director of the millennium

The Spring Festival of 2014 was very lively, at least for Wu Yuan, although he did not go to the cinema to watch any Spring Festival movies.

There were no blockbusters in this year's Spring Festival. The failure of "Journey to the West: A Chinese Odyssey", "The Last Tycoon" in which Da Tiantian joined the cast, and the movie "Where Are We Going, Dad?" dominated this year's Spring Festival.

"Ex-Files", which was supposed to join the fight, was released in the summer of 2013 due to the emergence of Light and Shadow Era, and achieved a good box office result of 2.1 million, so it did not get involved at all.

The reason why this year's Spring Festival is so lively is because of the movie "Where Are We Going, Dad?", a variety movie derived from a variety show that shocked countless friends.

This Spring Festival, "Where Are We Going, Dad?" is a huge success on the big screen!
On the first day of its release on the Lunar New Year alone, the film grossed nearly 9000 million yuan, breaking records for first-day box office, single-day attendance, and attendance rate of domestic 2D films.

It eventually won the Spring Festival 6.95D movie championship with a total box office of 2 million, beating many Hollywood blockbusters and ranking at the top of the 2014 annual box office list.

The term fan economy was born!

The major capitals have finally smelled the easy way to make money, earn bucks, and earn money from fans.

At this point, the era of "variety show movies" in the next few years has been opened.

After seeing the various popular variety shows about the new wealth code, I was inspired to make a variety show movie.

Movies like "Extreme Challenge Movie" and "Running Man Movie" are all ready to be launched.

During the Spring Festival holiday, netizens and so-called industry insiders have been hyping up this movie.

The phenomenon of TV reality shows being adapted for the big screen has opened people’s eyes to the distorted state of the film industry.

Although this movie fooled a lot of box office, the existence of this unconventional method with the pure purpose of making money has greatly restricted the development of China's real film industry and hurt many people in the industry who are serious about making movies, as well as fans who love movies.

Some filmmakers have called for these variety shows to stay on TV. Otherwise, once these insincere, unscripted, money-making shows that rely on popularity take up a large number of the already crowded movie schedules and squeeze out real movies, how many serious movie-makers will be left in China? They will all go out to make money with crooked ideas!

The shooting period of this kind of reality show movie is very short. Most of them take about a week to shoot, and one or two months for post-production before being released.

Blockbuster films by famous directors often take several years to plan before they can be released. What do they think?
Even if these works are not for money-making, they are meant to make quick money.

An industry insider revealed that the biggest controversy about this type of film is that its production cycle is too short, so some people even call it a "freak born out of the fan economy."

From the perspective of film artistry, this is devastating to the market, because when looking for investment, it will be measured by the fast-food business model.

In the eyes of movie fans, developing a reality show into a movie and taking advantage of the New Year's Day slot has resulted in quite polarized word of mouth, despite the incredibly high box office.

Ordinary passers-by who are not fans of this variety show think that the act of bringing a reality show to the big screen is crazy, too ugly and simply outrageous.

But fans of this variety show don’t think there is anything wrong with it. Instead, they think it’s good to watch something relaxing during the New Year. This type of movie is familiar and friendly, and doesn’t require much thinking, which is good.

The two sides also interacted with each other passionately on the Internet, it was really lively.

Journalists from various media outlets also used various channels to interview industry insiders, hoping that they could express their opinions on this type of film. Some even expressed their willingness to report anonymously because the topic was sensitive.

Translated it means, you guys should quickly turn up the microphone and join in the attacks, make this matter more heated up, and stir up trouble!

Even Wu Yuan had several media outlets he had worked with before come to him, hoping that he could give his opinion on this matter. Because it was no secret that Wu Yuan was preparing for his new movie, and everyone even knew that his new movie was a science fiction blockbuster, with an expected production cycle of up to three years.

He is exactly the person who refutes the saying that "famous directors often have to plan for several years before they can release their films."

However, Wu Yuan had no intention of expressing his opinion.

He is the one who holds the script and knows that this kind of movie is only a flash in the pan and is a deformed product that is bound to appear under the explosive growth of the film market.

Spring comes when all flowers bloom.

With the explosion of the domestic film market, there are always some weird movies appearing.

These movies are fast food style, and are actually just derivative products produced by the consumer market's pursuit of these popular variety shows.

"Running Man" is a variety show co-produced by Guangying Times' own company. After seeing how well the movie "Where Are We Going, Dad?" sold, Guangying Times wanted to make a "Running Man" movie, and Wu Yuan had no intention of stopping or refusing.

Because he knows that this is the normal state of development and there is no need to say these movies are bad or criticize them too early.

With these variety shows being so popular right now, it is inevitable that movie versions will be produced and become popular.

After all, the show has a huge viewership ratings as a foundation, but within two years, when the audience's sense of novelty has worn off, it will naturally not be as popular as it is now.

All variety shows are like this. After reaching a peak, they will inevitably decline and it is impossible for them to remain popular for a long period of time.

There is only a window period of two years, during which at most three or five variety shows like this will be made, and there will be no more movies of this type in the future.

Some people in the industry are worried that this type of variety show movie will squeeze out the market for normal movies and become the mainstream of the future market, and that bad money will drive out good money. That is impossible.

So there is no need to react so strongly.

Where is this?

You know, "Where Are We Going, Dad?" is just the primitive form of "fan economy". In the next few years, with the return of the four Korean stars, the real fan movie era will just begin!
Therefore, Wu Yuan had no intention of stopping the company from following suit and making a "Running Man" movie. The main reason was that if you didn't do this kind of thing, others would do it, and others were making money from it. He had no reason to stop his own company from getting a piece of the pie.

Being a director and being a boss are two different things. A director can pursue art and artistic ethics, but capitalists have no bottom line, let alone talk about artistic ethics.

Therefore, when reporters and media came to him to express their opinions, Wu Yuan refused them all.

Guangying Times will be more or less involved in this matter, although it is just investing in a similar movie, but Wu Yuan can no longer speak out about this phenomenon.

You can't just scold yourself, can you?
But if you ask him to praise this kind of movie, Wu Yuan would be too embarrassed. This kind of movie is indeed a deformed product of the hot capital and has no advantages at all.

The best way to deal with it is to give it the cold shoulder, not respond, and focus on his real business, Ready Player One.

As Wu Yuan gradually sorted out the myriad of preparatory work, he assembled all the leading actors of Ready Player One on the first working day after the Spring Festival!
Meeting! (End of this chapter)