director of the millennium

"So, now that the actors have been selected, what's left is some preparatory work such as special effects design and preparation, as well as the construction of the studio and the production of props?"

After returning home, Liu Yifei chatted with Wu Yuan for a while and then immediately started talking about the preparations for Ready Player One.

Liu Yifei was very happy about the fact that her husband could have taken a break for half a year, but ended up forgetting about the tribute film and had to cancel his vacation and start work right away.

She didn't think that this matter would be difficult for Wu Yuan.

After all, when director Zhang Yimou was in his sixties, he was still able to shoot, prepare, and write a film at the same time, so there is no reason why Wu Yuan cannot make two films in a row.

Instead, she was very interested in starring in two movies back-to-back.

People are just cheap.

I feel tired when I am working, but after taking a long rest, I want to work again.

Liu Yifei had taken a whole year off before that. She hadn't joined any crew since she finished filming "Love Letter" until she started filming "X-Men".

In addition, she only played a supporting role in "X-Men: Days of Future Past". Although there were a few highlights, her overall role was not large. She was only involved in about one-third of the entire plot, so she actually only filmed for one month.

At present, her condition is still very good. She is fully capable of continuing to play the leading female role in two films, and even has a sense of pride of "let me do it"!

"I'm looking forward to it." She smiled and blinked, giving Wu Yuan a provocative look.

"Hmph." After humming a few times, Wu Yuan said helplessly, "It's not that simple."

“The preparation for this film was really complicated.”

"The copyright of the original novel of Ready Player One had been sold long ago, and the producer Dan Farah, who owned the film rights, brought the project to Warner Bros., which acquired the film rights in 2010."

"Just negotiating with Warner to buy the rights to the film adaptation took up a lot of my energy."

"It was because I had some reputation and we had worked together before, so there was no conflict, that Warner finally agreed to share the copyright."

"While Warner Bros. holds the global copyright, they sold the Asian adaptation rights of Ready Player One to me, allowing Guangying Times to make a Chinese-language version of the film, but it can only be released in Asia."

"They themselves are also planning to start the film adaptation of Ready Player One in 2015, and their Hollywood adaptation can be released worldwide."

It is quite common for the copyright of a work to be distributed to several regions.

Guangying Times has also sold Korean and Japanese adaptation rights for its own films. This type of copyright is usually only sold for authorization in a single country or region. Sometimes, full copyright is also sold, allowing your adapted version to be released in any region.

Which of movies and TV series like "Meteor Garden" and "Your Name" doesn't have versions in four or five countries and regions?
The future "The Three-Body Problem" also sold the film adaptation rights and TV series adaptation rights in mainland China, and then sold the TV series copyright outside the mainland to Netflix.

However, this usually happens after the original movie or TV series is released and broadcast, and the copyrights to other countries are sold, which is generally called a remake.

It is quite rare for the film and television adaptation rights of a novel to be sold separately, especially when Warner Bros., the first buyer, has not even started filming the movie yet, and then it is "distributed". This is even rarer than before.

All I can say is that Wu Yuan is really influential enough to have been able to obtain this limited Asian copyright, which is already a very good result.

Anyway, he never thought about releasing the film worldwide from the beginning, and he also planned to revise the original novel. In fact, Spielberg's version of Ready Player One also revise the original novel. The only similarities between the movie story and the original novel are Oasis and IOI. As for the main story of Dragon Quest, it was adapted.

The Netflix version of "The Three-Body Problem" directly turned Wang Miao into the "Oxford Five", which is a radical change that does not prevent him from being named "The Three-Body Problem".

Similarly, Wu Yuan’s Chinese version of “Ready Player One” is also a drastic adaptation. Even if Warner releases another “Ready Player One” in the future, the plot will not be exactly the same.

"Obtaining the film and television copyright of the novel is just the first step. After that, I am still negotiating and contacting to purchase the copyrights of a large number of other classic Asian science fiction movies and animation characters."

“This is also a very troublesome matter, and it has not been completely resolved yet.”

Spielberg's version of "Ready Player One" is a re-creation based on the novel.

Its biggest creative point is that it has made extensive use of lines, characters, scenes, etc. from movies such as "Back to the Future", "The Shining", "Batman", and classic games such as "Street Fighter", "Ostrich Rider", and "Adventure".

This approach not only paid tribute to the classics, but also attracted fans of these movies and games, and established the foundation for the movie's box office.

It can be said that this kind of "tribute" accounts for 30% of the success of "Ready Player One". Wu Yuan must learn this.

However, his "Ready Player One" is mainly aimed at the Asian market, so what he wants to "pay tribute" to are mainly classic Asian movie characters.

Mainly from Hong Kong Island and Japan.

There is no way. From the last century until now, in the Asian cultural circle, most of the films, television, animation, and game works that have been able to go beyond the circle and even invade the culture are from Hong Kong and Japan.

The characters from anime and movies such as "Dragon Ball", "Feng Yun", "Gundam", "Dragon Ball", "Naruto", and "Century Star" are well-known throughout Asia, and the tribute effect of "Oasis" is absolutely maximized.

But the copyrights of these anime characters are indeed difficult to obtain. Even if Wu Yuan has a lot of face, he still has to negotiate bit by bit.

“In addition, special effects-produced digital characters, CG cars, CG drones in flight, preparation of visual effects previews, virtual production, and all special effects shots in the real world of the film.”

“The three technologies needed to shoot this movie are motion capture, live action and computer animation.”

“There are also close-up shots and real-life interactive shots to explore how to combine these special effects techniques with traditional shooting techniques.”

"In short, there is a lot of preparation work, and the early preparations are very tedious and complicated. I was too optimistic before and thought that it could be done before the end of the year."

"But now it seems that it is very uncertain whether we can start shooting in March after the new year."

"It will probably take until May or June next year to complete all the preliminary preparations and officially start filming."

“This leaves me with even less time to work on Riding the Wind.”

"What should we do then?" After hearing this, Liu Yifei finally became a little worried. She had no idea that the preparation of the movie "Ready Player One" would be so complicated and difficult. A lot of incomprehensible words came out of Wu Yuan's mouth, making her a little dizzy.

"What else can we do?" Wu Yuan, on the other hand, said that it was difficult, but his expression was quite relaxed. He said jokingly, "Now that things have come to this, let's just celebrate the New Year."

"In the blink of an eye, there is only one and a half months left, and 2013 will be over. Let's leave all the worries for 2014!" (End of this chapter)