China Entertainment started from Nortel 2002

Chapter 856: Audition, Huayi’s Dilemma
"Director Li's trick of promoting on the air is really amazing. The popularity of several National Day tribute films has suddenly risen to an unprecedented high."

At home, Xie Nan couldn't help but sigh.

"Do you have any tricks yet to be used for The Climbers? Otherwise, it seems that the popularity is much lower than that of My People, My Country and The Captain."

"How would I know? But it seems like there's nothing we can do." Wu Jing shrugged. It seemed like The Climbers was using his popularity for publicity from beginning to end.

The only relatively good publicity strategy was to choose the film's closing location at the Everest Base Camp, and invited Sangzhu, one of the climbing heroes of that year, to film the film. This allowed the audience to learn about the film more intuitively and left a deep impression.

But so far, the publicity has been quite satisfactory.

It’s not to say it’s bad, but compared to “My People, My Country”, where half of the entertainment industry came to sing and promote it, and “The Captain”’s premiere at an altitude of 10,000 meters, “The Climbers” is indeed much weaker.

At this time, Li Mu was in a small teahouse, with Chen Kaige and Zhang Yi sitting next to him.

"Brother, how are you doing? Are you free to come to my premiere?"

Li Mu was not in a hurry to discuss the casting issue of "Changjin Lake" and was still chatting.

"No problem for me!" Zhang Yi smiled. "To be honest, I also want to experience this feeling. Your premiere in the sky is indeed..."

"I don't have time here." Brother Chen Kai shook his head.

Li Mu was not surprised. After all, Brother Chen Kai was the chief director of "My Motherland and Me", and the film was about to be released on the 27th. It would be abnormal for him to have time to spare.

After chatting about trivial matters, Li Mu put the list of all male actors born between 70s and 80s on the table.

"This is a military war movie, so the military flavor is the first choice. Temperament is very important." Zhang Yi picked up a stack and searched while flipping through them.

"If there is such a thing, there are already a few ready-made ones. There are not many people in our circle who have this kind of temperament and decent acting skills."

Brother Chen Kai continued what Zhang Yi said.

"It depends on the schedule. For some people, the schedule may not be suitable, so it is not possible."

After several people discussed it, a few of them were quickly identified.

Speaking of military temperament, in addition to Wu Jing who has already been selected, Hu Jun, Zhang Hanyu and Duan Yihong were picked out.

Because several of them have acted in similar TV series or movies.

In fact, when casting, the director will actually search for certain actors in similar good movies and TV series in his mind, because they have already been proven to be suitable, which saves a lot of effort.

Of course this is not absolute, but this is the method Brother Chen Kai uses at this time.

"I remember that in The Founding of an Army, there were a few actors who performed quite well. We also happen to need some actors who are a little younger."

"Ou Hao, Zhu Yawen"

The names were read out one by one from the three people, which was also the preliminary screening.

Only actors who have been invited after the initial screening are eligible to audition.

This is also the normal process.

After a day of discussion and research, a series of names have come out, with each role having at least one audition actor and as many as two or three.

Sometimes we also have to consider the actors' schedules. For someone like Wu Jing who has already been confirmed and there is no schedule conflict, there is no need to select additional people, so it is basically finalized.

"Wu Jing, Duan Yihong, Hu Jun, Zhang Hanyu, Huang Xiaoming, Ou Hao, Huang Xuan, Yu Hewei, Han Dongjun, Yi Yang Qianxi, Qu Chuxiao, Huang Zhizhong, Liu Haoran"

Several people breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Mu stretched his body. He had been sitting there for the entire day. Except for a little time wasted on lunch, the rest of the time was spent on selecting people and discussing.

The three people sometimes agree and sometimes disagree.

When you encounter a problem, you naturally have to convince the other party, which takes a lot of time.

"It's been a while since I selected actors like this."

Zhang Yi couldn't help but smile when he saw this.

“It’s been quite a while.”

Li Mu couldn't help but recall the scene when he first selected the actors. Later on, he was more casual in casting and delegated a lot of power. People who wanted to act were lining up, and there was almost no difficulty level, unless their schedule was not free. In that case, there was really no other way, as he couldn't let people breach the contract to act.

At this time, all the actors in the industry who were eyeing the role in "Changjin Lake" did not know that the audition list for the role had already been released.

In the industry, the capital market is in turmoil, and the marketing war for the National Day holiday has naturally entered a white-hot stage with less than a month left before the release.

On the contrary, there is still no news about "The Eight Hundred", which was originally scheduled to be released in September after being withdrawn, and news came out again from Huayi that the movie "The Eight Hundred" was postponed due to some technical reasons.

As the original opening film of the Shanghai Film Festival, it was temporarily replaced and then withdrawn from the schedule in several schedules. Anyone with a discerning eye could see that there was a big problem with the film.

You have to know that given the subject matter of this movie, normally it should be one of the tribute films, but from beginning to end, even Huayi has never promoted "Eight Hundred" as a tribute film, and the Internet has always promoted it as one of the three tribute films.

There are actually traces of this direction.

For a while, the release of "Eight Hundred" was postponed again, and there was a lot of discussion on the Internet. "No way, it's been postponed for several times, is it really possible?"

"Interesting, a technical problem? Is it that it can't be released in theaters?"

“I think it will be difficult this year!”

"."

People who follow "The Eight Hundred" generally know where the story is based, and there were all kinds of speculations for a while.

But for Huayi, the netizen’s comment was nothing. The inability to release the film was fatal news.

The brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei looked even more unhappy.

You know, "The Eight Hundred" is the 2019 blockbuster film of Huayi Brothers and is highly anticipated. Especially under the pressure of Huayi Brothers' 36 billion debt, this movie may be Huayi's "life-saving straw".

"Brother, how about we continue to use the same trick as last time, increase our holdings, guide the stock price to rise, and then pledge it?"

Wang Zhonglei naturally knew that Huayi’s funds were now in serious trouble.

Otherwise, in June this year, Wang Zhongjun would not have completed the share purchase plan that started last year. A few days after the purchase amount reached 6 million, he directly pledged an additional 1 million shares to obtain cash flow.

You should know that in general, listed companies pledge shares because they are out of money and need to exchange their holdings for cash.

However, lack of money means that there may be disguised liquidation. For major shareholders, if the market determines that they have the intention to liquidate their positions, it often means that the company has fatal problems and the stock price may plummet at any time.

Therefore, before and after the pledge, major shareholders will generally increase their holdings to show their confidence in the company.

In this way, small shareholders will not sell, and shareholders will maintain their expectations, thereby ensuring capital turnover and ensuring the normal operation of the company.

"Do you think stock investors are fools? With our frequent operations, even a fool can see that if the stock price continues to fall, our shares will be 'exploded'."

Wang Zhongjun directly rejected Wang Zhonglei's proposal. This trick is okay to use occasionally, but if it is used frequently and clues are discovered, the pledged shares will be "liquidated", which will be really troublesome.

“We are almost at the end of our rope”

Wang Zhonglei couldn't help but feel a little confused.

In the early years, Huayi was still in its heyday, but now, in January, Huayi has pledged its shares in Huayi Brothers Entertainment, Hero Entertainment, Dongyang Haohan, and Huayi Cinema (Suzhou);

It also applied for a total of 6 billion yuan in credit from six institutions including Minsheng Bank, China Merchants Bank, China Zheshang Bank and Ping An Bank, among which it pledged four properties, accounts receivable from the revenue of no more than seven films and box office revenue from the future operation of 33 wholly-owned cinemas.
This has almost overdrawn Huayi's profit potential for the following year, but there is still a big gap to fill.

"Don't worry. Huayi is still valuable in the industry. We have a complete content production industry chain. As long as we withstand this pressure, everything will return to normal."

Wang Zhongjun's eyes fixed, and he seemed to have made some kind of decision, "Next year, let's introduce strategic investors again."

Wang Zhonglei certainly knows the significance of introducing strategic investors. Without more benefits, where would the strategic investors come from? He also has to cut some flesh from the two of them, but at this time, they cannot survive without cutting flesh.

"Brother, Ye Ning is over there."

Wang Zhonglei seemed to want to say something, but didn't continue, but his meaning was very clear.

It has been two years since Ye Ning came here, but Huayi's performance this year is still not good, and its movies have not made any waves in the industry. Someone has to take the blame.

“Let’s talk about this issue after this year.”

Wang Zhongjun waved his hand, as if he had already made a plan.

At this time, in another office, Ye Ning learned that "Eight Hundred" still could not be released, and sighed slightly.

How could he not know the importance of this movie to Huayi today? It could be said to be a life-saving straw, but it just couldn't be released.

This is bound to make things worse for Huayi.

For a moment, I looked through the window to the other side, into Wang Zhongjun's office. He remained silent for a long time, and I didn't know what he was thinking about.

On the other hand, the film "Changjin Lake", which is of great concern to the industry, broke the gossip: the actor audition invitation has been sent out
As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire, and many people went to verify it.

The news couldn't be kept secret in the first place, and soon after the invitation was sent out, it was known by people in the industry.

"It's over, there's no place for me!"

"Who on earth did they give it to? Such a good opportunity, but I can't even participate."

“Who won the jackpot?”

Some actors who had ideas but did not receive invitations suddenly felt like the sky was falling.

Because after an audition invitation, the cast is rarely changed, and even if they are changed, it will not be in large numbers, which has already sentenced them to "death".

Many of the actors who received the invitation were ecstatic.

"Brother Mu, what about my role?" Zhu Yawen asked hurriedly in the group.

"It's not my help. It's your performance in The Founding of an Army that attracted attention. But you should prepare well first. Otherwise, if something goes wrong in the audition and someone else takes your role away, that would be unacceptable."

(End of this chapter)