Millennium director

Since the crew of "Ready Player One" finally got on track, Wu Yuan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After the most difficult problem of combining virtual special effects with reality is overcome, other small problems will not be difficult to solve.

Wu Yuan didn't need to put pressure on the crew every day. The atmosphere of filming was getting better and better every day. After a month, the crew moved from the capital to the foggy city to shoot some realistic scenes.

At the same time, as time enters June and July, another major project for Light and Shadow Times this year has also been approved.

Last year, the two biggest projects in the Light and Shadow Era were the two new works of the Xianxia Cinematic Universe, "Shu Mountain" and "War of the Demon Tide."

When it comes to making ordinary special effects blockbusters, the age of light and shadow is already familiar. Just like Marvel, which is used to making superhero movies, it can be shot almost in an assembly line way.

Both movies were successfully completed before the Spring Festival, and the post-production special effects of "War of the Demon Tide" that was shot first are half done. The special effects of "Shushan" have also begun to be produced. It is expected that one will be released by the end of the year or during the Spring Festival. , the second part will be released next summer.

This year, Light and Shadow Era does not plan to continue to produce follow-up works of the Xianxia movie universe.

This thing can’t be done every year, and you have to give movie fans something to look forward to. Sometimes if you ship too much, it will make the movie fans feel uninterested.

You have to keep them interested.

So this year’s big projects in the Light and Shadow Era, one is Wu Yuan’s “Ready Player One”, needless to say, and the other is Zhang Yimou’s first blockbuster after joining the Light and Shadow Era – “The Great Wall”!

In fact, Zhang Yimou has already cooperated with the company once after joining Light and Shadow Times, which was the literary film "Return".

Light and Shadow Times did not do anything to interfere with Zhang Yimou. They happily established the project and paid for it, and allowed Zhang Yimou to do whatever he wanted.

Even though this is a literary film, it doesn't look like it will be a hit, but because of Zhang Yimou's status and reputation value, Light and Shadow Times is very willing to invest money.

In the end, Zhang Yimou also gave a wonderful answer to the era of light and shadow.

The mainland box office of "Return" reached 342 million yuan, breaking the box office record for domestic literary films, and it was shortlisted for many film awards.

("Love Letter" is not considered a literary film, but a commercial romance film, so the box office of "Love Letter" has nothing to do with the record of literary films.)

The box office performance of this movie is more than 40,000 and nearly 50 million higher than the box office of the original time and space. Among them, the current domestic film market is larger than the original time and space, with more movie audiences, and it is also due to better promotion and distribution. s reason.

Compared with the Internet company "LeTV", Light and Shadow Times knows how to promote movies better, and is much more professional than LeTV, which has just begun to explore the film industry.

And Zhang Yimou has indeed made an excellent literary film, so it is natural for him to achieve such good results.

After the success of "Return", Zhang Yimou naturally regained his confidence and became interested in making blockbusters and commercial blockbusters.

And "The Great Wall", which had been prepared for him a long time ago, can naturally be launched smoothly.

In fact, when Zhang Yimou joined the Light and Shadow Era, Wu Yuan talked with Zhang Yimou with the synopsis of "The Great Wall" and invited him to make this film. Li Xiaoping was also very interested at the time.

It's just that at that time, Zhang Yimou was at the center of public opinion about the "two Zhangs breaking up", and another scandal was exposed. Not to mention that everyone was calling for a beating, but the situation was indeed very bad, which also made him somewhat unconfident and autistic.

As an introvert, he was unwilling to take on such a big project.

Just like what Zhang Yimou said when he was filming "Hero", he has to be responsible to investors when making movies, and he also does it with the attitude that it must be successful.

In 2012, he really didn't have the courage to invest at least 200 million yuan in "The Great Wall."

It wasn't until the success of "Return" that he regained his confidence, and the Zhang Yimou who dared to challenge and liked to try new things came back.

In the second half of last year, Zhang Yimou has been working on the preliminary preparations for "The Great Wall", finding screenwriters to create and improve the script, contacting special effects companies, making special effects storyboards, designing monster images, making original paintings, etc...

It was not until the New Year that all the preparations were completed and the characters were determined. Only then did Zhang Yimou start casting.

But this casting issue alone caused Zhang Yimou to struggle for several months.

Now this new version of "The Great Wall" is almost two movies from the "Great Wall" in Wu Yuan's impression.

Although the core concept of the Great Wall resisting monsters has not changed, and the setting of the Shadowless Legion, an army stationed on the Great Wall, is still there, the main plot and characters have changed beyond recognition.

The story of the new version of "The Great Wall" revolves around "defending the family and the country" and "defending the territory" as the main storyline. The protagonist group is the generals and soldiers who guard the country on the Great Wall.

Although there is also a love line, the love line is only a secondary line. It is more like the Guo Jing couple when they were guarding Xiangyang, linking personal feelings with the feelings of family and country, and more showing the perseverance of the couple to fight against foreign enemies.

That is, big love, not the kind of small love where young men and women are busy falling in love, quarreling, and breaking up while they are guarding the Great Wall.

Therefore, when casting, Zhang Yimou mainly wanted a group of tough guys and heroic actresses.

This is hard to find.

In 2014, it was the time when the Korean wave overwhelmed the Chinese wave.

Or in other words, since 2010, the aesthetic taste of the younger generation in China has gradually changed. The actors that the older generation thinks are more "normal" are no longer the style that the younger generation likes.

Young people prefer the Korean and Japanese-style handsome boys or soft and handsome guys.

It is indeed incorrect to call them "sissy" and it is insulting.

But we have to admit that the aesthetic taste of the entertainment industry during this period is indeed more neutral and delicate.

Those tough guys and rough guys are completely out of the game.

The heroic and graceful actresses are even more vulnerable in front of sweet girls, royal sisters, and vixens.

In this case, it is really not easy for Zhang Yimou to put together a tough guy group and Hua Mulan and Mu Guiying.

He almost went through all the existing actor resumes in the entertainment industry, watched one video after another, and conducted large-scale auditions, and only then did he find the only group of tough guys and heroic girls in the entertainment industry.

Yes, Wolf Warrior was definitely selected and became the male lead.

The female lead is Miao Pu, who played Mu Guiying to life.

Other major supporting roles are also male actors who are serving in the military in the domestic entertainment industry, such as Zhang Yi, Duan Yihong, and Zhang Guoqiang.

It is really hard to find a heroic female actor.

Except for Miao Pu, Zhang Yimou searched everywhere, and even held an audition to find Zhong Chuxi, but it was still not enough.

It was only with the recommendation of Wu Jing from Wolf Warrior that Zhang Yimou found Yu Nan, an actress who was also serving in the military in the domestic entertainment industry, and barely made up the cast.

It is this cast that makes you think it is a special forces movie at first glance.

Anyway, Wu Yuan couldn't hold back when he saw the cast list.

The only thing that is most similar to "The Great Wall" and his impression of "The Great Wall" is the title (end of this chapter)