Chapter 263 News from Venice, a domestic sensation
Just when Liu Zhou was busy writing shooting plans and character biographies at home, suddenly a piece of news came from overseas, causing a huge sensation in the mainland entertainment circle.

On August 16, Marc Mueller, president of the Venice International Film Festival, announced the list of jury for this year's festival.

Among them, the famous mainland director Zhang Yimou will serve as the chairman of the jury of the 64th Venice Film Festival.

Of course, this piece of news alone would not cause much of a stir, it would at most cause heated discussion.

After all, after "Red Cliff", Zhang Yimou can be said to have surpassed Chen Shishi and become the number one director in the minds of mainland audiences.

If you want box office success, there is box office success. Domestic movie box office records are all held by others.

He has won many awards, and he has won the most awards overseas among all mainland directors.

Although Liu Zhou is also very good, when it comes to his directing career, everyone still thinks he is not as good as Zhang Yimou.

Not to mention other things, just in terms of awards, Liu Zhou is still far behind Zhang Yimou.

However, after the failure of "The Promise" by poet Chen, everyone thinks that Liu Zhou is more amazing than poet Chen.

So, Zhang Yimou himself is very well-known overseas. Although it is rare for him to serve as the chairman of the jury of the three major European film festivals, it is not a very shocking thing for Zhang Yimou.

But soon afterwards, the Venice Film Festival announced the list of films shortlisted for this year, including "Room" by mainland director Liu Zhou, "The Sun Also Rises" by Jiang Wen, and "Lust, Caution" by Taiwanese director Li An.

And they are all shortlisted for the main competition unit, which means that the three major directors Liu Zhou, Jiang Wen and Li An will soon compete on the same stage and compete for this year's Golden Lion.

In addition, another great mainland director Zhang Yimou will serve as the chairman of the jury of this year's Venice Film Festival. Four great Chinese directors will gather in Venice, and the Chinese elements are simply overflowing.

So even though there is still more than a month before the Venice Film Festival, news about the festival has already spread throughout the mainland.

With the popularization and introduction of some media, everyone suddenly realized that the Venice International Film Festival is simply a paradise for Chinese directors.

In 2005, Li An won the Venice Golden Lion Award for his film Brokeback Mountain.

In 2006, Jia Zhangke, a leading figure of the sixth generation of mainland directors, won the Golden Lion Award again with "Still Life".

This year, three great Chinese directors will bring their new films to compete in Venice, and it is very likely that Chinese directors will achieve three consecutive championships in Venice.

Although Li An has already become a U.S. citizen, he was born and raised in Taiwan after all, so the mainland still considers him one of their own.

In later generations, even Lin Crazy, who could not speak Chinese fluently, was regarded as one of their own by the mainland, not to mention Li An at this time.

So, for several days in a row, domestic media have been reporting extensively about these four directors and the Venice Film Festival.

Jiang Wen seems to be full of confidence. When interviewed by reporters, he said that he is not afraid of competition at all.

And when asked what he thought of Zhang Yimou as the chairman of the jury, he once again said the famous words:

"Planning is up to me, success is up to planning!"

No one knows whether this is a joke or not, but it can be seen that Jiang Wen is happy to see Zhang Yimou as the chairman of the jury.

In fact, before this Venice Film Festival, Jiang Wen and Zhang Yimou had always had a good relationship.

Zhang Yimou's directorial debut Red Sorghum was a collaboration with Jiang Wen, and then in 1996, the two collaborated again on If You Are the One.

However, in the original time and space, the two had a falling out at this year's Venice Film Festival.

Logically speaking, given Jiang Wen's pride, he would not be upset just because Zhang Yimou awarded the Golden Lion to Li An's "Lust, Caution".

Besides, Jiang Wen should also know that Zhang Yimou and Li An also have a good relationship.

In 1993, the fledgling Li An took his second film "The Wedding Banquet" to the Berlin International Film Festival.

It happened that Zhang Yimou was also a member of the jury of the Berlin Film Festival that year. It was also at Zhang Yimou's strong insistence that the Berlin Golden Bear was awarded to Li An's "The Wedding Banquet".

At this point, Zhang Yimou and Li An became acquainted.

Later, when Li An was filming "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Zhang Yimou recommended Zhang Ziyi to him, and then Li An directly chose Zhang Ziyi to play Jade Fox.

Therefore, the relationship between Zhang Yimou and Li An is no worse than that between him and Jiang Wen.

But why Zhang Yimou and Jiang Wen broke up after the film festival, perhaps only the two parties involved know.

Or maybe it was simply because Zhang Yimou did not give the award to Jiang Wen, so the two parted unhappily.

After all, there is a huge difference in the value of benefits whether an art film wins an award or not.

In addition, Jiang Wen was directing a movie again after a five-year ban, and he was very confident in his movie, but it did not win any awards, so he took his anger out on Zhang Yimou, thinking that he was not on his side.

After all, Jiang Wenren may be arrogant, but he comes from a military family and is very clear about the differences between families.

Although Li An is Chinese, since he has become a naturalized American citizen, he is no longer a Chinese.

If his movie is not as good as others and loses to others, he will just accept it.

But he doesn't think his movie is inferior to "Lust, Caution". Especially for someone like Jiang Wen who comes from a big family, watching a movie like "Lust, Caution" would make him feel uncomfortable. So Jiang Wen would think that when his movie is better than "Lust, Caution", but the award is given to an outsider, it would be strange if he didn't get angry.

Although the chairman of the jury cannot decide who will receive the award, he is definitely the one with the most say within the jury.

Now that Liu Zhou is involved in Venice this time, I wonder if the two will fall out again.

After all, Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou also had a very good relationship. When they were working together on the big project "Red Cliff", they were both teachers and friends.

After the media received a good response to the interview with Jiang Wen, they also wanted to interview Li An and Liu Zhou.

But one was in the United States and the other was at home, so the reporter couldn't find anyone, so he had to go and interview Zhang Yimou who was preparing for the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

However, although Zhang Yimou is an honest person, he has been in the circle for so many years and knew how to deal with reporters, so he just said some polite words and sent them away.

The media was not discouraged by the failure to obtain any meaningful news from the parties involved.

Since there is no news, just create your own news, and then there will be reports interpreting the Venice Film Festival from various angles.

In order to attract attention, many media outlets have stated that domestic films have made great progress and are beginning to go global.

And it seems that they think the highest award of this year's Venice Film Festival, the Golden Lion Award, has already been won by domestic films.

However, Liu Zhou didn't care about the disturbances in the outside world at all, and he didn't have the mind to care about this now.

He is now fully devoted to the planning of "The Martian".

He is not even in the mood to pay attention to the two movies that are closely related to him and are currently being released.

"Edge of Tomorrow" directed by Liu Zhou is currently scheduled to be released in two days, and its box office has reached 2.7 million yuan, officially surpassing the 2.6 million yuan of "Transformers".

2.7 million RMB is equivalent to more than million US dollars. This box office can be said to be the third best result after the United States and the first-tier markets.

Just as Liu Zhou expected, this did attract the attention of the Hollywood Big Seven.

They didn't expect that a decent popcorn movie like "Edge of Tomorrow" would perform better in China's box office than "Transformers".

After understanding the situation, they immediately locked on to the X factor, that is, director Liu Zhou.

At this time, they had not yet specifically thought of recruiting Chinese actors to make cameo appearances, but instead focused their attention on Liu Zhou.

Therefore, before "Edge of Tomorrow" was completely finished, many invitations from the seven major Hollywood companies came to Liu Zhou.

This made the smile on the face of Lionsgate, which was originally very happy, freeze, and then they immediately arranged for Anthony Edwards, who had a good relationship with Liu Zhou, to contact Liu Zhou.

However, Liu Zhou rejected all these invitations, even Anthony Edwards was no exception.

Not to mention that he is currently busy filming "The Martian", the public opinion that broke out not long ago still makes Liu Zhou feel a little scared.

How could he possibly run to the United States at this time?

Another movie, "Crazy Stone," officially broke the 100 million yuan box office mark after being released for half a month.

This also makes Ning Hao the fifth director in the mainland to have a box office of over 100 million yuan after Zhang Yimou, Liu Zhou, Feng Kuzi and Chen Shishi.

If we count Hong Kong's Stephen Chow and Xu Ke, it would be seventh.

This once again made Ning Hao a hot commodity, and unsurprisingly, he was poached by many companies.

However, Ning Hao remained clear-headed and rejected all invitations from other companies.

Jiahe General Manager Zhang Zhao was very happy to see this, and asked Ning Hao directly if he had any new ideas, with no upper limit on the budget.

But Ning Hao still refused. "Crazy Racing" was released one year earlier than the original time and space. Ning Hao felt that he had used up all his experience and needed to calm down.

Zhang Zhao smiled even more happily at this, because it showed that Ning Hao was not blinded by fame and fortune and his mind was still clear.

People who are clear-headed and talented can often go further.

In addition to Ning Hao becoming a popular star again, Huang Bo, the leading actor of "Crazy Racing", also became famous.

In fact, Huang Bo did not become famous overnight. It was the result of years of hard work. Before that, although he was not very popular, he had become a familiar face through several film and television works.

Now through "Crazy Racing", Huang Bo's fame has been completely spread.

The success of "Crazy Racing" not only had a significant impact on Ning Hao and Huang Bo, but also proved one thing: Golden Harvest has begun to flourish in all aspects and is not just relying on Liu Zhou alone.

Perhaps the influence of "Crazy Racing" cannot compare to the sensation of "The Sword of the Immortal", "Red Cliff" and "New World", but the profound value behind it is immeasurable.

Currently, Zhang Zhao is preparing to sign a new contract with Ning Hao. In the future, Ning Hao's status in Golden Harvest will soar, and he will become another leading director of Golden Harvest after Xu Ke.

(End of this chapter)