China Entertainment 1997

Chapter 452 Crazy Entertainment Circle Actresses and "Hurricane Rescue" (Update 26)

Regarding Fanxing's next movie, most of the outside world is paying attention to "Painted Skin".

This "Liao Zhai" movie, which has special effects cooperation with Hollywood, Japanese and other companies, not only has a strong lineup, but also has the highest investment in Fanxing's history.

Although it has not yet been determined, the estimated production, distribution and publicity budget totals around 65 to 80 million. It is said to be 100 million. It is a large-scale production that will be counted next year.

There's no way around it, the movie industry is so busy right now, people are throwing money at them like they're desperate for their lives.

Lao Mouzi's "The City Is Full of Golden Armor" boasts an investment of 300 million, and Feng Xiaogang's "The Banquet" also claims 120 million.

Li Lianjie's "Fearless" and Liu Tianwang's "Mo Gong" both had investments of over 100 million.

I won't discuss how much water there is in this, but the key point is that Fanxing, as the leader in the industry, could be "stingy" in the past, but now it cannot weaken its momentum.

Although Cao Xuan is not capable of blowing a swollen face to support a fat man and making a profit at a loss, he still has the ability to follow along with a few words.

Another aspect is that large-scale production is conducive to publicity and selling prices.

Your typical shooting cost is 20 million US dollars, so the asking price must be more confident than the cost of several million yuan.

When Cao Xuan sold movie rights before, the cost data listed in the negotiations were several times higher than the actual cost, or even doubled directly.

Of course, overseas film producers are not fools. They also know how to do market research. They might be able to fall into the trap at first, but now they have learned a lot and will not be easily deceived.

Due to various reasons, Fanxing, who had not been concerned about costs before, had to keep up. The cost of "Painted Skin" also skyrocketed, successfully reaching "over 100 million".

With such a high cost, even if he was confident about the profitability of "Painted Skin", Cao Xuan did not go it alone, but took out a 35% share.

China Film took 15%, Huayi took 5%, Xingmei took 5%, and Yinghuang, Bona, and other companies and individual investors who came late shared the remaining 10%.

Fanxing himself received 50%, while Cao Xuan received 25 million in salary + 15% of the share in dividends.

The film "Painted Skin" had too much investment in special effects and required a lot of money. If Cao Xuan took all the salary, it would drain the crew's funds, so the salary was converted into dividends.

Similar to Cao Xuan is Li Lianjie. His salary is even worse than Cao Xuan. He put a lot of pressure on the "Fearless" crew, so he also chose to convert part of his salary into investment shares.

The conversion here is much more complicated than paying the film remuneration directly.

Sometimes the crew suffers, and sometimes the actors suffer. It mainly depends on the prospects of the project and who has the initiative. There is no specific measurement standard.

But no matter what, with such a high-cost production and Cao Xuan's signature being popular, it naturally attracted various concerns in the industry.

In particular, Mr. Xu was interviewed and talked about the setting of "Painted Skin"——

It’s a love scene, and the female protagonist’s role is even stronger than that of the male protagonist!

There are too few major commercial productions in the entertainment industry with female characters as the main characters. "Painted Skin" already has generous conditions, not to mention the director Xu Laoguai who is good at shooting women.

Lin Qingxia, Zhang Manyu, Wang Zuxian, Guan Zhilin, etc., many screen classics of those Hong Kong beauties were born from the hands of Mr. Xu.

It is recognized in the industry that Mr. Xu is one of the directors best at photographing women in the industry, and he naturally has a special aura that attracts many female stars.

As a result, all the popular actresses in the entertainment industry went crazy.

Because Zhao, who had just made a comeback in "Beijing Yanyun", directly announced to the public that he wanted to cooperate with Cao Xuan and Xu Laoguai.

International Zhang Mingming has confirmed to star in Feng Xiaogang's "The Night Banquet". Regardless of other things, he told the media that he has loved watching "Liao Zhai" since he was a child.

Mr. Zhou was originally in contact with "The Night Banquet", but now he has put it aside for the time being, and the entire team is working hard to promote "Painted Skin".

The sisters Li Bingbing didn't care whether the Wang brothers would think too much about it. They directly asked Wang Jinhua to meet, hoping to use Sister Hua to encircle Wei and save Zhao.

Sun Niangniang from Hairun, Zhang Yunu from Xiangjiang, Sister Zhiling from Taiwan Province, and even the slightly older Ning Jing, Xiao Tao Hong, Xu Qing and others all had ideas. Later, even actresses from Japan, South Korea, and Singapore came to talk to her. Contact the crew.

There are constant disputes within Fanxing. Fan Xiaopang is taking the lead and Gao Yuanyuan is not lagging behind. Even the Buddhist Dong Xuan came out to make a splash this time.

If Liu Tianxian wasn't of the right age and had another movie pending, he probably would have had to show his face.

The surging exposure and the help of major actresses have brought "Painted Skin" a high exposure.

But what many people don't know is that Cao Xuan himself actually values ​​another movie more - "Hurricane Rescue".

To be honest, "Painted Skin" is to a certain extent a women's drama. The male protagonist Wang Sheng's role is not weak, but his level of excellence is still inferior to that of the two female protagonists.

Therefore, Cao Xuan paid limited attention to this movie, and was prepared to be a "supporting actor". More expectations were placed on "Hurricane Rescue".

In fact, Cao Xuan originally wanted to film "The Raid", but later he felt that the plot line of "The Raid" was still too thin.

Cao Xuan is not particularly adapted to this kind of pure action movie, and he doesn't want to establish a pure "starring" character in Hollywood from the beginning.

Therefore, Cao Xuan chose "Hurricane Rescue" with a more complete script. In addition to action scenes, he can also show off his more delicate acting skills and expand his acting career in Hollywood.

Of course, the plot of "Hurricane Rescue" is actually not complicated. It is probably a story about rescue and family love.

Compared with the original movie, the plot of Starry's version of "Taken" remains roughly the same, but some adjustments must be made to the related background.

Father and daughter turned into brother and sister, retired agents turned into retired mercenaries, working as professional bodyguards in Hong Kong, French gangsters also moved to Asia, most likely to English-speaking countries in Asia.

It's not that Cao Xuan has any fondness for France, it's mainly that he has more connections in Asia and it's easier to shoot.

If there is a sequel to this movie, it could be set in the United States or Europe.

The male protagonist played by Cao Xuan is named Chen Jun. His mother died young and he married a stepmother who gave birth to his half-sister Chen Qian.

Because of this incident, Chen Jun had a normal relationship with his father. He left home early and joined the army. Later, he went abroad to work as a mercenary. Because he hated the battlefield, he came to Xiangjiang to work as a professional bodyguard with several comrades.

Although Chen Jun has only a moderate relationship with his father, his sister Chen Qian still likes her brother very much. Although Chen Jun dislikes her on his lips, he still misses her very much in his heart.

Chen Qian graduated from high school and traveled abroad with her best friend, but was caught by the kidnappers.

Because before going abroad, Chen Qian took a detour to Xiangjiang to meet her brother. Before she was arrested, Chen Qian instinctively called her brother. Chen Jun heard everything on the phone.

When the local police failed, Chen Jun returned to the local area, purchased guns and ammunition from the black market, fought against the gangs, and rescued his sister.

As an action drama, the biggest highlight of this drama is the process of a lone hero rescuing and fighting gangs.

However, compared with the original version, Cao Xuan still stuffed some private goods, such as the Chinese embassy, ​​after learning that his sister had been kidnapped, he actively tried to find ways to rescue her.

The male protagonist was afraid of long nights and many dreams, so he took action alone. The embassy also gave the male protagonist some help within a reasonable range.

Especially at the end of the movie, the male protagonist kills a very powerful local boss, and the local police are ready to cause trouble. Under the pressure and efforts of the embassy, ​​everything is safe in the end.

Although I have stopped there, the official image is very positive. It not only exports private goods, but also makes it easier to pass the review.

Cao Xuan plans to hire Lin Chaoxian of Xiangjiang as the director of "Hurricane Rescue". He has a lot of skills in scheduling shootouts and action scenes like this, as well as lens tension and rhythm arrangement.

At the same time, Lin Chaoxian is also the director in Xiangjiang that Cao Xuan focuses on. He is not a first-line director in Xiangjiang yet. He has many film appointments, but the resources at hand are limited.

Fanxing can take it under its wing. In the future, the company will have no shortage of directors to produce movies with themes such as police and gangsters, military, action, and gun battles.

In terms of actors, the role of the younger sister will most likely be played by Liu Tianxian. The role of the best friend will not have much role, so any actor will be fine.

There is also an embassy staff member, it is not difficult to choose, just find an actor in his 40s, elegant and upright, such as teacher Wang Luoyong.

More characters are passers-by and villains encountered sporadically during the rescue process.

Cao Xuan plans to make a mixed movie, with local actors as the main actors and Chinese actors as the supplement, with the latter playing local Chinese.

At that time, the finished film will also have two language versions. The domestic version will be based on Mandarin, supplemented by parts of English and local languages, and the other version will be in English, supplemented by parts of Chinese and local languages.

Although the movie is definitely dubbed later, we still hope that the actors, especially the leading actors, can master English proficiently.

Cao Xuan prefers actors such as Liu Tianxian and Wang Luoyong because they can speak English relatively proficiently.

Limited English speaking countries in Asia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and India.

If we look at plot logic alone, India is undoubtedly the most suitable place. However, Cao Xuan’s local connections are limited, so he prefers the first three countries.

Singapore, in particular, is very suitable for filming, but filming a gang kidnapping in this country... Cao Xuan felt it was a bit far-fetched.

In fact, the movie could be set in Thailand or Japan and Korea, but the language might be a bit confusing. Having a bunch of Thai/Japanese and Korean gangsters all speak English would be too far from reality.

Therefore, Cao Xuan hesitated and sent people to Malaysia and the Philippines to select locations and inspect public security. If it was suitable, he would shoot in these two countries. If not, he would shoot in Thailand or Japan and South Korea.

The investment in "Hurricane" is not high, mainly due to the location selection for filming abroad and Cao Xuan's salary, which Fanxing can easily bear on his own.

However, Cao Xuan's goal was to break into Hollywood, so he still gave up part of his share. He originally planned to win over Warner Bros. Pictures, but he didn't expect New Line Films to take it seriously.

This company is also a branch of Warner Group, but it is extremely independent.

New Line Cinema Group has produced and participated in many films, many of which are low-cost horror films, but there are also large-scale productions. The classic masterpiece is the "Lord of the Rings" series.

Cheng Long's "Red Zone" and "Rush Hour" series are also led by this company.

It was also because they had tasted the sweetness of Cheng Long that New Line Cinema wanted to see if they could recreate Cao Xuan.

Although New Line is not as good as the six major Hollywood giants, it is also a well-known film company and can borrow some of Warner's channels to a certain extent. It is a good starting partner for Cao Xuan.

Cao Xuan can catch up with Universal, Columbia and Warner, but they may not pay much attention to his movies, and even if they cooperate, they will not regard them as key projects.

On the contrary, it is better to cooperate with the weaker New Line. With Cheng Long's successful example, the other party will be more interested in "Hurricane Rescue".

New Line originally wanted to win the U.S. distribution rights for "Taken" in one fell swoop, but Cao Xuan disagreed. Even if the share could be lower, he still wanted the U.S. box office and copyright dividends.

You know, the global box office of "Taken" in the original time and space was 226 million US dollars, and the revenue from various channels and copyrights was even more.

Cao Xuan couldn't guarantee that this movie would be the same as The Original Time and Space, but even if it scored 1/3, it would still be considered a big profit, and he would definitely take a gamble and share the dividends.

After a series of wrangling, the two parties finally reached an agreement to divide the total income into various proportions of dividends based on regions.

New Line, which has mastered European and American distribution channels, will definitely take the lion's share, but Fanxing will not lose either.

Not only did it capture the profits in Asia, it also took a bite out of the largest North American market, earning almost 25 to 30% of the net profits from North American box office and copyright channels.

This is a negotiation. Although Fanxing is very strong, it has to be said that the initiative is almost entirely in the hands of Xinxian. If Cao Xuan didn't have other options, the negotiation would have collapsed long ago.

But Cao Xuan is not in a hurry. This is not the first time that he and the Americans have cooperated.

Wasn't it true that Warner was a high-minded and high-profile group back then, but now they are begging him to release records?

It doesn't matter if you suffer a little loss now. If "Taken" gets a name and shows its ability to make money, no matter how arrogant the Yankees are today, they will be more humble in the future, and the stars will be able to take more initiative.

In a capital society, whoever makes money is the master!

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ps: Just a brief mention, although some friends think the plot of the first two chapters is ridiculous, it is indeed the most subscribed in the past few months, with more than 10,000 subscriptions for a single chapter.

I personally feel that there is no need to change this plot, and I will not change it, but there will not be too much description later.

I have read the relevant opinions in the book club and this chapter, and I also understand the thoughts of some friends.

However, in order to attract new readers, I will still delete some book reviews in the book circle. I hope you will forgive me.

10,000 words updated, please give me a monthly pass