Chapter 881: The Attack of Humei Factory
Before the Lantern Festival, on February 10, 1998, the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this year's Oscar nominations. Hero was nominated for four awards, including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Foreign Language Film.
When the news reached China, it immediately attracted heated discussions among countless industry insiders and the public.
"Hero" was nominated for four Oscars, although the only truly valuable ones were Best Director and Best Cinematography. However, this is another big victory for Chinese films at the Oscars after "Farewell My Concubine", and it is worth celebrating.
Taking advantage of this trend, Wenhua Films held a press conference.
The Spring Festival has passed, and the city streets are as busy as usual. Nowadays, there are more and more private cars in Yanjing City, and the Mercedes-Benz driven by Lin Weimin has long become inconspicuous and even a little outdated.
He arrived at the press conference this morning. The main content of today's press conference was about the film projects that Wenhua launched this year.
After three years of accumulation and sedimentation, this year's Wenhua Film and Television can be said to be strong and powerful.
A single piece of sequins can cause discussions among all the reporters present.
Zhang Yimou will return to historical costume blockbuster after "Hero" and will direct "The Last Tang Dynasty", a historical costume film set in the Tang Dynasty.
The background story of this movie is that during the Anshi Rebellion, the main force of the Tang army in the Western Regions returned to Chang'an to quell the rebellion. The thousands of soldiers who stayed behind fought against hundreds of thousands of Tibetan troops. This isolated army defended the Western Regions for 42 years, preventing the Tibetans from taking advantage of the chaos to invade Chang'an.
The story takes place in 790 AD. There are only two cities left in the Western Regions, Qiuci and Xizhou. The military funds were transported between the two places, but the money transporting team died with the enemy halfway. When a refugee was stealing money, he was subdued by a Tang soldier who had fainted before. So the Tang soldiers escorted the refugee on a journey to deliver the money, and finally delivered the military funds after going through untold hardships.
The origin of this movie is a micro-movie in later generations, "The Last Transfer of the Tang Dynasty in Mobei", a micro-movie of only 16 minutes, without high production costs and without the participation of big stars. However, such a micro-movie has swept the Internet in a short period of time, touching thousands of netizens, and is called by countless people as the most epic Chinese blockbuster.
After filming "Hero", Zhang Yimou once wanted to try a new subject matter, but Yu Dong felt that it would be a waste to give up on the path of costume blockbusters after Wenhua had finally blazed a trail. Moreover, not every director could shoot a costume blockbuster of the level of "Hero".
He persuaded Zhang Yimou for a long time before Zhang Yimou finally agreed to continue to delve deeper into this field.
The subject matter was there, but the specific script became a problem.
With the success of "Hero" as a precedent, ordinary movie scripts could not inspire Zhang Yimou's creative desire.
A few years ago, Yu Dong mentioned this matter to Lin Weimin, and Lin Weimin talked to Zhang Yimou about it, and thus a movie called "The Last Tang Dynasty" was born.
In addition to Zhang Yimou's return to the costume historical blockbuster "The Last Tang Dynasty", Feng Xiaogang's new film "A Sigh", which has dominated the Lunar New Year box office for three consecutive years, has also recently been approved and the script is being written. This time, Feng Xiaogang and Wang Shuo, the golden pair, have joined hands again, which naturally aroused the expectations of many people.
In addition, Guowenshe has four films in production this year, two of which are the products of last year's script solicitation campaign, and the other two are animated films.
At today's press conference, Lin Weimin did not go on stage, but just sat in the audience as a spectator.
After more than three years of experience, Yu Dong's every move has a strong aura, and he has the demeanor of a big boss, and he can also control the situation.
After the press conference, Zhang Yimou was surrounded by many reporters, and Feng Xiaogang ran over to say hello to Lin Weimin.
The two chatted for a while and Feng Xiaogang looked in the direction of Zhang Yimou who was surrounded by a crowd, with a bit of envy in his eyes.
The news that "Hero" was shortlisted for four awards at this year's Academy Awards has just reached China. Zhang Yimou appeared at the press conference today and naturally became the focus of reporters.
"Are you envious?" Lin Weimin asked with a smile.
"Of course I'm envious. Among all the directors in our country, who doesn't envy Director Zhang?
Art films can win awards at European film festivals, and commercial films can earn hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. How does the saying go? A writer can bring peace to the world with a pen, and a warrior can make a difference on horseback.
I'm talking about Director Zhang!" Feng Xiaogang said with a mixture of envy and emotion.
“When you make comedies, you’re inherently at a disadvantage in this regard, unless you’re making something on the level of Charlie Chaplin.
But you don’t have to rush. Comedy is something you can only do when you are young. After a few years, you won’t be able to do it even if you want to.”
The art form of comedy not only requires people to let go of themselves, but most importantly, it requires full passion and overflowing talent.
To put it simply, create a tragedy, kill a few people and you can easily earn the tears of readers or audiences.
But when you make a comedy, you want to make the readers or the audience laugh, and also have it linger and have profound meaning, which is much more difficult than a tragedy.
Moreover, many people may still be talented when they reach a certain age, but after achieving success, they find it difficult to let go of themselves, and their passion also wanes, making it even more difficult to produce good comedy works.
Feng Xiaogang made comedy films, so he naturally understood what Lin Weimin meant. He nodded and wholeheartedly agreed with what he said.
After chatting with Feng Xiaogang for a few words, Lin Weimin and Yu Dong sat together.
"Good performance today!" Lin Weimin praised.
Yu Dong smiled sheepishly and asked, "Since you are sitting downstairs, I will know what's going on."
Feng Xiaogang on the side thought: No wonder he is a general manager at such a young age, look at his language skills!
Yu Dong and Lin Weimin talked about their trip to Shanghai two days ago. Wenhua Film and Television took the opportunity of producing "Shuke and Beta: The Might of the Tigers" to poach many animators from Shanghai Animation Studios. It was reasonable for them to communicate with Jin Guoping.
So as soon as he started working after the New Year, Yu Dong went to Shanghai.
When seeing Jin Guoping, Yu Dong put on a very humble attitude. This way, Jin Guoping couldn't blame him. After all, Wenhua Film and Television poached people with high salaries. Shanghai Mei Factory itself didn't pay its employees high salaries, but Wenhua Film and Television was willing to pay these employees high salaries. He couldn't just scold them. That would be so shameless!
Of course, another important reason why Jin Guoping couldn't get angry was the performance of "Shuke and Beta: The Power of the Tiger" after its release.
This animated film was released on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Although Cheng Long's Lunar New Year film "Who Am I" was released at the same time, the audience styles of both parties were very different, so "Who Am I" had almost no impact on "Shuke and Beta: Back to the Future".
In the first week last week, "Shuke and Beta: The Movie" earned 8.1 million at the box office.
As soon as this number came out, there was a burst of joy in Wenhua Film and Television.
"Shuke and Beta: The Might of Tigers" was invested with 6 million yuan and the publicity cost was 1.5 million yuan. Wenhua Film and Television is well aware of the current situation of animation in China, so the box office expectations for their first film are not that high. They just hope that the box office can exceed 10 million.
But the movie’s box office in the first week really gave Wenhua Films a big surprise.
In the second week, the box office of "Shuke and Beta: Back to the Future" steadily increased to 12.5 million yuan, and the cumulative box office exceeded 20 million yuan in two weeks.
Such a result is perfect for a domestic animated film.
The 1970s and 1980s were the peak period for domestic animated films. Audiences during that period could occasionally see domestic animated films in movie theaters, but most of the time these animated films were just popular science screenings and made little box office revenue.
After the 1990s, the environment for domestic animated films deteriorated rapidly and they were basically extinct from movie theaters.
In recent years, the only two animated films that have achieved good box office in the film market are imported films, one is "The Lion King" in 1995, and the other is "Toy Story 1" in 1996. "The Lion King" has a box office of 41.3 million, becoming a mountain standing in front of Chinese animated films, which seems insurmountable.
"Shuke and Beta: Full of Power" grossed 20.6 million in box office in two weeks, which not only gave the producers and distributors a big surprise, but also made many animation practitioners and animation audiences see the dawn of domestic animated films.
Now that "Shuke and Beta: Back to the Future" has been released for three weeks, the box office saw a significant drop in the third week, reaching only 7.2 million yuan, and the cumulative box office has reached 27.8 million yuan. It seems that there is no doubt that the box office will exceed 30 million yuan.
Although this result is still some distance away from "The Lion King", it has broken the box office ceiling of domestic animated films and is worthy of everyone's pride.
The biggest beneficiaries of the success of "Shuke and Beta: The Power of the Tiger" are not only Wenhua Films but also Shanghai Film Studio.
Today's Humei Factory has long lost its former glory, and its operating conditions are getting worse and worse. It can be said that Wang Xiaoer's New Year is getting worse every year.
Cooperating with Wenhua Films was a helpless move under internal and external difficulties, but what was unexpected was that such a helpless move actually achieved remarkable results.
Shanghai Art Studio invested 1 million yuan in "Shuke and Beta: The Movie". If the movie can achieve a box office of more than 30 million yuan, Shanghai Art Studio can earn about 2.3 million yuan in revenue. The investment return is very considerable, but more importantly, "Shuke and Beta: The Movie" brings Shanghai Art Studio confidence and development prospects.
Therefore, facing Wenhua Film and Television, which brought such success to Shanghai Meifang Film Studio, Jin Guoping would never break off relations with them.
Not only will the two sides not fall out, they will continue to strengthen cooperation.
Yu Dong stayed in Shanghai for a week, settling the affairs of the Shanghai branch of Wenhua Film and Television and settling many recruited animators.
At the same time, the Shanghai branch's projects for this year were finalized, one of which is "Shuke and Beta: The Best in the Year of the Rabbit", independently produced by Wenhua Films, with an investment of 8 million RMB.
Another one is also a cooperation with Shanghai Mei Film Studio. Both parties invested 10 million to develop the animated film "Calabash Brothers" based on "Calabash Brothers". This time Jin Guoping learned his lesson and invested 3 million yuan, which is also the limit that Wenhua Film and Television can accept.
The success of "Shuke and Beta: The Might of Tigers" brought confidence to Wenhua Film and Television, and also brought confidence to Shanghai Animation Film Studio to make animated films.
Yu Dong said this with a playful tone, "I heard that after I left, Lao Jin made some moves again?"
"What action?"
"Humei Factory has sought a bank loan, and it seems they are planning to invest in another animated film."
Lin Weimin laughed when he heard this, "Money can move people's hearts!"
Yu Dong said: "I am not optimistic about their big investment in animated films."
Seeing that Lin Weimin looked somewhat inquiring, Yu Dong explained a few words.
"When I was in Shanghai, I visited the Shanghai Film Studio and found that their concepts and management methods had not changed from the studio era. Lao Jin only saw the box office success of "Shuke and Beta: The Power of Tigers" but did not study how it succeeded.
The success of "Shuke and Beta: The Might of Tigers" is of course closely related to the production quality, but more importantly, it is the success of the marketing and publicity methods. Lao Jin and his team did not understand this and invested rashly, and the results may not be ideal. "
Listening to Yu Dong's words, Lin Weimin nodded and said, "Shuke and Beta: The Might of Tigers has achieved a rare box office in the history of domestic animated films, but it also has many shortcomings, especially compared with Hollywood animated films. The plot is childish, the animation effect needs to be improved, and the audience is narrow. If it hadn't found the promotion point of 'The whole family can watch Shuke and Beta', the box office would be far from the current level."
After he finished speaking, he looked at Yu Dong with a look of relief in his eyes, "Yes, you are clear-headed and you see things very clearly."
(End of this chapter)
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