Chapter 48 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Los Angeles, Beverly Hills.

Jiang Heng lay in the rocking chair in his yard, leisurely enjoying the afternoon sunshine.

He bought this after he received his share of the North American box office revenue from "The Matrix" for less than four million U.S. dollars. It is a luxurious and exquisite French-style villa covering an area of ​​0.68 acres, about 2750 square meters, and was built in 87.

Entering the carved gate, there is a circular driveway built around the fountain. There is also a leisure hut in the courtyard, which has a barbecue area and outdoor dining area. But what Jiang Heng is most excited about is the beautiful swimming pool with spa and waterfall landscaping.

Unfortunately, reality is not like what is shown in "The King of Comedy", where a beautiful neighbor in a swimsuit comes to borrow the swimming pool.

The person who came was Li An, who was currently preparing for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

In terms of funding, currently only Jiang Zhiqiang of Anle Pictures is willing to invest, but the amount is far from what Li An expected.

Some people suggested that he ask Jiang Heng, as they all knew that he had made a lot of money from his two movies and might be willing to invest.

Jiang Heng was indeed a little surprised when he received the call, because in his impression, this film was invested by Columbia.

Little did people know that there were eight investment companies in this film, and the proportion of foreign capital did not exceed half, making it a genuine Chinese-language film.

As for the emergence of Sino-US co-production, it also has the background of the times.

Hong Kong films are in decline, and the most powerful ones have all gone to Hollywood. Naturally, many big productions are short of funds and have been shelved.

It was in this historical context that Hollywood capital attempted to enter Hong Kong and the Mainland.

The reason is simple. The quota of 10 imported blockbusters each year is too little for them.

They want to circumvent the regulations and enter the Chinese market without restrictions.

Historically, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon created a new model of cooperation between Hollywood studios and Chinese-language film companies.

Later, the filming and distribution of Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu" also adopted the same model as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

Although Zhang Yimou did not accept American investment in the production of "Hero", he sold the North American copyright of the film for more than 1500 million US dollars before filming.

The total investment in his film was only 3000 million US dollars. Recovering half of the cost directly makes no difference in essence.

However, if given a choice, most Chinese-language directors are unwilling to accept Hollywood investment.

After all, it's a producer mode over there, and the director doesn't have the greatest authority.

Just look at Zhang Yimou’s movie “The Great Wall” and you will know. If Zhang Yimou had more authority, the movie might not be that good, but it wouldn’t be that bad either. It’s too substandard.

Ang Lee has been in the United States for many years, so he naturally knows the morals of the big Hollywood film producers.

After he turned 30, he stayed at home unemployed for five or six years, during which time he also did odd jobs on the film set.

But more often I wrote the script at home, and then showed it to big companies. They found a lot of problems and asked me to go back and revise it, but after revising it over and over again, there was no result.

Then he was asked to write another one, and he wasted five or six years like this.

Seeing that he could not make a name for himself in Hollywood, he returned to Taiwan and directed the film "Pushing Hands", which was nominated for the 28th Golden Horse Awards and made him somewhat famous.

He then directed many films and won many international awards.

However, the popularity of spoken language movies at this time is already on the decline.

Both the market box office and investment scale have been greatly reduced.

95 years later, he returned to Hollywood and directed several low-budget films.

But deep down, he always wanted to bring the martial arts world that he understood to the big screen.

Several Hollywood companies were interested in his script, but when they saw the amount of investment required, they backed off.

Li An had no choice but to go to Hong Kong to solicit investment, but only Jiang Zhiqiang from Eule Pictures was interested.

But faced with the huge production cost of 1500 million US dollars, Jiang Zhiqiang did not dare to take all of it, and advised Ang Lee to look for more. After asking various people to make calls, he finally contacted Jiang Heng.

"Director Li, what are your initial plans for this film?"

"I would like to invite Jet Li to play Li Mubai, and Shu Qi to play the female lead!" Li An said sincerely.

Jiang Heng smiled and thought to himself that in the end, you didn’t invite any of the two people you wanted to find!

According to the original history, Jet Li rejected Li An because his wife was pregnant.

As for Shu Qi, she was rejected by her boyfriend and agent Wen Juan, and the two broke up because of this.

Jiang Heng knew all this, but he didn't say much. He just asked to see the script.

Li An hurriedly handed over the prepared script. Jiang Heng took it and took a quick look at it. He then asked, "How much investment do you want?"

When Li An heard this, he instantly became nervous.

In fact, before coming here, he had also inquired indirectly and learned that many Hong Kong filmmakers had recently come to Jiang Heng to seek investment, but all of them were rejected.

He just wanted to give it a try, but he never expected that Jiang Heng meant to include everything!
"Mr. Jiang from Eucalyptus Pictures invested four million US dollars...!"

"Then I'll pay 11 million, how about that?"

He originally wanted more, but if it wasn’t enough, he could take more!

But thinking about it, he realized that he had to save money to prevent Li An from spending it lavishly, so he held back.

"That really couldn't be better!"

Li An was overjoyed and thought for a moment before saying, "Director Jiang is very good at making commercial films. Would you consider becoming the producer?"

Jiang Heng waved his hand, "Forget it, I don't have the time!"

Li An was even more delighted, thinking that Jiang Heng was going to be a hands-off boss, so he asked Jiang Heng what he was busy with!
"Nothing much, I just write manuscripts and scripts every day, hang out, go shopping, and plan to take another half month off before returning to Beijing to prepare for a new film!"

Li An looked at the mansion in front of him and became more and more envious.

Although he has made a lot of money in recent years, it is still difficult for him to buy property in Beverly Hills.

What made him even more envious was that Jiang Heng had achieved success at a young age, having achieved such success at the age of only 20.

When he was thirty years old, he was unemployed!

"Director Jiang's life is really enviable!"

Jiang Heng laughed, "In this life, we should be busy and enjoy ourselves!"

"Director Jiang lives a very free and easy life!"

Jiang Heng smiled and said, "It's okay!"

He first stood up and wrote a check to Li An, who then hurriedly took out two contracts and filled in some key information. After both parties signed and put their fingerprints on them, he took the check.

"I have to say thank you Director Jiang for your trust in me!" Li An's expression was very sincere.

Eleven million US dollars is almost 100 million RMB when converted into RMB.

One hundred million RMB in 99 was really a huge sum of money!
With just a few words, he decided to invest hundreds of millions. Where did he get such confidence?
Even Li An himself doesn't have that much confidence.

I don’t even dare to think about what will happen if the film doesn’t do well at the box office after it is released!
Jiang Heng was very calm, "Oh, it's no big deal, just go for it, I promise I won't interfere with your creation. Of course, as for the financial aspect, we still have to follow the rules!"

(End of this chapter)