Entertainment Reborn Rhapsody

Chapter 452: Half of the million returned in the blink of an eye

The Academy Awards did not let Shanhe down and awarded the Best Director award to Shanhe and "Life of Yi" as scheduled.

In their opinion, a best director award is enough to appease Shanhe and the media, and it is naturally impossible for Shanhe to take away the best film award as well.

As soon as Will Smith took the stage, everyone probably knew who would win the Best Picture award. A popular black actor went on stage alone to present the awards, and the only winner could be "12 Years a Slave", a movie that reflects racial discrimination against black people. This was in line with the political correctness of the United States and Hollywood.

This result was well within Shanhe's expectations. Rather than the award announcement, he was more interested in Will Smith speaking on the stage.

In Shanhe's memory, he was a very awesome warrior. At the Oscars ceremony several years later, he went on stage and slapped the host in the face in front of the global audience. It was so ridiculous and so courageous!
The most ridiculous thing is that after Will Smith slapped the host, he did not delay anything and even won the Best Actor award that night!
Thinking of this ridiculous and embarrassing scene in his mind, Shanhe couldn't help but grin with joy, and his perfunctory applause seemed a little more powerful.

This made Bruckheimer, who was standing by, misunderstand. He and Shanhe had been partners for more than ten years, and the cooperation between the two could be described as close. The old rogue always claimed to be the one who knew Shanhe best.

Shanhe’s attitude towards Will Smith made him think deeply. Does Qiu have a crush on Will Smith?

Fuck! Why didn't I think that Will Smith is indeed the best candidate for "Green Book". He is very popular and his acting skills are also OK. He was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor twice but didn't win. Will's obsession with the Oscar is not much less than that of "Little Leo" back then.

Letting him participate in "Green Book" will not only create a lot of topics to hype, but also allow him to reduce his salary to star in the film. This is a movie made by Qiu and me, no one will refuse it, and there are so many benefits!

Bruckheimer couldn't help but give Shanhe a thumbs up.
"Qiu, your idea is great, I will arrange it!"

Shanhe was confused for a moment by the old rogue's inexplicable behavior. What the hell did this mean? Could the old rogue see through the future like me?
Just as Shanhe was about to ask, Will Smith on stage announced the winner of the Best Picture.
"The winner of Best Picture is... 12 Years a Slave!"

Amid the applause and cheers from the audience, the crew of "12 Years a Slave" excitedly walked onto the stage together.

Shanhe and all the guests stood up and applauded with a smile, but asked Bruckheimer:

"What do you know?"

"Come on! Qiu, no one knows you better than me. Will is indeed the best candidate for the leading actor in Green Book!"

"Fuck!"

Shanhe couldn't help but laugh when he heard this. The old rogue was really full of wild thoughts. He could actually connect this to my expression. However, it is a good idea to let Will Smith star in "Green Book".

"Well, Jerry, you are worthy of being the most intelligent producer in Hollywood. You see through me!"

“Haha… this is my greatest strength!”

"Haha...you are so smart!"

...

The 86th Academy Awards ceremony has ended. Although "Life of Easy" missed the Best Picture award, it was still the biggest winner at the ceremony, winning seven golden statues out of ten nominations. Shanhe and "Life of Easy" have once again become the subject of global discussion.

As usual, the Shanhe couple attended the Vanity Fair cocktail party after the award ceremony, but they only stayed for half an hour. They said hello to Heath Ledger and his wife and a few acquaintances before leaving this place of joy and revelry.

When they arrived in Los Angeles, Shanhe thought they should invite some friends over for a get-together. However, Shanhe and his wife did not accept Bruckheimer's suggestion to hold a happy party. Instead, they followed Chinese customs and invited the most famous Chinese chef in Los Angeles to set up a banquet at home.

The couple didn't have many friends, so they just filled up one table. Heath Ledger's family, Bruckheimer, Leo, Hathaway's best friend "hardworking sister" Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt and others experienced the Chinese hospitality together.

After everyone enjoyed a dinner with a strong Chinese flavor while chatting and laughing, they said goodbye to the Shanhe couple and left one by one. Heath Ledger's family was left behind by Shanhe at the end.

Michelle is eight months pregnant, and she and Hathaway, two pregnant women, had a great time chatting with the nine-year-old chubby Matilda.

Shanhe and Heath Ledger were drinking tea and chatting in another corner of the living room.

Looking at the bearded, mature and steady Heath Ledger, Shanhe was once again filled with emotion. This man had passed away six years ago, but Shanhe changed everything about him.
"Heath, what have you been up to lately, and when is Michelle's due date?"

Heath Ledger replied happily:
"After filming Guardians of the Galaxy, I stopped taking on any more roles and stayed at home to take care of Michelle and Matilda. We will welcome another angel in April, a boy, and we named him Lancelot!"

"Congratulations, Heath!"

"Haha...we are the same. I heard that Annie hopes the second baby will be a daughter?"

"Yes! Our whole family thinks it will be a girl, and Anne has named her Diana!"

"My daughter is great. Matilda is my greatest treasure!"

"I'm looking forward to having a daughter. Bernier is getting more and more naughty now. Sometimes I'm really annoyed by him!"

"hehe…"

...

After the two men exchanged some happy and helpless moments as nannies, Shanhe directly invited Heath Ledger again.
"Heath, Jerry found me another script called Green Book, which is about the friendship between a white racist and a black musician in the 1960s that transcends race and class. I want you to play the white protagonist!"

"no problem!"

Heath Ledger's trust in the mountains and rivers was naturally unmatched, and his answer was very straightforward:

“When will filming start and what preparations should I make?”

"Not so soon. Preparations will begin in the second half of this year. Michelle should be in good shape by then. You can discuss it with her. Then you and your wife can join the crew together and play the white couple in the play."

"Michelle will be very happy!" "You need to gain weight by then, at least 20 kilograms!"

"Ah, I was planning to exercise with Matilda to lose weight this year!"

"Hehe... Little Matilda is a little fat. I'll explain to her later. You and your daughter will work together. You gain weight and she loses weight!"

"Well, Qiu, your movies are always like this, exciting and hateful!"

...

After spending three days in Los Angeles, the Sanhe couple basically confirmed the main actors of "Green Book".

Coincidentally, Will Smith was about to accept the invitation from Columbia Pictures to join the crew of Peter Landesman's "Concussion". "Concussion" is also a realistic film and is also adapted from real events. Will Smith originally planned to use this film to once again challenge for the Oscar for Best Actor.

But after receiving Bruckheimer's call, Will Smith only considered it for an hour before giving up his original "Concussion" and giving Bruckheimer a positive answer.

As his wife said to Will,

"Yao's movies are God's gift to actors. Leonardo and Heath Ledger are the best examples. I think Fisher Tang's performance in "Young and Dangerous" is no worse than Chiwetel. He didn't get the little golden man just because the Academy didn't want Hua Xia Qiu to get too much! Will, no one in Hollywood will reject Hua Xia Qiu!"

Will Smith agrees!
After completing their trip in Country M, the Shanhe couple did not stay in Los Angeles but flew directly back to Beijing.

Hathaway stayed at home to take care of the little bear and keep it safe, while Shanhe rejoined the "Operation Mekong" crew to make final preparations for the film.

Shanhe attaches great importance to the preparatory work in these two months!

"Operation Mekong" is an action and gun battle film, or even a military action film, with a large number of real-life gun battles and explosions.

The locations for the outdoor shooting include Xishuangbanna in China, Bangkok in Thailand, the Mekong River, the Golden Triangle region and other areas, and the difficulty was no less than a march.

What Shanhe is most worried about is accidents on the way. Minor accidents are easy to deal with, as at most they will waste some time and money. However, he is most afraid of accidents with major casualties. Such accidents are not uncommon on the set of previous action and gun battle movies.

The most famous example is "My Captain, My Regiment". A series of major accidents caused the entire crew to be in a state of collapse, and the TV series hovered on the verge of death several times.

There have even been cases of accidental deaths of staff members on Jackie Chan's movie sets.

This is a scene that Shanhe is unwilling to face or accept.

Therefore, before filming began, he spared no expense to start team coordination in advance on the Chuhe Studios, especially the pyrotechnicians and props team. Shanhe's requirement was to arrange every detail, and there must be three groups of people cross-checking at any time. Small accidents could not be completely eliminated, but major accidents, especially casualties, must not occur.

At the same time, the producer teams of Chuhe Film and Television and China Film have been divided into groups and have gone to the location for filming. Shanhe requires them to make full communication preparations with the relevant local departments, not be afraid of spending more money, and try to do the work in meticulous detail. For example, the weather, transportation, guards and other logistical work must be adequately guaranteed, in order to reduce unexpected situations during filming.

"Operation Mekong" has not started filming yet, and the actors are still training in the special police team. The funds of the crew are pouring out like water, which makes many staff members who are working with Shanhe for the first time feel distressed and sigh.

Is this the style of international great directors? So heroic! Such meticulous preparation work has never been seen or heard of in China!

Not to mention other things, the fireworks team alone spent at least an extra 30 to 40 million yuan on constantly honing the gunfight and explosion scenes. This amount of money is enough to make a domestic theatrical movie with a not-too-small investment!
This is indeed the case. The preparation work for the film consumed several times more money than expected, and hundreds of millions of RMB were spent before we even saw a single hair!
Shanhe added another 200 million RMB to the original budget, and the investment in the entire film reached nearly 600 million RMB, surpassing "Take Her Eyes" and becoming the largest Chinese-language film in China to date.

As producers, Han Shanping, Yang Liu and Xing Guowei not only had no worries, but also looked even more cheerful. They gave Shanhe money straightforwardly, giving him as much as he wanted, and even added, "Is this enough? How about some more?"

The reason they can behave like this is not only because they have great trust in Shanhe himself, nor is it just because Shanhe has a brilliant and dazzling past record, but mainly because the thing they have the most right now is money.

Shanhe is going to invest a huge amount of money to make a domestic mainstream blockbuster. Once the news came out, all the film companies in China wanted to invest in it. If they wanted to pay, they had to rely on connections and go through the back door.

So far, the producer of "Operation Mekong" has added one more company, Bona Film Group.

Even more enthusiastic than the film companies are the major domestic and foreign companies. As soon as the news that "Operation Mekong" would contain a large number of car racing and shopping mall scenes came out, contact calls from major domestic and foreign brands came in.

Shanhe himself is not pretentious. This is a main theme movie and also a commercial blockbuster. Everything is produced and released according to commercial processes. As long as it does not harm the smoothness of the plot and does not distract the audience, Shanhe does not object to appropriate advertising placement.

After Shanhe agreed to the advertising placement, major brands became more enthusiastic about giving money, especially the world's major automobile and mobile phone companies.

For them, advertising investment is originally part of the product cost. These brands have a large advertising budget every year, and the advertising insertion in Shanhe Film is the most cost-effective advertising promotion opportunity.

The influence of Shanhe's works is difficult to estimate, especially in China. This emerging market has unlimited consumption prospects, and the effect of this advertising insertion will be much more direct and powerful than other publicity.

Several international automobile brands such as "Mercedes-Benz", "Audi" and "BMW" have quoted prices of over tens of millions, and those are in US dollars!

Domestic car brands are not to be outdone. We certainly can’t compete with you in Hollywood movies, but this is in China. The mountains and rivers belong to the Chinese people, and "Operation Mekong" is a mainstream Chinese-language movie. How can you snatch this jackpot?

Domestic companies such as "FAW-Volkswagen", "SAIC-GM" and "Dongfeng Nissan" offered even more generous prices, starting at 80 million RMB!

Several major mobile phone brands in the world were even more aggressive. The manager of Samsung's China branch even personally found Yang Liu and said that they were willing to offer 20 million US dollars as long as Yang Liu could design a close-up of the mobile phone in the movie!
Yang Liu rejected Samsung's proposal without even thinking about it. They wanted to throw money at me. Is 20 million US dollars a lot? Does Chuhe Film and Television need this little money?
Besides, the price offered by others is not much different from yours, and they don’t have such a condescending attitude as you. Get out of here now, I’m fed up with you Koreans!

This is the fact. The competition for product placement among mobile phone manufacturers is even more intense. In order to get this rare advertising placement opportunity, brand manufacturers such as "Apple", "Xiaomi", "Huawei", "OPPO" and "vivo" have all suggested that the crew conduct an open bidding. No one is short of this little money!

Not only cars and mobile phones, "Operation Mekong" has an entire shopping mall scene, and advertising placement is a purely natural and pollution-free income!
Several producers did a rough calculation and realized that the film hadn’t even started shooting yet, but at least half of the 600 million RMB investment had already been recovered!
Yang Liu was fine, as the Chuhe Film and Television Marketing Department had anticipated this situation. However, Han Shanping and Xing Guowei were severely dazzled. You know, this is a domestic mainstream film. When have mainstream films ever made so much money?
No wonder Forbes keeps saying in its magazine that the commercial value of Sanhe and Hathaway is astonishingly high. It is indeed amazing!
Xing Guowei, the production representative of Golden Shield Films, was most deeply touched.

Originally, Shanhe was just planning to make a movie to subtly express its attitude to other countries, and to let the domestic public know about the sacrifices and contributions of frontline police officers, and to let them know that Shanhe’s movie would definitely not lose money, and might even make a little profit. But I didn’t expect that they could make so much money before the movie even started shooting!

How much money will it make when the movie is released?

This is too much damn money, Golden Shield Films can’t afford it, I have to report to the department!
(End of this chapter)