Chapter 292 The Collapse of "The Forbidden Kingdom"

As time goes by, the premiere of "The Forbidden Kingdom" is about to begin.

At this time, more and more people gathered in Chaoyang Park, and there were several circles of people surrounding the tent.

Chaoyang Park is one of the few large parks in Beijing. It is especially crowded at night, and Huayi does not prohibit citizens from coming in to watch.

It is human nature to watch the fun, not to mention that there are so many stars appearing this time.

More than ten years later, celebrities are no longer mysterious, but appearing in public will still attract onlookers, let alone now.

So even though the tent that Huayi airlifted from Dubai can accommodate more than a thousand people, there are still at least a thousand people gathered outside.

However, this is indeed a gimmick. Not to mention that these onlookers are likely to become potential audiences of the movie, this lively scene with a large crowd of people will also be a good promotional material.

Moreover, Huayi also sold the broadcasting rights of this premiere to Jiangsu Satellite TV at a certain price.

So, before Wang Zhongjun became arrogant, he was indeed good at doing business.

As the celebrity guests walked the red carpet, the premiere ceremony was about to begin.

Watching the movie channel host Jingwei's introduction of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, Liu Zhou couldn't help but smile.

It wasn't that she was joking, but these two most famous kung fu superstars in the Chinese film industry have finally become movie kings.

Although these two were popular in the past, because they were both action actors, people in the industry looked down upon their acting skills.

Jet Li is okay, but Jackie Chan is more eager for awards. The Academy Awards have nominated Jackie Chan many times, and he participated happily every time, but always ended up being a runner-up.

Later, many media couldn't stand it anymore and felt that the organizing committee of the Academy Awards deliberately dragged Jackie Chan into the show to increase attention.

Although Jackie Chan tried very hard to prove his acting skills, he ultimately did not receive recognition from the Academy Awards.

On the contrary, in mainland China and Taiwan, he won the Golden Rooster and Golden Horse Awards for Best Actor.

Although the Golden Rooster Awards and Golden Horse Awards were not as influential as the Hong Kong Film Awards at the time, at least the Golden Horse Awards and Golden Rooster Awards recognized Jackie Chan.

Jet Li successfully won the Best Actor Award at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards which just ended.

This is the second Academy Awards after the reform. With the tone set by the previous session, the excitement of this year's Academy Awards is no less than the previous one.

Although Liu Zhou was too busy filming "The Martian" to attend, the organizing committee invited the world's most beautiful actress, Monica Bellucci, to serve as a judge on the jury.

How can Liu Zhou smell as good as Monica Bellucci?

It can be said that Monica Bellucci alone has attracted a lot of attention.

The Golden Horse Awards went to great lengths to gain attention, and this time the Academy Awards did it with ease.

Coupled with the celebrity guests from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong who attended again, the Academy Awards became the biggest event in the entertainment industry in early 2008.

To a certain extent, it even washed away the shadow that the photo incident had brought to the Hong Kong entertainment industry.

Except for Monica Bellucci, the other five members of this year's Academy Awards jury are also heavyweights in the industry.

The chairman of the jury is Du Qifeng, one of the most famous Hong Kong directors. Other members include the famous Chinese actor John Lone, Hong Kong actor Danny Lee, the director of the directing department of Beijing Film Academy Tian Zhuangzhuang and Taiwanese actor Sylvia Chang.

Except for Monica Bellucci, the other jury members of this year's jury may not be as well-known as the judges of the previous session, but they are all respected seniors in the circle and their influence is no less.

At this year's Academy Awards, the Best Actress award went to Zeng Li without any surprise. This was also her second Best Actress trophy.

The anger I felt at the Golden Horse Awards was expressed at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

However, she couldn't be there this time, so she asked someone to pick it up on her behalf.

This also enabled a mainland actress to win the Academy Awards for the fourth consecutive time.

Compared with Hong Kong male actors, Hong Kong actresses really began to decline in the new century.

In the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the beauties of Hong Kong were the most talked about in the Hong Kong film industry.

However, perhaps due to the social atmosphere in Hong Kong, the ultimate goal of Hong Kong actresses entering the entertainment industry is mostly to marry into a wealthy family.

So most of those beauties, who were once the memories of a generation, have married and retired from the film industry.

The only Hong Kong actress who can still support the reputation is Zhang Manyu.

There was originally a Zhang Baizhi, but she ruined her own future.

Before 2008, Zhang Baizhi was extremely famous. Although she acted in various ways, it did not affect her popularity at all.

Not only is she popular, she also has great acting skills and has received more than a dozen Best Actress nominations.

After that, she worked hard again and not only won the Best Actress Award at the Academy Awards, but her salary also skyrocketed to 1000 million RMB!

However, with the complete decline of the Hong Kong film industry, various scandals about her were exposed one after another. Coupled with the impact of the previous photo incident, she eventually faded into silence.

The Best Director award was given to Feng Xiaoning, the director of "Assembly", who defeated Chen Kexin, the director of the popular "The Warlords".

However, the biggest winner of this year's Academy Awards was still "The Warlords". The film not only won the final award of Best Picture, but Jet Li also won the Best Actor Award.

The competition for Best Actor this time was particularly fierce, especially between Jet Li and Qin Hao, both of whom were favorites for Best Actor.

After the nominations were announced, the media predicted that the Best Actor award would be between the two of them.

This also makes this year's Best Actor Award the most anticipated award at this year's Academy Awards ceremony.

And this is indeed the case. The jury even went through two rounds of voting before making the final choice between the two of them.

In the end, Jet Li defeated Qin Hao by a narrow margin and won the Best Actor award.

Although Qin Hao unfortunately missed the Best Actor award, Jet Li deserved it.

Jet Li indeed gave his most brilliant performance since his debut in the film industry, and coupled with the excellent quality of "The Warlords", it was not only favored by the outside world, but also by people in the industry.

After being nominated many times, Jet Li finally won his first of the three major awards for Best Actor, and it was also the Golden Horse Award that Jackie Chan had always dreamed of.

Given the fame, status and achievements of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the Best Actor trophy is just icing on the cake for them.

But since he is an actor, who wouldn't want to win the Best Actor trophy?

Now, these two superstars, who are about to enter the twilight of their film careers, can be considered to have completed their acting careers.

Liu Zhou collected his thoughts and watched the interview and interaction between several film creators and the host on the stage.

Although Jackie Chan and Jet Li were the center of attention on the stage, Liu Yifei, who was sitting upright in a white dress, also attracted a lot of attention.

Looking at the names shouted by the audience, you can tell that Liu Yifei's name was the loudest one shouted.

Liu Yifei was indeed very popular at that time, which even directly led to Li Bingbing standing next to her having little sense of presence.

No wonder Huayi tried so hard to sign Liu Yifei.

Liu Zhou suddenly discovered that Liu Yifei had grown up a little compared to when they met at the Huabiao Awards last year.

At that time, she still had a little baby fat, but now her face has gradually become thinner, and she has lost her youthful immaturity. Although her facial features have not changed much, she looks more mature now that she has lost the baby fat and her edges are more prominent.

Liu Zhou couldn't help but touch the stubble on his chin which was becoming increasingly prickly. He was now in his thirties and was already the father of two children.

Time is really a butcher's knife!
Looking back, he carried a wooden box to report to the Central Academy of Drama. Twelve years have passed since then.

The handsome young boy has already started to move towards becoming an uncle.

Just as Liu Zhou was sighing, the activities on the stage finally ended and the movie began.

Watching this movie again, the smell of this bad movie kept hitting me.

To be honest, after watching "The Forbidden Kingdom", Liu Zhou suddenly felt that "Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon" released in early April was not that bad. At least half of it was good.

As for "The Forbidden Kingdom", apart from the fight between two superstars, Li Binbin's floor-length white hair, and Liu Yifei who is at the peak of her beauty, there is nothing else to watch.

Cheng Long is still funny. Liu Yifei asked, "Aren't you a god? Can't gods call the wind and rain?"
Then Cheng Long lay on the ground and started writing talismans, moistening the brush with saliva, which made him retch. It turned out that the talisman worked - Jet Li urinated from a high place.

Jet Li still has a righteous face. Zhou Zhaolong slaughtered the entire village and shot Liu Yifei's mother to death.

Then Jet Li came out in a bathrobe and said something about how the cycle of revenge would never end.

Please have some compassion. The person's parents were killed by the gods, and you still want to persuade him to put down his butcher knife?

It really gives me a headache.

It can be said that the best ingredients were made into a pile of shit, which wasted such a strong lineup and the gimmick of the first combination of Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

Boss Yang noticed Liu Zhou's appearance and asked:
"Mr. Liu, do you think the movie is not good?"

"You think it looks good?"

"well enough."

"Mr. Yang, it seems that you seldom watch movies. Perhaps you can watch more of my movies. This will help improve your appreciation of movies."

"Is this movie so bad?" Boss Yang couldn't help but laugh.

"Didn't you hear the laughter of the audience in the back row? It's a good kung fu movie, but it's been made into a comedy, making people laugh."

At this moment, a hilarious plot happened to be playing on the big screen.

The little boy from the United States asked:
"I'm freezing to death, what should I do?"

Jet Li turned around, showed a strange smile, and said slowly:
“Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.”

This caused another round of laughter from the audience in the back row.

Generally speaking, a movie that can make the audience laugh is definitely not bad, but obviously "The Forbidden Kingdom" is definitely not one of them.

When Boss Yang saw this and heard the laughter behind him, he couldn't help but laugh too.

"Mr. Liu, what do you think the box office of this movie will be?"

"It shouldn't be 1.5 million, million is about right."

"So low? With the appeal of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, it should be higher, not to mention the popular Liu Yifei."

"It is precisely because of these few people that the movie was able to make over 100 million yuan. Otherwise, with such a bad movie, let alone making over 100 million yuan, it would be good to make 30 million yuan."

"It seems that this movie is really bad to be criticized by you, Mr. Liu, haha."

Boss Yang doesn't care whether the movie is good or not. It has nothing to do with him anyway.

However, if the movie box office is really not as good as expected, Boss Yang would still be happy to see the Wang brothers suffer a loss.

Then, "The Forbidden Kingdom" ended with occasional laughter.

The next day, a large number of reports about "The Forbidden Kingdom" appeared in the outside world.

The first collaboration of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the participation of popular young actress Liu Yifei, and the lively premiere held in Chaoyang Park were all the highlights of the news reports.

But there are few reports mentioning the quality of the film's plot.

Apparently after the premiere, Huayi seemed to realize that the plot of this movie was a bit bad, and not only controlled the reviews, but also changed the focus of its promotion.

On April 28th, "The Forbidden Kingdom" officially hits major theaters across the country.

The box office grossed 31 million on the first day, attracting a lot of hype from the outside media, as if this was another blockbuster like "Painted Skin" that could gross over 300 million.

After a one-month extension, Painted Skin was officially taken off the screen in early April, with a total box office of 3.2 million yuan.

This result surpassed "Red Cliff Part 1" and was second only to "Red Cliff Part 2" and "Curse of the Golden Flower", becoming the third place in the box office of domestic films.

However, although the media outside is very active in publicity, now with the Internet, everyone's channels for obtaining information have greatly increased, and they will no longer be deceived by those media as before.

In the past, it would take at least a week for the true reputation of a movie to spread.

Later, with the advent of the Internet, this time was shortened to three days.

Now that the Internet is becoming more and more popular, as soon as a movie is released for one day, everyone can know the reputation of the movie if they can access the Internet.

On the first day of the release of "The Forbidden Kingdom", the score given to it on Douban was only 5.1 points, and the score is still decreasing.

There was also a lot of criticism about "The Forbidden Kingdom" on the Internet.

Not only did the performances of Jackie Chan and Jet Li seem awkward, but they also felt uncomfortable having a foreigner as the male lead.

Coupled with the terrible plot, the audience who had paid to watch the film with great expectations went completely wild and complained crazily online.

This also led to the box office of "The Forbidden Kingdom" decreasing instead of increasing on the second weekend, earning only 25 million. On the third day, it fell below 20 million, reaching only 18 million.

After three days of release, the film grossed 84 million yuan, which is a very good result.

However, the word-of-mouth of the movie has now spread thoroughly. Apart from the fans of the main creators and the audience who are not aware of the situation, it is difficult for the movie to attract passers-by to go to the cinema.

There is no problem for the movie to make over 100 million yuan, but to reach Wang Zhongjun’s previous expectation of being second or third is completely impossible.

Wang Zhongjun was also helpless about this. He had wanted to create momentum for Huayi through this movie, but he didn't expect the movie to be such a failure.

Among the top film and television companies in mainland China, Huayi seems to be the worst at big productions.

Especially when he saw Jiahe taking the lead and now preparing to go public, Wang Zhongjun couldn't help but sigh.

After Liu Zhou came back from the premiere of "The Forbidden Kingdom", he knew that the movie would not do well in terms of box office and word of mouth.

Therefore, Liu Zhou did not pay attention to the turmoil on the Internet, and he had no idea about Wang Zhongjun’s complicated feelings.

Just in May, Liu Zhou received a call from the United States.

(End of this chapter)