Entertainment: From the Octagon to the big screen

Chapter 736 - Jiang Wen's Plan

From 2014 to the present, Jiang Wen's performance on the big screen has plummeted. The films he directed and starred in, "Step Up" and "Hidden Man", were both failures.

The worldwide success of Let the Bullets Fly seemed to have exhausted Jiang Wen's long-accumulated luck. His trilogy of films about the Republic of China, just like the Republic of China, started strong but ended up in a mess.

The total production cost of "One Step Away" was about 300 million yuan, and the publicity and promotion costs exceeded 50 million yuan. As a result, it only earned more than 500 million yuan from its release to the end of its release.

The day before yesterday, backstage at a charity reception, Jiang Wen muttered to Chen Yu that the loss of about 129 million RMB from "One Step Away" had caused him a toothache for nearly two weeks.

"Evil Never Dies" is even more miserable. After sorting out the scattered accounts in detail, it is estimated to be 400 million.

Then the box office was only 580 million, and Jiang Wen lamented that he was too embarrassed to meet with Yang Shoucheng for a long discussion on cooperation.

In addition, his wife Zhou Yun also suffered a lot of losses because of this work.

After all, Zizai Film and Television Co., Ltd., which is managed and operated by her, is the number one investor of "Evil Does Not Suppress Justice".

The Bu Yi Le Hu Film Culture Development Co., Ltd. owned by Jiang Wen ranked seventh, with little investment.

"Hidden Man" originally wanted to reverse the gloomy atmosphere brought by "One Step Away", but it suffered a Waterloo and completely broke the myth that Jiang Wen had previously created alone.

Now, in order to reduce and recover some of the losses as much as possible, he is contacting Tencent, iQiyi, Youku, Bilibili and other platforms to discuss the issue of copyright sharing for online broadcasting.

As the old saying goes, "A fallen phoenix is ​​worse than a chicken." Now that Jiang Wen has been reduced to his original form, he has become a fish on the chopping board.

IQiyi and Tencent were only willing to buy it out at a low price in one go, and refused to share the money based on data such as click-through rates. In contrast, Bilibili and Youku were relatively more righteous than their peers.

However, their current price is still some distance away from Jiang Wen and Ma Ke’s psychological bottom line.

Therefore, the negotiations reached a deadlock and the parties found it difficult to reach a preliminary consensus.

This time Jiang Wen came to the United States to look for overseas buyers for his works. From Berlin to Paris and then to Venice, he had a great time along the way but made little progress in his work.

Excluding buyers who had already agreed to purchase the film before its release, only some small and independent theaters in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Lithuania were willing to purchase the film.

The total offer from these theaters was only $3 million.

And they will not give Jiang Wen any share of the streaming media and DVD revenues.

Ma Ke has been discouraged by all the trouble and wants to sign the contract. Although three million US dollars is not a lot, every little bit counts and it can make some money back when converted into RMB.

If these small European film producers chip in a little more money, Ma Ke will even sell the rights to overseas remakes.

In private, he and Jiang Wen are indeed brothers who can both add icing on the cake and help each other in times of need, but when it comes to business, they have to temporarily put aside personal emotions and speak from a purely profit-oriented perspective.

Not letting personal interests override public ones is the core of the good relationship between these two brothers!

However, Jiang Wen was unwilling to sell this masterpiece, which he was extremely satisfied with, at a low price.

So Jiang Wen rushed from Europe to the United States to promote his masterpiece and to investigate the American film industry. However, he never expected that he would catch up with the Hollywood shutdown.

Previously, more than a dozen cinema chains had indeed expressed certain purchasing intentions, but the plan fell through as the Screen Actors Guild and the Television and Film Producers Association showed no signs of reconciliation after several rounds of negotiations.

Jiang Wen contacted Chen Yu out of desperation.

After all, Chen Yu has abundant film and television resources and extensive connections, but he lacks channels in theaters.

"Knives Out" starring Chen Yu, Captain America and Judy Bonham was released a while ago and it was a perfect success with both good reputation and box office, earning a net profit of 120 million US dollars in theaters alone!

If we take into account the revenue from various peripheral products, discs and streaming media, Lionsgate has made a huge profit.

Jiang Wen heard that the American Television and Film Golden Globe Awards had already noticed this suspense, detective, and thriller work, and that Knives Out was expected to compete with Green Book.

Chen Yu is likely to be nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. Jodie Comer will also be nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.

Captain America did not register for the Golden Globe Awards because of some supplementary agreements with Marvel. This can be regarded as an unfair clause imposed on him by Warner and Marvel when Captain America was unknown.

Jiang Wen took the initiative to seek out Chen Yu at the charity reception to show his brotherly sympathy, purely because he wanted to use Chen Yu to build relationships with Lionsgate and Netflix and see if he could sell his work.

There is no love or hate in the world without reason.

Chen Yu is not a walking gold brick.

Even if Jiang Wen failed to get the result he wanted most from Chen Yu, he could still settle for the next best thing, such as inviting Chen Yu to join him in directing his next work.

Don't ask him what his next work is.

Even Jiang Wen himself doesn’t know right now.

The successive failures of "One Step Away" and "Hidden Man" made it difficult for Jiang Wen to get big investments again.

So this old gangster who came out of the Air Force compound wants to use the name of Chen Yu to deceive the financiers and let them see that Jiang Wen still has appeal.

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And still awesome and strong!
Before the Hollywood strike, Disney was preparing for "Mulan" and Liu Yifei had already arrived at the New Zealand location.

However, due to the general strike, the project was forced to be postponed indefinitely. Liu Yifei had to return to China and wait for the call, and by the way continue to deal with the complicated disputes of "Nanyanzhai Bilu".

When domestic director Zheng Xiaolong learned that "Mulan" could not be filmed, he immediately took out the script adapted by himself and Wang Xiaoping to trick Alibaba into investing in a local fantasy romance blockbuster.

In order to repay a favor and make some extra money to make up for his shortfall, Jiang Wen glanced at the script and agreed to join the film.

Jiang Wen knew very well that Chen Yu would never come back to get involved in domestic films, so he turned his attention to Dilraba Dilmurat.

Although this top female artist born in the 1990s is pregnant and has difficulty working, her studio is running smoothly and her resources and funds are very healthy.

Therefore, Jiang Wen hopes to get Dilraba Dilmurat’s studio to invest.

The leading female role was assigned to be the new Beijing princess Guan Xiaotong. The previous Beijing princess was Comrade Xu Qing.

Director Zheng Xiaolong and the production team said that if Dilraba Dilmurat is willing to spend a lot of money, she can arrange the roles below the female lead.

"Spending big money" means at least 155 million RMB, which is actually not a lot for Dilraba Dilmurat. Her studio can give this money directly to the crew.

There is no need for Di Lieba to act coquettishly and ask her husband for off-field support.

"Do you want to give it a try?"

Dilireba gently pressed down the claws that were playing tricks on her chest, and her expression and tone were somewhat moved.

Chen Yu curled his lips and said that if he wanted to ruin this work, he might as well give the money to Disney.

"Don't be ridiculous. There isn't a single Chinese screenwriter in the screenwriting column for Mulan. There's no way it can be made well."

Di Lieba did not allow Chen Yu to tease her. Disney had previously invited her to audition for "Mulan", but she immediately sold the favor to the Fairy Sister and stayed out of it.

"Mulan" is a weird freak created by the battle between Disney headquarters and its Asia-Pacific branch.

Fairy Sister was led into a pit by her own mother, and now it is difficult for her to climb out.

So Di Lieba would never throw a single dollar into the pit.

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(End of this chapter)