director of the millennium

In the capital, at Wu Yuan's home.

Liu Yifei, who had just finished filming and returned to Beijing, looked curiously at the documents Wu Yuan had placed on the table in the living room.

"So, there will be a lot of co-produced TV series coming online with Guangying Kuaibo?"

Although Wu Yuan is not responsible for the daily operations of Guangying Kuaibo, he will certainly be the first to know about any major moves of the company. Even the specific cooperation documents must be signed and stamped by him before they can be implemented.

Therefore, the news that Guangying Kuaibo had recently reached a cooperation agreement with three film and television companies was immediately delivered to Wu Yuan.

Coincidentally, Liu Yifei had just finished filming and returned home, and saw these documents.

"Come to think of it, I haven't acted in a TV series for many years." Liu Yifei held her chin up and said with some nostalgia: "Since The Return of the Condor Heroes, I have never acted in a TV series again. I have always been making movies."

"Back then, everyone in and out of the industry tacitly believed that movie actors were superior to TV actors, and that actors who could act in movies would not condescend to act in TV dramas. My mother also thought so, and that's why she stopped letting me take on TV dramas."

"But this statement is actually not wrong. Actors like Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, Cheng Long, and Tang Wei seem to have never acted in a TV series."

"Some actors who debuted as TV actors never act in TV dramas again after they started acting in movies. Chen Kun and Xun Jie haven't acted in TV dramas for many years, right?"

"Eh." Wu Yuan, who was browsing Weibo on his phone, raised his head and glanced at his wife, and said in a teasing tone: "You are a little behind on this news."

"Chen Kun is back to star in a TV series called The Rise of Phoenixes. It just started airing in August."

"Xun Jie has also made a comeback and starred in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, co-starring with Huo Jianhua. It will also be aired in August."

"It's the same with Tang Wei. She played in "The Glory of the Tang Dynasty" last year. However, this drama had some twists and turns. During the filming, the investment party changed three times. The review process was also quite tortuous. It was sent back for revisions many times. It is still stuck at the review stage. It is estimated that some scenes will have to be re-shot."

"I heard that it was because they disrespected historical facts and portrayed the heroine, Empress Dowager Sun, too different from history. It was suspected of being a magical revision of history, so the radio and television station did not approve of it."

"In short, these actors who don't shoot TV dramas have also been hired by investors to shoot TV dramas at a high price."

"I heard that the producers of The Glory of the Tang Dynasty had to work hard for nine months to convince Tang Wei to act in the film. Of course, they also paid her enough money."

"Sister Xun is even more outrageous. When she was filming Red Sorghum a few years ago, her pay was only 5300 million. This time, the investors directly invested 5000 million in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, and the male lead also received 1 million. The two main actors took away 3 million in pay together, while the total investment in this TV series was only million."

"I don't know exactly how much Kun'er got for acting in The Rise of Phoenixes, but it must have been quite high. Anyway, Kun'er said that he was completely convinced by the money."

"Otherwise, considering his mysterious personality in recent years, why would he come out to film a TV series again?"

"Really?" Liu Yifei was very surprised. She really didn't know much about the TV drama market in the past two years. The main reason was that these movie stars were basically convinced by the capital in 2017 and entered the TV drama group again. Most of the dramas they filmed will not be broadcast until the second half of this year. If you don't pay special attention, you really don't know. Liu Yifei has been invited to TV dramas all year round, and her salary has increased from about 2000 million at the beginning to the current asking price of or million, but she stopped taking TV dramas a few years ago, so naturally she doesn't care too much about these.

Liu Yifei's development in this life is much smoother than in her previous life. In the film industry, she has the box office and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress. Coupled with her national appeal, she is a full-blooded fairy sister who has never been bled. Her value is even higher than that of Zhou Xun and Tang Wei.

"The pay for TV dramas nowadays is too high. When I was acting in The Return of the Condor Heroes, I only got 20 yuan for the whole show. Now actors can get millions for one episode. It's terrible."

Liu Yifei patted her chest. Even though she was not very sensitive to finance, she could feel that the current Chinese TV drama market was somewhat distorted, especially the high pay in the circle. The pay was even several times higher than that of American TV dramas. The pay of a Chinese TV actor could catch up with that of a second-tier to first-tier Hollywood movie actor.

Not to mention Japan and South Korea. The money spent on making a Chinese TV series can be used to make 10 Japanese or Korean dramas, but there is no obvious difference in the quality of the two. In fact, Japanese and Korean dramas are more likely to produce high-quality works.

The only area where Chinese dramas are ahead of Japanese and Korean dramas is that they use more special effects, and the special effects fighting scenes are more gorgeous.

Yes, I'm talking about those fantasy and ancient idol dramas.

As for other places, the gap is really not that obvious, because most of the money is used to pay the actors, and not much is actually spent on the production of TV series.

"That's how the market works." Wu Yuan shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened. "The market is fanatical now, just like when the domestic film industry was just starting to recover. Everyone thought that inviting movie stars would lead to big box office sales and big money, so they spent hundreds of millions of dollars to invite Hong Kong and Taiwan superstars to star in movies."

"Then all those so-called blockbusters lost all their money, and the market sobered up. Look at the current domestic film industry, which actor can still get a high salary? People pay more attention to the script rather than the actor."

"Andy and Brother Long can only get 20 million."

"The current TV drama industry is just repeating the same mistake. When all the dramas shot by big-name movie actors with high salaries this year fail and the ratings drop, the market will wake up and realize that blindly hiring actors with high salaries is useless."

"By that time, the new generation of TV actors will start to emerge. All kinds of capital, mainly major video platforms, will focus on promoting their own new generation of TV actors, instead of spending a lot of money to hire movie actors, because the audience will not buy it."

"There is indeed a gap between TV dramas and movies. Even the audiences of the two are completely different. Not many TV drama viewers who like to watch ancient puppet dramas will actually go to the cinema to watch movies. The same is true in reverse. Most moviegoers don't really watch this kind of ancient puppet drama."

"The future of domestic TV dramas still depends on the new generation of TV actors born after 95. Zhao Lusi, Bai Mengyan and other talents who work with Guangying Kuaibo are the future."

"Although they may not be able to carry the box office in movies and may even be discriminated against by fans, they can definitely call the shots and control traffic in the field of TV dramas."

"In the future, the gap between the film and TV industries will be even greater, and our film industry should also discover a new generation of film actors, otherwise we may fall into a period of transition."

"The road ahead is long and arduous!" (End of this chapter)