Millennium director

While Wu Yuan and his wife were busy making babies, the domestic entertainment film industry was also surging.

The box office of "Time Travel Cohabitation" exceeded 1 billion, which is not a big deal in the current hot film market. Although everyone is a little surprised that another love movie has broken 1 billion, they are also very quick to accept it.

Compared with the box office performance of "Time Travel Cohabitation", the industry is now more concerned about another big thing.

The new Chinese film "The Monkey King" directed by Wu Yuan will be released in China on December 25!

Both are movies produced by Light and Shadow Times, but the attention received by "Time Travel Cohabitation" is completely incomparable to that of "The Monkey King".

The former is just a work of a not-so-famous female director, and at most the heroine Liu Yifei is still eye-catching.

But "The Monkey King" is a new Chinese film directed by Wu Yuan again after a year and a half of rest!

As time goes by, Wu Yuan is no longer the "young director" in the public's impression. Although he is not yet 40 years old, he is definitely a young man in the director industry.

But he has been in the industry for nearly 20 years, and it can even be said that he has accompanied a generation of people to grow up. The first batch of fans who watched Wu Yuan's movies are in their 40s and 50s, and the current core group of moviegoers (20-30 years old) can be said to have grown up watching Wu Yuan's movies.

From "The Night the Comet Came" in 2000 to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy to "Your Name", "Painted Skin", "Gravity", "Interstellar", "The Martian", "Love Letter", "Ready Player One" and other series of popular commercial films, it can be said that they are the movies that accompanied the growth of the post-80s and post-90s.

Although the number is small, they are really excellent.

As time goes by, Wu Yuan has unknowingly accumulated countless halos, and his foundation has long been deeply rooted. He has become one of the best directors in China, and he is the kind of director who is recognized as the best director in China, just like Zhang Yimou.

His "Your Name" is a love enlightenment movie for countless young people, and "Gravity" is also the first science fiction movie that all Chinese people have watched.

His "Departures" and "Love" are the pride of Chinese art films and have won international awards.

For Wu Yuan's new movies, middle-aged people in their forties and fifties and young people in their teens and twenties are all looking forward to it.

Especially this new movie "The Monkey King". From the trailer, the story is undoubtedly related to the Chinese idol Monkey King.

"Journey to the West" is undoubtedly the most famous and well-known work in China. Even if there may not be many people who have read the original novel, various versions of Journey to the West TV series and movies are definitely seen by every Chinese.

Compared with the science fiction films that Wu Yuan liked to shoot before, "The Monkey King" is undoubtedly a movie with a wider audience. It can even be said that it is the movie with the widest audience in Wu Yuan's 20 years of shooting. It can be said that any Chinese can be the audience of this movie.

In this case, the era of light and shadow did not invest too much publicity funds, and "The Monkey King" easily broke the circle and was known by almost all Chinese people.

On online ticketing websites such as Maoyan, the number of users who have made reservations to watch this movie has exceeded 10 million, unintentionally creating a new record for the number of users who have made reservations for movies.

All theaters are full of expectations for "The Monkey King", believing that this movie is very likely to break the box office record of mainland movies again, and are trying their best to coordinate the scheduling, wishing that 100% of the scheduling on the premiere day will be for this movie.

The owner of each theater believes that this movie will be the biggest carnival in the industry in 2018, and everyone is ready to pick up money with a sack.

Even optimistic theaters believe that the box office of this movie is likely to break 4 billion, raising the box office record of Chinese-language films from 3 billion+ to a new level of 4 billion!

It has been several years since the box office of a single mainland movie has entered the 3 billion era. It is indeed time to break through. After all, this year's total mainland box office market has increased by 20% compared to last year, and a new record should have appeared.

It can be said that since the release date of "The Monkey King" was set and the promotion began, major theaters have prepared sacks and are waiting for this movie to be released. It can be said that they are looking forward to it!

The eagerly awaited protagonist Wu Yuan, however, did not pay much attention to the release of this film.

For Wu Yuan, when he finished shooting a film and finished post-production, the work of the film was over for him, and the subsequent release was no longer his job.

Now he is very leisurely, and even has time to care about another director and shareholder of the company, Mr. Zhang Guorong.

In a lounge of Light and Shadow Times, Wu Yuan and Zhang Guorong sat face to face, drinking tea and chatting about their recent situation.

The reason why Zhang Guorong was in Beijing was to attend the premiere of "The Monkey King" tomorrow.

In recent years, Zhang Guorong has not spent much time in Beijing, and basically lives in Hong Kong Island.

His era has also passed.

This year, Zhang Guorong is 63 years old, and it has been almost 15 years since he ended his activities as a singer and actor. His popularity, which was considered the top idol in the whole of Asia, has basically dissipated with the passage of time.

No matter how popular a star is, there will be a day when he is out of fashion.

Although there are still many people on the Internet reminiscing about the glorious days when Zhang Guorong was a celebrity, he is basically not recognized when he goes out on the street anymore, and can enjoy a simple and precious life.

However, for a director, 63 years old is not considered old.

After all, there are still a group of directors in their eighties active in the world, and they are still working hard to bring new works to movie fans.

As for Zhang Guorong, after completely transforming into a director, he has been making movies for the Light and Shadow Era. The most recent movies are the "Along with the Gods" series.

In the original time and space, there were only two works in the Korean "Along with the Gods" series, but in this time and space, this series can be regarded as the pillar series of the Light and Shadow Era, and 4 works have been filmed.

The scripts for the first two parts were given by Wu Yuan, and the scripts for the last two parts were written by the screenwriter department of the Light and Shadow Era. They are all based on the underworld and ghost worldview of "Along with the Gods", and they also have some intersections with "Soul Ferry", which can barely be regarded as a branch of the Light and Shadow Era Xianxia movie universe.

It is probably similar to the relationship between Marvel's "Avengers" and "Guardians of the Galaxy", that is, two parallel stories in the same universe, but they can also be added when necessary.

This series has always been directed by Zhang Guorong, and the cumulative box office of the series has exceeded 3 billion, which is a good result.

However, Zhang Guorong met with Wu Yuan in advance today, not for this long-running commercial film series, but for another thing.

"Director Wu, I want to make my own art film!" (End of this chapter)