This director needs to apologize

Chapter 178 Huashan Swordsman Ancient Costume Blockbuster
In the quiet and peaceful first month of the year, Chen Yiming passed surprisingly quickly.

Every day I just eat, sleep, and occasionally visit relatives and classmates. In a blink of an eye, it’s the Lantern Festival.

Chen Yiming tried hard to deny the "honor" of appearing at the CCTV Lantern Festival Gala, but he really couldn't stand it.

However, there was really no way to postpone the annual meetings of the Directors Guild and the Film Society. He could only leave the warm bed melancholy and leave home for the imperial capital.

Speaking of which, these two conferences this year obviously have a special meaning. The most intuitive manifestation is that many Chinese directors from outside the mainland have been invited. Hong Kong has the most visitors, and basically all the famous ones are here. Taiwan and Taiwan All the directors of art films were also present.

Talents from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and three places gathered together, and it was like a sword-discussing style on Mount Huashan.

When Chen Yiming called to wish him a happy new year, Mr. Ma Erye gave him some background knowledge. To put it bluntly, it was very simple. After being hit hard by three consecutive Hollywood blockbusters at the end of the year, the unconvinced Chinese filmmakers planned to fight back.

Since November last year, the three blockbusters "Transformers 11", "Ark" and "Pandora" have been successively released, causing a bloody storm in the Chinese film market.

Chen Huaikai's "A Generation of Famous Actors" is not the only victim, Wu Kesen's "Three Kingdoms - Red Cliff" is the biggest loser.

Director Wu did not expect that in order to avoid "Pandora", he would push the film to the Spring Festival in February, but he was still blown away by the tail of the typhoon.

"Pandora" landed in China in late December last year, immediately reminding Chinese filmmakers of the fear of being dominated by "Shipwreck", and this time the momentum is more fierce than 12 years ago.

The total number of 3D screening halls in China was less than [-] and it was full for a month. Scalper tickets were directly sold to three digits. The price of the two IMAX theaters in the imperial capital was once close to four digits.

There are also long queues in ordinary theaters. To sum it up in one word, it is phenomenal, and it is even more phenomenal than "1951".

So "Three Kingdoms - Red Cliff" was just like this. It was rubbed to the ground by a movie that was released for 40 days, and it had no power to fight back.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, "Pandora" once again broke out of the downward trend, earning 4500 million at the box office, pushing the total box office to 13.5 billion.

Just a few months after "1951" broke the record of "Wrecked," Cuarón set the record back with "Pandora."

"Red Cliff", which premiered on the same day, only received 2300 million at the box office, and its momentum was very bad.

By the end of the Spring Festival period, "Red Cliff" barely exceeded [-] million, but its reputation had completely collapsed, and that was basically the end of it.

This wave was actually made by Director Wu himself, otherwise even if he faced "Pandora" head-on, he wouldn't have suffered such a disastrous defeat.

The success of "Guandu" made Wu Kesen so confident that he decisively drove away the previous film's chief screenwriter Lu Yiwei and took control of the script himself.

The result is obvious. Director Wu, who is good at brotherhood and violent aesthetics, cannot handle the historical theme. The martial arts drama is full of sincerity, but the literary drama is logically broken. Chinese audiences who are familiar with the history of the Three Kingdoms do not buy it at all.

Coupled with Director Wu's excessive selfishness, "Guandu" also symbolically invited Shen Ming to be a signboard. In "Red Cliff", he didn't even need a signboard, and all the main characters were actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

This kind of sectarian view is obviously not worth promoting.

If "Red Cliff" is a box office hit, Director Wu will naturally be able to show off his power, and others will have to pinch their noses to recognize it.

But the reality is that "Red Cliff" has reached the center of the earth. If Director Wu is still stubborn, it means his IQ is in arrears.

Hong Kong city filmmakers are the most crisis-conscious group, because the Hong Kong city market is small and there are many people working in the industry. Once they lose the mainland market, it will be tantamount to self-extinction.

Compared with their mainland counterparts, they are still eager to catch up with technology. Anyway, they just pile on special effects. There is always a way to add people and money. If it doesn't work, they can also hire foreign special effects teams.

However, the prerequisite for catching up is that the Mainland has to take advantage of the fact that Chinese people are one family and must give strong support in terms of money, land, people, materials, and the market. Otherwise, no matter how ambitious Hong Kong directors are, they will just export to the public.

This is the real reason for the big gathering of directors from across the Taiwan Strait and the three places. The people in Hong Kong are anxious. No matter how bad the mainland is, there are still local comedies that can be tossed in. And even if they really fall flat, it’s not a big deal. It’s not like they haven’t fallen flat before.

As for the specific circumstances of the two annual meetings, it is really difficult not to mention them in detail.

Chen Yiming went there with only two ears and a single mind. Although he prepared a speech, it was only a short article of a thousand words. He still talked about the old saying of "paying attention to the genre film market", and it was not even scratching the surface.

However, many of the famous directors attending the meeting refused to let him go. Speaking of him, the winner of the Palme d'Or and Golden Globe Award, he was indeed the most successful in the venue in terms of awards alone.

So every time someone came up, I had to @ him after he finished speaking, so that he had to stay focused and it was inconvenient for him to even slip away to the toilet.

Well, these two annual meetings are actually promotion meetings.

The Hong Kong directors who attended basically brought projects with big investments, big casts, big scenes, and box office starting at 10 billion. They were definitely full of visions.

However, after listening to the whole process, Chen Yiming discovered that the subject matter was either Journey to the West, Liaozhai, or Fengshen, and nothing else.

Chen Yiming has only one comment on this: he can't even find a good vegetable plot with compost.

Mainland directors make Chen Yiming's eyes shine. For example, Wang Xiaogang's disaster masterpiece has been completed and is in post-production, and is expected to be released this summer.There is also the great director Sun Wangquan, who is filming a blockbuster about the Anti-Japanese War. It is said that an Oscar winner has been invited to star in the movie. If the later stage goes well, it may be released by the end of the year.

The leaders of the film bureau were very happy when they heard this. Although the box office for last year has not been compiled yet, it is only the difference between the large cup and the super large cup. Anyway, it is certain that there will be a surge.

The domestic films in front of us are very "upbeat", and it can be predicted that the results this year and next will not be bad.

After the two annual meetings, Chen Yiming has a general understanding of the trends of domestic films in the next few years. Leaving aside the small and medium-sized dark horses with small and large budgets, talking about large-scale productions, basically they will not be too far from the path of his previous life. .

In the next three to five years, Hollywood blockbusters will still dominate the Chinese audience's desire to watch movies, while domestic movies can only stay dormant for the time being.

On February 2, Chen Yiming, Sang Ping, and Ma Yunteng went to Los Angeles again to attend the 27rd Academy Awards ceremony.

The process was similar to that of the Golden Globe Awards, even more lengthy and boring, and there was nothing to eat.

"1951" won the Best Foreign Language Film without any suspense. Paul and Sang Ping shared the Best Cinematography Award, officially ending the Oscar journey with two nominations out of three.

Chen Yiming knew very well that his escort was too young, too inexperienced, and a Chinese.

Of course, he wasn't too disappointed. Oscars are just like the Palme d'Or, they become less valuable as time goes by.

Anyway, he has no intention of staying in Hollywood. As far as China's domestic status is concerned, an Oscar nomination is enough.

At this time, "Super Sense" had been completed for a long time, and Xiangrui was busy in the late stage of work in Southern California. Chen Yiming took a look and repeatedly reminded Xiangrui to protect the material, but did not make any comments on the content.

Originally, Chen Yiming wanted to accompany Mr. Sang around Nuts. Although he had been running around Nuts during the award season before, he was not in the mood to go shopping and travel at all.

However, a phone call from Mr. Ma summoned Chen Yiming back to the Magic City in advance.

The matter was not urgent. Chen Yiming spent two days tidying up his home after a long absence before reporting to No. 595 Caoxi Road.

Entering Master Ma's office, Chen Yiming first presented the Oscar statuette as usual.

The second uncle took it and put it aside. It seemed that he had collected a lot of trophies of various styles during this period and had begun to become desensitized.

"Yiming, sit down, don't be nervous, I didn't ask you to come here to give you a task."

Chen Yiming patted his scalp in response, "Uncle Ma has nothing to say. If he really assigns me a task, I won't say anything."

Mr. Ma Erye smiled heartily, obviously very pleased with this statement.

"It's okay to talk to me for a while on the train. When you meet the boss later, you can't be so casual. They are really not polite to you.

What are your plans next?I heard from Xiao Teng that you guys are planning to go back and make low-budget movies. Tell me what you think. "

Chen Yiming took a sip of the green tea brewed by Mr. Ma himself, put down the cup and sat upright before speaking back.

"Uncle Ma, that's what I'm thinking about.

A few days ago, the Film Bureau just announced various data for last year. The annual box office reached 78 billion. Excluding the impact of rising ticket prices and rising prices, it can be concluded that the number of moviegoers has exceeded 2 million.

I believe that an audience group of this size already has the foundation to form a market segment, and it is worthy of in-depth development.

Our initial plan is to stabilize the investment in a single project at the level of 1500 to 2000 million, with the goal of attracting 4 million moviegoers within the four-week regular screening period. "

Ma Erye kept nodding after hearing this, and after Chen Yiming finished speaking, he sighed, "Xiao Teng has told me more than once that your decision-making logic and numbers-first approach are much more feasible than patting your head on the head. The departments below will communicate more with Bo Jue.

How many projects do you plan to run this year? "

Chen Yiming thought for a while and replied, "It depends on the progress of early contacts with producers, directors and other creatives. Currently, only Fu Ruixiang is certain to cooperate.

When she returns to China in the second half of the year, we plan to let her try out a female-themed project. "

Ma Erye thought for a moment and did not ask further questions, but changed the topic.

"Yi Ming, I have something else to ask you to come here for. As you know, after the Spring Festival, the directors from Hong Kong City brought many projects to the north, and a few of them found us.

To be honest, since the "Red Cliff" incident, I have always been a little unsure about Hong Kong directors. If these projects are urban, police and gangsters, or action themes, I can make the decision without saying a word.

But I don’t know what’s going on. One or two of them are all working hard on the theme of ancient costumes. I really can’t be optimistic about their control in this area, so I called you to give me advice. "

(End of this chapter)