Millennium director

"Hey, Director Zhang."

"What?!"

"You want to join the age of light and shadow?!"

"..."

Two hours later, Wu Yuan saw Zhang Yimou with a depressed expression in a high-end club in Beijing.

"So, you and Zhang Weiping had a falling out?"

Zhang Yimou nodded.

His expression was very sad and depressed.

In 1996, Zhang Yimou met and began to cooperate with businessman Zhang Weiping.

Their first encounter can be traced back to a party in 1989.

At that time, Director Zhang had already achieved some success, while Zhang Weiping was on the rise of his career and full of ambitions.

At a dinner, Zhang confided his plight to Zhang Weiping. He was planning to shoot a movie, but he faced huge challenges due to investment cuts and changes in the heroine. With the help of his friends, Zhang Weiping did not hesitate to use his own money to support his film project.

Although the first film they collaborated with lost money, Zhang Weiping saw the potential and value in Director Zhang.

As a result, this bet evolved into 16 years of golden cooperation.

In 1997, Zhang Weiping founded the "New Picture" film and television company. In order to facilitate cooperation, he almost never rejected director Zhang's film projects.

This collaboration made Director Zhang famous and became a highly praised director with numerous awards at home and abroad.

This cooperation lasted for 16 years, and Zhang Weiping invested in as many as 11 of the films directed by Director Zhang.

This cooperation not only made Director Zhang's career flourish, but also pushed Zhang Weiping from obscurity to the pinnacle of fame and fortune.

However, interest disputes and personal grudges gradually eroded this friendship.

Since 2011, there have been problems with the friendship between Zhang Weiping and Zhang Yimou.

The relationship between the two finally collapsed during the filming of "Jinling Thirteen Hairpins".

In order to ensure the smooth production of the film, Director Zhang purchased the copyright of the work in advance and assured the author that once the film production is completed, the copyright will be returned unconditionally.

However, a few days before the film was officially shot, Zhang Weiping unilaterally sold the film and television drama rights and made a lot of money.

This move made Director Zhang feel ashamed and angry.

In addition, Zhang Weiping also insisted on adding some large-scale scenes to the film, which made Director Zhang feel very uncomfortable and felt that he was interfering with his creation.

The hype during the promotion period also made Director Zhang feel that the quality of his film had been damaged. These factors led to the escalation of conflicts between the two.

In September 2012, Zhang Weiping's company suddenly issued a lawyer's letter, demanding that the management rights of all artists under Director Zhang's studio be withdrawn, including popular stars such as Zhou Dongyu and Ni Ni.

Zhang Weiping also criticized Director Zhang on the Internet, calling his studio an illegal "leather bag company" and doubting whether the agents around Zhou Dongyu are qualified.

In short, with just one sentence, the two of them had completely broken up.

Wu Yuan is also concerned about this matter. Not to mention that he knew about it in his previous life, but just because this matter has made a big fuss and is known to the whole country, it is impossible for him to know nothing about it.

What Wu Yuan didn't expect was that Zhang Yimou would actually come to him.

He had never said anything similar to Zhang Yimou to recruit him before!

As a result, Zhang Yimou actually called me, hoping that he could set up a new studio and affiliate it to the Light and Shadow Era, and affiliate Zhou Dongyu and other Mou girls to the Light and Shadow Era.

This practice of studio affiliation has just become popular this year. It started with Huayi. The two Bingbings each established their own studios and affiliated with Huayi Entertainment. It is a new kind of cooperation. Way.

And the studio can also pay less tax.

"It's not impossible." Looking at Zhang Yimou with a hopeful face, Wu Yuan really couldn't say no.

Originally, after he and Zhang Weiping broke up, he was a little exhausted physically and mentally. If he took the initiative to seek cooperation from Wu Yuan and was rejected, it is estimated that Zhang Yimou's introverted character would really be autistic.

After recalling the whole process of the breakup between the two Zhangs, Wu Yuan felt that there was no big problem in cooperating with Zhang Yimou.

If he remembered correctly, Zhang Yimou was originally working with LeTV.

After he signed with LeTV, an actress named He Jun broke a piece of news online that shocked the entertainment industry.

She claimed that Director Zhang violated the policy by giving birth to three children and exposed photos of Director Zhang’s wife Chen Ting.

Although Director Zhang was married as early as 2011 and has three children, the outside world did not know.

After this incident was exposed, Director Zhang was strongly condemned by public opinion.

The reason why this incident was exposed was that it was Zhang Weiping's initiative and the result of his manipulation behind the scenes in order to ruin Zhang Yimou's reputation.

In fact, he did it. Zhang Yimou not only suffered reputational damage, Director Zhang also faced compensation of 7.48 million yuan.

This put him in financial trouble.

Yes, it is so ridiculous that the top director in the country fell into financial difficulties when facing more than 7 million yuan in compensation.

It was also because of this incident that Zhang Yimou discovered that when he cooperated with Zhang Weiping, Zhang Weiping monopolized a lot of movie box office profits. In fact, the tens of millions of dividends that should have belonged to Zhang Yimou were pocketed by Zhang Weiping himself.

In July 2015, he sued New Picture Company, demanding payment of his 15 million yuan box office share.

However, due to the other party's counterattack, only 2.4634 million yuan was finally obtained, but this amount has never been paid in full.

Even in 2019, New Picture's business license was revoked due to poor management, and Zhang Weiping was restricted from spending too much, and the money was not repaid.

All I can say is that Director Zhang was miserable. Zhang Weiping, who he had worked with for more than ten years and thought he was his good friend, was eating, taking, and stabbing him behind his back.

But even in this case, Zhang Yimou was not defeated, but his film career flourished.

After getting out of the way of Zhang Weiping, Zhang Yimou's film career has had a second spring. He has won both awards and box office. Not only has he once again become a domestic commercial film leader, but his literary and artistic films are also remarkable, and he has won many awards.

For films such as "The Return", "The Great Wall", "Shadow", "On the Cliff" and "River Red", Wen Neng won three domestic awards for best director, and Wu Neng won the mainland box office championship. Their achievements are far higher than in the previous decade.

It is definitely a good thing for such a high-quality director to be included in the era of light and shadow.

And with the help of Guangying Times behind him, Zhang Yimou would not be so embarrassed when facing Zhang Weiping's counterattack.

Moreover, actors such as Zhou Dongyu and Ni Ni are also good talents.

Without much hesitation, Wu Yuan agreed directly.

"Director Zhang, I have wanted to cooperate with you for a long time, but I have never asked you to do so since I saw that you and Zhang Weiping cooperated very steadily before."

"The Light and Shadow Era very much welcomes excellent directors like you, and I hope our future cooperation will be pleasant. I am not someone like Zhang Weiping."

Wu Yuan stretched out his hand to Zhang Yimou with a bright smile and shook it tightly with him.

"Looking ahead, let the company help you resolve the matter of Zhang Weiping!" (End of Chapter)