Millennium director

"Hey, if there's a $20 million box office split, that wouldn't be bad."

Wu Yuan, who was far away in Beijing, was very satisfied after receiving the box office data from the large-scale release of "Bruce Lee".

His ambition is not high. Let alone US$300 million in global box office, US$200 million would be enough for him.

Don't look at the commercial blockbusters in Hollywood these days, which easily gross more than one billion US dollars at the global box office, but the box office of hundreds of millions of dollars is not worth mentioning.

In fact, there are not many movies that can exceed 100 million US dollars in global box office every year, and they are concentrated in the two big countries on both sides of the Pacific.

The global box office can exceed 200 million US dollars, which is already worthy of bragging.

Especially low-budget movies can be called dark horses at the box office.

"Twenty million US dollars is almost 130 million yuan. If it is used to subsidize the Light and Film Times Cinema Line, it can last for half a year." Wu Yuan said with satisfaction.

Light and Film Times Cinemas is almost a wholly-owned company by him. Even if it now has more than 300 cinemas, it only introduces Light and Film Times as a shareholder.

Although he also gives stock options to senior executives, when the company is in difficulty, of course only he can contribute money to the company to ease the financial pressure.

Fortunately, for the time being, in the next six months to one year, the financial pressure on the theater chain of the Light and Film Era will not be great, and he can withstand a loss of 3.5 billion.

"However, we have to increase revenue and reduce expenditure." With that said, Wu Yuan turned on the computer.

Today is a rare working day for him, and he started to deal with recent company affairs in his study.

Wu Yuan has been relatively free in the past month, taking care of the children with Liu Yifei at home every day.

The couple finally heard their daughter calling her mom and dad late one night when she woke up crying with her pants pockets pulled open, which fulfilled Wu Yuan's expectations.

However, in a month of tenderness and raising a baby, there are always some days when you have to work.

Although we are facing an unprecedented epidemic, it does not mean that the company will stop working at all. It only means that all outside work will be stopped first, and other work will be transferred to online processing.

For example, the review of submitted scripts.

The Light and Shadow Era now has a very complete film investment system. Whether it is supporting emerging screenwriters, investing in new directors, or wooing famous directors in the industry, they all have their own system.

However, the films that were finally screened and confirmed for project production had to be reviewed by Wu Yuan. He was sure that they could do it. After signing, the project could actually be funded and enter the project preparation stage.

This is also the best choice Wu Yuan made to avoid damage to the company's investment. After all, at least until this year, his golden finger for seeing through the future will still be there, and he can still persist for another year or two.

Two years later, when the timeline has surpassed the experience in his dream, he will no longer have too many fingers on the film the company finally selected for investment. He will really just take a look at it, as long as it is not He would no longer veto a script that seemed like a loser at first glance, leaving the investment choices entirely to the company's professionals.

Sitting in front of the computer, Wu Yuan simply flipped through the movies that had been approved internally by the company.

Most of them were movies he didn't know about.

In the current Chinese-language film industry, there are too many films being created in a year, there are many new directors, and there are also many directors who have failed but still want to continue. And Light and Film Era is one of the largest large-scale film companies in the industry, so every year there are tens of Hundreds of scripts are devoted to the era of light and shadow.

In fact, after reaching the level of the Light and Shadow Era and becoming an industry giant, even without Wu Yuan's foresight and golden finger, it would be difficult for the company to make mistakes in the general direction.

Because a large number of movies and directors choose the Light and Shadow Era every year, even if there are some movies that lose money, from the overall base point of view, the company will definitely make money.

Unless Wu Yuan makes any major decision-making mistakes, he may bring the company into trouble.

But he is cautious and still has to personally screen the film projects that will eventually be approved.

This also gave him the pleasure of "digging for treasure".

No, not long after flipping through the pages, he saw a very familiar movie.

"Life Events" - screenwriter and director: Liu Jiangjiang.

"Mo Sanmei, who went to jail because of a fight with her girlfriend, was dumped by her girlfriend after she was released from prison..."

After seeing this movie, Wu Yuan immediately became energetic and immediately turned to the page about the director's introduction and script creation concepts.

After graduating from the University of Journalism in 2008, Liu Jiangjiang worked in Hebei Radio and Television, where he filmed the TV series "Things in the Village" and worked there for 11 years.

When the show stopped airing in 2017, he entered the film industry and wrote and directed "Going to Heaven", which was based on North China's funeral culture. He then submitted the script to the venture capital unit of the Dali International Film Festival.

The venture capital unit of the Dali International Film Festival was just established last year. Its main purpose is to provide a platform for emerging directors to shine. If any director thinks his project is good, he can invest in this unit. If he is selected, the Light and Shadow Era will Will invest in photography.

"Going to Heaven" was a work selected for the venture capital unit in 2019, and then Light and Shadow Times signed a contract with Liu Jiangjiang. The official project of this film also began to go through internal review and approval, and was finally sent to Wu Yuan.

In the project book, he actually wrote the details and reasons why Liu Jiangjiang created the script of this movie, as if he wanted to use these to impress Wu Yuan.

According to the project book, Liu Jiangjiang started writing the script in March 2019.

One day, Liu Jiangjiang got off work. There was a funeral clothing store next to the TV station. There was a car parked at the door. The car should be moving or unloading goods. There were wreaths and urns. In the evening, through the door and window, he saw a little girl sitting next to the coffee table, doing homework. That picture touched him directly. He felt as if he saw a theme. After having this idea, he quickly wrote the first version of the script.

The funeral director is a mysterious and niche profession. He wants to film the story of this profession and the warm side behind it, so that the public can understand this profession and the warmth of the funeral industry, so that everyone will not be so afraid and misunderstood about the funeral director.

Well, the concept is actually similar to Wu Yuan's "The Undertaker" that year, but compared to the Undertaker, this script, renamed "Life Events", is undoubtedly more commercial. It chose a very classic setting of uncle and loli, not the realistic old master and newcomer.

And from the perspective of the story structure, this movie is also very commercial. It is comedy-oriented but not lacking in tear points. The comedy of the film not only enhances the fun of watching movies, but also contains a positive attitude towards life, and also emphasizes the importance of emotions between people.

It can be said that just by looking at the script, you can see that this movie is a good work.

It is indeed nothing wrong to be selected by the Dali International Film Festival and finally handed over to Wu Yuan.

Wu Yuan agreed to the establishment of this project without any hesitation.

However, the original plan to start shooting in June this year is likely to be postponed. There is no way to determine when it will start shooting, but we can start preparations first! (End of this chapter)