

I don't want to discuss how much water is in it, but the key point is that Fanxing, as the leader in the industry, could be "stingy" in the past, but now he can't lose his momentum.

Although Cao Xuan wouldn't slap a swollen face to support a fat man and lose money and make money, he still has the ability to follow along.

Another aspect is that large productions are conducive to publicity and selling prices.

Your typical shooting costs 2000 million U.S. dollars, and the asking price must be more confident than the cost of several million yuan.

Before Cao Xuan sold film copyrights, the cost data listed in the negotiation was several times higher than the actual cost, or even directly doubled.

Of course, overseas film producers are not fools. They also know how to do market research, and they may be able to catch them at the beginning. Now they have learned well and will not be easily deceived.

Due to various reasons, Fanxing, who hadn't been too concerned about cost before, had to keep up with the pace. The cost of "Painted Skin" also skyrocketed, successfully "over [-] million".

With such a high cost, even if he is confident in the profitability of "Painted Skin", Cao Xuan did not eat alone, but took out 35% of the share.

China Film received 15%, Huayi received 5%, Xingmei received 5%, and Inphoenix, Bona and other companies and individual investors who came late received the remaining 10%.

Fanxing himself took 50%, while Cao Xuan took 2500 million yuan plus 15% of the share of dividends.

The film "Painted Skin" invested too much in special effects and required a lot of money. If Cao Xuan was fully paid for the film, he would use up the crew's funds, so he used the film's salary to calculate the dividend.

Similar to Cao Xuan is Li Lianjie, his film salary is even higher than Cao Xuan's, and he puts a lot of pressure on the "Fearless" crew, so he also chose to convert part of the film salary into the investment share.

The conversion here is much more complicated than directly paying the salary.

Sometimes the crew suffers, and sometimes the actors suffer. It mainly depends on the prospects of the project and who holds the initiative. There is no specific measurement standard.

But no matter what, with such a high-cost production, Cao Xuan's signboard is still popular, which naturally attracted all kinds of attention in the industry.

In particular, Mr. Xu was interviewed and talked about the setting of "Painted Skin"——

Love drama, and the role of the heroine is even stronger than that of the hero!

There are too few major commercial productions in the entertainment industry with female characters as the main characters. "Painted Skin" is already well-qualified, not to mention Mr. Xu, a director who is good at shooting women.

Lin Qingxia, Zhang Manyu, Wang Zuxian, Guan Zhilin, etc., many screen classics of the gang of Hong Kong beauties were born from the hands of Mr. Xu.

It is recognized in the industry that Mr. Xu is one of the directors who are best at shooting women in the industry, so naturally he has a special aura to attract many female stars.

As a result, those popular actresses in the entertainment industry went crazy.

Because a certain Zhao who had just made a comeback in "Moment in Peking" directly announced to the public that he wanted to cooperate with Cao Xuan and Old Freak Xu.

International Zhang Mingming has already decided to star in Feng Xiaogang's "Night Banquet", regardless of other things, he told the media that he liked watching "Liao Zhai" since he was a child.

Mr. Zhou was originally in contact with "The Banquet", but now he has temporarily put it aside, and all the teams are doing their best to publicize "Painted Skin".

Li Bingbing and the sisters didn't care whether the Wang family brothers would think too much, they directly asked Wang Jinhua to meet, and wanted to use Sister Hua to encircle Wei and rescue Zhao.

Sun Niangniang from Hairun, Zhang Yunv from Xiangjiang, sister Zhiling from Taiwan Province, and even the slightly older Ning Jing, Xiao Tao Hong, Xu Qing and others have ideas, and later even actresses from Japan, Korea, and Singapore came to meet with her. Crew contacts.

Fanxing's internal disputes continued, Fan Xiaopang showed an attitude of doing his part, Gao Yuanyuan was not behind, and even Dong Xuan from the Buddhist family came out this time to create a sense of presence.

If it weren't for Liu Tianxian's age being unsuitable, and there is another movie hanging up, he probably would have to show his face.

The turbulent exposure and the help of major actresses have brought "Painted Skin" a high exposure.

But in fact, what many people don't know is that Cao Xuan himself actually values ​​another movie - "Taken".

To be honest, "Painted Skin" is a female drama to a certain extent, Wang Sheng is not weak in the role of the male lead, but he is still inferior to the two female leads.

Therefore, Cao Xuan paid limited attention to this movie, and prepared to be a "supporting role" mentality, and put more expectations on "Taken".

In fact, Cao Xuan originally wanted to shoot "Raid", but later felt that the plot line of "Raid" was still too thin.

Cao Xuan is not particularly adapted to this kind of pure action movies, and he doesn't want to establish a pure "starring" personality in Hollywood from the very beginning.

Therefore, Cao Xuan chose "Taken", which has a more complete script. In addition to action scenes, he can also show his delicate acting skills and expand his career in Hollywood.

Of course, the plot of "Taken" is actually not complicated. It is probably a story about rescue and family affection.

Compared with the original movie, the plot of the starry version of "Taken" is basically unchanged, and some related background changes must be made.

Father and daughter changed into siblings, retired agents became retired mercenaries, and worked as professional bodyguards in Xiangjiang. French gangsters also moved to Asia, most likely to English-speaking countries in Asia.

It's not that Cao Xuan has any good feelings for France, the main reason is that he has more contacts in Asia, which is more convenient for shooting.

If there is a sequel to this movie, it can be set in the United States or Europe.

The male protagonist played by Cao Xuan is called Chen Jun. His mother died young, and he married a stepmother, who gave him a half-sister Chen Qian.

Because of this, Chen Jun and his father had a mediocre relationship. He left home early, joined the army, and later went abroad as a mercenary. Because he hated the battlefield, he came to Xiangjiang to work as a professional bodyguard with a few comrades in arms.

Although Chen Jun had a normal relationship with his father, his younger sister Chen Qian still liked her brother very much. Chen Jun said he disliked him, but he still missed her very much in his heart.

Chen Qian graduated from high school and traveled abroad with her girlfriends, but was caught by kidnappers.

Because before going abroad, Chen Qian took a detour to Xiangjiang to meet her brother. Before being arrested, Chen Qian instinctively called her brother, and Chen Jun heard everything through the phone.

When the local police failed, Chen Jun returned to the local area, bought guns and ammunition from the black market, fought against the gangsters, and rescued his sister.

As an action drama, the biggest highlight of this drama is the process of lone heroes rescuing and fighting gangsters.

However, compared with the original version, Cao Xuan still stuffed some private goods, such as the Chinese embassy, ​​after learning that his sister was kidnapped, he actively tried to rescue her.

The male protagonist was afraid of long nights and dreams, so he did it alone, and the embassy also gave the male protagonist some help within a reasonable range.

Especially at the end of the movie, the male protagonist kills the powerful local boss, and the local police with a nest of snakes and rats are about to cause trouble. Under the pressure and rush of the embassy, ​​nothing happened in the end.

Although the point is so far, the official image is particularly positive. It not only exports private goods, but also makes it easier to pass the review.

The director of "Hurricane Rescue", Cao Xuan intends to find Lin Chaoxian from Xiangjiang, who has a few brushes for such gun battles and action scene scheduling, camera tension, and rhythm arrangement.

At the same time, Lin Chaoxian is also the director of Xiangjiang that Cao Xuan focuses on. Now he is not a first-line director in Xiangjiang. He has a lot of film contracts, but his resources are limited.

Fanxing can take it under his command. In the future, the company will produce movies with themes such as police and robbers, military affairs, action, and gun battles. There will be no shortage of directors to shoot them.

In terms of actors, the role of the younger sister is probably Liu Tianxian, and the role of the best friend has no role, so just find any actor.

There is also an embassy staff, it is not difficult to choose, just find a refined and upright actor in his 40s, such as Mr. Wang Luoyong.

More characters are passers-by and villains encountered scattered during the rescue process.

Cao Xuan planned to have a mix of local actors, supplemented by Chinese actors, who played local Chinese.

At that time, there will be two language versions of the finished film. The domestic version will be based on Mandarin, supplemented by some English and local languages, and the other will be English version, supplemented by some Chinese and local languages.

Although the film must be dubbed later, it is still hoped that the actors, especially the leading actors, can master English proficiently.

Cao Xuan prefers actors such as Liu Tianxian and Wang Luoyong because these two can use English proficiently.

English-speaking countries in Asia are limited, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and India.

From the perspective of plot logic alone, India is undoubtedly the most suitable place, but Cao Xuan's local contacts are also limited, so he is more inclined to the first three countries.

Especially Singapore, which is very suitable for filming, but filming gang kidnapping in this country... Cao Xuan felt a bit far-fetched.

In fact, the background of the movie can be set in Thailand, Japan or South Korea, but the language may be a bit messy, and it is far from reality for a bunch of Thai/Japanese and Korean gangsters to speak English.

Therefore, Cao Xuan hesitated for a while, and still sent people to Malaysia and the Philippines to select locations and investigate the security. If it was suitable, he would shoot in these two countries. If not, he would shoot in Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

The investment in "Taken" is not high, mainly due to overseas filming and Cao Xuan's salary, Fan Xing can easily bear it alone.

On the contrary, Cao Xuan's goal was to break into Hollywood, so he still gave up a part of the share. He originally planned to pull Warner Bros. Pictures, but he didn't expect New Line Films to value it.

This company is also a branch of Warner Group, but it is highly autonomous.

New Line Film Group has produced and participated in a large number of films, many of which are low-budget horror films, but there are also large-scale productions. The classic masterpiece is the "Lord of the Rings" series.

Cheng Long's "Red Fan District" and "Rush Hour" series are also dominated by this company.

It is also because of the sweetness of Cheng Long, New Line Film Company wanted to see if Cao Xuan could reproduce it.

Although New Line is not as good as the six Hollywood giants, it is also a well-known film company, and to a certain extent, it can borrow part of Warner's channels, so it is a good starting partner for Cao Xuan.

Cao Xuan can catch up with Universal, Columbia, and Warner, but they may not pay much attention to his movies, even if they cooperate, they will not be regarded as any key projects.

On the contrary, it is better to cooperate with the weaker Xinxian. With Cheng Long's successful example, the other party will also pay more attention to "Taken".

New Line originally wanted to win the U.S. distribution rights of "Taken" in one go, but Cao Xuan disagreed. Even if the share could be lower, he wanted the U.S. box office and copyright dividends.

You know, the global box office of "Taken" in the original space-time is 2.26 million US dollars, and the income from various channels and copyrights is even more.

Cao Xuan can't guarantee that this movie will be the same as the original time and space, but even if it wins 1/3 of the score, it will be considered a big profit, and he must gamble for a dividend.

After a series of arguing, the two parties finally reached an agreement to divide the total income by region and divide the dividends in various proportions.

The new line that masters the distribution channels in Europe and the United States will definitely have a lot of money, but the stars are not bad.

Not only has it won the profits in Asia, but it has also bitten a piece of meat in the largest North American market, and can almost get 25-30% of the net profits of the North American box office and copyright channels.

This is a negotiation. Although Fanxing is very strong, it has to be said that almost all the initiative is in the hands of Xinxian. If Cao Xuan has other options, the negotiation may have collapsed long ago.

But Cao Xuan is not in a hurry, this is not the first time he and Yankee have cooperated.

At the beginning, Warner was also a group of high-profile and high-profile people, but now they beg him to release records.

It doesn't matter if you suffer a little bit now, if "Taken" has a name and shows its ability to make money, how proud these Yankees are today, they will be more humble in the future, and Fanxing will be able to control more initiative.

In a capitalist society, whoever can make money is the master!

----

ps: Just to mention briefly, although some friends think the plot of the first two chapters is bloody, they are indeed the most subscribed in the past few months, with a single chapter exceeding [-]

I personally think that there is no need to change the plot, and I will not change it, but there will not be too many descriptions in the future

I have read the relevant opinions in the book circle and this chapter, and I understand the thoughts of some friends
But in order to attract new readers, I will still delete some book reviews in the circle of book friends, please forgive me

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(End of this chapter)