China Entertainment Mythology 2004

Chapter 184 Influence, Big Gathering
On the 25th day of its release, "Lost in Thailand" has a cumulative box office of 15.1 billion, officially becoming the second movie with a box office of over 15 billion in the country. For a while, Shen Teng, Wang Baoqiang, and Huang Bo became the most popular actors in the country.

And as the launch date of "The Martian" is approaching, the leading actors of the film also gathered in Beijing ahead of schedule.

"Liya, there are guests in the chairman's office today. Go and entertain them. There is nothing else to do, just make tea and refill the water."

"Okay, Miss Liu."

Tong Liya went to the "Mythology" crew to audition for a small supporting role, and she was eliminated miserably. Unexpectedly, director Li Mu had a good impression of her at the time, and even helped her speak up. As a result, she didn't get the small supporting role, but she acted very much. The important Concubine Yu, after that she signed with Hua Shang.

Pushing the door open, I was taken aback by the identities of the guests in the office at first.

Sitting on the sofa on the left with Erlang legs crossed and talking loudly is Director Jiang Wen. Opposite Director Jiang Wen is Ms. Gong Li, next to Ms. Gong Li is Liu Yifei, and next to Director Jiang Wen is the king of heaven Andy Lau.

Tong Liya entertained these well-known figures in the entertainment industry gracefully, Jiang Wen joked: "Director Li, you are really Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, even the waiters are so beautiful."

Li Mu said with a smile: "What waiter, this is our company's newly signed artist. If Director Jiang meets any suitable role in the future, he has to take care of it properly."

Jiang Wen smiled and said, "It's easy to talk about."

Tong Liya quickly expressed her gratitude.

After that, several people continued to chat about the shooting details of "The Martian". Tong Liya looked at these people in the office, and she couldn't help but feel excited.

It goes without saying that Jiang Wen is a great director and a well-known actor. Ms. Gong Li is a new Oscar queen and the first Oscar queen in Asia. This is basically the highest achievement an actress can achieve .

Liu Yifei is the boss's girlfriend, and the global box office of the film she starred in exceeds 20 billion US dollars. She is the second most famous Chinese actress in the world after Gong Li.

Andy Lau is one of the four heavenly kings and a super idol in the hearts of countless Chinese.

Now this group of people is all gathered in the office of Chairman Li Mu, and it is obvious that Director Li Mu is at the core.

After a while, Brother Cheng Long also arrived.He came to Beijing to do some errands, and after getting off the plane, he heard that Li Mu's place was very lively today, so he came here directly.

"I came here as soon as I got off the plane. You are very lively."

"The new movie is about to start, everyone will see you in advance."

Cheng Long looked up and saw Tong Liya, Cheng Long would not know her if others didn't know her.

"Isn't this Yu Ji?"

"Uncle Long, do you still remember me?"

"Of course I remember, Ni's dance is very good, very beautiful."

"Thank you."

Cheng Long turned his head to Li Mu and said with a smile: "I heard that the movie you are going to make this time has a production cost of 1 million U.S. dollars. It's really a big deal! But if you want to shoot a big deal, we can't let the small one go, Li Mu said, right?" ?”

Li Mu asked: "Uncle Long, are you talking about the "Taken" series?"

Cheng Long smiled and said, "Your reaction is fast enough."

The copyright of the first part of the "Taken" series is relatively scattered, in the hands of Cheng Long, Yinghuang and Xiying respectively. From the second part, the copyright returns to Li Mu. If the third part is to be filmed now, there will be no Li Mu Mu nodded, of course not.

To be honest, Li Mu's enthusiasm for this series is not very high now. There is no other reason, but because this series is a typical one that is not as good as one.

Take Douban Score as an example.

Douban scored 8.3 points in the first part, dropped to 6.9 points in the second part, and further dropped to 6.6 points in the third part.

Although the ratings for the second film dropped a bit, the global box office rose a lot, and when it came to the third film, even the box office dropped.

"Is there any difficulty?" Cheng Long asked.

After thinking for a while, Li Mu said: "The difficulty is that no matter how you write it, you won't be able to make it amazing. It's not impossible to write it hard, but the result may not be as good as the second one."

Everyone in the office couldn't help but look at each other.

Everyone said in their hearts: "Listen, what does it mean that it may be worse than the second film? Even the second film's performance is also called poor? Remember that the global box office seems to be 4.6 million U.S. dollars? What's wrong? There are absolutely no more than 15 films at the box office!"

In the entire Chinese world, there is only one director who can make this box office!

In the end, this turned out to be bad in Director Li Mu's eyes?

Cheng Long said at this time: "This series is not easy to do. I also thought of it. The third part may decline in both word-of-mouth and box office. The follow-up is really difficult to write, but the cost of this series is low, 5000 million US dollars. With an investment of 1.5 million U.S. dollars at the global box office, it is already very profitable."

"1.5 million U.S. dollars?" Li Mu turned around and said, "It's not impossible, 3 million U.S. dollars should be no problem, and 4 million U.S. dollars may indeed be very difficult."

All the famous people in the office were speechless again.

The global box office of three to four billion US dollars is already in the top [-] of the year, right?Why does it sound like this kid is a little bit uninterested?

After sending the group of people away, when Li Mu returned to the office, he met a man who was very familiar to him. The man came over to say hello very excitedly after seeing Li Mu.

Li Mu unconsciously glanced at Tong Liya who was standing beside her, and then turned her head to look at that person again.

"Hi Director Li, I'm Chen Sicheng."

"Hello." Li Mu and Chen Sicheng shook hands.

"Director Li, I came here specially to find you."

"Find me?"

The man smiled and said, "I originally wanted to find Mr. Liu, but now that I have met Director Li, it means that I have a better relationship with you, Director Li, so please give me 3 minutes, Director Li."

Li Mu nodded and said, "Let's talk about it in the office!"

"Okay." Chen Sicheng nodded quickly in response.

After arriving at the office, Tong Liya helped Chen Sicheng make a cup of tea, and when she was about to leave the office after completing these tasks, Li Mu stopped her.

Chen Sicheng said thank you, but didn't drink, but directly explained the purpose of coming.

To put it simply, he recently wrote a script for a TV series, and he is currently in the stage of attracting investment everywhere.

The script was good, so many companies were interested, but as soon as he heard that he wanted to direct and act on his own, all the companies that were optimistic about the script fell silent.

Basically, he went to all the famous companies in the entertainment industry, but he still couldn't find a company that would allow him to direct and act on his own.It just so happened that the whole internet was talking about Director Li Mu's vicious vision, so he thought of coming here to try his luck.

"What about the script?" Li Mu asked.

"This, this, this." Chen Sicheng said excitedly.

I didn't expect that a director as big as Li Mu would actually read his little-known and transparent script in public.

Li Mu took over the script and flipped through it briefly, and sure enough, it was exactly the "Love Story in Beijing" as he expected.

Li Mu knew that there were actually two screenwriters for this script, one was Chen Sicheng and the other was Li Yaling.

The two were originally very good friends, but later they would have a very unpleasant quarrel.Li Yaling would even publish multiple blogs in a row, pointing out that Chen Sicheng monopolized the credits of screenwriting, and was in arrears of payment, and finally "broke off relations" with him in anger.

I remember that there was a similar dispute in "Detective Chinatown" later.

It is said that Chen is not very good at writing scripts independently, but he can think of a good script framework, can make up some clever plots, and can come up with some beautiful dialogues, but he can't combine these things into a script .

"You wrote this script yourself?" Li Mu asked suddenly.

Chen Sicheng immediately said with certainty: "That's right, I wrote the script. Director Li, what do you think of this script?"

After a moment of silence, Li Mu said: "Looking at the text, many details and psychological descriptions here seem to be written by female screenwriters. It's hard to believe that a master like you can write such a work. Yes, this script is very good. "

Chen Sicheng was very surprised when he heard this.

Xin said: "Is it true or not, can you see that there are female screenwriters in it just by flipping through it casually?"

But there is nothing to hide, so he added, "I wrote the script, but then I asked a female friend to help polish it."

Li Mu nodded and said, "The script is good, tell me, what are your requirements?"

Chen Sicheng immediately cheered up when he heard the words: "I wrote this script, and I know it best, so I want to write, direct and act by myself."

Li Mu nodded and asked again: "Is there any more?"

Chen Sicheng was even more overjoyed, thinking that he was going to promise him?

How many companies that are far inferior to Hua Shang in terms of fame and strength will refuse to let him, a pure newcomer, direct him. I didn't expect that a company as good as Hua Shang would seem to have something to do? !
"The other thing is that I want to respect my opinion as much as possible in the selection of actors."

Chen Sicheng observed Li Mu's face while talking.

In fact, as long as the other party agrees to let him write, direct and act, he can make concessions on other conditions, but he still wants to fight for it. After all, no one would dislike having a greater right to speak, right?
Li Mu knew that he would definitely look for Li Chen and Zhang Yi, so he didn't bother to interfere.The reason why he intends to vote for this "Beijing Love Story" is that he values ​​the follow-up "Chinatown Detective" series more.

There are a lot of movies he wants to make, and he really doesn't have the energy to see a potential series and end it himself, so he prefers to be a screenwriter himself, hold the project in his hands, and then hand it back to the original team.

But Chen Sicheng can't really let Chen Sicheng decide everything.

Since the company has spent money, it should always look like it has spent money.

So Li Mu said: "The actor company tries to respect your opinion as much as possible, but the main actress must be decided by the company."

It's a coincidence that both Tong Liya and Yang Mi have signed to Huashang Media, and in the original world, these two happened to have participated in this TV series.

Thinking of this, Li Mu inadvertently glanced at Tong Liya who was standing next to him, and this glance fell into Chen Sicheng's eyes, and he felt that he "understood" instantly.

Li Mu, Mr. Li, is he trying to put this exotic girl in front of him into the crew?

He glanced casually.

The girl is really beautiful, and what's even more rare is that this girl has a particularly innocent aura, and she really fits the role of Shen Bing in the script.

In fact, as long as Li Mu is willing to nod to invest, let alone arrange a few actresses, it doesn't matter if all the actors except himself are settled.Judging from "Latent", which has been popular all over the country some time ago, it may be better to let Hua Shang take full responsibility for the casting.

But what is the relationship between this exotic girl in front of her and Director Li Mu?
Is it that kind of relationship?
Most likely!

Not to mention that Li Mu already has a real girlfriend or something, so what?

Comparing my heart to my heart, if I have the status of Li Mu today, how can I be so honest!

I just heard Chen Sicheng answer while thinking wildly: "It's okay for your company to appoint an actress, but for a male role - in fact, I already have a few suitable candidates in my heart, all of them are my old acquaintances, and their acting skills are absolutely reliable: One is Li Chen and the other is Zhang Yi, I don't know if Director Li has heard of these two actors."

"These two are fine." Li Mu then looked at Tong Liya who was still standing in the office, and continued, "What do you think of her playing the heroine Shen Bing?"

Tong Liya was taken aback when she heard the words, and then she was overjoyed.

It seems that director Li Mu attaches great importance to this script, and no one in the circle does not know what director Li Mu's vision is.

At the same time, Chen Sicheng was taken aback, and said in his heart: "Sure enough, I guessed it right. Li Mu really wanted to put this girl in the crew."

However, this girl looked quite suitable, so she became excited and said: "Director Li, we two really want to go together this time. Let me tell you the truth. When I entered the door today and saw this girl, I feel that she is simply Shen Bing alive! It is perfect for her to play the heroine."

Li Mu also nodded and said: "Then this matter is settled."

……

The next day, Li Mu called his former assistant, Chen Zhixi, the current gold medal producer of Huashang Media, to the office.

"People on the Journey: Lost in Thailand" is Chen Zhixi's first work as a producer. Unexpectedly, the first work directly created a miracle at the box office.

With an investment of less than 3000 million and a box office of more than 15 billion, Chen Zhixi has already become famous in the circle of producers.

It is no exaggeration to say that with this movie alone, she almost has the qualifications to stand on her own.

But this woman is very shrewd, so no matter how good the conditions are offered by other companies, she will never be moved.

Staying in Huashang and switching to other companies, or starting your own business, the level of access to different choices is simply worlds apart.

When she first became the assistant of director Li Mu, the people she came into contact with were already at the level of vice presidents of the six major Hollywood companies. If she leaves Huashang Media, which company in China can provide her with such a level? platform?

"Director Li, are you looking for me?"

Chen Zhixi opened the door and came in and asked.

Li Mu nodded and then signaled with his eyes: "I have two new scripts here, please read them first."

Chen Zhixi stepped forward two steps to the desk, then reached out to pick up the two scripts on the desk.

She flipped through it quickly first, and saw the synopsis. These are two movie scripts with the theme of love - one is called "33 Days of Broken Love" and the other is "Beijing Meets Seattle".

"These two scripts are handed over to you, and you decide whether to start shooting the two together or finish one and then shoot the other." Li Mu said.

Chen Zhixi nodded and said: "I will take the two scripts of the chairman away in a while. After I read them, I will decide which one to shoot first or start shooting together. By the way, regarding the actors, I don't know if the chairman is you now. Do you have a suitable candidate in mind?"

Li Mu really thought about it, and finally said: "I think it's better to open the casting, there's no rush, I'll talk about it after you finish watching."

Chen Zhixi nodded: "I see."

In fact, based on Li Mu's usual approach, he will continue to use actors from the original world in most cases, but these two films are somewhat special.

Take "33 Days of Broken Love" as an example. This movie is known as "all villains" in later generations. Not only the protagonist Wen Zhang and Bai Baihe had accidents, but also the supporting roles Yao Di and Zhang Zixuan. Actor Chen Yufan had an accident.

Therefore, the actor candidates in the previous life basically have no reference value, so let's open the casting.

There is also "Beijing Meets Seattle", the hero's later incidents are also not small.

Although it was still early for these people to have accidents, even if Li Mu continued to use these people, it would not affect the box office of the movie, but Li Mu decided to replace them directly.

These movies are very good resources, and it is definitely better to leave good resources to those who are more worthy than to them.

(End of this chapter)