Chapter 423: Lunar New Year Film Festival Opens and the Dark Horse "Lost on Journey"

The Hollywood blockbuster "2012" not only has stunning visual effects, but the fact that the people who save the world in the movie are Chinese makes the audience feel particularly refreshed.

This was the first time this happened in a Hollywood movie. At that time, everyone still had a heavy filter for Hollywood blockbusters, so the box office of the movie was quite explosive.

It grossed 2 million on the first day, exceeded million in three days, and exceeded million in the first week, which was even more impressive than "Transformers ".

This caused many domestic films that were scheduled to be released at the end of November to wail.

The director of "Mars is OK" is Liu Yiwei. As a cook, Liu Yiwei is good, but as a director, he is really not that good and has almost never produced any qualified works.

This movie is still a failing work, but thanks to its good star lineup, it earned 460 million in its first week. Coupled with numerous advertisements, it should be able to barely recoup its costs in the end.

This is still considered good, as other movies almost lost all their money.

Wang Yuelun, the husband of Li Xiang, the former top host of Mango TV, unexpectedly made nearly 08 million at the box office in the summer of 6000 with the shabby movie "Ten Perfects", becoming a dark horse of last year's summer season.

The success of "Nine Perfects" made Wang Yuelun think he had grasped the pulse of the audience, and he made a comeback with the spoof comedy film "Panda Warrior".

Before the release, he boasted that the movie would definitely gross over 2012 million yuan at the box office. However, he was severely slapped in the face by the audience and "", and it only grossed over million yuan, a disastrous box office failure!

In addition, the movie "My Tang Dynasty Brothers", which was Hu Jun's first investment and production, also failed miserably at the box office.

This film stars Hu Jun, Jiang Wu, Li Liqun and others, and is directed by new director Yang Shupeng, and it is considered a passable work.

The tone of the movie was very high before the filming started, and it was claimed to be a close imitation of Kurosawa Akira, but the final film did have some of Kurosawa's flavor, but that was all.

Director Yang Shupeng is clearly incompetent and has no grasp of the film's rhythm at all. The editing issues are particularly obvious and it's extremely messy.

If a mature director, such as Jiang Wen, were to be chosen, the film would be much better.

The story is indeed a good one, otherwise it would not have attracted Hu Jundu to personally participate in the investment.

At the beginning, Hu Jun also wanted to get Golden Harvest Group involved, but after talking with director Yang Shupeng, Zhang Zhao was not confident about this new director.

However, the script was written by someone else, and he insisted on directing the film himself, so Zhang Zhao eventually gave up investing in the project and instead agreed to help with its distribution.

In the end, Hu Jun, who really liked the script, paid for half of the investment out of his own pocket. Combined with the investment he had raised before, the film was finally started.

Despite being distributed by Golden Harvest, the quality of the film was indeed average, and it also encountered the unreasonable "2012". The film only grossed 343 million in the first seven days, which obviously was a complete loss.

After hearing that "My Tang Dynasty Brothers" was a box office failure, Liu Zhou sent a message to Hu Jun to express his comfort.

In fact, not only those small and medium-budget movies, but even the domestic blockbusters released in the Lunar New Year period in December are a little scared when facing the fierce box office of "2012".

Fortunately, the movie was not released at the same time, otherwise, facing "2012", even domestic blockbusters might become cannon fodder.

In December, the first Chinese-language blockbuster of this year's Lunar New Year holiday, "Mulan," is about to be released. This movie is also considered by the outside world to be a costume epic that can compete with "2012."

After all, the story of Mulan is well-known to the Chinese people. Anyone you pick out can hum a line: "Brother Liu's words are too biased."

In 1998, Disney brought Mulan's story to the big screen and made an animated film of the same name.

This undoubtedly makes mainland filmmakers feel a little embarrassed.

This classic legendary story has always been a popular subject that many filmmakers in the Chinese-language film industry want to complete. Even Zhang Ziyi has considered playing Mulan.

However, it is obviously impossible for Zhang Ziyi alone to support such a large project by shooting a costume blockbuster. It was not until last year that Starlight International, in collaboration with Shanghai Film Group and Shonan Optoelectronics, finally invested in the project to bring the classic story of Mulan to the big screen.

Starlight International is also a low-key comprehensive group company in the industry, with businesses covering real estate, publishing, media, investment and production of films and TV series, etc.

The investment in the project of "Mulan" is said to be as high as 200 million yuan.

With its well-known IP and huge investment, the main roles in this large-scale costume production have also attracted great attention from people in the circle.

However, as high-quality resources are generally rarely leaked, the male and female protagonists of the film may have been determined while the project is still in the preparation stage.

"Mulan" is no exception. When the project was announced, there was also news that Chen Kun and Zhao Laoban would play the male and female protagonists in the film.

What people talked about most was that Boss Zhao received a salary of 6 million RMB for this movie, surpassing Fan Xiaopang and Zhou Gongzi and becoming the second highest paid female artist in China after Zhang Ziyi.

The six million yuan salary is more than three times that of the male lead Chen Kun, whose salary was less than two million yuan.

We all know that since the beginning of the new century, with the migration of Hong Kong and Taiwan artists to the north, mainland male actors have been overwhelmed by Hong Kong and Taiwan male artists, while mainland female actors have had good development.

The most famous among them are the six popular mainland actresses, the Four Dan and the Two Bing. Their commercial value far exceeds that of mainland male actors, and their film pay has always been higher than that of male actors.

Historically, even though Chen Kun had "Painted Skin" to his credit, his pay for "Mulan" was still far less than that of Boss Zhao. At that time, Chen Kun's pay was three million, only half of Boss Zhao's.

However, in this life, thanks to the existence of Golden Harvest Group, life is easier for male artists from the mainland. Moreover, Qin Hao and Huang Xiaoming, who were promoted by Golden Harvest, are in no way inferior to the Four Dans and Two Bings, and some even surpass them.

After all, under normal circumstances, the commercial value of male actors is higher than that of female actors.

The reason why "Mulan" did not choose Qin Hao or Huang Xiaoming, who are more famous and have greater box office appeal, is because the main controllers of this film, Star International and Golden Harvest, are not in the same league.

Song Yicheng, the CEO of Starlight International, and Boss Zhao’s husband Huang Long are partners, so the female lead was decided early on to be Boss Zhao, and no one else had any chance at all.

Boss Zhao and Huang Long announced their relationship in 2008 and officially got married this year.

After so long, no matter how slow Boss Zhao was, she realized from Liu Zhou's repeated rudeness to her that Liu Zhou didn't like her at all.

Although Boss Zhao didn't know the reason, because she thought she had never offended Liu Zhou, but she was proud and arrogant and didn't mean to curry favor with Liu Zhou.

So Boss Zhao no longer had any interaction with Golden Harvest, and both sides went their separate ways.

In this "Mulan" project, Boss Zhao had a lot of say because of her husband, so all the artists from Golden Harvest were almost excluded.

However, the most famous male actors in the mainland are none other than the four young actors, and three of them are under Golden Harvest, leaving only Chen Kun. So the male lead of "Mulan" fell to Chen Kun.

Historically, Chen Kun got the leading role because of his solid performance. Now, without the blessing of "Painted Skin", his fame and commercial value are not as good as in the original time and space, so he can only pick up the leading role by chance.

Although Boss Zhao and Chen Kun are not as popular as in the original time and space, they are still the top male and female actors in the mainland.

With these two people starring in the film, the star power is quite bright. In addition, Hu Jun plays the second male villain, which makes the starring lineup even more powerful.

This play was something that Hu Jun had already agreed on with others before he joined Golden Harvest. After he joined Golden Harvest, boss Zhao wanted to replace him.

This was opposed not only by Shanghai Film Group and Shonan Optoelectronics, but also by Starlight International.

If it is understandable not to use actors from Golden Harvest, then deliberately replacing Hu Jun would mean breaking off relations with Golden Harvest.

Not to mention that the relationship between Shanghai Film Group, Shonan Optoelectronics and Golden Harvest is already good, even the boss of Starlight International does not want to ruin the relationship with Golden Harvest.

As the largest film and television company in the industry, Golden Harvest has a huge influence, not to mention that there is the even more powerful Liu Zhou standing behind it.

Therefore, if you want to get a piece of the entertainment industry pie, it’s okay to compete with others, but I’m afraid no one would be so stupid as to deliberately offend others.

So Hu Jun's role was retained.

With two popular actors playing the leading roles, plus the film emperor Hu Jun, the most eye-catching selling point of the film is: "The Chinese people's own Mulan."

I just don’t know what the investors were thinking. They actually asked a Hong Kong director to direct this kind of historical theme, and the director happened to be Ma Chucheng, who mainly directed romantic love films and action films such as "Star Wish", "Tokyo Raiders" and "Hancheng Raiders".

Hong Kong directors are notoriously bad at making historical films. Even a major battle like the Battle of Red Cliffs, which could determine the direction of Chinese history, was filmed as two gangs fighting over women, showing off their horses and hacking each other.

After filming Red Cliff, the original Zhang Fengyi said:

“Hong Kong directors are more frivolous, they don’t put the restoration of the solemnity of history first, and they tend to do whatever they want.

Originally, the role should serve history, and the actor should serve the role, but the Hong Kong director reversed it, making history serve the role, and the role serve the actor. "

There are also anti-Japanese dramas that have been criticized by everyone in later generations. Many people feel that the TV dramas are insulting history and the audience's IQ.

But what many people don’t know is that most of these great dramas were directed by directors from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Mainland audiences have a certain respect for history, because history can be said to be the belief of the Chinese people.

However, directors from Hong Kong and Taiwan are not particularly concerned about restoring history. They pursue commercial effects and handle stories casually, so problems are likely to arise when making historical films.

Therefore, "Mulan" did not escape this fate. A good IP was turned into a bloody drama by Ma Chucheng. There is not even a trace of Mulan in "The Ballad of Mulan" in the movie.

The outside world thought that the ancient costume production "Mulan" would be able to surpass "2012", but unexpectedly, "Mulan" was a dud.

Relying on the theme of Mulan and a strong star lineup, "Mulan" only achieved a box office of more than 3000 million in three days over the weekend, which is not as good as others' box office in one day.

Such a result can only be considered a failure for a large-scale production with an investment of more than 100 million yuan. It is definitely a loss.

The person who suffered the most from the slap in the face was undoubtedly Boss Zhao. When the film was first launched and promoted before its release, he was extremely high-spirited, as if he was going to sweep away the gloom of the past few years.

Therefore, in some public activities, Boss Zhao often made boasts that a box office of 300 million is the minimum and breaking 400 million is the goal.

With the current results, it would be good if the total box office could reach 1.5 million.

"Mulan" claims to have an investment of 200 million yuan, which is definitely an exaggeration, but even if half of the money is removed, it is still difficult to recover the cost of an investment of 100 million yuan.

As glorious as Boss Zhao was when he received 6 million yuan in film pay, he is in such a miserable state now.

Before, she used her pay to pull down other people, and now of course other people will take advantage of her misfortune, so Boss Zhao has been subject to a lot of ridicule recently.

However, what the outside world did not expect was that big productions like "Mulan" were somewhat of a flop, but a low-budget comedy film "Lost on Journey" released by Golden Harvest became a small hit.

This comedy film about the Spring Festival travel rush was directed by Xu Zheng for the first time and starred by Wang Baoqiang. Despite the popularity of "2012" and the pressure of "Mulan", it still grossed more than million in the first three days of its release.

"Lost on Journey" can be said to be a very good comedy film with many laughs, especially Xu Zheng's comedy style. The more seriously he acts, the funnier it is for the audience, which makes everyone feel novel and funny.

In the original time and space, "Lost on Journey" was released during the summer vacation, which is obviously inconsistent with the subject matter of the movie. How could people resonate with the Spring Festival travel rush during the summer vacation?

But despite this, the film still earned 37 million at the box office thanks to its quality.

This time, "Lost on Journey" was invested and distributed by Golden Harvest, removing the toxic point of the teacher, and it was released near the Spring Festival.

Thanks to the powerful publicity and promotion of Golden Harvest Group, the box office potential of "Lost on Journey" was fully released.

With box office revenue of over 30 million in the first three days, there should be no problem for the total box office to exceed 100 million.

This undoubtedly further demonstrates the unique vision of Golden Harvest Group. Last year, a movie "Ip Man" suddenly emerged during the Lunar New Year holiday, which was popular in mainland China, and this year, another movie "Lost on Journey" emerged.

I thought Golden Harvest Group had little presence in the Lunar New Year box office, but now it seems that they don’t need such presence at all.

This also makes the failure of "Mulan" even more apparent. The results achieved with an investment of more than 100 million yuan are actually on par with those of other movies with an investment of less than 20 million yuan.

"Lost on Journey" not only had good box office, but also had very good reputation. Douban gave it a high score of 7.6, and the success of this movie was foreseeable.

The biggest beneficiary of the success of Lost on Journey was not Golden Harvest but Xu Zheng, who directed and starred in the film.

As the core of this movie, he undoubtedly received the most attention.

Before the movie was even released, it received olive branches from many film and television company owners in the industry.

However, Xu Zheng was not like Ning Hao who rejected all of them. Instead, he accepted these olive branches one by one with a smile on his face.

(End of this chapter)