director of the millennium

A high-end residential area in Baoshan, Beijing.

There lives a special family here. They are well-known in the entertainment industry and are the famous actor Wang Baoqiang, who has become popular all over the country with movies such as "Soldier Assault", "Lost in Thailand" and "Detective Chinatown".

Because of the black swan event, Brother Baoqiang has been resting at home recently, and at the same time, he has been spending some time with his children to make up for the lost family affection.

The recent years can be said to be the most difficult years for Brother Baoqiang since he became famous.

In 2016, something happened that shocked the whole country: Bao Qiang's wife cheated on him with her agent.

Originally, having such a big scandal in one's love life and having it discussed in public is already a very damaging thing to one's self-esteem.

But after all, Brother Baoqiang is the victim in this matter, and Brother Baoqiang is indeed very clean. Even when he was stabbed in the back by his agent and his wife, this couple never dug up any dirty secrets about him. Not even the most common tax evasion in the industry was involved. Instead, Brother Baoqiang earned enough sympathy and support from the public.

Originally, if Brother Baoqiang had continued to develop as an actor, taking advantage of the public's sympathy and support, his acting career would definitely have reached a higher level. Even if he failed in love, it would not be bad to be successful in his career.

However, Brother Baoqiang's luck seemed to start to go wrong from here.

Less than a year after the love scandal broke out, Bao Qiang's debut comedy "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 3" failed both in terms of word of mouth and box office.

The netizens who originally had high expectations and support for him now turned their guns on him, as if their previous comments that were optimistic and supportive of him were all just a joke.

There are endless black fans and internet trolls against Brother Baoqiang on the Internet, as well as a lot of ridicule and cold stares. It can be said that he is caught up in very bad public opinion.

His once thriving acting career also suffered a severe blow.

But if it wasn't done well, it wasn't done well, so he didn't refute it, and even went to personally receive the Golden Broom (Worst Film) award to express his apology.

I have to say that Brother Baoqiang is really impeccable when it comes to being a person and doing things. Although he is not well educated, his character is much better than 99% of the artists in the circle.

In the following few years, he did fall into a difficult period in his career, and apart from the "Chinatown" series, he had almost no other work.

He himself has never forgotten his apology to the audience for a moment. He hopes to create a good movie to give back to the audience and prove himself to them.

Even when he was resting at home, he did not forget to continue polishing his new movie script.

He still wrote and directed the film himself, but having learned from the failure of "Journey to India", Bao Qiang did not choose to force the comedy style of "Lost on Journey". Instead, he finally walked his own path and chose to adapt a realistic inspirational movie based on the real "Enbo Fighting Incident"!

From 2017 when he started preparing to shoot a movie based on this prototype story to now, Bao Qiang has been working on the script. He has revised it countless times and changed many screenwriters, but he still has not polished the script to his most satisfactory level.

But since Bao Qiang was determined to make this movie, he naturally had to prepare for other aspects of the movie.

After all, making a movie requires more than just a good script, it requires cooperation from all aspects.

The most important point is the need for sufficient funds and issuance resources.

In fact, the funding is a small matter. After all, this movie is a realistic film. Bao Qiang does not plan to find a bunch of big-name actors to act in it. He plans to find a group of young people aged 14-20 to act in it. He himself will play the leading role, and then find a few golden supporting roles. The budget for the entire film can be controlled within 2000 million, which is definitely not a big-budget movie in this era.

Even if the publicity and promotion costs are included, the final cost of this film will not exceed 5000 million.

A lean camel is bigger than a horse. Although Brother Baoqiang was so poor when he got divorced that he didn't even have money to pay taxes and had to borrow money from others, that was because he was in the midst of a lawsuit and his assets were temporarily frozen to prevent transfer.

When everything was settled, Brother Baoqiang reopened Lekaihua Film and Television Company. He invested here and there, and with the connections he had accumulated over the years, it was not a problem to find some partners to invest. It was easy to raise 50 million.

What really made it difficult for him was finding a distributor.

Because of the double failure of word of mouth and box office of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", Baoqiang's reputation as a director has become a bad name in the circle.

If he is the lead actor in a movie and it is a comedy, there are distributors who are willing to sell tickets for him and strongly support his film promotion work.

But if it is a new work directed by Brother Baoqiang, and it is not in the comedy field, but a realistic movie, then the distribution company will avoid it.

This is a big pit!

No one has confidence in Bao Qiang's directing skills. The lesson learned from "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 2" cannot be washed away in five or six years.

When Dapeng made "The Pancake Man", even though it was a box office success, it had terrible word of mouth, which led to his subsequent "Sewing Machine Band" being looked down upon. Even though the movie was indeed well-made and well-distributed, in the end the box office did not live up to its reputation. The credibility overdrawn from "The Pancake Man" could not be repaid by "Sewing Machine Band" alone.

And Bao Qiang's "Journey to India" is much worse than "The Pancake Man".
Can fans still trust him?
No issuing company would trust it.
Although for distribution companies, they will not lose money no matter what movie they release, the most they earn is just a matter of how much profit they make.

But now there are hundreds of movies produced in the industry every year, and everyone has better choices. There is no need to do the thankless job of making a new movie for Brother Baoqiang!

So, when Brother Baoqiang went to various well-known film distribution companies in the industry to test the waters, he didn't get any good results.

Whenever they heard him talk about his new movie plan, everyone shook their heads like rattles and had no intention of cooperating at all.

what?
Brother Baoqiang, your new movie needs a distributor?

Well, our company's distribution work for the past two years is fully booked, and we may not be able to find a good schedule. In order not to delay your new movie, Brother Baoqiang, it is best to find a company with a suitable schedule.

I heard that XXX next door hasn't worked out its release schedule for next year yet and is lacking in good movies. Why don't you go take a look next door, Brother Baoqiang?

Then when he got to the next room, Brother Baoqiang heard almost the same words again.

It is impossible to offend anyone. Everyone spoke in nice words to them, with an attitude that it would be a real disadvantage for us to distribute your new movie, Brother Baoqiang, and that our company is too small to be suitable for the job.

You shouldn't hit a smiling person. Faced with such kind words, Brother Baoqiang couldn't say anything and only felt bitter in his mouth.

But it is not a good idea to keep dragging this out. We cannot wait until the movie is finished before looking for a distributor. Now is not the era of 20 years ago when the development of domestic commercial films was immature.
"It's so frustrating!" Brother Baoqiang murmured as he looked at the latest version of the script. (End of this chapter)