Chapter 370: Sky-high Price Props
"On the Beach at Night Alone" grossed 3.7 million yuan and ended perfectly, and other directors in the circle were jealous.

"It has been proven that art films can also achieve box office revenues that are no less than commercial films."

Jia Zhangke spoke first, followed by a group of directors including Lou Ye and Wang Xiaoshuai.

"Director Gu, your movie has become a model in the industry. Art film directors all say they want to follow your template in the future."

After attending the LeTV celebration, Song Ge chatted with Gu Wei in the office.

"Hey, that's bullshit. The movies they made are not of the same genre as ours, or in other words, they are not even on the same track."

To be honest, Gu Wei scoffs at the remarks made by Jia Zhangke and others. These so-called art film directors shoot so-called art films and documentaries that all reflect the lowest level of the country.

According to their purpose, these films were made in order to sell the copyrights at European and American film festivals. Few people even thought about releasing them domestically. To put it bluntly, this group of people are using the pain of the lower classes to please European and American filmmakers.

Getting paid and so-called awards, maybe you can say that there are indeed contradictions in the country and there are relatively miserable areas, but many scenes are by no means as inferior and disgusting as they are filmed.

In Gu Wei's mind, there are many types of art films. If he wants to win an award, he can shoot the tragic side of foreign countries, but he will never use the suffering of the bottom-level workers in China to cater to the judges of the film festival.

On the contrary, in the next few years, he will use domestic special effects blockbusters to severely impact the three views of the European and American people.

...

The average daily box office of "Wuxia" made the producer Star Media remain silent to the outside world, while internally putting pressure on the director.

Helplessly, Chen Kexin had to take the crew to start a new round of publicity.

However, at the promotional site, reporters had no interest in what Chen Kexin said about the hard work of filming and the actors' hard performances. Instead, they directly asked about what the netizens had discovered.

"Director Chen, netizens discovered that the costumes and props used by the crew during filming cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. One straw hat alone was worth $6000, not including the courier fee. How do you explain this?"

Chen Kexin was stunned by the reporter's question and said, "I am only responsible for filming, so I don't know the specific cost of props."

"I heard that the crew bought a safe specifically for this straw hat. Director Chen, is this necessary?" asked a reporter from Southern Metropolis Daily.

"Since you've bought it, it's necessary. Besides, filming is the business of the director and the crew. What do you know?" Chen Kexin said with disdain. He didn't take the question seriously at all. In his opinion, the reporters were making a fuss for the sake of gimmicks and traffic.

At this time, shouldn’t everyone care about movies and the box office? Why are you talking about those things?
After hearing Chen Kexin's words and his disdainful tone, the reporters below became unhappy, and then another reporter boldly asked questions.

"I can understand that it cost 4300 million to build Hong Kong last time, but this time a straw hat costs 6000 US dollars, which is equivalent to more than RMB. It's too extravagant. Is it true that you can be as bad as you are given?"

As soon as the reporter from Sina Entertainment finished speaking, reporters from other media nearby couldn't help but give him a thumbs up in their hearts. They all raised their microphones, wanting to hear Chen Kexin's explanation.

Looking at the excited reporters, Chen Kexin became a little flustered and stammered before saying a few words.

“Money is earned, not saved.”

"Director Chen, you said that you made money, but the box office of this movie is average at the moment. It seems that it is even a question whether you can make back the investment..."

"Director Chen, what do you want to say now about your boast before the release that the box office would be at least 500 million?"

"Director Chen..."

Seeing the reporters asking more and more questions, Chen Kexin became annoyed. He interrupted the interview and left angrily.

The staff then directly kicked the reporter out.

The reporters who left the room were not angry. They looked at each other with smiles in their eyes, and then went back to finish their manuscripts.

As soon as Chen Kexin's interview came out, the popularity of the movie suddenly increased, but it was negative, and there was an uproar on the Internet.

"Nah, a hat costs tens of thousands of dollars, and it's LV brand?"

"Alas, how can he say that money is earned? From the looks of it, this movie is likely to make the investors lose a lot of money."

"This guy has always been greedy, but now he is being greedy openly and openly."

Well, at this moment the producer Xingmei is dumbfounded, you are such a talent, they asked you to do the promotion and you did the opposite, you are really f*cking unconvinced.

Due to the heated discussions online and the not-so-good word of mouth, the average daily box office of "Wuxia" has dropped back to around 10 million. At present, it is uncertain whether it can reach 200 million, let alone a guaranteed minimum of 500 million.

As for the hotly debated "sky-high priced straw hat" incident, Chen Kexin chose to simply give up. When she attended subsequent events, she remained silent and refused to answer any questions from reporters.

"Lao Lu, look at them, one hat is over 40,000, if they have a few more, it will be almost higher than my salary."

In the crew of "The Blade of the Assassin", after seeing the news, Wu Jing couldn't stop sighing with admiration, and he almost asked Lu Yang to "give him more money".

"I've heard that these Hong Kong directors are greedy before, but I didn't expect them to be so greedy. You know, other domestic film and television companies also have money but nowhere to spend it. So much money, they just give it away without any hesitation."

Lu Yang ignored Wu Jing's expression and added money. He didn't look at the total cost of the entire crew. The investment of one movie was enough to make several movies. "Seriously, when our movie is released, let them see what a "martial arts movie" is." Wu Jing suddenly said.

After hearing this, Lu Yang nodded with a serious expression.

You know, when the movie "Wuxia" was promoted, it used the promotional slogans of real martial arts films in recent years, devaluing other martial arts films, which made Lu Yang extremely unhappy. Although Hong Kong martial arts films were once very popular, who says that the mainland can't make classic martial arts movies.

Lu Yang was holding his breath, not just for fame, but just to prove himself.

"Let's find some time and go watch this movie together?" Lu Yang suddenly looked at Wu Jing and said.

"If we go to the cinema, wouldn't that just be giving them box office revenue?" Wu Jing smacked his lips, somewhat reluctantly.

"If you know yourself and your enemy, you can win every battle. Let's go and see what's wrong with this movie so that we can avoid this kind of situation." Lu Yang said with some regret.

"Okay, let's go there?"

"I definitely have to go, but I have to go secretly so as not to be photographed by reporters."

"You pay for the movie tickets."

"..."

...

In recent years, with the rapid development of the mainland's market economy, those who have become wealthy have also made a name for themselves in the international market. Big bosses buy airplanes and yachts, and ordinary people buy gold and jade.

For a time, the Chinese people's generosity left a deep impression on this group of foreigners.

In the film industry, people are also buying both domestically and overseas.

The reason for this, in the final analysis, is the explosion of the domestic wholesale film business. There have already been cases of wealth creation, so a large number of investors have flocked in.

For example, "The Expendables", which was introduced to China last year at a copyright price of about 50 US dollars, eventually set a new record for the domestic box office of batch films with 2.15 million yuan.

The success of "The Expendables" not only boosted the confidence of film distribution companies, but also allowed more companies and capital to enter the industry.

The so-called batch film sales are when mainland film producers buy out the screening rights of films from foreign film producers at a fixed price, while foreign film producers do not participate in the mainland box office revenue sharing.

According to the latest policy, only China Film Corporation has the right to import films in the mainland, while Huaxia and China Film have the distribution rights.

However, these two companies, firstly, do not have enough energy to make batches of films, and secondly, importing films is also risky and it is impossible to make profits without losses.

As a result, some private companies were born to assist in promotion.

Because the domestic market is getting bigger and bigger, relying on the survivor bias, there are indeed some batch films that have allowed investors to obtain high returns.

For example, "Independence Day," which was released in the first half of this year, took in tens of millions of RMB at the box office in just over a week with almost no publicity, while the buyout price for such films is only about a few million RMB.

For investment companies, this cost is of course a drop in the bucket, but once successful, the returns can be several times, dozens of times, or even hundreds of times, which is very cost-effective.

For individual investors, this is also an opportunity worth trying. After all, compared to spending tens of millions or even hundreds of millions to shoot a movie, where the box office cannot be guaranteed, this approach has less risk.

Not only small companies and individual investors, but also big companies in the circle are gradually getting involved in this field.

After all, the famous one is Huayi Company, which directly teamed up with Hollywood Entertainment Company to jointly establish a new company to be responsible for this business.

Subsequently, companies such as Bona and Guangxian also took action. Although the entry of these capital giants would affect the interests of small companies, it also brought up the popularity of this field.

As for Song Ge, he naturally discovered this business, but after discussing with Gu Wei, he decided not to get involved.

In Song Ge's words, "Director Gu, please work harder and invest in producing two more Hollywood movies. We can earn the US dollars without any effort."

Hearing this, Gu Wei thought of the remake of "Titanic" which was nearing the end of production and was also a super high-grossing film.

Add to that the copyrights to Despicable Me, the Frozen series, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and he will be busy enough in the next few years.

A week after the release of "Wuxia", it was basically doomed.

Meanwhile, France.

In the crew of "The Chinese Zodiac", after finishing the filming here, everyone was about to return to China to shoot other scenes. Liu Yifei said hello to Cheng Long.

Afterwards, he secretly set off for China with his assistant to give Gu Wei a surprise.

...

(End of this chapter)