This director needs to apologize

Chapter 142 Receiving Bad News

After the meeting, Chen Yiming said to Ma Yunteng privately, "Why be so harsh? The box office depends on hard work and is determined by fate."

Ma Yunteng replied seriously, "Yiming, at the time of "Holiday in the Magic City", I really thought so. I would try my best to get the best result, and I could accept it even if it was not satisfactory.

But "1951" is different. I followed the entire project. I know how many people worked hard and I also know that there are several times higher expectations behind it.

I don’t know how to make movies, so I can’t tell you how good your shots are.

But I always know how to count. Since the test screening data shows that it has the potential to be a hit, then I have the responsibility to protect it and maximize its potential. "

Da Zhuang paused here, raised his head and stared at Chen Yiming and continued, "Yiming, we are brothers, I have something to say.

In the past year, you have jumped so fast that I am a little confused.

My days are passing by so fast because of you. Even so, it is still very hard to chase after you.

I'm not telling you to stop and wait, but I have to push myself harder.

You may not realize how tired you have been in the past six months, but Xiaomeiko and I have seen it.

You have eaten the hardships in the front, and I can’t let you suffer in the back. Otherwise, what kind of brothers are we? "

Chen Yiming didn't know what to say, so he finally punched Da Zhuang, turned around and left.

"Go back to sleep. In the next two months, you can worry as much as you want."

Films shortlisted for the Cannes main competition will be screened four times during the festival.

The first time is the premiere, which is usually arranged in the evening, with a red carpet and a premiere.

The specifications of this kind of red carpet are second only to the opening ceremony and closing ceremony, and the threshold is not as high as the first two, so it is the best choice for carpet star accumulation KPI.

The second time was a daytime re-screening the next day, mainly for the media and film critics, as well as a small number of general audiences.

This screening determines the program score and media reviews, and it is traditional that the main creators do not participate, which is very Cannes characteristics.

The third time will be irregular. It all depends on the organizer's arrangement. This is the main event where the audience rushes for tickets.

The third screening of "1951" took place on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 8th. This day can only be described as a good or bad day.

The fourth time is a re-screening on the last day of the film festival. Not every movie gets this treatment.

However, "1951", as the opening film, will definitely get a re-screening spot.

For Chen Yiming, all he needs to prepare for is the third screening next Tuesday, when there will be an audience interaction session similar to a road show.

In the following two days, Chen Yiming accepted several media interviews and attended several theme cocktail parties.

The more polite words you say, the easier it will be to go through the process. Chen Yiming found that it is not that difficult to just socialize without being careless.

Of course, even if you come from afar, you have to watch the movie.

As a Chinese, he will definitely go to support the two participating films in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Wei Minglang and his "Salome" is a film that makes Chen Yiming's head hurt just thinking about it. Fortunately, the premiere date is still early and it is towards the end of the film festival.

The director of Hong Kong City is Du Wenchen, whom Chen Yiming had a "spiritual friendship" with last year. He even bought a ticket to watch Du's commercial film "Mobile Police". That movie was a rare transformational film for gangster Du, but unfortunately it was not very successful at the box office. It was a complete mess.

Director Du learned from the pain and decided to return to his old profession and make a comeback with gangster movies.

It is said that this movie called "Dragon Head Stick" has gathered more than a dozen first-line actors from Hong Kong City, making it an all-star cast.

At the premiere that night, Chen Yiming did see many familiar faces, such as Wu Zhenyu, who played the gang boss in "Patlabor".

It's just that there are too many bosses in "The Dragon Head Stick", and Wu Zhenyu can't play the boss, so he can only downgrade to play a certain boss's younger brother.

As a new generation director who has suddenly emerged in the Mainland, Chen Yiming still received certain courtesy for his presence.

Du Wenchen and the leading actors Yi Qian deliberately chatted around Chen Yiming for a few minutes. At the premiere where guests gathered, a group of hosts received a young man together. It became a good story.

The only pity is that Director Du and all the Hong Kong stars speak really bad Mandarin, and Chen Yiming also knows nothing about Cantonese. After exchanging names for a long time, they basically had to shake hands and say goodbye, and the exchange was lonely.

Later, when Xiaomei was sorting out the news, she showed Chen Yiming the photos of that night published by Hong Kong media.

In the photo, Chen Yiming was standing in the middle wearing a gray-blue suit without a tie. Director Du led a group of actors wearing uniform black suits, white shirts and black ties to stand in a semicircle.

Chen Yiming shook hands and talked with Du Wenchen, who was in the middle opposite. There were three men in black lined up on both sides. It really looked like two underworld bosses negotiating.

Chen Yiming read "Dragon Head Stick" completely and found that this version was actually not complete at all.

In a simple summary, Director Du told a story about a gangster society choosing a boss.

There are two candidates, each with a group of subordinates, and there are a bunch of elders with the right to vote, each with a group of subordinates.

In addition, the relevant forces involved in the story include the candidate's foreign aid club boss, the boss's younger brother, the police as an upright representative, and the police's boss and younger brother.

There are nearly 20 named characters, each with their own real name and nickname.As the story begins, the election has already ended. The core elders unexpectedly sided with the unpopular contestant, causing the election results to be questioned.

But at this critical moment, the gang talker's token faucet stick disappeared, and the popular contestant who was unwilling to lose took this as an opportunity to start causing trouble.

Despite the large number of characters, Chen Yiming was able to sort out the clues very clearly. Because Director Du has excellent storytelling skills, the characters did not appear messy.

Moreover, a similar story line has already existed in the history of China. Changing the name of the dragon-headed stick to a dog-beating stick, and replacing the selected elders with a few elders, etc., there is absolutely no violation of the name of the beggar gang.

However, Chen Yiming is not very optimistic about the film's prospects in Cannes.

The first is that Director Du may have a lot of affection for the characters in the play, and he is reluctant to write down any of them. As a result, each character has his own position and choice. It is true, but this is a movie and not a series.

The second is the terrible deletion. According to the connection and layout of the characters in the play, four hours to tell the story clearly is considered a profound skill, and a mere 4 minutes is not enough.

Chen Yiming has a Chinese cultural background and can understand that the "dragon head stick" is called a keepsake but is actually a lead. But how could those foreign judges understand this? Most of them would directly interpret this movie as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and think they have stolen it. The stick is the boss.

How much saliva does Xu Xu have to spend before he can explain the numerous metaphors in the movie to the nutty judges on the jury?After all, for the nut judges, the Mafia is the gang culture they can accept.

As the Cannes Film Festival progresses, the domestic test screenings of "1951" are also progressing in an orderly manner.

On the second day of trial screening, there were 12 planned screenings and 18 actual screenings, with 2376 people watching the movie.

On the third day, the screening scale continued to be expanded, with one theater each arranged to test the waters in Hangcheng, Shencheng, and Shucheng.

On the same day, "1951" opened with a score of 9.1, and Chen Yiming continued to score the domestic film "Miracle" with a score of 9.

The first article in the long review is a long popular science article about the Battle of Tianma Mountain, the prototype of "1951".

In just one day, it received over a thousand likes and hundreds of comments.

What Chen Yiming said in front of Uncle Gao and Deputy Director Sun has begun to bear fruit.

He cannot guarantee that after watching "1951", the audience will have the consciousness of "I am waiting for the time to be quiet, and the other generation will bear the burden and move forward."

But he can make the dusty history of the past emerge in the tide of public opinion and trigger widespread discussion and attention as a hot spot.

In this process, more and more conscientious people will naturally realize the hardships of our predecessors in the past and realize the difficulty of peace today.

There are also more and more discussions about the content of "1951" on Weibo. All the actors of "1951" have opened accounts on three Weibos in accordance with the supplementary agreement.

Because it won’t work without opening it, “Duan Yining” is everywhere on Weibo. Lao Duan doesn’t need the secret scroll at all to practice the shadow clone technique.

Because Liu Dongjun is unknown, nicknames such as "Liu Dongjun", "Liu Dongjun", and "Liu Dongjun" competed to appear on the stage, and staged a battle royale between Li Gui.

Chen Yiming proposed the idea of ​​Blue V certification to Inspur Weibo in advance, and the other two companies quickly followed suit, accelerating the upgrading process of the Weibo ecosystem for a whole year.

As soon as Lao Duan Chaoshan’s Weibo account was opened, the number of fans exceeded [-] at the speed of light, just like riding a rocket.

Of course, there is not all bad news.

First of all, the advanced marketing of "1951" was noticed.

An expert published a long article in "China Film Report" with the title "The film market may be going astray, be wary of trying to evade regulation by selling dog meat over sheep's heads" and put "1951" on the wall without naming it.

"China Film Report" looks impressive just by its name, but it is actually a weekly magazine sponsored by an association under the Cultural Port. It is considered a semi-official media, but it just takes advantage of having an early name.

Xiao Mei told Da Zhuang, who immediately called his father and cried to him. Although he was scolded on the spot, he also got reliable news.

This article does not represent the official position of "China Film Report". To put it simply, it is a marketing draft published for money.

When I went further to find an expert, the answer was even more speechless. The expert just paid for his name, and the article was not written by him at all.

Ma Erye judged that the other party had a back-up plan, and now he was just foreshadowing it in advance, so he bought a soft article in a publication that everyone in the circle knew was a pheasant, but the name could blind outsiders.

Putting this matter aside for the moment, another piece of bad news is that "1951" has finally begun to attract the attention of public intellectuals.

Prior to this, it was Han Sanye's "The Founding of the People's Republic of China" that helped "1951" attract firepower.

However, since the debut of "1951" in Cannes, the public opinion environment of films with the theme of "[-]'s Day" has undergone a turning change.

If there is a united front among public intellectuals from all walks of life, then the rounder moon outside can definitely become the main consensus.

Specific to the film industry, there are Cannes in Europe and Golden Horse in Taiwan. Only when domestic films get these two can they enjoy the right to breathe in the works of well-known celebrities.

Now that a film with a theme theme has been shortlisted for the main competition in Cannes and is also the opening film, it is like a bolt from the blue to the public.

This is tantamount to a blatant subversion of the underlying logic of the public discourse system. How can we take it lightly?

However, according to the observation of Lao Jia's team, the well-known celebrities should still be in the stage of gathering strength, presumably waiting for the results of the Cannes closing ceremony.

At present, there are only a few small Vs making insinuations and sarcasm on the Internet, so the storm is not big.

(End of this chapter)