Chapter 245 Filming Begins

No company in the industry dares to underestimate the movie "Zhu Xian".

In terms of investment, the amount is also hundreds of millions of US dollars.

In terms of the main creative team, it is a work directed and acted by Jiang Heng, and there are also popular domestic female stars such as Tang Yan.

Not to mention that the original novel has been hailed as the "martial arts bible of the post-Jin Yong era". It has sold countless copies since its release and has a strong fan base, mainly young students, the main audience in the film market.

Just thinking about this matter gave Wu Yusen and Zhang Jiazhen a headache.

However, the best time periods every year are the summer vacation and the New Year's Day, and even the Spring Festival period is a bit worse.

During this year's Spring Festival, Jackie Chan's blockbuster "The Myth" was released. Even with Jiang Heng's guest appearance to help promote it, it only achieved a box office revenue of 1.26 million yuan.

In this era when Feng Xiaogang's movies can earn nearly 200 million at the box office, the performance of "The Myth" is obviously a bit out of date.

Of course, there are also scheduling reasons.

It should be noted that in China in 06, people's income was not very high, and going to the movies was still a slightly luxurious and even petty-bourgeois thing.

Therefore, most audiences choose to watch movies selectively, unlike more than a decade later, when some people will watch several popular movies during the Spring Festival.

Many people watched Pacific Rim 2 during the Lunar New Year holiday, and then watched The Myth during the Spring Festival holiday about a month later, but their desire to watch the movie was not as strong!

When a blockbuster movie comes out of nowhere, it often creates a slow season for moviegoers in the next one or two months.

Therefore, the producers of "Red Cliff" were very conflicted about the choice of release date. They felt that it would not be good to have it before or after "Zhu Xian", and that the best option would be to dominate the summer schedule.

"I think it's better to do it earlier!" Wu Yusen sighed.

Zhang Jiazhen: "Jiang Heng's previous works were all scheduled on the second Friday of July. This year it's the 14th, so we'll choose the 7th, a week earlier than him!"

"to make!"

Wu Yusen was firm and decisive, and did not mention the challenge with Jiang Heng at all.

It was fine to just shout out the "scam" style publicity before, but at this moment they must not say anything nonsense. If Jiang Heng gets angry and really releases the film early, they will be dumbfounded.

However, when the new film launch of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" caused a huge sensation in the industry, Jiang Heng had already led the crew into Hengdian World Studios and started filming the film.

This film is exclusively produced by iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Pictures, and the production director, assistant director, action director and others are all from their own company.

As for the actors, Sun Wukong was played by Wu Jing, and the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King was played by the "professional prince actor" Wang Huichun.

He played the Eighth Prince in "The Yongzheng Dynasty" very well. Dressed in the costume of "Li Tianwang", he was also majestic and domineering.

The actress who played Nezha was a girl in her teens who was discovered through an introduction. She had good dancing skills but was not a famous actress in the future.

Jiang Heng originally wanted Song Zhuer to play Nezha, but later found out that Song Zhuer was born in 98 and was only eight years old at the time. She looked too young, so he chose someone else.

The rest, such as the Giant Spirit, Taibai Jinxing, Taishang Laojun, Guanyin Bodhisattva, the Jade Emperor, etc., are all played by veteran actors in the circle, and the main principle is to make them look familiar and save money.

After all, the main selling point of this drama is its visual effects, not its star power.

Furthermore, Jiang Heng will play Erlang Shen Yang Jian in the film, and his exciting fight with Sun Wukong played by Wu Jing is enough to attract the audience.

On the set, Jiang Heng sat next to the monitor, watching Wu Jing perform the scene where Sun Wukong first ascended the Sky Palace.

The shooting plan for this film is to shoot interior scenes in Hengdian first, then shoot exterior scenes in various places, and finally return to the China Film Digital Base in Beijing to shoot the special effects part.

The palaces and courtyards selected in Hengdian have all been modified.

As for the final panoramic view of the Heavenly Palace, it still needs to be modified by post-production special effects. We can't let the palace in the sky look similar to the dynasties on earth.

But the difference in the palace interior is not that big, and if it is too different, the audience will feel uncomfortable.

Jiang Heng called for a stop, and everyone at the filming site breathed a sigh of relief.

Wu Jing staggered and nearly fell, but luckily his assistant was quick to help him and carried him to the rest area.

As Wu Jing is an action actor, he shouldn't be so weak.

However, his look in the film was too delicate and it took more than four hours to put on makeup. He couldn't drink water or eat anything after putting on makeup, which was a complete test of his willpower.

But when it comes to styling, you really get what you pay for.

The 86 version of "Journey to the West" and "Journey to the West Sequel", both directed by Yang Jie, have very different styling.

In the former, Sun Wukong's appearance is very natural, but in the sequel, it can be clearly seen that he is wearing a mask and his expression is stiff.

The same is true for Zhu Bajie's appearance, which is full of mask feeling.

In terms of conditions, the crew faced extremely difficult conditions when filming the 86 version, but the results were very good.

When the sequel was filmed more than a decade later, the conditions were better, but everything was relatively perfunctory.

Jiang Heng's version of "Havoc in Heaven" is about striving for perfection and achieving perfection in every aspect, trying to compete with "Avatar".

Judging from the quality of the film alone, there is absolutely no problem.

With "super microcomputers", better audio-visual effects can be produced than "Avatar", but in terms of box office, "Avatar" still has the advantage.

After all, it's about Americans developing alien resources to fight the indigenous people. This story is too familiar to European and American audiences, and they feel very involved.

In comparison, the sense of immersion in "Journey to the West" is much worse, and the only effort can be made in the visual effects.

After filming for about half a month, several actresses who played the seven fairies came to "visit the set".

The reason they don't need to join the crew is because their scenes cannot be filmed at the moment and they have to wait until the summer when the peaches are ripe.

And there was only one set of shots, so if everything went well it would take less than three days.

Therefore, although the "Seven Fairies" are currently widely publicized, they did not join the crew at all when the filming started, and they were all busy with their own things.

The ones who came this time were Jing Tian, ​​Liu Yifei, Tang Yan, and Yang Mi.

The former had been preparing for admission to film school, but there was actually nothing to prepare for and there was no difficulty.

I was browsing the Internet out of boredom and saw fans of "Zhu Xian" calling on the crew to put up some promotional posters for the movie. I couldn't help myself.

She came to ask Jiang Heng when the movie promotion would begin so that she could prepare the "schedule" to avoid conflict with the exam.

"Brother, when will this drama premiere?" Jing Tian asked with a sweet smile.

Although Tang Yan didn't say anything, there was curiosity in his eyes.

It has been several years since "Splitting the Mountain to Save Mother" and it is only now that he is starring in his second special effects blockbuster, which is truly of great significance.

Although Jiang Heng did not remind her, Tang Yan also reserved her schedule for the recent period of time to prepare for the promotion of "Zhu Xian".

Jiang Heng said: "According to common sense, it should be early July. Why can't you wait until April?"

Jing Tian smiled and said, "I mainly saw that the fans couldn't wait and kept leaving messages online, so I wondered if I could give them some benefits and release some posters in advance!"

(End of this chapter)