The Jinshu team waited for about a week, and Simon finally dedicated a few hours on September 3 to discuss the next development of Jinshu.
Once again answered some of the doubts caused by Ren Jingxi’s advice from Simon last week. The others are mainly about several specific projects that Jinshu will try next. Four movies have been initially determined, which is one more than what Jinshu had previously discussed. Moreover, it is basically based on the suggestions in Simon's email. This time, all the specific films including the name have been finalized.
The first one is "Detective Dee: The God of Dragon King".
That's right, it's the one that Mr. Xu directed, and he plans to invite Mr. Xu to direct it this time.
Xu tried to follow the trend and enter Hollywood two years ago, but unfortunately failed. Now he has returned to Hong Kong. Coupled with the trough of Hong Kong movies in recent years, there will not be too many obstacles for the two parties to start cooperation. Compared with the mainland film and television companies that once had Hong Kong Thanks to the shadow man's accommodation, Jin Shu can still take considerable initiative this time.
After all, without initiative, there will be no cooperation.
Old Monster Xu is suitable for this movie, and he can also make masterpieces, but if he messes up, he can also make people suffer from nosebleeds. Just like in the past, Old Monster Xu's two "Shu Mountain" movies were obsessed with each other, but unfortunately they didn't work. can succeed. So much so that Simon had had an idea about "Shu Mountain" before, but had no intention of executing it.
In short, this time, Simon's expectation is to reach the previous level, not to seek breakthroughs, but not to make a mess.
The second part is "Detective Chinatown".
In fact, films similar to the overseas detective model appeared in the original time and space around this time, and one of them is quite famous, namely "Tokyo Strategy" starring Tony Liang, followed by "Hancheng Strategy" many years apart. ” and “European Strategy”.
At least the first part should not have suffered a commercial loss, otherwise there would not have been the next two parts.
Of course, the strategy series and the detective series are only similar in mode. The plot structure and character settings are very different. It can only be said that the creativity of the film and television industry has never been completely new. The key is to see whether it can put new wine in old bottles. Do it well.
Therefore, compared to "Detective Dee: The Dragon King", which has clear ideas, Simon had to hesitate a lot about "Detective Chinatown".
The main reason is that the story of "Dragon King of the Divine City" does not have high requirements for the starring role. The core is Mr. Xu's unbridled imagination. It is now easy to find a suitable starring role to support the project. As for the couple in "Detective Chinatown", the nephew was easy to talk to and it was easy to find a suitable young man, but the uncle, well, even if he was superficial, it was not easy to find a match.
There was also a director, and Simon had no clue about it for a while.
In fact, it reminds me of the director of the Raiders series, but since they are completely different styles, I thought about it and let it go.
We can only finish the script first and figure out the rest slowly.
The third project, "Painted Skin".
This former director of the first film passed directly, and the main creator immediately confirmed that the box office gap between the two "Painted Skin" films by a certain Mongolian director with a black character was more than 200 million for the former, while the latter directly tripled the box office. Reaching 700 million, even with the rapid growth of the Chinese film market, the commercial film skills of Mongolian directors can be seen.
In fact, Simon had similar plans from the beginning, so when the other party came to Hollywood for exchanges, he arranged for him to go to the crew of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy that Daenerys was very interested in.
The other party is currently producing a low-cost martial arts film, which can be regarded as the result of Simon's quiet arrangement, because the other party also started a low-cost martial arts film called "The Sword Sees Laughter" with a cost of 6 million and a box office of 20 million. Although the budget was Despite the financial constraints, the photos were very thoughtful.
This time it is an adaptation project of an original martial arts novel from this time and space butterfly, called "Tongtian Pu". It tells the story of the reappearance of a "Tongtian Pu" that is both a treasure map and a martial arts secret book that appears every sixty years, attracting attention. People from all walks of life come to fight for it, all kinds of praying mantises hunt for cicadas, and the oriole follows behind.
The story is not too new, and Simon specially asked someone to send over the completed sample footage for viewing. The quality is even better than that of the other party's "The Sword Sees Laughter."
So the director of "Painted Skin" was decided directly.
The last one is the non-revolutionary theme theme that Simon and Ren Jingxi talked about during the weekend in St. Lucas. The names are also in the same order as before. The first one is "My Motherland and Me".
We still plan to cooperate with China Film for this project, mainly because of China Film’s appeal, which allows many actors to come and play for free.
Um.
It is scheduled for National Day next year, and the budget is not too high compared to the 80 million-level blockbusters planned for the first three films. It can be completed at about 20 to 30 million yuan. Simon didn't say much about the specific excerpts of the story. He was an 'outsider' and it would be too weird to say too much, so he let the Jinshu team select the materials themselves.
In addition to the four projects, Simon also gave Jinshu another suggestion during the discussion.
In China, next, we should specially train a group of movie actors. To put it simply, they should only appear on the big screen as much as possible, so that when the audience sees each other, the first thought is that they are acting in movies.
In fact, it's roughly like Hollywood.
Although there are no absolute boundaries in the various circles of film, television, music, and Hollywood, the various circles are still very obvious.
As for the reason, from a business perspective, this actually involves consumption mentality.
If the audience can see someone in any TV series or variety show, and the other person appears on the big screen, it will easily make the audience feel that the movie does not have enough style. Therefore, for many people, Often after taking a look at the list of main creators, the thought of buying a ticket to enter the show is gone.
Over in China, the most typical one was Mr. Fan.
Compared with other Chinese actresses, Fan Pang has definitely starred in a lot of movies, but even if some of them are well-reviewed, it is difficult to leave much impact on the audience. The public remembers her more, maybe only on the red carpet, or " The little maid in "Return the Pearl".
why
The reason is that it was too mixed up and mixed with everything, so that there was no clear positioning in the public mind. Some people even felt that Fan Fat only lived by walking on the red carpet and seemed to have no film and television works.
It certainly isn't.
Of course, this kind of practice of flourishing in all directions can make a lot of money, but from the perspective of a film and television company owner, the huge investment for his own project will not be wasted. It is better to use less of this kind of artist.
In addition to these things, two other projects related to the Chinese film and television industry have also been finalized recently.
The first is "Dragon Babu".
The essence of the edited version of the project is still being worked on, mainly by the team in China. After all, it is cheaper, but the subtitles for the full version have been completed.
Simon has no intention of dubbing the full version. After all, it is martial arts. It is just the name "Tian Long Ba Bu". The literal translation in English is Eightfold Path of the Heavenly Dragon (Eightfold Path of the Heavenly Dragon), let alone foreigners who are confused. , Chinese people who understand English will probably be confused if they read it again.
There is also a free translation, Demi-gods & semi-devils, 'half gods, half devils', which Simon is actually not satisfied with either.
After a compromise, I finally chose the latter, after all, it was somewhat interesting.
Just a name is already confusing, let alone the many martial arts moves. Therefore, although the Chinese side found a group of excellent translators to produce an English version, and also considered a complete dubbing version, Simon did not agree.
Subtitles are enough. Those who like to watch it will definitely watch it. Those who don't like to watch it will probably not watch it even if it is given a complete set of nondescript dubbing.
In short, the subtitles of the full version have been completed, and the broadcast time has been confirmed recently. It will be broadcast on DHO TV station on September 6th from 11 o'clock in the evening to 1 o'clock in the morning. It is not a traditional weekly broadcast, but just like in China. , two episodes per day.
Furthermore, there will be no window period this time. After DHO is broadcast, Blockbuster's DVD will be put on the shelves immediately. Of course, there will be no video tapes. After all, the cost of video tapes is too high, not to mention that it is a full set of 40 episodes of a long TV series. Even if the DVD is released, it won't be too much.
Then, when the essence version is completed, we will consider whether to provide a better schedule and publicity resources based on this broadcast and rental data. Or, if the performance of the full version is too poor, it is not impossible to give up directly.
The second is the documentary "Everest".
Simon has seen the samples and doesn't plan to make any changes, so the next step is to make an IMAX copy and start publicity at the same time.
After acquiring the Canadian IMAX company, it has been advancing unknowingly for several years. Currently, there are 322 IMAX screens worldwide, of which 139 are in North America. Overseas, there are more in China. , there are 34 Jinshu Cinemas, each of which has a standard IMAX screen, so there are 34 screens. Other countries divided the remaining 149 pieces in total.
The main reason why there are not so many is that theaters in Western countries that have already completed extensive theater infrastructure generally cannot accommodate the standard IMAX size. Even if Simon slightly relaxes some standards, it cannot be too small, and most of them still need to be Daenerys dug into her own pocket to fund it.
In any case, there are more than 300 IMAX screens around the world, which is actually quite impressive.
Considering that the previous "Everest" documentary could get more than 80 million U.S. dollars at the box office in North America, Simon was not too stingy this time. In addition to the IMAX copy cost, he also provided an additional 3 million U.S. dollars in publicity and distribution investment, including In terms of production costs, the total cost of the project has exceeded $10 million.
The planned release date is September 24. Because the cost of IMAX copies is too expensive, it will only open in North America first. Overseas countries need to wait until the screening potential here is exhausted before receiving copies.
Of course, this is mainly due to the less successful premise of this documentary.
If the project sells as well as it did, Daenerys will definitely invest in making more copies and roll them out around the world as soon as possible.