The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 297 "The Walking Dead" Will Be a Gold Mine

"It's sugar! It's sugar!"

It took Chen Jingxing two turns to distribute the Hershey's chocolate candies in the cloth bag, and he received a bunch of "Happy Newly Married Boss" blessings.

Judging from the employees' reactions and expressions, Chen Jingxing couldn't help but feel good about himself and felt that he was really a good boss.

Of course, it’s not because the candy is so expensive. Although it’s not cheap, it’s a relatively high-end chocolate candy in Hershey’s, but no matter how expensive it is, it doesn’t matter how expensive it is, and it’s not considered a benefit with the salary of a DreamWorks employee.

The main reason is that the superiors and bosses who can invite employees to the wedding banquet but don't invite them can definitely be called good bosses and good bosses. Chen Jingxing has also been to many employees' wedding banquets.

After sending his blessings, Chen Jingxing talked with the executives of DreamWorks, as well as several directors and producers who had contracted with DreamWorks, about what happened when he was away from the company for the trip and wedding.

Of course, first of all, the film business department reported the current box office results of "Mirage", and it will soon be released overseas, mainly in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Europe and the United States. Announcements in North America, and deals with Universal.

Hearing that the web drama "The Walking Dead" that he was about to direct was actually burdened with the prospect of cooperating with Universal, as well as the IP development that might be worth billions of dollars, because of "Mirage" Tian Xinye, who was a little bit high-spirited recently, looked at Chen Jingxing dumbfounded, and said with a wry smile: "Boss, you really think highly of me!"

Even though he knew that "The Walking Dead" was indeed a project that Chen Jingxing valued and invested a lot, if compared with industrial movies, this project could definitely be regarded as an "industrial TV drama".

However, Tian Xinye, who already has a film record, is actually not afraid of the TV series he took over temporarily, even though the production cost of "The Walking Dead" is far higher than that of "Mirage".

This is the habitual thinking of many directors. Movies are different from TV dramas. Those who have directed a movie, especially a movie that has achieved huge commercial success, will naturally look down on TV dramas.

But obviously he still greatly underestimated Chen Jingxing's emphasis on and expectations for this niche and alternative work about zombies.

Not only Tian Xinye, but even the CEO Xu Wenshen was a little shocked by Chen Jingxing's "forecast", and of course he couldn't believe it.

If Chen Jingxing's expectation for "The Walking Dead" gets out, even the most die-hard movie fans will think it is a bit exaggerated, and most netizens and media will think it is a fantasy.

Zombie-themed film and television works, whether they are domestic or Hollywood, are all niche and at the lowest end of the chain of contempt. Chen Jingxing actually wants to turn this kind of theme into a popular IP, or even a subculture. Realize the comprehensive development of games, animation and film and television.

Although Chen Jingxing has a glorious history of slapping faces, at least until now, there have been no problems with the decisions Chen Jingxing made and the directions he pointed out. For the insiders of DreamWorks, they are even more convinced by Chen Jingxing's ideas and decisions than the outside world. high.

But they still can't convince themselves that the big pie drawn by the boss, even though they have basically read the script of "The Walking Dead".

Tian Xinye admitted that this script is indeed very innovative and creative, but so what?
In his eyes, it is nothing more than a fusion of the theme of the road and the theme of Hollywood zombies. Zombies are nothing more than a group of ugly monsters. interest?Young people nowadays like to watch this stuff?Can even form a popular subculture?
Are games, anime, and movies fully blooming?
An artistic director like Tian Xinye can't quite understand what's worth liking about.

Other executives who don't have much art bacteria don't think young people will be crazy about this kind of subject matter.

In fact, both Xu Wenshen and Tian Xinye disapproved of Chen Jingxing's emphasis on the project "The Walking Dead".

When the project was first approved, Chen Jingxing was amazed by the creativity of "Black Mirror" and "Suspect Tracker". Even if they may not be successful in the market, they are definitely worth making dramas. Directors like Tian Xinye I feel that it is worth shooting even if I lose money.

As for the theme of zombies, they have an innate dislike, no matter whether it is domestic or foreign, even if Chen Jingxing gave a seemingly grand setting and background, they don't think it is any qualitative improvement.

There is no objection to this project, but it is the guarantee of Chen Jingxing's prestige and successful history, and even if something goes wrong, he will not be hurt.

No matter how confident he was in Chen Jingxing, he would at most feel that this drama might achieve commercial success.

But no matter how crazy people are, they can't imagine that Chen Jingxing's "success expectation" for this project refers to creating a popular theme under the category of science fiction, and it is a number that will bear golden fruits. This is a bit exaggerated, too exaggerated .

Tian Xinye's disapproval of the project itself made him want to withdraw quickly after knowing that Chen Jingxing had placed expectations on this project that were completely beyond his imagination.

If this didn't achieve the desired effect, wouldn't he be the first person responsible?
The problem was that he himself didn't believe that "The Walking Dead" would reach that height, even if Chen Jingxing treated him with "great kindness and righteousness", he was determined to let him go.

Chen Jingxing looked at the group of people in the conference room, the youngest of whom were over 30 years old, and secretly sighed in his heart.

Those who are not young may not be able to get the charm of the theme of zombies. Of course, this is not the main reason. Even a teenager may not be able to generate any optimism about Chen Jingxing's description.

People are sometimes unaware of their own needs, and needs are often created.

Like in a world without Interview with the Vampire, The Twilight Saga, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Underworld, etc., adding to vampire pop culture to complement the hipster setting, people are It's hard to imagine the vampire genre becoming a popular subculture.

Ugly, disgusting, swollen bodies, elongated nails, and shriveled skin, monsters that crawl out of their graves at night to attack cattle, sheep, or humans in villages and suck their blood dry will become an epidemic. culture and symbols?Let thousands of men and women can't help fantasizing, loving or even crazy about it?
And vampires are afraid of garlic and mustard...

As long as the ugly vampires are changed into elegant handsome men and beautiful women with superhuman strength, so that their skin can emit diamond-like light in the sun, and then have some twisted or normal love with human beings, they can create a charming charm. People like this setting.

If you add some grand and fashionable origin settings, add some title levels linked to power, add some ancient family entanglements, the confrontation between light and darkness, the depiction of various supernatural forces, and change vampires into vampires, He becomes more popular, a more fascinating pop culture worldview.

The same is true for the theme of zombies. In the real world, the zombies in China in the past were associated with the official uniforms of the Qing Dynasty, but now the zombies that have been promoted by the Internet University appear to be more vulgar and low-end.

Zombies in Hollywood are also often associated with witchcraft or disease, and they are firmly confined in a narrow "space" by plasma films. The labels are disgusting, monsters, horror, heavy mouth, and indispensable blood. Such restrictions It is doomed to be unable to transcend the minority among the minority, let alone become a popular subculture.

If you want to change and upgrade this theme and let it enter the mainstream, you must reduce the degree of harshness as much as possible, get rid of the label of plasma tablets, and even lower the level of horror.

For example, set a very cool biological company, a cool virus, divide the zombies into categories according to their abilities and dangers, set levels from low to high, make them hierarchical, and then put them in the background of the wasteland. , apply the narrative logic of road movies, and add some supernatural elements if possible.

In this way, the foundation of popularization is laid.

All that remains is whether or not a story can be told.

Of course, Chen Jingxing wasn't sure of victory, but he didn't have any psychological pressure to worry about gain or loss.

In the end, under Chen Jingxing's persuasion, Tian Xinye dismissed the idea of ​​"letting the virtuous", but the price was that Chen Jingxing agreed to become the producer and supervisor of this zombie drama.

After finding the "tall man" to top the tank, Tian Xinye can also rest assured to advance the preparation and setting of "The Walking Dead".

The first problem facing the present is that there is a gap in the cast of "The Walking Dead", which was originally determined at the end of last year.

Moreover, it is also the male number one and a very important female character. The male lead is played by Li Hanjun, who is currently a third-tier actor, and the female character is played by Ye Shunan, who was born as a child star. His acting skills are not bad, and his image is quite suitable.

The two roles originally selected are currently well-known actors. Because Chen Jingxing attaches great importance to this project, he tends to achieve a balance between acting skills and a certain amount of traffic. In fact, this drama does not require many Great acting.

Unexpectedly, when Tian Xinye finished the promotion of "Mirage" and was about to prepare for the filming of "The Walking Dead", the two actors who played important roles proposed to terminate the contract.

This made DreamWorks very passive, and soon after, a marketing account on the Internet released news, saying that DreamWorks forced the actors to sign the Overlord contract, delaying the occupation of the actor's schedule, so that the actor could not take on other scenes when the project was repeatedly delayed. .

Apparently, the teams of the two actors revealed, and even spread it at the behest, in order to create public opinion pressure on the Internet, so that DreamWorks agreed to negotiate and terminate the contract, so that they would not be compensated for liquidated damages.

(End of this chapter)