director of the millennium

At Wu Yuan's home, Liu Yifei, who had already completed the filming of "Time Travel Together" and "X-Men: Dark Phoenix", was picked up by Wu Yuan at the airport and returned home exhausted.

As soon as they got home, after throwing off their bags and shoes, Liu Yifei put her arms around Wu Yuan's neck and said curiously, "Hey, I thought you would ask Ya Wen to play the role of the Great Peng Demon King. Isn't Ya Wen's figure pretty good?"

Although she was filming in North America, Liu Yifei was also paying attention to Wu Yuan's new movie, and Wu Yuan would tell her about the progress during their phone calls.

The casting of the role of Dapeng Demon King was decided at the last minute, and he also experienced a lot of turmoil in the company.

At least when the casting started, most people in the company thought that the role would be taken by Zhu Yawen.

After all, Wu Yuan himself openly joked internally that this character was meant to "sell flesh" and that he would have to shoot the entire film with his upper body naked.

As we all know, among the artists under Guangying Times, Zhu Yawen has the most masculine hormones.

So when the casting was finally finalized, many people in the company were surprised. They didn't expect that the role would be taken by an outsider.

Liu Yifei also talked about this with Wu Yuan on the phone, but when they met, she still asked about it again, not understanding it.

"What's so strange about this?" Wu Yuan patted her buttocks with a frown on his face, signaling her not to press on him, and explained calmly: "Ya Wen has a lot of masculine hormones and a good figure, but his face is indeed not suitable for the role of Dapeng Demon King."

"You have read the character settings, right? Dapeng Demon King was a demon king who had been sealed for thousands of years. He was defeated and sealed by Sun Wukong when Tang Monk went to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures."

"Before he was sealed, he was already an old monster who had practiced for thousands of years."

"Although we don't need to find a grandfather in his 50s or 60s to play the role, we must find a more mature actor to play the role!"

"Ya Wen is too young. Even though she is over 30 years old, she still looks very young."

Some special roles are not suitable for actors with young faces.

For example, the emperor in most film and television dramas is played by actors between 40 and 50 years old. Is this in line with historical facts?
of course not!

In fact, most emperors were relatively young when they were in power!

Without mentioning those young emperors, the emperors who succeeded to the throne normally all succeeded to the throne at the age of around 20 and died at the age of around 40.

Qin Shi Huang was only 13 years old when he ascended the throne, and less than 40 years old when he unified the six kingdoms. However, most of the TV dramas involving him cast actors in their 40s to play the roles.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, ascended the throne at the age of 16, defeated the Huns at the age of 26, and completely eliminated the Huns at the age of 36. Huo Qubing had died of illness at this time.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, was only 27 years old when the Xuanwu Gate Incident took place. He was only 31 years old when he defeated the Turks, captured Jie Li Khan alive, and was honored as the Heavenly Khan.

But if you really find a group of actors in their twenties and thirties to play these emperors, can they bring out that kind of imperial aura?
Zhu Yawen's role as Zhu Zhanji in "The Glory of Tang Dynasty" was criticized by the audience in the early stage for being too feminine. When he put on the dragon robe, he looked more like a eunuch than an emperor's grandson. However, in the later stage, when he ascended the throne and grew a beard, he actually fit the image of an emperor and was praised for his good performance.

It is because everyone cannot accept that the "emperor" is too frivolous, and they have very strict requirements on his temperament and image.

Similarly, roles like the Dapeng demon king in "The Monkey King" are not suitable for actors with young faces, because they simply cannot portray the temperament of the demon king, which will only make the audience feel uninvolved. The demon king is very imposing and must have the temperament of looking down on the world. At the very least, he must be at the level of the Demon Lord Chonglou.

In this regard, Zhang Hanyu is undoubtedly more suitable. At least he can perform this kind of temperament. The general he played in "The Great Wall" is very magnanimous. Of course, it is the new version of "The Great Wall" by Zhang Yimou.

It was also because of watching this movie that Wu Yuan became interested in the actor Zhang Hanyu.

It was just that it would take too much time to explain these things to Liu Yifei, so Wu Yuan simply changed the subject and said, "Anyway, the actors have been decided. Unless there are any problems with the subsequent schedule, there will be no changes."

"Let's not talk about this anymore. How do you feel about filming X-Men this time?"

"That's all." Liu Yifei shrugged. "I've been on the crew for a month, and most of the time I was shooting group scenes with other actors, acting as a background board. Flash is becoming more and more like a tool to open a portal in the X-Men movie."

"I am only needed when a portal is needed. Otherwise I am just a background figure."

"I also heard that the X-Men series seems to be planning to reboot again. After Dark Phoenix, Fox plans to reboot the X-Men series again, this time in collaboration with Marvel."

"It seems that Fox is also coveting the benefits of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and wants to bring the X-Men back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't know the details."

"Oh." Wu Yuan nodded. This should be referring to "The New Mutants".

"The New Mutants" is another mutant IP movie that 20th Century Fox launched at the same time as "X-Men: Dark Phoenix". It is a collaboration with Marvel and preparations began in July 2017.

It seems that Marvel fooled Fox, saying that it was considering introducing "mutants" into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

After seeing the good results achieved by Spider-Man after returning to the Marvel Universe, Fox was naturally very excited. He agreed to Marvel without saying a word and then made "The New Mutants", intending to let several protagonists of this movie enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a group of mutants.

However, Wu Yuan clearly remembered that until 2022 when he woke up from his dream, he had never seen "mutants" joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead, Marvel started working on "Eternals".

I don’t know if Marvel regretted it later and gave up the plan to introduce mutants into the movie universe. Anyway, this matter should have come to nothing, and the movie "New Mutants" also flopped very badly.

"This has nothing to do with us. If we don't want to shoot X-Men, then we don't have to." Wu Yuan said indifferently: "Anyway, Fox's X-Men IP is about to expire and will return to Marvel. My relationship with Marvel is very delicate now, and I probably won't participate in their projects in the future."

"You should prepare for the art film directed by Zhang Yimou next year. Haven't you already decided to shoot Cai Wenji?"

Speaking of which, Wu Yuan was also a little confused. He didn't know if it was because of his butterfly effect. The global auditions for "Mulan" that should have started a long time ago have been delayed, and Disney has not officially started preparing for the live-action movie "Mulan"!
He heard that the script for this live-action film had been made into four versions, but there was no further news.

This is really strange.

"Forget it." Wu Yuan shook his head, too lazy to think about it. Anyway, he really looked down on the Disney version of "Mulan" and didn't want Liu Yifei to play the role.

Looking up at the calendar hanging in the living room, Wu Yuan smacked his lips and said, "It's almost December again. The Spring Festival season is coming again."

"It seems that the company has films to be released during the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival this year." (End of this chapter)