Chapter 424 Crouching Dragon and Phoenix and Finale

Time slowly came to the end of December, and 2009 was about to pass.

After 2012 days of screening, the box office of "" officially exceeded million, becoming the third movie in mainland China to break the million box office this year.

After more than ten days of screening, the box office of "Mulan" exceeded 100 million yuan.

Although the quality of the movie is not very good, Mulan is a very well-known figure in China after all. Coupled with a strong star lineup and the publicity and promotion of the Shanghai Film Group, there will be no problem for the movie to break the 100 million yuan box office.

However, at this time, the potential of "Mulan" seems to have been mostly consumed. Up to now, the daily box office is only two to three million. If there is no extension key, the final box office will not exceed 1.2 million.

The success of "Mulan" is also due to the fact that the current domestic film market has expanded a lot compared to the same period in history.

The box office of "Mulan" in the original time and space was only more than 80 million, but now it has directly become a member of the 100 million yuan club.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that there seem to be an endless stream of domestic movies that gross over 200 million or 300 million yuan. That’s only because such box office hits have a greater influence and people can often see related reports.

In fact, there are not many movies in China that have grossed over 100 million yuan, just like in Hollywood, there are not many movies that have grossed over 100 million US dollars.

According to this year's movie box office results, if the movie box office exceeds 2009 million, it will be able to enter the top ten of the domestic movie box office list.

Even if we include Hollywood blockbusters released in mainland China, it can still make the top 15 list.

However, compared with the more than 100 million yuan investment in "Mulan", this result is obviously not good enough, and losses are inevitable.

Overseas countries are no longer interested in Chinese-language costume blockbusters, and even if the copyrights are sold, they will not fetch much money.

I don’t know if the IP of "Mulan" is not suitable for adaptation. Both mainland China and Hollywood have made live-action movies of Mulan, but the box office results were not very good.

Hollywood's Disney has previously produced the animated film "Mulan", which performed quite well.

Later, Disney launched a plan to adapt well-known animated films in its copyright library into live-action films, such as "The Lion King", "Beauty and the Beast", etc.

Originally, "Mulan" was not within the scope of Disney's adaptation plan, but at that time the domestic film market was growing every year and was already approaching the size of the North American film market.

So when Disney saw this, it immediately put the live-action movie plan of "Mulan" on the production schedule.

There was quite a stir when casting was going on at the time. Not only did many Chinese actresses flock to the role of Mulan, but actresses from Japan and South Korea also tried their best to get the role.

Although those Japanese and Korean actresses know that their hopes are slim and they also know that Disney is just trying to hype up the show, but what if? What if Disney really doesn't choose Chinese actresses?

After all, this is a Hollywood movie. A geisha can be played by a Chinese actress, so it is not impossible to invite Japanese or Korean actresses to play Mulan.

But this time they were obviously overthinking it. Disney values ​​the mainland market, so how could they choose a non-Chinese actress?

In the end, Liu Yifei got the heroine of the Disney version of "Mulan", so even though Liu Yifei seemed a little obscure at the time, her fan base was still very large.

Big companies like Disney are not casual about casting. They will definitely conduct detailed research beforehand. The so-called social skills in China are of no use to them at all.

When Liu Yifei successfully got the role of Mulan, her fans were overjoyed.

But let’s not talk about it, if the box office of the movie "Mulan" is not a big hit, but it is good, it will greatly improve Liu Yifei's status in the circle.

But unfortunately, the movie flopped at the box office, with global box office revenue of only over 30 million US dollars, of which mainland China contributed over 20 million US dollars.

Although Disney will not suffer losses thanks to its strong post-production copyright operations, it undoubtedly announced the failure of the live-action "Mulan" film.

Therefore, the film adaptation of the famous character Hua Mulan has had a rough road, failing twice both in mainland China and in Hollywood.

The failure of these two films is certainly due to their poor quality, but it also reflects that movies with female protagonists are difficult to sustain at the box office.

Not to mention the mainland, even in the world, there are only a handful of movies with female protagonists that have achieved outstanding box office results.

This is not like TV dramas, in which TV dramas with female protagonists actually have better ratings because almost all the people who watch the TV dramas later on are girls.

However, watching movies requires real money, and the main consumers are mostly men, so movies with female protagonists are difficult to be recognized by the audience.

This is also the main reason why the commercial value of male actors is generally higher than that of female actors. What's more, actresses have to face the cruel point that they have a shelf life.

Even if you are as popular as Zhang Ziyi when you get older, you will gradually be eliminated by the market. However, male actors become more popular as they get older. People like Qin Hao, Yu Hewei, Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong became popular as they got older.

But if "Mulan" is considered a failure, then "Lost on Journey" can be considered a huge success.

"Lost on Journey" was released two days later than "Mulan". Although the box office has not yet exceeded 100 million yuan so far, it has reached more than 80 million yuan, and breaking the 100 million yuan mark is a foregone conclusion.

"Lost on Journey" is, after all, a low-budget comedy film, and its box office potential is unlikely to be as strong as "Mulan". After all, "Mulan" is also a blockbuster.

However, the staying power of "Lost on Journey" will be stronger than that of "Mulan". Up to now, "Lost on Journey" can still earn three to four million yuan in box office every day.

The outside world predicts that the final box office of "Lost on Journey" will be around 1.2 million, similar to that of "Mulan".

However, the box office performance is comparable to that of "Mulan", which has proved the success of "Lost on Journey".

In addition to "Mulan" and "Lost on Journey", there are two other films that have attracted much attention during the Lunar New Year holiday.

One is "刺陵" directed by Taiwan director Zhu Yanping, starring Jay Chou and Taiwan's number one beauty Lin Zhilin, and the other is the blockbuster "十月被城" directed by Chen Kexin.

Originally, there was a remake of the old film "Storm Warriors 2" produced by Cheng Tian Group in the Lunar New Year box office this year. The movie "Storm Warriors" still raked in more than million Hong Kong dollars at the darkest moment of Hong Kong films ten years ago.

It is conceivable how popular this movie was at the time, and the longer time goes by, the more people realize how excellent this movie is.

In addition, the TV version of "Feng Yun" is also very popular in mainland China, making the "Feng Yun" IP a well-known presence in mainland China.

Therefore, before the release of "Storm Warriors 2", it was regarded by peers as a character that is not easy to deal with.

Although this movie once again brought together Aaron Kwok and Cheng Yijian, and focused on stars and special effects, and was claimed to be an audiovisual blockbuster that was no less than Hollywood, it did attract quite a few audiences at the time.

However, after the movie was released, it received a lot of negative reviews and was criticized on the Internet, which greatly hurt the audience and fans of "Storm and Cloud". This is obviously a money-making trick, just like the TV series "Storm and Cloud 2", which is also a poor sequel.

But in this life, Golden Harvest Group fell into the hands of Liu Zhou. The film rights of "Feng Yun" were still in his hands, but Golden Harvest Group did not rashly launch the sequel to this classic special effects action blockbuster.

Therefore, there is no "Storm Warriors 2" joining the battle in this year's Lunar New Year holiday, otherwise other movies would not be so comfortable. After all, if the sequel is produced by Golden Harvest Group, it will definitely be well made to ensure the value of this IP.

However, although the Phoenix Cub "Feng Yun 2" is missing, this year's Lunar New Year movie still has the Sleeping Dragon "刺陵".

"刺陵" also had the momentum of a blockbuster before its release, and its biggest selling point was the gathering of superstars from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong.

Jay Chou and Lin Zhilin attract young fans, while Director Chen, Eric Tsang and Miao Pu focus on the adult movie-watching group. Coupled with the support of the distributor China Film, it is still quite impressive.

"刺陵" earned more than 10 million yuan on the first day, but only 40 million yuan in the first week. The subsequent box office collapsed directly, and there is even a possibility that the film may be withdrawn early.

This movie was also criticized by audiences online, and its reputation was appallingly bad. Its Douban score was 3.6, almost breaking the lowest record of "The Promise".

The person most affected by this movie was Jay Chou, as it directly interrupted his film career.

Before this, Jay Chou's film career was quite smooth. "Initial D" was a huge success, and "Slam Dunk" and "Curse of the Golden Flower" might not have received high reputations, but they performed well and were of great benefit to him.

There is also the movie "Secret", which Jay Chou directed and starred in, and it has received excellent reviews. Many people even think that he has the potential to become a director.

It wasn't until "刺陵" that Jay Chou suffered a major setback, and the good momentum of the movie was cut short and could never be continued.

Perhaps Jay Chou is a little discouraged about this and doesn't want to develop in the film industry anymore. Otherwise, with his popularity and status, it would not be difficult for him to get film resources.

Compared to Jay Chou who was greatly influenced by "刺陵", Lin Zhilin and Zeng Zhiwei didn't care about the bad reputation of the movie.

The former is just a vase, it's just that the resources are limited, and the latter has a lot of bad movies, so I don't care at all.

Instead, Chen Daoming was greatly affected.

Chen Daoming is a well-known veteran actor, and is known for his integrity. He still holds a very high status in the hearts of many movie fans, but he ended up making such a terrible movie.

Prior to this, none of the movies and TV series starring Chen Daoming had a score lower than 6 on Douban, and more than half of the works had a score of more than 7.

Now that "刺陵" is out, I don't know how much the average score will be lowered. What's worse is that this makes many people think that you, Director Chen, will also act in bad movies for money, and your reputation will be tarnished.

I don’t know whether Director Chen, who has always been very careful about his reputation, regretted it afterwards.

However, compared to "刺陵" which was criticized by the whole network, another film "October Besieged City", which brought together popular stars from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong, such as Zhen Zidan, Wang Xueqi, Xie Tingfeng, Liang Jiahui, Li Yuchun, Simon Yam, Hu Jun, Li Tianwang and Li Bingbing, achieved both box office and good reputation.

"The Siege of the City in October" is a good story. Not only are the action scenes first-rate, but the national justice reflected in the film is also very natural, and it does not make people feel forced sensationalism.

Although this movie is an ensemble drama, Donnie Yen is still the male lead after all, and he has relatively more roles.

Ever since he became famous with "Ip Man", he has been offered many film offers and his salary has now increased to 20 million. It should be noted that before "Ip Man", his salary was less than 5 million.

This was still an external offer. Golden Harvest Films Hong Kong Company invited him to star in "Ip Man 2" and directly gave him a salary of million.

Although the pay is high, he is indeed worth it.

Zhen Zidan is not only the core character of the "Ip Man" series, but "Ip Man" is also a big hit overseas and has achieved very good results.

Therefore, Zou Chongyan directly agreed to Zhen Zidan's request for 30 million yuan.

To be honest, after the older generation of kung fu stars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Sammo Hung have grown old, only Zhen Zidan can carry the banner of kung fu movies.

Someone like Zhao Wenzhuo is still a little bit lacking and has not achieved much in the film industry. Wu Jing is still struggling at this time. Even if he becomes popular later, he chose the military track, which is different from traditional Chinese kung fu movies.

The reason why Zhen Zidan can get such a high salary is naturally because he has a strong box office appeal. Together with several other popular stars, "The Besieged City" can be said to have truly carried the banner of domestic blockbusters in this year's Lunar New Year period.

The box office grossed over 2009 million on the first day, exceeded 2.2 million in one week, and exceeded million in days. As of the last day of , the box office had reached million.

There is a good chance that the movie’s final box office will exceed 300 million.

While the Lunar New Year movie releases are in full swing, Liu Zhou is quietly filming "Interstellar" at the Ganquan Film and Television Base in Yangzhou.

For more than a month, Liu Zhou has been shooting the indoor and spacecraft cabin scenes for "Interstellar" here.

In order to make the final film more realistic, Liu Zhou did not use blue screen for all the indoor scenes and scenes inside the spacecraft cabin.

When filming the black hole scene on the set, the crew built a huge projection screen and a 1:1 spaceship model.

When the actors are performing inside the spacecraft, the cosmic scene projected on the curtain wall appears outside the window.

As for the cube in the film, it was not shot on a blue screen. The crew built a hypercube in a studio of more than 1,000 square meters. It was surrounded by four sides and then expanded into an infinite number through post-production.

The male protagonist passes through the "time tunnel" of the hypercube and browses all the moments on the timeline. The background of this tunnel needs to be produced by CG.

As the days went by, the actors finished filming one after another.

When the time came to January 15th, the only scene left in the movie was the last one in the cylindrical space station.

The crew built a complete set in the large studio of more than 6,000 square meters, including basketball courts, schools, hospitals, supermarkets, and commercial streets, overcoming gravity and spreading everywhere.

The cylindrical space station is a microcosm of an early human immigration plan. It is pushed into space by nuclear power and then rotates to create gravity using an artificial sun.

It took Liu Zhou three days to shoot this last scene. On January 18th, "Interstellar" was officially completed, which took three months.

What follows is the long post-production process, and Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio has already made preparations. "Interstellar" is scheduled to be released during the 2010 Lunar New Year holiday, which means there is still nearly a year left, so it is completely in time.

(End of this chapter)