director of the millennium

Princess movies are really popular abroad if they are well made.

Strange to say.

Although Disney's live-action princess films have never been popular in China, they are very popular in the entire international market except China.

It's amazing that it's equally popular even in the Japanese and Korean film markets.

When "Beauty and the Beast" was released in China, it received a mediocre response. The market fell after its release, and with a 60% screening rate, it only earned 2 million yuan at the box office in two weeks.

But in Japan, "Beauty and the Beast" won seven consecutive championships after its release, with cumulative box office revenue exceeding 100 billion yen and ultimately achieving a box office revenue of 124 billion yen.

In Japan, a movie that can gross over 100 billion yen doesn’t appear every year, and "Beauty and the Beast" even became the Japanese movie of the year!

That year, the box office of the Japanese domestic film champion "Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter" was only 68.9 billion yen.

It can be said that Disney's live-action princess movies are completely popular in Japan.

Well, Disney's "Frozen" performed even better at the Japanese box office, creating a box office miracle of 255 billion yen, ranking among the top five in Japanese film history.

The cumulative number of viewers for Beauty and the Beast in South Korea7 exceeded 462 million, and for Frozen it exceeded 1029 million.

To sum it up in one sentence, even though they both belong to the Confucian cultural circle, Japan and South Korea are also very fond of Disney princess movies, and they are fond of both live-action and animated versions, which is different from mainland China which only likes the animated version.

So it took only 10 days for "Beauty and the Beast" to enter the "29 billion dollar box office club" that year, and less than a month after its release, its global box office broke 1 billion US dollars.

It can be said that Disney's princess films are really popular in the global market outside of China.

And it is a very golden IP. Even the movie "The Little Mermaid" which forcibly replaced the mermaid with a black fish could earn $3 million at the global box office.

And the $3 million was earned amidst a chorus of curses and ridicule.

In other words, even if Disney's princess movie turns out to be a piece of shit, movie fans around the world will still pay $3 million to watch this piece of shit in theaters, and then criticize it online.

Good guy!
The movie itself has a global box office of 3 million US dollars!
It is certain that if "Mulan" had been filmed a little better and there were no plots that would cause ridicule from moviegoers and a collapse in reputation, the global box office would have been guaranteed to be $5 million.

If the film is well-made and can satisfy moviegoers and get them to praise it, the global box office will reach 10 billion US dollars.

It would be a lie to say that Wu Yuan wasn't moved.

If he has the opportunity to take over the filming of such an IP, and the crew is completely led by him, and he can also promote his wife and let his wife become the C-position protagonist in cinemas around the world as a Disney princess, then why would he refuse such a good thing?
So after receiving the request from Disney, Wu Yuan's response this time was very ambiguous. He did not reject it decisively as before, but started to negotiate with Disney.

He wanted to test Disney's bottom line and see if he could get more benefits from the box office share and give his wife better treatment. Disney was also "eager to recruit talents" and patiently discussed the details of the cooperation with Wu Yuan bit by bit.

In this way, a month passed, and when the hot summer came, Wu Yuan successfully reached a cooperation agreement with Disney.

He will be the director of Disney's "Mulan" movie, and Liu Yifei will be starring as the heroine Mulan.

The script of the film will be redone from scratch, and local Chinese screenwriters will be brought in to work together with Disney screenwriters to create a version of the script that is more similar to the plot of Disney's "Mulan" animated film, but with more fantasy and magical elements.

After all, Disney's princess movies are all fantasy and magical in style. They may not have very Western magical elements such as witches and magic, but they must have evil villains who can cast spells, and they must also have righteous friends.

Yes, that's Mushu.

Wu Yuan has always thought that Mushu in the animated film "Mulan" is pretty good. I don't know why he was not used in the live-action version. Isn't it a basic operation in fairy tales to arrange a little follower and helper for the princess?
Just like Snow White has seven dwarfs, Cinderella has the fairy old man and the little animals who help her.

Is it too much for Hua Mulan, the princess from China, to have a cute oriental dragon following her?

Hollywood now has the technology to create a monster that is more realistic and interesting than Huba. It’s just a matter of finding a voice actor.

The other leading actors in the script are basically based on the animated film "Mulan", including the handsome boss who helps Mulan, her father the general, the leader of the biggest enemy, the northern nomadic people, and so on.

In order to make this animated film well, Disney carefully studied every move of Chinese martial arts and hired a large number of writers, historians, and artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to repeatedly study and review the film's script, scenes, and modeling in order to maintain its Chinese characteristics and the spirit of the original work.

Why is it that now Disney is unwilling to do this? When it started the project of "Mulan" movie, it just found a few female directors and screenwriters and started working on it?
Wu Yuan didn't understand and asked Disney directly.

But the other party hesitated for a long time and did not give a reasonable reason. He just kept emphasizing that this time he would definitely follow Wu Yuan's ideas and create a live-action movie that has both Disney characteristics and the charm of Chinese martial arts.
In the end, Disney made a big concession to Wu Yuan, giving him 5% of the box office share, and also gave the heroine Liu Yifei a salary of 1000 million US dollars plus 1% of the box office share.

In other words, Wu Yuan has a lot of reputation, and Liu Yifei is indeed the most suitable candidate, with no second choice, so Disney gave him 1% of the box office share, which is considered a huge investment.

You have to know that this live-action princess film is not like the previous "Bruce Lee". "Mulan" is positioned as a commercial blockbuster, aiming for the box office. It has invested hundreds of millions of dollars, and the expected box office target is also at the level of 10 billion US dollars.

It is impossible for Wu Yuan to ask for a 10% share of the box office. 5% is already the price for the top directors in the industry. Add to that his salary which is capped at $2000 million, and if the global box office can really reach $10 billion, he alone can take away $ million.

Liu Yifei's 1% share of the box office can also get her 1000 million US dollars, plus the 1000 million US dollars in film salary, that makes 2000 million US dollars, a figure that is rarely obtained by Hollywood's top actresses or even movie queens.

Disney really spent a lot of money to get Wu Yuan to pay such a high salary, and they really had no better choice, so they had to take the risk.

However, after the discussion, Wu Yuan did not hesitate and immediately started the preparations for the film! (End of this chapter)