The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 207 Mirage (Two in One)

In addition to starting the promotion of "Detective Chinatown" this summer, DreamWorks also needs to cooperate with another heavyweight work for promotion.

The TV series "Signal" starring the couple Sun Li and Deng Chao will land on Mango TV's weekly theater in mid-July.

After a long tug-of-war, Mango TV finally bought the TV station’s exclusive copyright at a price of 9200 million. Each episode reached 368 million, which was the most expensive single-episode TV copyright price in the first half of 2015.

However, the copyright price of 9200 million yuan for the entire drama did not rank among the top five TV dramas sold this year. The most expensive drama in the first half of the year was "Langya Bang" starring Hu Ge, which was bought by Donghai Satellite TV and Capital Satellite TV. The transaction price exceeded 1.9 million, and the price of a single episode is close to 354 million—this is only the copyright of the TV station, and its network copyright has also been sold, exceeding 1.1 million.

Of course, this is due to "Source Code". Although the copyright price of "Langya Bang" is very high, the price of a single episode will definitely not reach 300 million. The publishing rights move was a good bet.

Complementing the rapid expansion of the movie box office is the soaring copyright price of TV dramas, and even the increase in the copyright price of TV dramas is faster than the growth rate of the movie market.

In fact, "Signal" could have sold more than 25 million yuan, and the condition was that Mango TV was allowed to re-edit it during broadcast, and expand the 30 episodes to at least [-] episodes, but Chen Jingxing refused without hesitation. It will do a huge damage to the rhythm of the TV series.

"Signal" is not a water-filled drama. At least one-third of the quality of this drama lies in its tense rhythm. Once the narrative rhythm of the entire drama is destroyed, it is equivalent to pulling the drama down by at least two grades. Both Chen Jingxing and the director Tian Xinye firmly opposed it.

Chen Jingxing insists on the style of the DreamWorks brand, that is, to output high-quality film and television dramas. It is not cost-effective for him to destroy the entire structure of the work for more than 1000 million yuan.

Of course, in addition to selling the exclusive broadcast rights to Mango TV, the network rights have also been sold out long ago, because Chen Jingxing refused to sell the exclusive broadcast rights, so it is impossible for the major network platforms to pay a large price, but the combined amount of all video platforms Still very impressive, there are 6000 million.

In this way, the total amount of TV station and network copyright exceeds 1.5 million, which not only covers the cost, but also obtains a relatively high income.

Of course, compared with DreamWorks’ film income, it’s not enough to see, but Chen Jingxing’s few films are actually special cases, they are completely a very small minority in the film industry. The income can already beat most movies.

In addition, there is also the on-demand and advertising sharing of webcasts. Even according to conservative figures, it can bring at least 5000 million in revenue. It can be said that the "Signal" TV series has been regarded as an extremely successful TV series project-in fact, from Chen Jingxing's ability to invite Sun Li and Deng Chao at a "low price" has been doomed to the success of the TV series in terms of copyright revenue, the difference is only the amount.

And Tian Xinye, the director of "Signal", has also been relieved from his busy schedule. The promotion work of the TV series is basically handed over to Mango TV and DreamWorks, and the TV and Internet exposure are also performed by Sun Li, Deng Chao and Zhang Ruoyun. Tian Xinye is neither handsome nor topical, so naturally he doesn't need to participate in the promotion of TV dramas.

Chen Jingxing adhered to the principle of "Dreamworks does not support idlers, and everyone's work must be fulfilling and interesting", and did not give Tian Xinye the opportunity to take a long vacation, which put a greater burden on him.

"Movie? Director Chen, you mean to let me make a movie?" Tian Xinye asked in disbelief.

In DreamWorks, after a period of running-in, basically all contracted filmmakers call Chen Jingxing director Chen, and senior executives are chairman or boss. Chen Jingxing does not need a title of chairman to enhance his authority.

Chen Jingxing nodded: "Your camera language is excellent, and you are born to be able to handle movies. Isn't it a waste not to make movies?"

"Isn't the TV drama business department just established? I thought the scripts that the screenwriting team was perfecting would be my next project." Tian Xinye replied in surprise and joy.

DreamWorks has set up a TV drama business department, and also set up a TV drama script writing group, which is currently writing several scripts that Chen Jingxing confessed. At present, Tian Xinye is the only contracted director of DreamWorks who has experience in filming TV dramas, so he always thought that he would continue to shoot. TV drama.

Of course, he would not refuse to make a movie. This has always been his dream, but he didn't expect the opportunity to come so soon.

Chen Jingxing handed him a few pages of paper: "This is the film project you will be in charge of next, a science fiction film, there is no script, only the story structure."

Tian Xinye took the paper and read it carefully.

The movie project that Chen Jingxing gave him was a movie with the same theme as "Signal". In Chen Jingxing's previous life, the name of the plane was "Mirage", and the original version was a Spanish movie.

It's just that unlike "Signal", whether it is the movie version or the TV series version, the tool for communicating across time and space is a wireless walkie-talkie, the tool in "Mirage" is a TV set.

The story is about a heroine with a four-year-old daughter who moved into a new home and had a time-space connection with a little boy 20 years ago through an old TV set that was discarded in a cabinet. The boy would have witnessed a murder. As a result, the murderer was exposed and arrested. The hostess knew the cause and effect of the murder when she bought the house. At the same time, her friend was also the boy's childhood playmate and told her about it. .

In shock and panic, the hostess would rather believe it, and warned the little boy on the TV 20 years ago not to go out, which changed the fate of the little boy's death, but also changed the timeline at the same time, a butterfly effect occurred, and woke up the next day She woke up in the waiting room of the hospital and found that her life had been completely changed. Not only did she not marry her husband in the original timeline, her four-year-old daughter was naturally not born, and it may be the reason for not having a child. She has time and energy to continue her studies and became a surgeon.

But the biggest problem is that the memory of the current timeline does not appear in her brain-this is different from the "Signal" movie and TV series.

She doesn't know where she lives now, whether she has a family, and how her life is. The hospital leaders thought she was too busy and suffered from some kind of mental illness, so she suspended her practice and let her go home to rest first. She found the original world line When her daughter went to kindergarten, she was told that she had no children, so she found the former World Line's husband and found out that her husband was already married, and the relationship with her was just a doctor-patient relationship.

At the same time, the murderer arrested in the original world line has been at large.

The hostess cannot accept such a reality blow. In fact, anyone who wakes up to find that her husband is a stranger, her child disappears into the world, or even does not exist at all will not be able to bear this reality—especially her child who disappeared overnight. Time disappeared from the world, and as a mother on the verge of collapse, she found the police station, but the police officer who took the case did not regard her "Arabian Nights" as nonsense, but began to help her find her own children and the people in her own world. Life.

With the assistance of the police officer, she found out that although the husband of the former World Line had married another woman and had children, he often had private meetings with other women in a high-end hotel, and she realized from the familiar cigarette box with the hotel logo, In the original world line, her husband was also cheating, but the wife who was cheated at that time was herself.

The hostess separated from the police officer, broke into a high-end hotel, and staged a "cross-timeline" catching rape. Although her "husband in the previous life" had nothing to do with the hostess in this timeline, she was afraid of being spread by the hostess and affecting his family Therefore, under the threat of the hostess, she found out the address of the hostess in this timeline—her "husband in the past life" was a bank executive in both the previous life and this life, and she could find out the mortgage information.

When the heroine returned to her home in this timeline, she found a sweet photo of her with the police officer who helped her find her identity.

It turned out that the police officer who helped her was her current husband, who was also the little boy she saved 20 years ago. The woman on the TV who claimed to be from 20 years later warned him not to go out to save him was deeply impressed. In his mind, he called the police to identify the murderer according to the statement provided by the woman, but no one believed it. Everyone thought it was a child's imagination, but he did not give up searching.

Seventeen years later, he met the woman who had saved him on TV in the subway, and fell in love with her and married her. Until three years later, when the same aurora appeared 17 years ago, his wife suddenly came to the police. He reported to the police and showed a look of not knowing himself, saying that she couldn't find her daughter, and her husband didn't know her. He knew that the most feared result had happened because he changed the heroine's life.

He tried his best to let his wife restore the memory of this timeline, so that she could gradually recognize her current life, and the heroine also recovered the memory of this changed timeline through his desperate kiss.

But the conflict between the two timelines made the heroine extremely painful, and she still couldn't forget her daughter. She still couldn't accept the fact that her daughter didn't exist in this timeline, so she committed suicide by jumping off the building.

A grieving police officer finds the TV set at the end of the three-day aurora heralded on the news and connects with himself 20 years ago.

When he was young, he had already contacted the heroine on the first day Aurora appeared and was told not to go out. Two days later, the TV appeared strange again, but this time it was him who contacted him 20 years later, the self 20 years later Warn him not to find the woman who saved him two days ago, and not to disturb her life.

In this way, the timeline returned to the original track again, the only difference is that the little boy did not go out to witness the killing process under the reminder of the hostess, nor did he die because of it. Find the woman who saved her.

The heroine who has committed suicide wakes up in the third timeline with the memory of two timelines. Next to her is her husband who cheated countless times, but she has already recognized his true colors. It was her daughter who had returned.

She filed for a divorce with her husband, and lived alone with her daughter, and followed the clues about the arrest of the murderer in the first timeline to find the burial place where the murderer was killed and dismembered 20 years ago, and called the police to deal with the case It was the little boy who became a criminal policeman after 20 years that was responsible for the old case.

The police officer recognized that the informant was the woman who mysteriously appeared on the TV 20 years ago and told him not to go out. It was also the future self who warned him not to look for the woman who disturbed his life on the TV. I have looked for her, but I still restrained my urge to recognize her, and did not disturb her normal life.

The heroine also fulfilled her wish to achieve the happy ending that all children and lovers want.

In short, this is a story about saving a man through a TV that can travel through time and space, and finally saving his future husband.

Although there are three timelines, the structure is not complicated and there are no narrative tricks, so the threshold for viewing movies is not high. It can be regarded as the best work of this type of sci-fi movie. Romance movies are almost in the same genre as "Steins;Gate" and "Your Name".

Chen Jingxing didn't directly provide the complete script this time. In fact, the movies he provided had to be finished in Chinese, and the perfection of the script also took time, and he didn't say that it could be used directly.

It’s just that he doesn’t want to directly provide the finished product anymore. The perfection of the script is also an important creative process, and the subjective initiative of film talents should be brought into play. In the future, what he will take out from “Doraemon’s Pocket” will be creativity or just simple stories. Structured.

What he gave Tian Xinye was only the main line of the Chinese version of the story, and at the same time promised that he could choose from the screenwriters signed by DreamWorks to form the screenwriter team of "Mirage"-of course, the Chinese version should not be called "Mirage" anymore. It was the stormy and rainy days that lasted for 72 hours that caused the disturbance of time and space, but in this version, Chen Jingxing changed it to the aurora, yes, it is the aurora of the "Signal" movie.

It is equivalent to including it as part of the "Signal" universe, so this movie may be regarded as "Signal II" or "Signal: Mirage". , or a TV or something else that can connect the past and the present across time and space, thus creating a story of butterfly effect changing the timeline.

Anyway, the production cost of "Signal: Mirage" is not much, and it will not be higher than the "Signal" movie-if you don't invite any big-name stars, it is very suitable for directors like Tian Xinye who have never made a movie. "There are not many low-cost sci-fi movies with commercial attributes. There are many low-cost sci-fi movies that do not have enough commercial elements. Instead, they are more difficult to understand. They serve a small group of movie fans, and there may be a market for free viewing. But it does not have the ability to let the audience buy tickets to watch in the cinema.

For example, the cost of "The Man From Earth" by Chen Jingxing in his previous life was even lower than that of "The Comet". The movie has not been released on a large scale at all, or it is not a qualified theater movie at all.

It costs money to enter the movie theater. The audience pays real money to go to the movie theater not to watch philosophical masterpieces. There must be enough commercial elements, whether it is horror, thriller, suspense or love, action, handsome men and beautiful women or visual spectacle, Even if it is tear-jerking and funny, it must have at least two or three elements to be considered a theater movie.

It is actually the best solution for Chen Jingxing's first film "Comet" to choose online distribution. Once it is released in theaters, it will be difficult to get box office.

Most low-cost sci-fi movies are played on the Internet, and they have to be played for free to have a future. Taking into account, "Mirage" can be regarded as a high-quality project that takes into account both the commercial market and production costs.

(End of this chapter)