The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 448
"Old Xu, I understand what you mean, "Skyhawk Warrior" is a sci-fi masterpiece in your mind, and the philosophical thoughts contained in it are indeed the soul of this animation work, but what we are discussing now is not animation, but a movie.

And it was a movie that cost billions of dollars. What I want is a sci-fi blockbuster, not a sci-fi masterpiece. What I want is that even people who have never watched the animation of "Skyhawk Warrior" can be shocked by the movie and entertained by the movie. "

Chen Jingxing tried his best to convince Xu Sheng, the general manager of Zhumo, to give the green light to the live-action film project of "Sky Eagle Warrior".

The first item of this project approval and content review meeting is to film the animation masterpiece "Skyhawk Warrior" released by DreamWorks last year.

"Skyhawk Warrior" was produced by Mo's computer animation department. Maybe it was to expand Mo's voice in the parent company, or maybe because he cherished this work too much, Xu Sheng requested a live-action film adaptation of "Skyhawk Warrior" Project Mo needs to send people into the production team to check the film project.

Xu Sheng believes that the movie version of "Skyhawk Warrior" should restore the essence of the animation version as much as possible. After all, this will be the first time that DreamWorks will make live-action film and television of its own animation project.

Xu Sheng regards "Skyhawk Warrior" as Mo's treasure, even a representative work to a certain extent. So far, Douban's score of 9.6 is still the No.1 of all DreamWorks works. "Still 0.1 points lower.

Although it is far inferior to the benefits brought by "The Return of the Great Sage" and "Kung Fu Panda", Xu Sheng does have some idealist beliefs, and in recent years, Chen Jingxing has been used to these two ears that are not sticking to copper. Smelly talents, so "Aquila" and "Mobile Team", the two most in-depth and connotative animation works, are Mo's most valued wealth from top to bottom.

Chen Jingxing can understand Xu Sheng's mentality of protecting the calf, just like the number one fan or biological parents must take good care of their children and cannot allow any "taint".

But what Chen Jingxing wanted was not the simple live-action movie version of "Skyhawk Warrior", what he wanted was "Pacific Rim" with the background of "Skyhawk Warrior"!
So of course he couldn't agree to adapt it according to Xu Sheng and Mo's group of animators. Perhaps the movie adapted according to their ideas would have the flavor of the original animation, but this was not what Chen Jingxing wanted.

Chen Jingxing's thinking has never changed, serious, heavy, deep, and connotative things should be shown in the animation, and what he wants in the movie version is mechs!Mecha!Mecha!
What's important is that the complex structure makes a loud "Qi Qi Ka Ka" sound, and a huge monster tens of meters high descends from the sky and falls into the water with a roar. G-spot.

All he wanted was a mecha to fight monsters.

It's pure adrenaline.

The background and setting of "Aquila" will only make this adrenaline-fueled movie more delicious.

Chen Jingxing felt that fighting monsters with mechas would definitely have more commercial prospects than fighting monsters with monsters.

In monster movies, the audience is actually coming for the monsters, and they don’t want to look at people, but you must have human roles and roles, so it is always people who are complained about in the end.

The advantage of the mecha is that the mecha itself is controlled by humans, so people fighting monsters is equivalent to mechas fighting monsters, and the roles of humans and mechas are easier to achieve a balance.

The world view of "Skyhawk Warrior" is such a good mecha fighting monsters that there is no need to waste everything.

But movies must not be reduced to fan movies. This is Chen Jingxing's bottom line. Many Japanese animation movies are fan movies, which are works for harvesting anime fans. Audiences who have not read comics will basically not go to the cinema.

The ceiling of the commercial value of such a movie is very low. Unless it is a movie with an investment of hundreds of millions, unless it is a Hollywood superhero universe, it will be difficult to recover the cost as long as it becomes a fan movie.

Therefore, the movie version of "Skyhawk Warrior" must be able to be watched by audiences who have not watched the animation without any obstacles, and the audience for the movie will be completely different from the audience of the animation series.

In a word, the movie version can feed back animation, so that more audiences who have watched the movie are interested in watching animation, but animation fans must not be allowed to support the box office of the movie.

After all, Chen Jingxing still has absolute authority in the company, especially when he said that the movie version of "Sky Eagle Warrior" has an investment of at least 5 million yuan, Xu Sheng can only shut up obediently.

It is absolutely impossible for such a high investment to film an animated theatrical version for you.

In fact, Chen Jingxing said this conservatively, the production cost of the film version of "Sky Eagle Warrior" must be higher than 5 million.

Because it will involve a lot of CGI, both in terms of difficulty and quantity, it will exceed the "Pacific Rim" in the previous world.

"Pacific Rim" is a night battle from the beginning to the end. If the background is set in daytime, CG production will be much more difficult, because the sunlight will expose many details, which is very easy to wear, and the post-processing difficulty is very high.

Therefore, most sci-fi or monster action movies will deliberately set the big action scenes in the dark.

However, the fighting in "Skyhawk Warrior" will be mainly set in the daytime. Of course, it can be matched with rainy days. Raindrops can add a sense of gorgeousness to the action.

CGI burns money, and "Gravity" reached a production cost of 8 million because of the large amount of CGI.

The film version of "Skyhawk Warrior" was finally handed over to Tian Xinye. After all, Guo Fan was filming "The Wandering Earth".

In the foreseeable ten years in the future, Guo Fan will probably be tied to this project.

Tian Xinye has experienced "Mirage" and "The Walking Dead" in the past few years. "Mirage" is a small cost, but "The Walking Dead" is a real industrial project. Enter the city to attack the headquarters building, and the mechs fight against the human armed forces in the ninth district.

It's just that the mechs in "The Ninth District" are far inferior to the nearly [-]-meter-tall Giant Mac in "Skyhawk Warrior".

However, compared to the original version, the ten-meter-high mecha in DreamWorks' version of "The Ninth District" can be regarded as a huge upgrade.

After two industrialized film and television dramas, it is not a big problem for Tian Xinye to be in charge of the movie-like project of "Sky Eagle Warrior".

After all, DreamWorks has essentially established a mature industrialization system. Although it is not as large as Hollywood, industry is industry.

This is the advantage of the film industry. For example, a director like Ang Lee who has no experience in industrial special effects films is suddenly appointed by the studio to make industrial special effects films such as "Invincible Hulk", and the quality of special effects in the film will not be affected in the end. Backed by the benefits of the industrial system.

Without the support of the film industry, a director, even the top director in a country who wants to make blockbuster special effects, must intervene in everything, check every step of the way, and have the strongest overall planning ability. It will let the unqualified special effects and design get away with it, and finally show [-] cents special effects after spending the old nose money.

Even in the current Huaguo film industry, it is normal for the film crew to fool the special effects company, the special effects company to fool the film crew, and the two parties to fool each other.

The advantage of DreamWorks is actually that it has established a small and sophisticated industrial system internally, and it can also connect with Hollywood professional studios through Universal or Netflix if it cannot cover some.

Back to "Skyhawk Warrior", in terms of cgi and industrial design capabilities, Mo is at the top level in Asia.

Moreover, the "Skyhawk Warrior" project will also cooperate with Netflix and Universal to attract them into the show, after all, he wants to earn the money of the whole world.

In addition to the four AOC fighters Zero One Two Three, European and American AOC mechas can also be introduced in the movie, soy sauce is also fine, and the movie will also involve the military of other countries.

It's just that casting is a bit of a headache.

The protagonists in the animation are boys and girls, but the movie version needs to raise the age appropriately.

Of course, it’s for the box office, cartoons will set the male and female protagonists as thirteen or fourteen-year-old boys, and the male and female protagonists of live-action movies must be at least high school students or college students.

Another one is that this is a series of movies. Teenagers grow up quite fast. Before one or two movies are made, the protagonists will grow up and their image will change drastically. up.

Another thing is that it is difficult to guarantee the acting skills of such a young actor. Although this kind of mecha movie does not require high acting skills, but after all, it is the background of "Skyhawk Warrior". The performance difficulty of the protagonists is not low. That kind of robot Those who are dull and wooden or have flying features are not acceptable.

Fortunately, there are quite a few young actors in the entertainment industry. With the appeal of DreamWorks and the film version of "Skyhawk Warrior", they can still organize a "audition".

For example, Guo Fan also recommended a candidate, which is Zhao Jinmai who is currently filming "The Wandering Earth". This little girl has been selected as the heroine of "The Walking Dead" and then the heroine of "The Wandering Earth". She is indeed an actor of the DreamWorks department. .

The only thing to worry about is that Zhao Geunmai is a bit too young, only 16 years old. Secondly, she will definitely continue to participate in the filming of "The Walking Dead" in the following seasons. Will there be conflicts in the schedule.

Chen Jingxing himself has a candidate for the leading role, Hu Xianxu.

This is also an actor who was born as a child star. He is exactly 18 years old this year. Although his appearance is not outstanding, his acting skills are really good, at least among his peers.

The hero of "Skyhawk Warrior" is introverted and lacks a sense of security, but his heart is actually quite complicated. He really needs an actor with good acting skills to play him, otherwise he will become facial paralyzed.

However, the final casting must be determined by audition. As long as DreamWorks sends out the invitation, under normal circumstances, no actor will refuse it.

In this project approval and content review meeting, in addition to setting the production standards of "Aquila Warrior", the TV series "Once Upon a Time on Earth" was also approved, and the filmization of "Special Mobile Team" was discussed.

It's just that although DreamWorks is not short of money, professional talents are limited. For DreamWorks, "The Wandering Earth" is being filmed, "Matrix III" is about to be filmed, and "Skyhawk Warrior" and "Once Upon a Time on Earth" have already been approved. It is very difficult to find professional talents to prepare for another heavy industry film.

So the filmization of "Special Mobile Team" was only included in the plan.

And the TV series of the first stage of "Once Upon a Time on Earth", which can be regarded as the combination of "Three-Body Problem" and "Ball Lightning", was officially launched after the meeting.

(End of this chapter)