Millennium director

Chapter 166 "Painted Skin" is scheduled to be watched, and "Battle of Red Cliff" is cut off

After "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" was completed, Wu Yuan didn't stay too long. He returned to Los Angeles and took the original film of "Painted Skin" that had completed the post-production special effects, and then returned directly to China.

It's still the same, the post-editing of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" has nothing to do with Wu Yuan.

When he signed the contract, he didn't get the editing rights.

In Hollywood, you can count on one hand the number of major directors who have taken over six major projects and also obtained editing rights.

But again, Disney also hopes that the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series will continue to sell well, and it is impossible to engage in any malicious editing.

Wu Yuan also has confidence in the material he shot and has confidence in Disney's editors.

Of course, the main reason is that it’s really fun to make it as a hands-off shopkeeper!

Returning to China with the finished film "Painted Skin", Wu Yuan once again enjoyed being personally picked up by Director Han at the airport.

Without him, the main reason is that the completed film of "Painted Skin" in his hands is too precious.

Three copies of this thing were specially made and shipped all the way by air, just for fear of damage.

Once damaged, Weta Digital does not preserve any original footage, so everything must be remade.

A small copy disk contains something worth tens of millions of dollars.

Director Han, who also participated in the investment, naturally came to pick it up in person.

"A big production worth RMB 150 million." On the way, Director Han said with some emotion: "The era of mainland blockbusters is really coming."

"When we first made "Hero", there wasn't even a single movie in China with an investment of over 100 million."

"Just two or three years have passed, and now there are four or five movies with an investment of over 100 million each year that have been approved."

"Feng Xiaogang's "A World Without Thieves" sold 120 million at the box office. Now he is also ambitious and wants to make a blockbuster movie."

"He wants to transform and make costume action movies like "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers."

"But the script is still being worked on. The initial budget is to spend 20 million US dollars to make a blockbuster."

"The Promise directed by Kege is also being filmed, and this one is even more remarkable, with an investment of more than 300 million yuan."

"After the success of Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, I no longer wanted to make a commercial blockbuster, so I turned my attention to making a literary film."

"By the way, Jiang Wen's ban from directing has ended. The Emperor in Hong Kong is very optimistic about him and has invested in a movie for him, which is currently being filmed."

Wu Yuan listened quietly as Director Han summarized for him the recent situation of major domestic directors.

But none of this news is good news.

The two years from 2005 to 2006 were the two years when major mainland directors were collectively criticized.

Feng Xiao just happened to practice a Hollywood-style commercial film in "A World Without Thieves", bidding farewell to his previous large-scale sitcom-like movie model.

As a result, they took a big step forward and produced a localized court movie "The Banquet" based on "Hamlet".

Although it was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, it still couldn't escape the fate of being criticized as a bad film.

Needless to say, "The Promise" directed by Kego.

Zhang Yimou's "Riding Alone, Thousands of Miles" is a purely literary film with no sense of existence.

Not many people understood Jiang Wen's "The Sun Also Rises", and it was often scolded when it was released.

Generally speaking, in the next two years, the reputation of the films of several major mainland directors will be criticized and questioned.

Wu Yuan was also a little helpless. Directors are really a group of people who are very independent and go their own way. It is rare for them to listen to what others say.

At the premiere of "Hero", Wu Yuan kindly reminded Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang, but after two years of serious consideration, the two made the same choice.

After chatting for a while, Wu Yuan and Director Han returned to China Film Group.

The first thing I did was naturally watch the movie.

China Film Group, as one of the investors, will definitely have a sneak preview of the finished film of "Painted Skin".

There is actually nothing to say about the process and content. Wu Yuan patched the original "Painted Skin 1" with the perspective of 2022, and the finished product after perfecting the special effects is definitely better than Chen Jiashang's version.

Director Han was naturally very satisfied.

"It has to be you, Director Wu."

Han Sanping gave a thumbs up with praise, "Among so many directors in China, you are definitely the best in terms of the use of special effects in movies!"

"When Zhou Xun turned into a vixen, I was shocked. It was so realistic."

"And Zeng Li's disfiguring makeup, was it done with special effects, or was it the result of real makeup?"

"That is special effects makeup." Wu Yuan explained: "This kind of special effects makeup is relatively rare in China, but it is already a very common shooting method in Hollywood."

"By making a cast of the actor's face, and then applying various realistic special effects makeup on the cast, we can save on special effects costs, and the effect is no worse than the special effects."

It is worth mentioning that in Wu Yuan's version of "Painted Skin", Pei Rong's appearance after being poisoned is bald and rotten with fangs, which is very Chinese horror style.

Zeng Li is different from Zhao Junqi. Her main role in the crew is to be obedient and do whatever the director tells her to do. She doesn't care that such makeup will look ugly on camera.

Just to do the special effects makeup, make facial molds, apply makeup and other processes, it took several hours of preparation in advance, and even the makeup artist was specially hired from Hollywood.

They all specialize in doing special effects makeup for zombies in zombie movies and have rich experience.

The actors are dedicated and the special effects makeup artists are professional. The final effect is of course very good.

It's much better than Zhao Junqi's fooling around of simply putting a black spot on his cheek and treating it like poisoning!

"Very good. Director Wu deserves to be in Hollywood. He should bring more of Hollywood's cutting-edge film shooting technology to China to learn and apply it!"

Director Han repeatedly praised: "If you make "Painted Skin", you will bring a lot of new ideas and popularize new technologies to domestic filmmakers!"

“If our Chinese-language films want to develop and catch up with Hollywood’s standards, we still need great directors like you to take the lead personally.

Wu Yuan has long been immune to all kinds of flattery from Director Han. After hearing such words too many times, it will be difficult for him to have any ups and downs in his mood.

Wu Yuan nodded calmly and returned to the topic: "When is the right time to release "Painted Skin"?"

"It must be the Lunar New Year period!" Han Dong slapped his thigh and said excitedly.

In the current mainland film industry, the most important schedule is the Lunar New Year period, which is also the period that generates the most box office revenue.

During last year's Lunar New Year holiday, "A World Without Thieves" and "Kung Fu", two big-budget and star-rated movies, both grossed over 100 million in box office, taking a total of 300 million in box office.

This year, there are currently no mainland blockbusters scheduled for Lunar New Year.

Feng Xiaogang has no Lunar New Year films this year. "Ride Alone, Thousands of Miles" directed by Yimou is planned to be released during the Lunar New Year, but this is an art film and it is impossible to pursue high box office.

Chen Kaige's "The Promise", despite various encouragements from Wu Yuan, was finally launched half a year later than the original track, and could not make it in time for this year's Lunar New Year.

Jiang Wen's "The Sun Also Rises" has just been launched, so there is no need to think about it, and it is impossible for Director Han to put the box office competition on Jiang Wen.

Counting over and over again, this year’s Lunar New Year holiday season actually doesn’t have any commercial films by major mainland directors to support the scene and grab the box office. How can this be possible?

Wu Yuan's "Painted Skin" comes at just the right time!

"Director Wu, this "Painted Skin" must be placed in the Lunar New Year slot!" Director Han repeated again very firmly.

Wu Yuan didn't have any objections, "Speaking of which, this should be my first time participating in a Lunar New Year fight, right?"

"It's harmful." Director Han said confidently: "Director Wu, all the movies in this year's Lunar New Year festival are not enough to beat your "Painted Skin"."

"I think we should make it a little bigger."

"Let's have it premiere simultaneously in China, South Korea, and Japan on December 28 this year!"

"I think Japanese and Korean audiences will also like movies with oriental fantasy themes like "Painted Skin."

"You are an internationally renowned first-line director in Japan. Although your box office sales are average in South Korea, your reputation is not low. After all, Koreans admire Hollywood movies very much."

This kind of simultaneous premiere in multiple countries has only been done by Hollywood movies.

There are many Hollywood movies that premiere simultaneously in North America. Don’t laugh, there are three countries in North America. This can be regarded as simultaneous release in three countries.

Sometimes even some South American countries will premiere simultaneously.

However, there are currently no Chinese-language films that are released simultaneously in multiple countries. At most, they have been premiered simultaneously in the mainland and Hong Kong Island.

Director Han can now shout out the idea of ​​"simultaneous premieres in China, Japan and South Korea", which shows that his vision in the film industry is still very advanced and forward-looking.

In another five or eight years, Hollywood will have simultaneous premieres in China and the United States.

Because at that time, the Chinese market had become the second largest ticket warehouse for Hollywood movies, and simultaneous premieres were necessary to show the importance of the Chinese market.

For Wu Yuan now, the Japanese and Korean markets are the second largest box office for his movies, and he really needs to pay enough attention to the second largest box office.

"I have no objection. It would indeed be a good thing if the three countries could premiere simultaneously. This would stimulate the box office even more." Wu Yuan nodded.

"Okay, I'll discuss the details with the publishers in Japan and South Korea."

Director Han rubbed his hands, "It's still Toho in Japan. As the largest publisher in Japan, we should try to maintain cooperation as much as possible."

"In South Korea, Seagate has always been responsible for distribution, but I feel that the publicity effect of their distribution is very average."

"You can change to SHOWBOX. This is a distribution company that has been established just a few years ago. But it is backed by a large Korean consortium and has no shortage of contacts and money. Now in order to seize the distribution market, they will fight hard as long as they have good movies. .”

"The film "The Flying Taigeuk Flag" that broke the Korean film record last year was distributed by their company and set a historical record of 11.6 million moviegoers in South Korea."

Wu Yuan nodded thoughtfully.

SHOWBOX, he knew, was one of the investors in "Battle of Red Cliff" and was also the distributor of the two parts of "Red Cliff" in Korea.

When talking about this company, Wu Yuan could just break into another topic.

"SHOWBOX, I know, he is one of the developers of Wu Yusen's "Battle of Red Cliff"."

Wu Yuan pretended to be chatting and asked: "Director Han, how are the preparations for "The Battle of Red Cliff" going?"

When this topic was brought up, Director Han, who was excited because of "Painted Skin", immediately became depressed.

He let out a long sigh, "It's so annoying."

"Everything from the casting to the script was so grinding."

"Just for casting, Wu Yusen has been pushing and pulling. From February to now, after a long time, only Zhou Runfa, who will play Zhou Yu, has been confirmed."

"For the role of Mrs. Zhou Yu's "Xiao Qiao", she said one moment she was suitable for Zhang Jingchu in "Peacock" and the next moment she said she was not suitable."

"Last month, we finally decided on the three leading roles of Chow Run-fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and Ken Watanabe. However, Wu Yusen felt that Chow Run-fa was not suitable to play Zhou Yu and should play Liu Bei."

"Kenori Watanabe plays Cao Cao, and their scenes run through the entire film."

"Then he thought about inviting Andy Lau to come over and play Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu respectively with Tony Leung Chaowei. They are the main actors of another lineage."

"The result was very good. I took a closer look at the preparations. There was only an outline of the script, but the specific content went through seven or eight revisions. Even Wu Yusen was not satisfied."

The project "Battle of Red Cliff" can be said to be the most hyped project in 2005.

From February to mid-August now, one or two casting news about this movie have been revealed almost every month.

Today the big brother will be the best, tomorrow the super will be the best, and the day after tomorrow Hua Tsai may join.

Including the actresses, the casting of Xiao Qiao also slipped from Gong Li and International Zhang to Zhang Jingchu, who made her debut at the Berlin Film Festival with "Peacock".

But now there are rumors that Sister Zhiling will be invited.

It can be said that this kind of casting hype in "Red Cliff" is definitely the originator of later TV series and movies to attract fans.

Director Han actually doesn't mind all this hype. Of course, he hopes to get as much attention as possible for a movie with an investment of several hundred million.

But what really dissatisfied Director Han was that this project had been in preparation for more than a year, and Wu Yusen actually didn’t have a casting standard in mind.

Because the script hasn’t been polished yet!

The producers invited many screenwriters to write scripts specifically for "Battle of Red Cliff", including Mr. Zou Jingzhi, who is known as China's number one screenwriter, but Wu Yusen was not satisfied after reading it.

He felt that the script of "Battle of Red Cliff" needed to change the character of the characters in the film without violating the historical background.

Liu Bei should no longer be cowardly, Cao Cao should no longer show his treacherous image, Zhou Yu should not be petty, and should cherish heroes like Zhuge Liang.

Wu Yuan listened quietly to Director Han's complaints.

In fact, he knew more than Director Han.

He also knew that even after Wu Yusen invited Lu Wei, the screenwriter of "Farewell My Concubine", and finally came up with the script of "Battle of Red Cliff", the filming of this movie was not smooth.

Due to disagreement with the director's concept, the martial arts director was replaced halfway through the filming, and some previously filmed scenes needed to be reshot.

The main photographer of the crew had to leave the crew due to schedule.

Especially when Fa Ge broke the contract midway, the scenery, costumes, etc. had to be redesigned due to the change of protagonist.

The most important thing is that in terms of casting, Wu Yusen spent 100 million on the salary alone!

This is because Fa Ge’s 40 million was not taken away, otherwise it would have been spent even more!

All this money was given to Wu Yusen to actors in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. It was a waste.

Quietly waiting for Director Han to finish complaining, when his mouth was dry and he picked up the water glass to drink water to moisten his throat, Wu Yuan asked in a calm but sincere tone: "Director Han, what did you say about "The Battle of Red Cliff" "How about I do this project?"

"Pfft--" A large mouthful of tea spurted out from Han Dong's mouth, barely missing Wu Yuan.

"Director Wu, are you kidding?"