Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 81 Dividing the pie
"The Forbidden Kingdom" is scheduled to be released on the 24th of this month. "No One" has a three-week window to reap the box office revenue, which is more than enough time.

No one doubts whether "No One" can break 100 million yuan, because the box office trend is very obvious.

A successful movie can benefit everyone in the industry chain.

The audience enjoyed the wonderful content, the producers and distributors made money, the theaters also profited from the attendance, and the actors, writers, directors and other cast and crew also gained fame and fortune.

Among the actors, the one who benefited the most was naturally the male lead Zhao Wenzhuo. His movies were all failures, but he unexpectedly made a comeback with the help of a blind man.

The second is the supporting actress Fan Bingbing, who has more highlights than the leading actress, and both the audience and investors can see it.

Taking advantage of the popularity of "Arrogant", Fan Bingbing shouted out the slogan "Fan Bingbing, who is both civil and martial" - he can dance and fight, so how can he not be both civil and martial.

When Fan Bingbing was interviewed, he specially thanked director Li Qiutang: "I am very grateful to the director for giving me the role of Qin Niang. I watched the whole film for the first time at the premiere, and after watching the film I felt that I had chosen the right role." Isn't it the right role? The supporting actress has more scenes than the female lead, and she is the highlight of the female role in the whole play. Moreover, Qin Niang's character is well-designed. It goes without saying that she is both literary and martial. The key is that she also has a good personality. In order to cure the blind man's eyes, after escorting Ni Yan out of the city, she encountered danger alone and was defeated due to exhaustion. Although she died miserably in the end, it also made the audience feel pity for Qin Niang.

There is no reason why such a female character wouldn’t be popular.

Fan Bingbing has a role that has made him famous, so naturally he has to act pretentiously: "I think it's still the old saying, there is no such thing as a small role. As long as you prepare carefully and act seriously, everyone will see it."

The reporter asked an awkward question at this point: "Director Qiu Tang is preparing for The Sound of Wind, has he invited you?"

People who are familiar with the industry basically know that the casting of "The Sound of Wind" was probably Huayi's fault, so there is no way they would let Fan Bingbing play the role.

But the reporter just asked the question even though he knew the answer, otherwise how could he get out what Fan Bingbing said.

Sure enough, Fan Bingbing was fooled: "If Director Qiu Tang needs me, I'm always available."

What I want is your words!

"Fan Bingbing volunteered to act in "The Sound of Wind": The director can call me at any time!"

Isn't the topic here?
But no one paid attention to Fan Bingbing's initiative.

Huo Siyan is no longer struggling. The box office has steadily exceeded 100 million yuan. As the leading actress, if she is a little thick-skinned, she can brag that "No One" is her masterpiece.

What is there to be dissatisfied with.

Huang Xiaoming, on the other hand, was able to achieve such a result in his first time playing a villain, and Mingjiao fans no longer cared that he was a villain.

Huang Xiaoming is very satisfied with this result. He is currently actively promoting "No One" and himself in interviews, saying that he has a wide range of acting skills and can play both positive and negative roles.

Director Li Qiutang is of course the biggest beneficiary!
"Comet" made him a star, and the success of "Arrogant" made him completely famous!
At the age of 24, he has two feature films in theaters, both of which were box office successes. It is only a matter of time before the second one breaks million yuan, and it is also a matter of time before he becomes the fourth director in mainland China to enter the million yuan club.

It is no exaggeration to say that this director is a genius based on his resume.

Private film companies such as Xiaoma, Guangxian, and Chengtian are now no longer hiding behind Huayi and are coming to Li Qiutang to discuss cooperation!

Everyone in the industry knows that Li Qiutang and Huayi have signed a five-year, three-film contract. Now that the third film, “The Sound of Wind,” is being prepared, it’s a good opportunity to discuss cooperation.

They offered higher and higher bids.

Finally, Wang Zhongjun was forced to curse loudly: "They came to poach our people during the project preparation period. How shameless!"

Wang Zhongjun's scolding was of no consequence to them, so they continued the conversation.

Huayi had no choice. Li Qiutang's contract with Huayi was completed after filming "The Whistleblower", and they also had to discuss a new contract with Li Qiutang as soon as possible. It seems that Li Qiutang's role in balancing Feng Xiaogang has been fulfilled, and the Wang brothers certainly want to continue to cooperate with Li Qiutang.

Li Qiutang is not opposed to contacting other companies, and it may not be that she is not putting on a show for Huayi.

The 220 million original shares were considered an apology, but Li Qiutang still had to make some effort, otherwise he would be looked down upon.

However, Li Qiutang became more annoyed later on and simply stopped meeting anyone who came to discuss cooperation. His top priority at work now was only "The Sound of Wind".

Without a script, the location scouting team chose a place on the seaside cliff in Bincheng to build Qiu Village for him.

Li Qiutang was very satisfied after seeing it. He thought that this place was surrounded by the sea on three sides, which was in line with the tone of "The Sound of Wind" of despair yet a glimmer of hope. He agreed to build Qiu Zhuang here.

The art team already had the blueprints, so they started work soon.

The one and a half month creative meeting produced a lot of results. After the attempt at an interview-style script failed, Li Qiutang and Chen Guofu wrote a draft together, which was the draft of the original time and space.

The two changed the single female protagonist Li Ningyu in the novel into dual female protagonists Gu Xiaomeng and Li Ningyu, because Li Qiutang and Wang Zhonglei had the same idea: to let Zhou Xun and Li Bingbing play opposite each other!

For this reason, the identity of the Military Control Commission spy in Gu Xiaomeng's novel was deleted. The character was simplified to allow the audience to better understand it and to cut out unnecessary plot branches.

Li Qiutang also transferred the identity of the old ghost from Li Ningyu to Gu Xiaomeng. Gu Xiaomeng was born into a wealthy family and was a bit spoiled. Such a person turned out to be my underground intelligence officer. This arrangement of characters has a stronger sense of contrast, and this role is more suitable for Zhou Xun.

The increase and decrease of Gu Xiaomeng's status corresponds to the increase and decrease of Fei Yuan.

In the novel, the Japanese officer who tortured everyone in Qiuzhuang was named Feiyuan. Li Qiutang and Chen Guofu changed the character's name to Takeda, and added a scene for him to clear the family shame, because Takeda is a very glorious surname in Japan, and the story of Takeda Shingen is well known to all Japanese.

Most of the other characters have been reduced. Wu Zhiguo has been changed from a complete traitor and lackey to the second underground intelligence officer, cooperating with Gu Xiaomeng's work.

In order to give the audience excitement, Li Qiutang also created an original character named Liu Ye, whose job is to torture people with acupuncture to extract confessions.

He and Chen Guofu both agreed that it was necessary to appropriately demonstrate torture.

First, it shows the hardships and dangers of underground struggles and the tenacity of our underground intelligence personnel. Second, from a creative perspective, appropriately showing torture can help stimulate the audience and increase box office sales.

This draft of the script was approved.

At the same time, the investment share of "The Sound of Wind" was also negotiated. If "No One" hadn't become a hit, both parties might not have been so straightforward.

The specific budget has not yet been released, but China Film Group and Huayi Film Group have agreed that the cost of "The Sound of Wind" should be kept within 1 million yuan.

Li Qiutang invested 37.3% of the total in the form of copyright of "The Sound of Wind" and cash, and the screenwriter and director fees were calculated separately.

Huayi holds a 23.5% stake and is responsible for casting, production control, and publicity and promotion, promising that the publicity and promotion costs will not be less than 3000 million.

China Film Group Corporation took over the remaining 39.2% and jointly distributed the film.

Learning from the excellent experience of "Assembly", Huayi and China Film Group both said they would bring in funds from theater chains to ensure the screening schedule.

Cinemas will probably want to invest in Li Qiutang's film.

Huayi is feeling very regretful now. It missed out on getting the biggest piece of the pie with such a great story like "The Whistleblower".

(End of this chapter)