Chapter 203 Oscar Nomination

After the Spring Festival, good news came one after another.

First, "Inception" won a total of nine nominations at the 77th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Visual Effects. And because the director was Chinese, it caused a huge sensation in North America, Europe, and China.

In fact, Jiang Heng is not the first Chinese director to receive so many Oscar nominations. The first was Li An for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

But because he started out making low-budget art films, he is not that well-known to ordinary audiences.

Jiang Heng is different. Since 97, he has made special effects blockbusters one after another, sometimes even two a year, but he has never been recognized by any important awards.

Now, it has received nine Oscar nominations at once. The contrast is huge and it is really eye-catching.

As a result, entertainment media in North America and Europe began to discuss whether Jiang Heng could win the award and whether he could get the big prize.

As for the mainland, it was directly reported on CCTV News and the whole country knew about it in an instant.

Directors like Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Feng Xiaogang felt jealous after watching this.

In the crew of "Curse of the Golden Flower", Zhang Yimou, who was already relatively silent, became even more silent after hearing the news.

He has made several blockbusters in recent years, which have been criticized by the audience for not telling good stories. One important reason for this is that he wanted to cater to Western aesthetics and win an Oscar.

As a result, the box office was not very high, the reputation in mainland China was average, and it failed to win an Oscar.

Jiang Heng only used special effects as a selling point and focused on telling a good story, but he was nominated for nine major awards.

When Lao Zhang first heard the news, his heart almost collapsed!

Zhang Weiping, who was standing by, was also envious and snorted, "This kid is really lucky. He actually succeeded like this. He must have spent a lot of money!"

Zhang Yimou did not comment on this. He thought for a moment and sighed, "Let's just shoot this one first!"

Zhang Weiping said, "Yes, at least calm down that Zhou guy and finish the film. Damn, I've never seen someone so arrogant. Jiang Heng can be compared with Spielberg and Cameron, and he's always polite. That guy couldn't make it in Hollywood, so he came back and acted like a Hollywood star. It's fucking outrageous!"

Zhang Yimou advised: "Hey, at this moment, you can only bear it. If you have anything to say, wait until after the filming is over!"

Zhang Weiping nodded, his eyes a little fierce, "Wait until we finish filming, and then you'll see how I deal with him!"

If Zhang Yimou was simply "broken" when he heard that "Inception" received nine Oscar nominations, then Chen Kaige can only be described as "collapsed".

How does it feel? It's basically the same as when you are at your lowest point, the person in your village or class whom you usually look down upon becomes successful, and you find out about it.

In a mansion in the capital.

Chen Kaige sat on the sofa, watching "Inception" playing on the plasma TV with an expression of disbelief on his face.

In fact, at this time, pirated CDs of "Inception" were already sold everywhere.

And because of the "Oscar nomination", it was sold out in many places.

Director Chen Kaige originally disdained to buy pirated discs, but fortunately, the "Six Princesses of CCTV" responded promptly and rebroadcast "Inception" for several consecutive days.

Chen Kaige was so angry that he sat down and read it again.

After the film was over, he turned to Chen Hong and asked, "Do you think this film is good?"

Chen Hong said hurriedly: "It's quite vulgar, just a commercial film with a bit of suspense and special effects, it really has no artistic value!"

"I told you, in fact, sometimes Americans' eyesight isn't that good!" Chen Hong quickly agreed. Chen Kaige spoke passionately again, but after he finished, he felt even more uncomfortable.

Because of the collapse of both word-of-mouth and box office of "The Promise", the originally scheduled "The Monkey King" lost its investors.

What’s even more infuriating is that not only have the big productions disappeared, but no one even wants him to shoot films with small or medium investments. How embarrassing!

Seeing that he was really depressed, Chen Hong suggested, "How about we go to America for a while to relax? Maybe there will be some opportunities there!"

Chen Kaige was excited when he heard this. He had studied in the United States and served as a visiting professor at the New York Film Academy, so he would not be idle there.

After thinking for a while, he said, "Okay, let's go over there for a while!"

Old Chen did not mention that he took his wife and children to fly to the United States, but he did say that Jiang Heng had accepted many media interviews recently because "Inception" received nine Oscar nominations.

After a period of silence, the global box office results of "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" were released.

With $6.35 million, it is far less than the $9.12 million of "Inception", ranking fifth in the global box office rankings in 2004.

"Inception" ranked second, just behind "Shrek 9.28: The Monsters" with $2 million.

The performance of "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" in North America and Europe can only be described as mediocre, but it broke previous box office records in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Especially in the mainland market, it broke through the 8 million mark, and the final result was 8.13 million yuan, directly contributing to a box office success of million US dollars.

In Hong Kong, despite a group of filmmakers calling for a boycott, "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" achieved a box office success of 9700 million Hong Kong dollars, second only to "Titanic" with 1.15 million Hong Kong dollars.

One more thing to say is that "Titanic" is really amazing.

The box office records set around the world have taken many years for latecomers to catch up with.

In 2008, "Cape No. " released in Taiwan had already become a blockbuster film.

After 113 days of release, it achieved a box office success of NT$5.3 million, but only ranked second in the history of Taiwan's film box office, still second to "Titanic".

"Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" also performed well in Taiwan, earning NT$4.6 million at the box office.

All I can say is that the theme of Sun Wukong is the biggest IP for Chinese people.

In the past, a very poorly made movie "Journey to the West: The Grand Historian" was able to gross 1 billion yuan at the box office, not to mention the well-made "Journey to the West: The Return of the Condor Heroes".

In Japan, "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" also set off a viewing craze. After all, people here also like the "Journey to the West" theme very much.

Not to mention the previous eye-catching TV series "Journey to the West", the popularity of "Dragon Ball" also shows their love for the "Journey to the West" theme.

Not only "Journey to the West", but even "Red Cliff", which was criticized as a bad movie in China and did not have a good box office, achieved good results when it was released in Japan.

In South Korea, "Journey to the West: Pingdingshan" also broke their box office records. This country seems to love Chinese culture more.

There are scholars who shamelessly claim that "Journey to the West" was written by a Korean scholar when he studied in the Ming Dynasty.

Because it records Xuanzang's journey to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures, as well as the author's own journey to the West to study, the book was named "Journey to the West".

It was originally a very absurd rumor full of loopholes, but it was spread so realistically that many Koreans believed it.

What's even more outrageous is that some Korean netizens actually called out to Jiang Heng online, asking him to settle the copyright fees for the two movies "Lion Camel Ridge" and "Pingdingshan".

(End of this chapter)