Chapter 462: Half-finished Script
In the villa.

Gu Wei sat at the desk, holding a script in his hand, reading with interest.

Less than half an hour had passed since they had watched it, when Liu Yifei walked in with a smile on her face. Seeing this, Gu Wei casually put the book on the table.

"Is it a script?" Liu Yifei asked curiously.

"Well, I guess so. Wu Jing wrote it when he was filming "Special Forces: Blades Out of the Sheath". He gave it to me before he went to the crew of "Special Identity" a few days ago and asked me to take a look and give some advice."

"Is it?" After hearing what Gu Wei said, Liu Yifei picked it up casually and laughed after looking at it for a while. "Haha, it's indeed a bit too simple. It feels like it's just a framework."

This is probably a common problem for new directors. Although directing seems simple, the writing of a script alone can stump many people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many screenwriters emerging.

"Gunfight!"

"mercenary!"

"A domestic military action film? One with a realistic background?" Liu Yifei said as she watched, seemingly not very interested.

Gu Wei smiled and said, "Well, it's a mainstream work."

Hearing this, Liu Yifei frowned slightly. Even though she had never been a producer or director, she had been filming for such a long time that she knew that the market for domestic mainstream films had not been very good, or even very bad.

However, the young lady understood Gu Wei's character and knew he would never do anything without being sure of it. Thinking of this, she stopped asking about it.

The next day, in the office of Xingchen Film and Television Company.

On the sofa, Song Ge took the script that Gu Wei handed over, and after reading it for a long time, he raised the script in his hand and said to Gu Wei: "Director Gu, did you write this?"

"I added some content to the script Wu Jing handed me, and made some rough changes. I still need to supplement the details."

To be honest, the script that Wu Jing gave to Gu Wei was just a story framework with basically no content. It took Gu Wei an entire night to fill it with a lot of words.

In the original time and space, what can we say about the plot of "Wolf Warrior"? Leng Feng's teammates are all members of the special forces, but they did not show their due strength and showed too much personal heroism.

Moreover, the plot is a bit simple, there are not enough villain mercenaries, and the scenes look a bit petty and not exciting enough.

Song Ge said, "Director Gu, the script looks good, but the problem is that realistic themes have no market at all, and there are too many rules and regulations when filming, so it's not easy to do!"

“Yes, on the one hand, military-themed movies currently have no box office success, and on the other hand, the topic must be controlled so as not to cause sensitivity. In addition, planes, artillery and tanks must be used during filming, which is indeed very troublesome.

But the company will definitely make mainstream films in the future, so let Wu Jing be the director for this film, and bring in China Film Group and several departments responsible for this field to work together, just as a practice.”

Why are there so few military-themed films in China in the past decade or so?

Firstly, the Bayi Film Studio had shot many movies of this type before, with grand scenes and even the assistance of the state. Now that it is up to film and television companies to invest in the filming, the labor cost alone is a big problem.

If the investment is too small, the scene won’t be able to keep up; if the scene is too big, the investment will definitely not be small.

Secondly, the movies shot before were basically domestic war scenes, such as the three major decisive battles and the Battle of Crossing the Yangtze River.

There are not many works about foreign wars. Since "The Garland under the Mountain", among the major film and television companies in the industry, only Feng Xiaogang shot a film called "Assembly". There are not many scenes about the Vietnam War in it, and most of them are glossed over. It may be because they are afraid of involving issues such as the sensitivity of the international community.

After Gu Wei's explanation, Song Ge understood and said with a smile: "That's fine, but there is one thing you have to think about.

Since it is a company-invested production, the audience will definitely attribute this work to you, and will also compare it with similar Hollywood films. If it is not as good as others, it will tarnish your reputation as a great director! "To be honest, the United States has indeed produced some good military action films, such as "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan".

In this regard, the achievements are already far ahead of other countries' films.

However, there is still a gap in the market for contemporary military action themes in Chinese-language films.

Well, it’s not a complete vacuum, there have been a few unsuccessful attempts, one of which was the film “Codename Jaguar”.

Speaking of this movie, I guess many people have never heard of it. The film was produced by the then famous Xi'an Film Studio in China.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, starring Ge You and Gong Li.

It tells the story of a famous Taiwanese businessman's private plane being hijacked by terrorists played by Ge You, forced to land at an abandoned airport in the mainland, and then the two sides of the Taiwan Strait work together to rescue the hostages.

The terrorist Zheng Xianping, played by Ge You, is skinny and thin, but he acts very cruelly.

When he learned from a secret sentry that a commando had climbed to the top of the plane, he picked up a submachine gun and fired at the top of the plane, killing the commando on the spot.

However, the film was extremely unsuccessful and received so much criticism at the time that even Zhang Yimou did not dare to admit that it was his work.

Later, when someone brought up the matter again, Zhang Yimou had to explain that he owed the investor a favor and that he had not put much effort into the script the other party had found and had finished filming it in 27 days.

Perhaps because all the "national masters" had failed in this subject, or perhaps due to many factors such as the market and return on investment, there have been no military action-themed films in Chinese-language films for many years.

Actually, after "Codename Jaguar", there was another movie "Escape from the Amazon", which was produced in 02 by Bayi Film Studio and starred by Mr. Hou Yong. Although it was better than "Jaguar", it was too mainstream and still suffered a huge loss at the box office.

From this perspective, Wolf Warrior is remarkable and Wu Jing is indeed courageous. But at this moment, he is not optimistic.

In another time and space, even Song Ge was not optimistic about "Wolf Warrior 1", so he missed the distribution rights of "Wolf Warrior", which was eventually acquired by Minnan Hengye and made a fortune.

After reading the script of Wolf Warrior, Song Ge frowned and said, "If the story is set abroad, the result will definitely be good.

But it’s difficult to do this in China. According to this scenario, armed terrorists can actually enter the country. I guess they won’t even pass the review.”

Seeing Song Ge shaking his head slightly, Gu Wei couldn't help but think, yes, the country has always been cautious in dealing with this kind of issue.

But if the background is set abroad, there will be airplanes, cannons, tanks, and all kinds of advanced weapons and tactics.

But the result is still a domestic mainstream film, the taste is not right!

In the office, neither of them spoke. Gu Wei was thinking about whether to start the movie now or wait a little longer.

"Got it!" Song Ge suddenly patted his thigh and said.

"What?" Gu Wei's thoughts were interrupted and he asked out loud.

"How about this, we finish the script, then ask China Film Group to submit it for review. If it passes, we'll start the production. If it doesn't, we'll just wait. Anyway, Boss Han has always been obsessed with mainstream movies, so let's throw the problem to him and see what the higher-ups think!"

"Okay, let's do it this way. But there's no rush for the script. We can wait until Wu Jing and the others finish filming "Special Identity" before working on it." Gu Wei nodded and thought that Song Ge's method was good.

.........

(End of this chapter)