Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 85 Visiting the Set (210 Requesting First Order)
"The Forbidden Kingdom" was released in North America before mainland China, and its results were released first. It grossed $755 million on the first day in North America and $2090 million in its first weekend, winning the single-day and first weekend box office championships.

This result surpassed the first weekend record of Chinese-language films such as "Hero" with $1800 million and "Huo Yuanjia" with $1050 million, and was far ahead of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with $864 million, setting a new first weekend box office record for Chinese-language films released in North America.

This result is really good.

A few days later, the domestic results came out.

1600 million on the first day and 8000 million in the first weekend. Although it did not reach the expected goal of over 2 million in the first weekend, Huayi still has enough confidence that the domestic box office will exceed million.

Such good results will undoubtedly bring huge benefits to the actors. The marginal benefits to Jackie Chan and Li Lianjie are certainly not that great, but for Liu Yifei and Li Bingbing, it can be said that the impact is huge.

Having made a name for herself in the international film industry, Li Qiutang didn't know much about Liu Yifei's situation, but she knew a lot about Li Bingbing's situation through internal information from Huayi.

It has been about ten days since the film was released in North America. Due to her eye-catching look as the white-haired witch, Li Bingbing has been favored by many overseas investors and directors, and many foreign film producers have approached her to discuss cooperation.

However, the domestic reputation of "The Forbidden Kingdom" is not very good.

As mentioned before, domestic audiences are the most tolerant and have the most diverse aesthetics, but at the same time, they are also the most demanding.

Many domestic audiences could not hide their disappointment after watching "The Forbidden Kingdom" - the deliberate display of kung fu in the film made people feel far-fetched, and although the fighting scene between the "Double J" was beautiful, the two's previous films rarely used wires. After adding the "mythological" color, there were too many "flying" shots that people were not used to. The whole movie gave people a feeling that was neither Chinese nor Western, neither native nor foreign.

Although the film's story is said to be based on "Journey to the West", in fact it has little connection with it. It simply borrows the classic literary image of Sun Wukong to create a new story with a purely Western perspective. Therefore, the audience feels that the screenwriter is talking nonsense and misinterpreting Chinese culture.

In such Chinese action films, there are always warriors with smoky makeup and Westernized dialogues, giving people a sense of forced disharmony.

Many viewers said that the action design of "The Forbidden Kingdom" was not even as good as "No One" because of the addition of fantasy elements.

Jackie Chan anticipated this and said before the film premiered: "In fact, The Forbidden Kingdom is a film made for Americans. Chinese people may not like it."

Some fans even talked about the entire Chinese-language Kung Fu film industry based on "The Forbidden Kingdom", saying that there will be no successors to Chinese-language Kung Fu stars in five years.

Of course, they also talked about the hit drama "No Man's Land" this month: "But Zhao Wenzhuo is already 36 years old. He became popular again this year with "No Man's Land", but it is still a question whether he can still shoot such excellent action scenes without Li Qiutang." Audiences and critics generally believe that the success of "No Man's Land" is due to Li Qiutang's ability to shoot, not how well the actors performed.

"…If this continues, 'Kung Fu is dead' is not a joke. Isn't the 'prophecy' in 'The Forbidden Kingdom' that the American kid will save Chinese Kung Fu going to come true?"

Such remarks are consistent with Li Qiutang's pessimistic assessment of the prospects of martial arts films during the promotion period of "No One in My Eyes".

Li Qiutang knew that "The Forbidden Kingdom" would be a commercial success, so she didn't care much about the movie.

The crew of "The Sound of Wind" had a lot of things waiting for him to do. The production team had broken down the script scenes and worked out a rough shooting schedule. Now they asked Li Qiutang to quickly select the cast so that the production team could coordinate the actors' schedules and make the most complete shooting schedule.

However, conflicts arose between the two major production companies, Huayi and China Film, over casting.

During the investment negotiation stage, Huayi explicitly requested that they be responsible for the casting and paid extra money for this.

But in actual practice, China Film Corporation will definitely interfere with casting. Although China Film Corporation has not signed contracts with the actors, it can still give suggestions.

Li Qiutang wants Zhou Xun and Li Bingbing, and Huayi agrees to help him get them, but now Li Bingbing is very arrogant and doesn't consider the domestic crew at all.

The role of Li Bingbing was still undecided, and China Film Corporation suggested not to discuss her and to replace her with someone else, but Huayi disagreed. China Film Corporation then suggested using two Hong Kong and Taiwan actors to boost the box office - China Film Corporation also likes to do this now - but was opposed by Li Qiutang.

He didn't object to Su Youpeng playing Bai Xiaonian, as he did a good job in the role, but adding actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the cast was not an option.

Fortunately, Huayi did not have a quarrel with Li Qiutang on "The Sound of Wind". They gave the people the job and paid them generously.

The box office of "No One in My Eyes" has exceeded 100 million, and Li Qiutang is in great glory, and no one dares to offend him.

In addition, "The Forbidden Kingdom" had a good box office in China, Huayi made money, and it was open and honest in its words and deeds.

The biggest competitor of "The Forbidden Kingdom" is naturally "Iron Man" which is targeting the May Day period.

But Li Qiutang didn't pay much attention to the schedule, he went to Hengdian. His teacher Jiang Wei's new play "The Hidden" was being filmed in Hengdian, and he came to visit his teacher today.

He brought some fine tea for Jiang Wei.

Jiang Wei was still puzzled: "You have a lot of things to do over there, and you still have the time to come to me."

Li Qiutang said: "I don't need to keep an eye on that side. They are all old teams. We just need to move forward step by step."

He even said with a grin: "This is also my first time to shoot a spy film, so I came to learn from you.

"When we were in school, you didn't teach us how to shoot spy movies."

Jiang Wei was so angry that he laughed: "I haven't taught you how to shoot science fiction yet, but you still did it."

Jiang Wei worked on "The Disguiser" for a long time, and it took him nearly a year to write the script alone.

As the teacher and the student were talking, Zhang Jing, the show's chief producer, came over and said with a smile, "Great director, it's not easy to see you."

Li Qiutang smiled and said, "I'm not the Jade Emperor. How hard can it be to see me?"

Jiang Wei signed a long-term contract with Zhang Jing and was a director in her company. Li Qiutang had met her before when they were in school.

The three of them exchanged a few words, and then Jiang Wei and Zhang Jing continued filming.

The actors on the set didn't know that Li Qiutang would come today.

Li Qiutang sat next to the teacher, watching the monitor intently.

Even though it's a spy war movie, the set is actually quite joyful, with some mistakes and jokes making the crew laugh.

"What are you looking at?" Wang Cuiping, played by Yao Chen, put on new clothes and found through the mirror that Yu Zecheng was looking at her.

"Like Lin Daiyu."

"Who?"

"Lin Daiyu."

"This must be a wild woman you met somewhere!"

“Hahahaha!” Sun Honglei was about to make a frustrated expression, but he broke it immediately.

Li Qiutang and Jiang Wei in the director's studio also laughed.

"Click." Jiang Wei called out and took Li Qiutang into the set.

Li Qiutang now has a bit of an attitude of "everyone in the world knows him". After entering the set with Jiang Wei, both the two actors Sun Honglei and Yao Chen, as well as the staff on the scene, greeted him very politely.

Li Qiutang laughed and said, "I don't have any supernatural powers, so don't look at me like that."

Sun Honglei laughed and said, "I want to see what a 24-year-old billionaire director looks like. He looks average."

Li Qiutang said, "If I were good-looking, I would steal your job." She also said that Sun Honglei "has shifty eyes and looks like a spy. He doesn't look like an underground worker like me."

Made everyone laugh.

(End of this chapter)