director of the millennium

Qingdao Film City.

Although we are still in the prevention and control period, there are still many crews conducting closed filming here.

For a film crew, this kind of prevention and control is actually not such a troublesome thing. After all, filming requires living in one place for a long period of time, and the fifteen-day health code is not a problem at all.

Moreover, film crews usually do not allow actors to overlap with other actors, so once they join the crew, they have to stay in the crew honestly.

It’s different for TV drama crews. It’s normal for actors to overlap with other dramas, take leave to complete other notices, appear on variety shows, etc. However, it becomes very troublesome during the prevention and control period.

Qingdao Film's main focus is still on film shooting, so there are always many crews here.

The most watched crew among them is naturally the "Fengshen" crew directed by Wu Ershan.

Originally, as early as before the Spring Festival, "Fengshen" was announced to have been successfully completed and the crew was disbanded on the spot.

But after sorting out the materials, Wu Ershan found that some of the content was not filmed well enough. In addition, the black swan incident occurred and the film was not in a hurry to be released. So he regrouped the actors and planned to reshoot part of the plot.

This kind of situation happens very well in the crew of a famous director.

Like Sunglass King, a movie can be shot over and over again for several years, and a TV series can be shot after it is finished and then the actors are called in for reshoots, and this can be done seven or eight times, so that the actors don't believe that the completion is real.
It is quite normal for Wu Ershan to only reshoot once or twice.

And because the plot that needed to be re-shot involved a lot of fighting scenes, the crew's action director Sang Lin was also called back to the film capital.

Wu Yuan came here this time just for Mr. Sang Lin.

Of course, he was also quite interested in "Fengshen Trilogy" and stopped by to visit the set.

Well, among the leading actors in the crew was his acquaintance Huang Bo, and Huang Bo happened to be doing reshoots, so Wu Yuan had a good reason to visit the set.

The reason why he was curious about this movie was very simple. It was because "The Investiture of the Gods Trilogy" had been extremely famous in the circle since the project was launched.

In the past, when a film project was launched, there would be satellite publicity, claiming that the film was large in scale, had many stars, had a large investment, and had amazing special effects.

Among so many satellite-like publicity, "Fengshen Trilogy" is the one with the biggest satellite, because this series is said to have a total investment of 30 billion!
It is said that the production cost of a single film is as high as 10 billion RMB!

Even a director like Wu Yuan, who has a firm grasp of the Asian market, has never achieved such a large number when making Chinese-language films!

Of course, most people, both inside and outside the industry, don’t believe that such a large investment would really happen. Even if the lead investor is Tencent Pictures, it would not invest so much money.

Let alone 30 billion, even if we give an 8% discount, the production cost of a film is 20 million, plus the normal 30%-1.6% publicity and promotion cost of 24 million, then the box office of a single film cannot make a profit unless it reaches billion!
Based on this investment, the box office of a single film must be at least 35 billion to not be considered a loss. After all, with so much money, one can make tens of millions a year just by financial management. Investing in movies can't possibly make less than putting money in the bank, right?

Taking into account the time cost, director's value, etc., "Fengshen Trilogy" must achieve a single film box office of 40 billion to be considered a successful IP.

My goodness, a movie has to have a box office of 40 billion, and it has to be a trilogy. Even Zhang Yimou doesn't dare to guarantee such a thing, and Wu Yuan doesn't dare to do it!

As a result, Wu Ershan was brave enough, and Tencent Pictures even dared to believe it and really invested in it!

With this courage and this promise, Wu Yuan also wanted to come and see for himself what the "Fengshen Trilogy" was like.

After all, in his dream life, he didn’t wake up before the series was released, so he didn’t know whether the "Fengshen Trilogy" was ultimately successful or how much box office it earned.

So he was really curious!

However, Wu Yuan knew this director Wu Ershan quite well.

After buying the script adaptation rights of "The Butterfly Effect" from Hollywood, he originally planned to invite Wu Ershan to direct it, but the deal fell through.

Wu Ershan was very ambitious. Coming from a wealthy family, he opened his own film and television studio right after graduating from university. He had no shortage of job opportunities and was unwilling to be a tool director for others.

At that time, Wu Yuan could not be considered a big name in the circle, he was just a newly rising director, and Wu Ershan was his senior. Whether from a career perspective or a personal perspective, there was no need for Wu Ershan to work for Wu Yuan, so the cooperation naturally failed to come to fruition.

Later, Wu Yuan took off rapidly and developed his own career. He collaborated with Wu Ershan on "Painted Skin 2" and handed the project to him.

After all, in the original time and space, it was Wu Ershan who took over "Painted Skin 2", and it was a good film. There was no need for Wu Yuan to force a change of director. Wu Ershan himself loved this kind of magical style of movie, and Wu Yuan's status had also risen, so he no longer had that kind of "senior" airs.

Then Wu Ershan, who starred in "Painted Skin 2", also took off. His movie "Ghost Blows Out the Light: Mojin: The Legend" broke many box office records for Chinese-language films and he also won the Best Director Award at the 33rd Popular Film Hundred Flowers Awards.

It was the success of "Ghost Blows Out the Light: Mojin: The Lost Tomb" that gave him the confidence to come up with his ambitious "Fengshen" plan. After several years of preparation and investment, he finally brought in Tencent Pictures to start this big IP.

To be honest, no matter how much real money will be represented by the 30 billion yuan in cost, the fact that Wu Ershan has the ambition to make such an unprecedented fantasy and magic blockbuster in China is worthy of Wu Yuan's personal support.

Because among all the directors in the Chinese film industry, no one dares to shoot such a big-investment fantasy or magic blockbuster, Wu Ershan can be regarded as the first mainland director with such courage.

Even Wu Yuan himself only dares to make Chinese-language science fiction blockbusters, because he believes that science fiction films have the smallest cultural barriers. Even if the investment cost is a bit high, with his international influence, he can sell box office throughout Asia, and the pressure to make a profit will be much lower.

As for magic and fantasy movies with Chinese background, even he himself did not dare to shoot them, because he was not sure whether such fantasy and magic movies based on the Chinese cultural background could be popular overseas.

"Painted Skin" was an attempt, but the cost of "Painted Skin" was not high at the time. In addition, the nine-tailed fox is a mythological legend in China, Japan and South Korea, so he pushed it to the Japanese and Korean markets with a try-it attitude.

However, Wu Yuan himself did not dare to try to film an IP like "Fengshen", which was adapted from Chinese mythology and legends and had no fame or cultural background overseas.

If we don't count overseas markets and rely solely on the Chinese market, the pressure to recoup the investment for a blockbuster with an investment of more than 1 million US dollars is really great, and the success rate is even far less than 30%!
To be honest, the possibility of failure is very high, but Wu Ershan dared to take the gamble, or it could be said that making this kind of magical blockbuster is his dream as a director.

Wu Yuan really admired this, so he came to the closed shooting site of "The Three Kingdoms of Gods" today! (End of this chapter)