China Entertainment King of Science Fiction

Chapter 207 Mirage (two in one)

In addition to starting the promotion of "Detective Chinatown" this summer, DreamWorks also needs to cooperate with the promotion of another heavyweight work.

The TV series "Signal" starring the couple Sun Li and Deng Chao will be launched on Mango TV's weekly theater in mid-July.

After a long tug-of-war, Mango TV finally bought the TV station’s exclusive broadcast rights for 92 million yuan, reaching 3.68 million per episode, which was the most expensive single-episode TV rights price in the first half of 2015.

However, the 92 million copyright price of the entire drama did not rank among the top five TV dramas sold this year. The most expensive drama in the first half of the year was "Nirvana in Fire" starring Hu Ge, which was bought by Donghai TV and Capital TV. The transaction price exceeded

190 million, and the price of a single episode is close to 3.54 million - this is only the TV station copyright, and its online copyright has also been sold, exceeding 110 million.

Of course, this is because of "Source Code". Although the original copyright price of "Nirvana in Fire" was very high, the price of a single episode was definitely less than 3 million. The producers waited until the release of "Source Code" before selling it.

The publishing rights move was the right bet.

Complementing the rapid expansion of the movie box office is the soaring price of TV drama copyrights. The price of TV drama copyrights is even increasing faster than the growth of the movie market.

In fact, "Signal" was originally able to sell for more than 100 million, but the condition was that Mango TV was allowed to re-edit it during the broadcast and expand the 25 episodes to at least 30 episodes. However, Chen Jingxing refused without hesitation. Such an edit would definitely

It will cause huge damage to the rhythm of the TV series.

"Signal" is not a water-filled drama. At least one-third of the quality of this drama lies in its tense rhythm. Once the narrative rhythm of the entire drama is destroyed, it is equivalent to dragging the drama down by at least two levels.

Both Chen Jingxing and director Tian Xinye were firmly opposed to it.

Chen Jingxing insists on the style of the DreamWorks brand, which is to produce high-quality film and television dramas. It is not cost-effective for him to destroy the entire structure of the work for more than 10 million yuan.

Chen Jingxing nodded: "Your camera language is great. You are born to make movies. Isn't it a waste not to make movies?"

The heroine also achieved the happy ending that her children and lovers wanted.

Chen Jingxing handed him a few pages: "This is the film project you will be responsible for next. It is a science fiction film. There is no completed script, only a story structure."

Chen Jingxing did not directly give out the complete script this time. In fact, the movies he presented all needed to be translated into Chinese. It also takes time to perfect the script, and there is no saying that it can be used directly.

She filed for divorce from her husband and lived alone with her daughter. Following the clues about the arrest of the murderer in the first timeline, she found the burial place where his body was buried twenty years ago. She called the police and came to deal with the matter.

The person who started the old case was the little boy who became a criminal police officer twenty years later.

Tian Xinye took the paper and read it carefully.

The director of "Signal", Tian Xinye, was also freed from his busy schedule. The promotion work of the TV series was basically handed over to Mango TV and DreamWorks. TV and online exposures were also performed by the three leading actors: Sun Li, Deng Chao and Zhang Ruoyun.

Tian Xinye is neither handsome nor popular, so naturally he does not need to participate in the promotion of the TV series.

The movie project assigned to him by Chen Jingxing is a movie with the same theme as "The Signal". In Chen Jingxing's previous life, the name was "Mirage", and the original version was a Spanish movie.

The police officer recognized that the reporter was the woman who mysteriously appeared on the TV and told him not to go out twenty years ago. It was also the woman whose future self warned him on the TV not to look for women who disturbed his life, although he had also

I searched for her secretly, but still restrained my urge to recognize her and did not disturb her normal life.

But the biggest problem is that there are no memories of the current timeline in her brain - this is different from the "Signal" movie and TV series.

DreamWorks has established a TV drama division and a TV drama screenwriting team, which is currently writing several scripts assigned by Chen Jingxing. Currently, Tian Xinye is the only contracted director of DreamWorks who has experience in making TV dramas, so he always thought that he would continue to film.

TV drama.

The heroine who had committed suicide woke up in the third timeline with the memories of the two timelines. Lying next to her was her former husband who had cheated on him countless times, but she had already recognized his true face, and what made her happiest was

It's her daughter who's back.

It is equivalent to including it as part of the universe of "The Signal", so this movie may be regarded as "The Signal II" or "The Signal: Mirage". Its core setting is that after the mysterious aurora appears, the wireless walkie-talkie

, or a television or something else that can connect the past and the present across time and space, thereby creating a butterfly effect that changes the timeline.

At the same time, the arrested murderer in the original world line has been at large.

When he was a child, he had contacted the heroine on the first day when the aurora appeared and was told not to go out. Two days later, something strange happened again on the TV. This time, the person who contacted him was himself twenty years later. Twenty years later

He warned him not to find the woman who saved him two days ago and not to disturb her life.

It's just that unlike "The Signal" in which the tool for communicating across time and space is a wireless walkie-talkie in both the movie and TV series versions, the tool in "Mirage" is a television.

The heroine separated from the police officer, broke into a high-end hotel, and staged a "cross-timeline" arrest. Although her "previous life husband" had nothing to do with the heroine in this timeline, he was also afraid of being spread by the heroine and affecting his family.

and career, so under the threat of the heroine, the heroine's address in this timeline was found out - her "previous life husband" was a bank executive in both his previous life and this life, and he could find out the mortgage information.

Chen Jingxing adhered to the principle that "DreamWorks does not raise idle people, and everyone's work must be fulfilling and interesting." He did not give Tian Xinye the opportunity to take a long vacation, which put a greater burden on him.

Although there are three timelines, the structure is not complicated, and there are no narrative tricks, so the threshold for watching the movie is not high. It can be regarded as the best of this type of science fiction movie. Although it has elements of science fiction and suspense, it is essentially a movie.

Romance movies are almost the same type as "Steins Gate" and "Your Name".

Of course, compared with DreamWorks' movie earnings, they are a bit underwhelming, but several of Chen Jingxing's movies are actually special cases. They are completely a minority in the movie. Most movies will never reach the profitability of DreamWorks. The "Signal" TV series

The revenue can already beat most movies.

Of course, in addition to selling the exclusive broadcast rights to Mango TV, the online rights have also been sold out long ago. Because Chen Jingxing refused to sell the exclusive broadcast rights, it is impossible for major online platforms to pay big prices, but the combined amount of all video platforms

It’s still quite impressive, a full 60 million.

In this way, the timeline once again returned to its original track. The difference was that the little boy did not go out to witness the murder process due to the reminder of the heroine, and did not die as a result. The murderer was at large, and the little boy did not persist despite the warning from his future self.

Looking for the woman who saved him.

Anyway, the production cost of "Signal: Mirage" is not much, and it will not be higher than the movie "Signal" - if no big-name stars are hired, it is very suitable for directors like Tian Xinye who have never made movies to practice, such as "Comet"

》This kind of commercial property

There are not many low-cost science fiction films. There are many low-cost science fiction films that do not have enough commercial elements. Instead, they are difficult to understand. They serve a small group of movie fans. There may be a market for free viewing, but they do not have the ability to make the audience buy it.

The ability to go to the cinema with a ticket.

"Didn't the TV drama division just be established? I thought those scripts that the screenwriting team was perfecting would be my next projects." Tian Xinye replied with surprise and joy.

However, the conflict between the two timelines made the heroine extremely painful, and she still could not forget her daughter. She could never accept the fact that her daughter did not exist in this timeline, so she committed suicide by jumping off the building.

Seventeen years later, he met the woman who had saved him on the TV in the subway, fell in love with her, and got married. Until three years later, the same aurora as the one seventeen years ago appeared, and his wife suddenly

She came to the police station to report the crime and acted like she didn't recognize herself, saying that she couldn't find her daughter and her husband didn't recognize her. He knew that because he had changed the heroine's life, the most feared result had occurred.

What he gave Tian Xinye was only the general main line of the Chinese version of the story, and he also promised that he could select from the screenwriters signed by DreamWorks to form the screenwriting team of "Mirage" - of course, after the Chinese version, it should no longer be called "Mirage", in the original version

It was the stormy and rainy day that lasted for 72 hours that caused the disturbance in space and time. In this version, Chen Jingxing changed it to the aurora. Yes, it is the aurora from the movie "The Signal".

She had no idea where she lived now, whether she had a family, or what her life was like. The hospital leaders thought she was too busy and had some kind of mental illness, so they suspended her practice and asked her to go home and rest. She found the original world line

The kindergarten my daughter went to was told that she had no children. When she found her husband in the original world, she found that her husband was already married and the relationship with her was just a doctor-patient relationship.

"Movie? Director Chen, you mean to let me make a movie?" Tian Xinye asked in disbelief.

The heroine cannot accept such a realistic blow. In fact, anyone who wakes up to find that her husband is a stranger and her child has disappeared from the world, or even does not exist at all, will not be able to bear this reality - especially when her child has disappeared overnight.

The world disappeared from the world. As a mother on the verge of collapse, she found the police station. However, the police officer who took the case did not regard her "fantasy" as nonsense, but began to help her find the truth about her children and her own world.

Life.

It turns out that the police officer who helped her was her current husband, and he was also the little boy she saved twenty years ago. The woman on the TV who claimed to be from twenty years later and warned him not to go out to save him was deeply moved.

was imprinted in his mind. He called the police and identified the murderer according to the statement provided by the woman, but no one believed it. Everyone thought it was just a child's imagination, but he did not give up searching.

In addition, there are also on-demand accounts and advertising accounts for online broadcasts. Even according to more conservative numerical predictions, it can bring in at least 50 million yuan in revenue. It can be said that the "Signal" TV series is already an extremely successful TV series project - in fact, since

Chen Jingxing's ability to hire Sun Li and Deng Chao "at a low price" has already determined the success of the TV series in terms of copyright income from the beginning. The difference is just how much.

At DreamWorks, after a period of time, basically all contracted filmmakers called Chen Jingxing Director Chen, while senior executives called him Chairman or Boss. Chen Jingxing did not need the title of Chairman to enhance his authority.

With the help of the police officer, she discovered that although her husband from the original world line was married to another woman and had children, he often had private meetings with other women in a high-end hotel. From the familiar cigarette box with the hotel logo, she realized that

In the original world line, her husband was also cheating on her, but she was the one who was cheated on at that time.

The grieving police officer found the TV at the last moment of the three-day aurora predicted on the news, and contacted himself twenty years ago.

He tried hard to restore his wife's memory of this timeline so that she could gradually understand her current life, and the heroine also retrieved the memory of this changed timeline in his desperate kiss.

In the shock and panic, the heroine would rather believe it, and warned the little boy on the TV from twenty years ago not to go out, which changed the fate of the little boy's death, but also changed the timeline at the same time, causing a butterfly effect. When he woke up the next day

When she woke up in the hospital lounge, she found that her life had been completely changed. Not only was she not married to her husband in the original timeline, but her four-year-old daughter was not born. It may be because she had no children. She had time and energy to continue.

He furthered his education and became a surgeon.

After the heroine returned home in this timeline, she found a sweet photo of herself and the police officer who helped her find her identity.

The story is about a heroine with a four-year-old daughter who moved into a new home and had a connection across time and space with a little boy from twenty years ago through an old TV set abandoned in the cabinet. The boy was originally going to die for witnessing a murder.

The murderer was exposed and arrested. The heroine knew the ins and outs of the murder when she bought the house. At the same time, her friend was also the little boy's childhood playmate and told her about it.

thing.

In this way, the total amount of TV station and network copyrights exceeds 150 million, which not only covers the cost, but also obtains relatively high profits.

In short, this is a story about saving someone through a TV that can travel through time and space, and ultimately saving her future husband.

Of course, he would not refuse to make a movie. This has always been his dream, but he didn't expect the opportunity to come so soon.

It's just that he no longer wants to directly provide finished products. The improvement of the script is also an important creative process. It is still necessary to give full play to the subjective initiative of film talents. In the future, what he will take out from "Doraemon's pocket" again is creativity or just simple stories.

Structured.

For example, the cost of Chen Jingxing's previous film "This Man Came From Earth" was even lower than that of "Comet". Some fans who like him created rumors that it had earned hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. This is of course a very ridiculous lie. In fact, this film

The movie was not released on a large scale at all, or it was not a qualified theatrical movie at all.

It costs money to go to the cinema. The audience does not pay real money to go to the cinema to watch philosophical masterpieces. There must be enough commercial elements, whether it is horror, thriller, suspense or love, action, handsome guys or beauties or visual spectacles.

Even if it is a tear-jerking comedy, it must have at least two or three elements to be considered a theatrical movie.

It was actually the best solution for Chen Jingxing's first movie "Comet" to be distributed online. Once it was released in theaters, it would be difficult to get box office.

Most low-cost science fiction movies are broadcast online, and they have to be broadcast for free to have a future. All things considered, "Mirage" can be regarded as a high-quality project that takes into account the commercial market and production costs.

(End of chapter)