director of the millennium

Wu Yuan's vacation is good news for most mainland directors.

In the past two years, Wu Yuan has been extremely productive. In 2015, he released "Riding the Wind", and in 2016, he released "Ready Player One" and "Doctor Strange". Three movies in two years, which together grossed 50 billion RMB at the mainland box office!
This is not a small sum of money!
The market size is only this big, and currently it remains at around 40 to 50 billion RMB a year. Wu Yuan alone can occupy nearly one-tenth of it!

Once Wu Yuan takes a break, there will be an additional 50 billion yuan in box office revenue available for other directors to share. This is such a great thing!

Perhaps for the top directors in the mainland film market, the impact is not significant, but for small and medium-sized directors, this is almost like a blessing after a long drought.

After all, the competition in the mainland film market has become increasingly fierce in recent years. During popular schedules, small films may not even get 5% of the screening time. The situation of begging for screening time when "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix" was released was not an isolated case!

I don’t know how many movies, when they were released, the creative teams begged the theaters with tears in their eyes to schedule more screenings and hold a few more screenings during prime time, even if it was only one.

Great directors like Wu Yuan and Zhang Yimou cannot understand these bitternesses. After all, theaters are begging you to release their films, and once released, they can get over 30% or even over 50% of the screening volume.

What big directors don’t care about may be a matter of life and death for small directors.

Although Wu Yuan is really successful and is the most famous Chinese director internationally, he is not money after all, and it is impossible for everyone to like him. In fact, no matter how great his contribution to Chinese-language films is, there are still many people cursing him behind his back every day. After all, he occupies the top of the pyramid of the Chinese film industry and blocks the financial path of many people.

Now Wu Yuan has publicly announced that he is taking a vacation. This is really great. Some people are even secretly thinking that it would be best if Wu Yuan retires and comes back after ten or twenty years!
Anyway, he is young and only in his thirties now. He will not be considered old in the director industry in twenty or thirty years.

Well, thinking about this, some people in the industry who hate Wu Yuan feel even more uncomfortable. Wu Yuan is really too young to be a director!
"Do you really need to rest?"

"You are at an age where you can take a rest. You should make more movies that you want to make while you are still young. Don't wait until you are my age to regret it. Then it will be too late."

"Hmm." Listening to Director Zhang Yimou's serious admonition on the phone, Wu Yuan shook his head in distress and said, "Director Zhang, I have been too busy in recent years. Shooting one movie after another has worn me out both mentally and physically. I must take a good rest for a while."

"I can't compare with you, you are gifted!"

Yes, Wu Yuan’s workload in recent years may be very high in his eyes, but in Zhang Yimou’s eyes, it is just the normal workload of a director.

Director Zhang Yimou has not had a rest since "Hero", and has been shooting, preparing and writing a new film every day for more than ten years.

Even when preparing for the Olympics, he was doing the opening segment with the opening ceremony team while filming "Curse of the Golden Flower" at the same time.

Oh, at the same time he also took care of his family, and he had children one after another.

In Zhang Yimou's eyes, Wu Yuan's filming of one movie after another in sequence is not tiring at all, and can be said to be a way to maintain health.

Even so, Wu Yuan actually felt too tired and wanted to put down his work and take a break for a while. This was a very incomprehensible behavior to Zhang Yimou.

However, Wu Yuan had no intention of arguing with Zhang Yimou on this topic. In the entire Chinese film industry, how many directors can be as "diligent" as Zhang Yimou?
"Director Zhang, let's not talk about me. I'm only taking a break for a year or so." "Let's talk about you. The Great Wall is going to be released soon, right?"

Wu Yuan smiled and changed the subject, "Sister Xiaoping told me that The Great Wall is the company's first big movie of 2017, and the box office is aiming for 30 billion!"

"It seems like it's time to revive our status as China's number one director."

There is no doubt that before Wu Yuan's "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy was released worldwide, Zhang Yimou was the real number one director in China, regardless of literature or business.

Zhang Yimou is a truly epoch-making Chinese director who is proficient in both literature and martial arts. His literary talent has won him the best film awards in three major European cinemas, and his martial arts talent has won the box office champion in China.

The release of the movie "Hero" that year pushed his status to the highest peak. Even though Wu Yuan later became very successful with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series abroad, for a long time he had to rank second to Zhang Yimou and compete with Chen Kaige for the second place.

It was not until Wu Yuan won the Golden Lion in Venice that he was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Zhang Yimou. Later, due to the impact of the terrible movie "Movies and TV Series", Wu Yuan officially took over the title of the mainland's top director until now.

But this does not mean that Zhang Yimou is a director eliminated by the times, nor does it mean that Zhang Yimou is out of touch with the new era.

Quite on the contrary, Zhang Yimou has not been abandoned by the ship of the new era. Instead, he remains an important director of the new era, and is still able to succeed in both art and business!
The 2013 film "Coming Home" once again broke the box office record for domestic art films, and no one has surpassed it to this day!
The Great Wall, which he has been busy shooting and producing since 2015, is his most ambitious work in the field of commercial films. Just like Chen Kaige's The Promise, both are aimed at breaking through oneself and setting new records!

"The competition during the Spring Festival this year is not small."

"Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, starring Xu Ke and Zhou Xingchi, Kung Fu Yoga, Han Han's The Breakup Guru, and Wang Baoqiang's Journey to India are all strong box office hits."

"Adding The Great Wall, five blockbusters will be released on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Even if the screenings are evenly distributed, each movie will only have a 10% screening share on the premiere day at most."

"Today's cinema chains are very cunning. Based on the performance of the first day's release, they will immediately adjust the number of screenings for the next day. The capable ones will be promoted and the mediocre ones will be demoted. It's bloody and cruel."

"But I still have full confidence in you, Director Zhang. I believe that The Great Wall can make it through this bloody Spring Festival period and become a box office winner!"

Wu Yuan's encouraging voice reached Zhang Yimou's ears through the mobile phone.

The main reason why Zhang Yimou called Wu Yuan today was that he was feeling a little nervous as "The Great Wall" was about to be released, so he came to seek confidence. Talking about Wu Yuan's vacation was purely a start of conversation.

Wu Yuan was naturally very clear about this, so he was generous in his encouragement over the phone. No matter what the situation would be like after "The Great Wall" was released, at least before it was released, director Zhang Yimou had to be full of confidence, otherwise how could he lead the team to overcome difficulties!

"Director Zhang, just put your mind at ease. You and our Light and Shadow Era are a powerful combination that we can't lose!" (End of this chapter)