Chapter 229: Spring Festival and Lust, Caution

Although Liu Zhou is not in China, he has heard about the situation of "Night Banquet" in China.

He will be in Hollywood making a movie and will have to stay for several months at least, so it is impossible for him to ignore his domestic company.

Therefore, senior executives of domestic companies would also report to him regularly. When Zhang Zhao was reporting the situation of Golden Harvest Company to Liu Zhou, he also mentioned the situation of "Night Banquet" to him.

Although Liu Zhou and Feng Kuzi don't have a very good relationship, it has to be admitted that he is capable as a director.

Whether now or in his previous life, Feng Kuazi is one of the face cards of mainland directors.

In his previous life, among the so-called three major directors in mainland China, the average level and popular reputation of his early films were actually the best.

Unfortunately, he became arrogant later on. Not only did he fail to keep up with the times, his level also declined seriously. He also fired all kinds of criticisms, and other dirty things were frequently exposed, and was eventually spurned by the public.

Now in 2006, although there are still many people who are unhappy with Feng Kuzi, more people think he is a very good director.

Even Liu Zhou, although we don't like or even hate this person, we have to admit the fact that he is an excellent director.

Especially before 2015, without being disturbed by a large number of commercial and variety shows, Feng Kuazi was definitely one of the top directors of Chinese-language films.

Even after that, the films he shot, "I Am Not Madame Bovary" and "Youth", were both good movies.

At least compared with Guo Xiaosi, Bi Dao and others, Feng Kuzi is simply a master-level figure.

In Liu Zhou's opinion, "Night Banquet" can be said to be Feng Kuzi's worst work.

Moreover, Liu Zhou was a little confused. China has so many good and wonderful stories, why should it adapt the foreign "Hamlet"?

Is it just to enter the overseas market?

Even if you think your work is so good that you need to adapt it, you must make sure it is adapted clearly when you localize it in Chinese.

At the very least, your lines should be localized, rather than having a strong translation accent, and your performance style should also be somewhat dramatic.

The whole movie is filled with a strong sense of disharmony.

Not to mention, the ancient Western aristocratic values ​​expressed in "Hamlet" are not easily accepted by Chinese audiences.

So when the audience watched "The Banquet", although they were not as confused as they were when they watched "The Promise", they still felt baffled.

At the beginning of the project, Huayi and Feng Kuzi attached great importance to "Night Banquet" and invested a lot of resources.

Not only did it cost 20 million US dollars, but the actors are all big stars. The behind-the-scenes actors include Yuen Woo-ping, Tan Dun, Yip Kam Tim, Sheng Heyu, and Zhang Li. Such a team is also incredibly luxurious.

But in the end, it was just like "The Promise", which cost a lot of money, supplemented by top-notch costumes, props, photography, scene music and actor configuration, but ended up telling a hollow, boring and garbage story.

Despite this, Huayi will not suffer a loss.

Nowadays, costume blockbusters in mainland China rarely make losses, not to mention the gimmick of being adapted from "Hamlet".

It should be impossible to just make a big profit. Not to mention the mainland, even the various regions in the entire Chinese cultural circle would find it difficult to accept a movie like "The Banquet".

"Boss Liu, the poor performance of The Banquet is a far cry from what Huayi had hyped up before the movie was released. Now the Wang brothers are not even planning to hold a celebration party, haha!"

“That’s normal. Didn’t poet Chen hold a celebration banquet for The Promise?” Liu Zhou replied with a smile.

Although Liu Zhou acknowledged Feng Kuzi's strength, the fact that his film failed in both reputation and box office did not affect his gloating at all.

"Now Huayi and Feng Kuazi are almost becoming the laughing stock of the industry."

"So this lesson tells us that we should never make big promises before the dust settles, otherwise we will easily get slapped in the face."

"However, the reputation of The Banquet was a flop, but in addition to The Baby Project, we also had a pleasant surprise."

"Oh, what's the surprise?"

"The failures of The Promise and The Banquet have only served to highlight the excellence of Blade of the Immortal. So now, under our guidance, people online are increasingly looking forward to Blade of the Immortal 2."

"That's a real surprise. Looks like we have to thank the Wang brothers and Feng Kuzi. By the way, has the filming of Embroidered Spring Blade 2 been completed?"

"It has been filmed and will be finished before National Day. Xu Ke is currently doing post-production and the film is expected to be ready in two months.

This time I called to ask Mr. Liu when "The Swordsman 2" will be released."

"What do you think?" Liu Zhou asked.

“Although the box office potential of the Lunar New Year period has reached 400 to 500 million yuan, the next blockbuster film, Red Cliff, has been confirmed to be released during this period.

I feel that putting "The Blade of the Dragon King 2" in this period will hurt both sides, so in order to better tap the box office potential of this movie, it can be put in the summer of next year."

After listening to this, Liu Zhou shook his head and said:
"Next year's summer release date is too long, and the audience will get impatient. Since the Lunar New Year release date is not suitable, we will put "Blade of the Immortal 2" on the Spring Festival release date."

"The Spring Festival? The film market isn't very active during this period, everyone is busy visiting relatives and friends."

“There is nothing inactive. Since people don’t have the habit of watching movies during the Spring Festival, we should cultivate their habit.

Didn’t we have summer and Lunar New Year movie seasons before? Then we can also create a Spring Festival movie season.”

The Spring Festival is the most popular period in the mainland, with a box office potential far exceeding the summer and Lunar New Year periods. However, there is no concept of the Spring Festival period yet, and even during the Spring Festival, there are not many movies released.

The only relatively influential movie released during the Spring Festival was Jet Li's "Huo Yuanjia" last year.

But if you really want to show everyone the box office potential of the Spring Festival, it is still Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" released in 13.

This movie grossed nearly 1.3 billion yuan at the box office, blinding the eyes of major film companies.

After that, a large number of movies were released during the Spring Festival, which gradually formed the Spring Festival period and became the hottest period.

Although the Spring Festival period has not yet formed, it does not mean that the box office potential during the Spring Festival is poor. It’s just that no one has noticed it yet.

As the sequel to the hit film, "Swords of Passion 2" naturally has a certain audience base, and it also enjoys such a prime time slot, so the box office may not be less than that of the first film.

"Boss Liu, maybe we can become the ones who plant the trees, so that others can enjoy the shade."

"Don't worry, maybe we can be the first to try it.
Everyone is resting during the Spring Festival, and our movie is also attractive, so maybe we can have the first bite of the delicious cake. "

"Okay, Mr. Liu, I'll go down and make the relevant publicity and promotion plans."

"By the way, how is the movie "Assembly" going? Did Feng Xiaoning take on this movie?"

At the beginning of the year, Liu Zhou planned to shoot the movie "Assembly" and specially asked Liu Heng, the screenwriter of the original movie, to write the script.

Liu Heng had already written the script when "Red Cliff" was released.

Liu Zhou took a look and found that it was still a little different from the original version, so he communicated with him several times about it.

Only when the plot was almost the same as he remembered did Liu Zhou hand the script to Zhang Zhao with satisfaction and ask him to contact Feng Xiaoning.

Later, Liu Zhou was always busy, so he handed the matter over to Zhang Zhao and no longer paid attention to it.

"Assembly" is one of Feng Kuzi's best films and is also a key project of Golden Harvest next year. Liu Zhou attaches great importance to it.

"Director Feng Xiaoning has accepted the offer and is currently preparing for the project. However, we are facing a problem: it is difficult to find a blasting team and pyrotechnic special effects team."

"How can it be difficult to find? In the past, this was our strength in the mainland. You can go directly to the Bayi Factory. There are definitely all kinds of talents we need there."

Historically, Feng Kuzi spent a huge amount of money to hire the special effects team of South Korea's "Taegukgi: Flying Taegukgi" for the purpose of showing off and creating a gimmick when filming "Assembly".

Later, during the filming, they acted very arrogantly and did not allow anyone from the mainland to be present while they were working, for fear that someone might learn their moves.

This affected the progress of the filming to a certain extent, and made Feng Kuzi very angry, but there was nothing he could do.

But this is also his own fault.

How many large-scale war movies have been shot in the mainland in the past? Which of the larger studios is not equipped with an explosion and fireworks special effects team?
If you really think about it, these people are the ancestors of the Korean country.

But later the state-owned film studios declined, the older generation retired, and the new generation did not have enough film projects to grow in, so it seemed as if there was a complete gap in talent in this area in the mainland.

But it is impossible that all the talents in this area have disappeared, especially the Bayi Film Studio, which specializes in making war films and has more talents there.

It’s just that they may have stayed in the Bayi Factory all the time, so they were gradually forgotten.

"Boss Liu, I've never heard of this before?"

"Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. China is so big that there are probably hidden talents in any field. Just go and ask and you'll know."

"I understand, Mr. Liu."

"Is there anything else at the company?"

"There's nothing else important. It's just that Tang Wei wants to terminate his contract with the company, and it was President Jiang of Anle Pictures who personally inquired about the matter."

"She wants to terminate the contract? Jiang Zhiqiang asked about it personally? He has a crush on Tang Wei?"

"No, it's because Tang Wei has been chosen as the leading actress in director Li An's new film Lust, Caution.

But I felt that this movie would have a very bad influence on her, so I helped her to refuse it. However, Tang Wei seemed determined to star in this movie, so she prepared to terminate the contract with the company.

The main investor of the movie "Lust, Caution" is Edko Films, and Li An also thinks that Tang Wei is quite suitable for the role of the heroine, so President Jiang came to negotiate in person. "

"If that's the case, then don't create any obstacles for this matter. Everyone has their own aspirations. If she wants to leave, let her go.

But the company's rules cannot be broken, so Jiang Zhiqiang has to pay the penalty."

"Okay Mr. Liu."

"If an artist from our company wants to leave in the future, don't put up obstacles. Just follow the rules and everyone can part ways amicably."

"understood."

"Nothing else, just hang up."

(End of this chapter)